Looking at life from a distance. Not involved. Watching my own life like a performance. Setting it up. Cardboard versions of everyone. Cardboard trees. Cardboard figs to pick. Cardboard ladder I ask him to come down from the roof and he tells me to bring it around the back. The tea I drink feels real. The dandelion wine is unsatisfying. What if it was satisfying? Would its flavor wake me up? I don't remember the last time I was awake. Ferranté yelling at my on the front porch, saying he was never coming back. The water crept up to my nose and allowed it slowly in knowing it was dream water and I would not drown. Shaking him to fall back asleep. The expiration date on the chia seeds is two years ago. I date the tincture bottles with a thin blue pen on that paper they sell at the Asian market that you're supposed to burn for good luck. Or something. Why did I buy it? Did I think it was Chinese? Do my ancestors listen? Mariah says Grand came to her after her death. Walking down the hall with two young men. She was young too. Mariah says they went to her room and looked at photographs. Then they were gone. Do the dead listen? Am I even listening to the living? Putting things I no longer need in a suitcase Mandy brought. A large suitcase, plastic with wheels, with a rubbery handle that seems to leave a residue. I feel like I'm living a life that isn't really mine. Living though a set of circumstances provided to me by social status. I collect baskets. My room is covered in green and blue. No red. This feels right to me but I can't put a finger on why. I don't like explaining myself because the reason always boils down to, "why not?" I'm not overly sentimental but I hoard containers. Baskets, bottles, pots, shelves, cabinets. Things that can contain things. Scott Carrier once admitted to hating bowls because they "contain chaos." And by this I believe he intends to emphasize the hatred of the word CONTAIN and not chaos. Because bowls exist, chaos is contained. My bowls contained smaller bowls. My baskets contain smaller baskets. Empty baskets to me are symbolic of being fully home. Fully inside. Everything in its right place. When I am here, in this place, I am safe and secure and stuck and I fall asleep and dream of doing things with purpose. There is always a sense of meaning to a dream. Of desperation and drive. Last night Nick had a dream of killing Mitch. He said he hadn't had that dream in awhile but it was the worst of his nightmares. "Did I made any sounds?" Nick asked. No. Nick kills Mitch very slowly and painfully and he doesn't add anymore details. In dreams, shit gets done that can't get done in real life. We can kill the friend who fucked our girlfriend and be done with it. Dreams are our consolation for the morally tame place we live in. I've run into dead-ends like that. Actually, at 31, I'd say I've been living a dead-end for 4 years. The only way to go through is to scream and kick and punch and fight and I want to save face and resign my feelings. Because, they say, violence is not the answer. Peace is the answer. Resign yourself and forgive and move on. Once I told me friend Laura to shut-up. It didn't really feel good to say it and I offered no explanation. Relief came when she simply shut-up for a time. She never asked why. I was just dumped by my boyfriend and we were on a walk. She was talking about nothing important. She talked a lot, mostly about nothing important, and I wanted to be alone with my thoughts and I couldn't. I told her to shut-up and she did. I've never done anything like that before or since. It was one of the most violent acts I've ever committed. Steven always heckled me to wake up. He wanted the emotions. I don't know if he wanted them for me or he just wanted to watch. He didn't orchestrate. Just provoked. It didn't work because he underestimated how tired I was. How badly I wanted to stay asleep and leave the important tasks to my dream-times. I don't remember my dreams but I always miss them. In the morning there is nothing to do. I am simply alive again. This happened again and again in Europe. It was awful. I don't understand why people love to travel. You fall asleep drunk and wake up empty. No one wants you. No one is expecting you. Only in St. Céré was there any reason to wake up. We weeded the garden for a few hours a few times. The bell in the tower woke us up. We felt hungry and curious all day. Mostly when I sleep, I dream of work, which is fine, even though I do not get paid. In my waking world I am a waitress and in my sleeping world I am a waitress. Even though things are unrealistically busy in my dream restaraunt, I never leave. Once in a dream, I stepped into a lucid state. I had no idea what to do. It was just like being awake so it felt meaningless. "You can do anything you want," a voice inside myself prodded. It didn't matter. It was just like being awake, where everyone says, "live the life you love," or "the world is your oyster." It's the not the world that's the problem. It's my role in it. I feel like I'm missing a point. At the tarot card reading the other day, Kevin told me, "the head must be led by the heart." And I asked him, "how does one's heart speak?" He told me some people go on walks or meditate. My heart rarely talks. The last time it did was to shine a light on Steven. Steven tells me to do the things and make the art. He tells me to stop desiring my father's approval as if that's a choice. Steven tells me to live the life and do the things. Maybe Steven is the voice of my heart because I stopped listening a long time ago. Maybe my heart wanted to have his voice. Maybe it wanted to be a man. Today I bottled some tincture: St. Jonh's wort and Balsamroot. I'm looking into their medicinal uses and there are varied stories that twine from science to folklore. None of it is very consistent. St. John's wort is traditionally used to calm the nervous system and be an anti-depressant. Balsamroot tincture can be an immune booster and help with phlegmy throat shit. I collect these healing things and then I drop them in water and drink them and it feels like nothing. Maybe the shift is subtle. There's such a huge part of me that doesn't believe in this shit. There's such a huge part of me that does. I drink the shit and I share it with others and I'm still alive. I'm still thinking of that day with the adderall. I remember how nice I was to everyone and how I could look at my life and feel like it belonged to me and I was really happy about that. I remember being excited to talk to people about things. They say the world needs all kinds of people. Including sad people, because sad people have some perspective on things that happy people don't. And sad people can enhance the lives of the happy people with their ties to the sad world. Is this even true? But what about sleepwalkers like me? Who are on time to our jobs and pay the rent and get the car insurance and only cheat a little on our taxes?We show up to the funerals and weddings but don't cry. We listen to the news and don't turn it off when things get really bad. We're looking forward to trying the new coffee-shop on Mississippi because it will probably have better espresso drinks than the Fresh Pot but if it does, what does it matter because that drink will be another drink drank in a whole stretch of mornings drinking next to meaningless cups of coffee. I miss all of them but I can't face my emotions in the face of what needs to happen to see them. I can't face how all the time has passed and nothing and everything has changed. Last night I hugged James Ryan and he apologized and we cried. It was meaningless in the morning, it's been too long for an apology that means anything. In the dream it really meant something. Nick killed Mitch in his dream, some residual anger that still works itself in our relationship, but otherwise, is gone. I want to feel like I feel when I'm asleep.
1 Comment
10/27/2022 22:44:23
Ghosting refers to ending a relationship or friendship suddenly with no explanation.
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