Archives for February, 2005

in this one way, i’m months ahead of schedule.
it’s not like i haven’t been dreaming my excuses aleady, anyway.

i’m still tired.

i hate what i do. a few months ago i hated it with a passion. i’ve tried, more recently, to get over the hate and just do it. but it’s not working – and not for lack of trying.
perpetual tiredness; even when i’m sleeping i’m stressing, hating, despairing, dreaming in bright flares that hurt my eyes and dull mud that pounds my mind.

it’s like the metaphors have gone wild, come alive, started dancing, had kids in my backyard.
i’m trying to swallow it, but really, i can feel the pressure in my chest, feel the blockage in my throat. sometimes, unexpectedly, frustratingly, making my voice weaken when i least expect it.

maybe a few years ago your dreams could have been mine.
but a few years ago was years ago.
i could ask all the questions that start with why, but i have already, and that didn’t get us anywhere, did it.
we’ve put stakes in the future, claimed them, like in old WB cartoons, for ourselves.

i’m counting the months. and then, like replay, we’ll do it all again. and this time, will i care. i don’t know.
because i’m tired now and i’ve still got so much longer to go.

i stride back from Stats to Stauffer. in the past hour, the world has colour-changed. “it’s so grey and so calm outside.” the words loop in my mind like a mantra. the sky is reflected in the pavement, in the streets, in Stauffer’s arrogance.

a few hours later the grey will have dissolved into whiteness. bits of it will litter my coat, pepper people’s hair, nestle between their carefully placed spikes.

Life is Fine – by Langston Hughes

I went down to the river,
I set down on the bank.
I tried to think but couldn’t,
So I jumped in and sank.

I came up once and hollered!
I came up twice and cried!
If that water hadn’t a-been so cold
I might’ve sunk and died.

     But it was      Cold in that water!      It was cold!

I took the elevator
Sixteen floors above the ground.
I thought about my baby
And thought I would jump down.

I stood there and I hollered!
I stood there and I cried!
If it hadn’t a-been so high
I might’ve jumped and died.

     But it was      High up there!      It was high!

So since I’m still here livin’,
I guess I will live on.
I could’ve died for love–
But for livin’ I was born

Though you may hear me holler,
And you may see me cry–
I’ll be dogged, sweet baby,
If you gonna see me die.

     Life is fine!      Fine as wine!      Life is fine!

nebulous, defined by the cadences of a single voice.
mistakes aren’t things whiteblackwhite, but things misinterpreted, things blurred in the translation from dull redcopperbruise to grayscale.

it is exhilarating, it is frightening, this swelling realisation that we create ourselves, that our words are ourselves, not even representations of ourselves.

“exactly,” someone says, from the back of the room. the word echoes in the confines of my mind, a mind whose inner workings are gradually acquiring a sharpness that at once cuts and blunts. her one-word-salute rambles through my story, my proof of life and loving.

a sense of blurred chaos threatens to eat through the edges of this one narrative, of these many intertwined threads. threatens to become the story, whispers misery between the painful silences, in the frightened gaps of speech.