Snow Scratch

If I could be so happy, my eternity would be frosted to this scarlet snow-land, my portrait married to a bush knotted around an old tree stump. The void in the air would push against me on all sides and it would scratch me again and again. The hill and the shack and the bush and the stump and all the still trees would look back through the void, scratching me too.

Time has passed, they say, but I'm not sure if I have been able to pass with it. It feels like forever has passed since I have done anything; forever has passed as I have lived. So it does not matter when I write, since all these moments will come around once more, and forever once more after that.

I woke up early for a doctor's appointment. I had left my phone at Garrett's house the night before, so I had to run in to grab it. I then went up the hill with my mum to the doctor's office and waited for a while. There were no new magazines, in fact there were magazines from two years ago, from when I used to come up every day for allergy shots. The waiting room didn't seem as clean, not as tidy, and it seemed emptier. I finally went in and the nurses were happy to see me. I stepped on a scale in all my winter furs and weighed 212. I waited in the examination room with my mum until finally the doctor came in. We talked and I told him some stuff, but I'm not sure if any of it was true. I tried to tell the truth, but sometimes I'm not very sure of the difference between what I try to be and what I am. He told me that I seemed depressed, but I thought I was over that, a little bit. Who knows what I was expecting. He recommended I should see a counselor, or a psychologist, or a psychiatrist. I recommended he look at my armpit. I've got a bump on my eyelid, a bump on my ear, a hair on my forearm, and an armpit.

Finally they drew some blood from my left arm. I laid it out all nice on the examination bed, and the nurse searched for my vein. All needles go into my left arm, even though I am right handed. I believe I am left brained, but act like I am right brained. It shouldn't be like that. I watched the blood sputter out through the needle, all looking like motor oil sputtering out of an old engine, and felt very relaxed. I don't remember feeling that relaxed since my last deep opium-sleep. There was nothing to feel, and that's all I've wanted for a very long time. I think I know why they would drain blood from such sick people. They liked it. I have a needle back in Cleveland and I could drain the blood myself, but I don't know where I would put it. Maybe I should just donate blood as often as I can. They'll do it right, and it will be sterile and sanitary. It won't be for other people, God no. Just for me.

I came home, went over to Emily's house to finish watching Be Kind Rewind, and then went to Barnes and Noble with her. Too many fucking people. She paid too much for some books, but finally left. As we left, she bumped into somebody she knew, and Emily told her about school, about her psychology radio talk-show, about the boy back at school that she is dating, about everything she has never said a word to me about. I don't remember ever talking about anything outside of me and her before. Not casually, not ever. I hate it, I can't stand to be around her because of it. I don't know why she calls me, I don't know why she talks to me. She could just stop, and maybe I'd be able to feel even less. It'll happen someday, but maybe not.

That day will come probably many years from now, and one of us will have to be dead. Let it be me, and let me stand for eternity with the void and with the hill and the shack and the bush and the stump and all the still trees. Let them scratch raw down deep below my veins, let them scratch inside my bones, I will not feel a thing.

Wild Ass

Wild ass dreams, landing in a house from long long ago. I'm always quite left alone, don't know if I do it to myself. Curly hair, full moon lamps, ovens and heavy shades over all the windows, only orange glows, only old beds, only waking up alone in every damn dream.

Two Dreams

I had two dreams last night. In the first one, one I have had before, there is an obscenely tall couple, stretched and distorted to their towering heights. They appear more alien than human, and although they are both naked I cannot make out any features besides limbs and flat faces. They are friendly, yet may as well be in a modern interpretation of American Gothic.

In my second dream, two muggers chase me around university circle. Eventually a store owner comes out wielding a baseball bat, which I grab from his hands and use to chase after one of the muggers. Finally I corner the man, and I begin to beat him. But as hard as I try to swing the bat, my arms only can barely muster the strength to nudge him with the bat. I try and try, before my arms fall limp from weakness.

Yep, this is me.