bad weather patterns in my lungs
��������� �����"i think i've figured out your mood thing," peter tells me after i mention that i've fallen into a surprising depression."oh? DO tell." i reply with the most acerbic attitude i can muster.
"indolence. when you're not doing anything, your thoughts turn inward."
"yup."
i knew it, already, really. since i've been home, sitting (mouldering) in this basement, i've spent all the time on the computer, online, sleeping, or reading, or watching the television. in short, letting depression flower. if it was a garden, i would win all the horticulture prizes in the world.
"i am a conglomeration of everything i've read & seen .. i feel like i fake everything."
"where's that come from? i feel like i've seen it before."
"nowhere."
"do you feel like that quite often?" peter poses the question.
"about 90% of the time," i reply.
"hmn. well, i feel like that 50% of the time."
"it's the high price of self-esteem these days."
"you should write a book."
"my prose sucks."
"oh. why?"
"too many words; not enough story. i get too poetic."
"so write more poetry."
"...ok."
so i sit down to write something, characteristically, at four in the morning. dialogue emerges, mostly. a half-fragmented story about a man who lives in an apartment and doesn't know any of the names of the people who call. all the while, this utterly inane western movie lone star is playing on the television. on bravo. beside me. it's been playing since three, i think. there is a headache like a tapeworm niggling just underneath the skin on my forehead. i could just go to sleep. but i don't have the urge to. i want to do something, and the day will be wasted. in one day i will be driving back up to maine. and the day after, school will begin.
and the day after.
and the day after.
treacherous waters & swimming with half-closed eyes.
"why don't you go to the beach? for a dip. take a swim, get some sand on you."
"i can't swim. and i don't like the dark & alone. my imagination is like an insane gas, it expands to fill the container ... i imagine all sorts of things out there in the dark."
"oh. i can't imagine that."
i wish i was able to swim, with powerful arms and a well-framed body. something quiet, but potentially destructive, and not so ... hobbled with this tenacious paranoia! my mind's a-whirl tonight. with endings, beginnings, loneliness, spiders crawling up the inside of the lampshade ...
por favor .. ayudame .. on the stupid movie. mexicanos swimming the rio grande to cross the border. i guess it could bei nteresting, if i'd taken the time to watch it all the way through. it keeps switching time-periods. meanwhile, my surrounds are depressing, but filled with books read & unread. a mess of unwashed clothes, piled up around the couch, and thoughts extending to places i wish i were. seattle. portland. california. so many fervent wishes. mostly self-directed.
the easy panacea of sleep, now.