this has a date of September 18 , 2005. that was when i wrote it, even though i could've swore i wrote it before, but i didn't. memory getting slippery. somebody else had read it then, and i've kepted with me ever since. i ran into it today, thought sharing it would be a good thing. so here it is.

. . .

EXCERCISE ONE

so, here we are. the sky seems to be getting dark again, like it tends to do at this hour. every day. right on the dot.

they start getting blurry, the days do. they kinda melt together, unfocused and undone. me? well i just stare. i stare all day. i seem to be making no progress at all, follow? it looks like nowhere. elsewhere. neverwhere. it just bleeds static and white noise. and it comes and goes and it comes and goes, and there we go again. it's kinda trapped in this loop. time is just trapped and i just can't get out of this particular day. i just stare. static. white noise. i fall asleep at pretty random moments, waking up as wasted and torn as i was when i passed out sometime at dawn. i just wake up torn.

there's comfort in fantasy. comfort in art and in making up stories and breaking history apart. in making things crack, and snap, and yes, even pop. there's something to be gathered in the sea of faces we walk by every time we hit the city, just knowing how sad everyone else is and how we're all just hanging in there waiting for miracles and happy endings, maybe that kinda helps us out, y'know? it kinda makes us keep it together for a while longer. maybe things will look better in the morning, if the morning would show up. y'know? maybe it will show up, y'know, eventually it'll have to, right?

the city's filled with feedback, with oceans of feedback, deep strong currents of feedback, sonic whirpools. it's so glorious and so overwhelming and so layered. you can see the layers from here. feedback. it makes the earth rumble and tremble a bit, a little bit, just gotta pay attention, is all. be aware of it, and pay attention.

i'm scared of the time i lose when i sleep. i'm petrified. i think i'm not gonna wake up one of these days. or worse. worse as in maybe i'm not awake at all, been asleep for years. maybe i've been staring for ..> too long and fell asleep at the wheel of my life. whatevers. that's crazy talk, i tell ya. a bad road to go down on. let's just change the subject.

but i am afraid of sleep.

i hardly do it on purpose. swear to god. i hardly fall asleep on purpose. it just catches up to me. my body just collapses and gives in sometime before dawn. when i do will myself to go to bed, it's the scariest eight minutes ever, those before dozing off. swear to god.

yeah, the city. it's there. it's not huge like other cities are. not that we need it to be big. we don't. but it's just not that big, and it's a thing we have to acknowledge right off the bat. this city, our beautiful city, really isn't that big. but it has so many things in it! doesn't it? i ate the greatest chicken sandwich in it. the city gave me a great chicken sandwich. i was so happy. i gave it a picture. and then i wrote a poem on it, with black eyeliner. i used to wear that all the time. all the time. i used live in the city every day then. i used to walk around trying to listen to it talk. i could hear the earth rumble, groan, tremble, just a little bit.

maybe i shouldn't stare that much. i should stop staring. the static will probably end up burning me from the inside, microwave-ish.

isolation is also a thing that i kinda bring upon myself, even though some people will never believe it. i don't need them to believe, though, i mean, that's the whole point. that's why i'm isolated, right? 'cause people like to expect only certain things. the ones that include less work for everyone. acknowledging someone else's limitations kinda puts you in a bind. if you care, you gotta go that extra mile. so it's easier to just think people are fine and dandy and shiny-shiny and happy-happy and skip the caring part. it's such a burden, all that praying, and wishing and crying. it's easier to just shut up. to keep quiet. to keep it to yourself. just keep it to ..> yourself. don't scare them away.

i don't wanna care anymore. i really don't. but i can't bring myself to stop.

there're so many things to lose oneself in. so many. this land is made of television and cotton-candy. this land will take your time and turn it into fireworks. it'll burn your retinas and take the sparkle away from you. it'll take the edge off. your words will be made dull, blunt, and probably gray. why not just come out and say it, even if it's been said before? this land will make you sound gray. this place is colorful and brilliant and unexpected, but it's built that way so it can take your color and your brilliance and your unexpectedness away from you. can people keep their color by looking at each other and stop staring at the walls? it could work. hey, i'm pretty sure i've seen work somewhere before.

so numbness through staring, through lack of sleep. through fear. maybe i won't feel all of this anymore. maybe i won't feel. maybe i won't care. fiction and broken history and waves of white noise. maybe keeping it together a while longer, maybe. maybe morning will show up, right? it's bound to, y'know? it should. it fucking should. maybe i'll hear the earth mumble, talking to itself. maybe the city still remembers. still remembers me. and my poems, and my eyeliner, and it'll mercifully drown me in feedback and tell me: "where've you been? i've missed you so."