3:21

Sleep never comes. I hear the fridge snore, the rain pour, the clankclonk in the walls from who knows where. My thoughts spin and my heart races. Moths flutter in my chest. What am I doing here? Who have I become? And why? I feel like I'm both victimizing and villifying myself at the same time. I think bad, bad thoughts. Good thoughts seep in here and there, but they rarely stay for more than a moment or two. I'm thankful. I'm lucky. I'm tough, and I'm brave. But I'm also sad, wounded, and afraid. I don't yell anymore. Now I just cry. Or stare at walls. Chainsmoke. Sit idly, thinking about all the things I could be doing, but too overwhelmed to move.

home

I've decided to move back to Seattle. Too much has happened in Portland in such a small amount of time. I've seen death, divorce, debt, and dating disasters. Can't take it anymore. It's time to go home and start a new old life.

i can hold a woman down on a hardwood floor.

two incredibly, amazing, beautiful, intellegent, witty, charming friends just left me. we celebrated nick's birthday here in portland, and i, we, had a fantastic time. my liver however, is grateful that they are gone, but my heart is not. i haven't been drinking much the past few months, which is good. sometimes i grieve by drinking, and i finally started to let myself feel. oh my, oh my! how drunk i got, with them here trying to get me to karaoke. karaoke and myself do not mix well. sherelle remembers well. that was the last time... a few years ago.

we had a great time though, doing the portland strip club thing. i have only been twice since living here, and i have to say union jack's probably takes the cake. i got a lap dance from a 20 year old, and it made me feel dirty in the best of ways. haha. nick got boobs in his face, and i think it just made him feel the best of ways - not dirty. happy birthday to him!

the weird thing is, i love these people. i love my life. i love who i am. why do i keep leaving seattle? my family of friends is there, and i don't have much to do with my biofam. we went to breakfast this morning, and started talking about jared. it's good to talk. i couldn't cry through the entire time everything was going on, i couldn't cry until about a month after his death. i don't know why, and that kind of scares me. but. now i cry all the time, and it feels good. it feels good to talk about him and cry a little bit. i don't know that i can ever go back to seattle in that way. i don't know i could ever live there again. granted, he passed here, but i have two places in portland that remind me of him. not 1 million bajillion places, people, and things. i can only hope we're all getting to the place where we can talk about everything in a happy, memorable, we loved that motherfucker sort of way. the tears are ok. but i really can't wait for the tears to turn to laughter.

on another note... sherelle and i are getting this tattooed on us - me on my thigh, her i dunno. it's beautiful, and dark, and true.

Layers by Stanley Kunitz



I have walked through many lives,
some of them my own,
and I am not who I was,
though some principle of being
abides, from which I struggle
not to stray.
When I look behind,
as I am compelled to look
before I can gather strength
to proceed on my journey,
I see the milestones dwindling
toward the horizon
and the slow fires trailing
from the abandoned camp-sites,
over which scavenger angels
wheel on heavy wings.
Oh, I have made myself a tribe
out of my true affections,
and my tribe is scattered!
How shall the heart be reconciled
to its feast of losses?
In a rising wind
the manic dust of my friends,
those who fell along the way,
bitterly stings my face.
Yet I turn, I turn,
exulting somewhat,
with my will intact to go
wherever I need to go,
and every stone on the road
precious to me.
In my darkest night,
when the moon was covered
and I roamed through wreckage,
a nimbus-clouded voice
directed me:
"Live in the layers,
not on the litter."
Though I lack the art
to decipher it,
no doubt the next chapter
in my book of transformations
is already written.
I am not done with my changes.

i feel really fucking good, and i don't know why, but i'm takin' it.

I like finding her cigarette butts in my ashtray. It reminds me that she's still there.

Little rubber cockroaches

I have nothing to say. Little specks of inspiration hit me now and again, but the second I sit down to write they are gone. It just took me 30 seconds to remember the word inspiration. I need to go home. I have nothing here, and it seems like my lack of life is beginning to feed off my soul. I'm clumsy, befuddled, confused, inarticulate, and usually drunk. Things aren't bad here at all. I almost welcome bad. I'm just meh, and there really is something wrong with it.

the driver

I wrote the ocean 11 years ago. I wrote the ocean from my mother's bed. The salt swept across my skin, exfoliating my sins. I was salvaged like that weird little desk, saved from its fate of being manhandled by underpaid, overworked city employees. I have a home. I wrote it. I wrote my home across her chest. My lips, salty, spelled out the furniture arrangement on her breasts. That weird little desk. The fridge. Couch. Coffeetable. Bed.
My home is wet and salty.
There's a certain depth in the ocean where I can still touch, but might drown if the current is strong enough. My home is about four and half feet deep. I prefer to wade at three. Occasionally, I get little flashes of bravery, but never do I stay at home. I'm not ready to accept that I might die there.

But.

I know it's there. Comforted by the fact that I can appreciate my little postmodern home from my safety one and half feet up.