No, sleep is not working. I am stirred awake by the massive presence of my mistakes; all of that drunk and neglected time spent wallowing in negative places, below the horizon line of my future. My eyes are open even when closed. Images burn on the insides of my eyelids like kaleidoscopes of missing friends and colors of conversations that could certainly have turned out better. At least less indifferent to each others existence next time. There will not be a next time. This is it. This is the only true moment and then it passes like everything else.
How can I sleep when I feel so sick and privileged. Breathing through a seemingly fine respiratory system as others gasp for air in between rushes of choked up blood. Surely there has got to be some purpose for this immense bothersome weight.
I feel the stars and the indifferent universe outside of my childhood bedroom window. I am horrified by my actions in their soft light. I'm horrified by all actions I've ever done, all those awkward advances and failed attempts at timing, and, indeed, am horrified even greater by all future fumbled actions. Letting great ideas slip through those yawning sidewalk cracks is a worse crime to the creative soul than to be a vegetable; sitting on the couch with beer gut and zero great ideas. Those awesome ideas will tumble around at your feet until they become an anchor to your past... your lost potential... and you cannot get unstuck from those heavy quicksand arms, my god, those beasts we fend off are making advancements, breaking down barricades and frothing through fangs, they are us and we are them, interchangeable aside from the angle of the fence, those European perspective claws and nonsensical ranting like ravens cawing over. Let this be the end of those anchor dreams! I will rise my body up through the floorboards with enough side projects to enlist a side kick and then an accountant to handle the empty stream of revenue and the self efficient hybrid old money/new money entrepenuerial sweepstakes... running rampant through black friday walmart parking lots with sociological note pads and daddy's bmw. there was never a discussion of finance that I've enjoyed even if the proposed dangling carrot was meant for my gaze and my bell tone timed salivating. I am not drooling for these emerald green bank notes. I prefer real life and danger. Proximity to those edges and constant awe when surrounded by creaking and groaning forests up in mountains where traffic cannot be seen or heard or smelled. the sense of smell up in those mountains alone is enough to wipe the memories of los angeles dead stop traffic out of the head, or the arizona flat lands with curvaceous and deceiving women lounging while old money affords them the opportunity to be legal prostitutes and skip class to pay slave boys to write papers for them, they fan themselves in that past life and eat grapes of wrath from the empty space in between their tits. There is no heart there.
night is not young and I am itchy and anxious with a sore neck and pulsing lower back listening to the mechanical rumbles from an old home heating filtration system and the red light string lights feel down off the window sill and onto the ground around me. this is not a heavenly scenario because I could not sleep last night either. the hands were tied and I am lost in thought, consumed so eagerly in thoughts that never seem to arrive anywhere. I am on a switch back between mental canyons of extreme exhaustion and self doubt... the other side is peace and contentedness, which I never trust long enough to choose as a resting space. I must round the bend once more and dip back down into that canyon of depression wondering about how that vantage point may of been to bask inside of for awhile. man oh man these lofty heaights when I'm swamped in furtive waking annoyances. gosh that waitress was absent minded and so I am. we invaded each others consciousness with the wet thud of a dead fish slapping down on a partially sunk dock. grab a handlebar off a parked bike to sell at the machine shop. grope about in the dark for the contour body of your hardly breathing girlfriend or the huge piling of broken glass ornaments everywhere else. this is not a time to wish for duct tape or bandages. it is far too late for some insipient dreams.
it must be because my dream catcher is in seattle. I left it up there in a drawer. that new huge apartment in a quiet alcove of the city in which i must whole heartedly explore with many happy tangents and proud sleeps without covers or noise complaints or parties with kegstands or anything nonsense, nonsense, nonsense. i need something new in this weird young adult chapter of my life when I realize that alcoholics and legends are both formed during these fragile, quick paced years and if I am not alert and agile, for anything that comes my way these days, I might have to tie a noose around my dreams and let them drag behind me for another 40 years or so. this cannot happen. i must not allow my body or mind to be consumed by the shoulder weight of anxious knuckle cracking time. i must compete with all versions of my best self so the whole team of my selves can rise up to my intrinsic podium. i must receive the gold medal for mental craftsmanship. i will win that log roll, snow mobile race across desert tundra and charge through great walls with my dynamic horns until nothing is left but a faint shimmering hope that I was still alive to meet you, my lover.
