12/31

I'm seated in the theater.  I'm seated in the dark with a small bag of popcorn in my lap and a soda in my cup holder.  With dozens of other folk all anxiously waiting for the new Star Wars movie to begin.  To be taken to a time long ago in a galaxy far, far away.

Then the theater goes black.  John Williams' exhilarating composition fills the room.  The yellow script rolls up the screen.  And everyone goes wild.

But there's a girl a seat down from me.  A tiny thing.  Able to bring her knees to her chest and have the bottoms of her feet on the edge of the chair.  Adorable.  But she rises and leaves a few moments in.  The boy she is dating feebly protests but off she goes.

And I'm not too interested.  I'm focused on the fighter jets and the storm troopers and the energy blasts.  After a little more time the girl returns.  But she doesn't sit next to the boy, as she was before.  She approaches and sits next to me.  Pulls her knees up.  Places her feet on the edge of the chair, but at an angle so the tips of her shoes touch my thigh.

And I'm enticed.  Skin is tingling.  Blood is pumping.  My attention has shifted.  I'm no longer focused on which character is in danger and which plot device is being utilized.  I'm on the white tips of her black sneakers.  On the blonde hair she's rolling between her forefinger and thumb.

Then she's leaning toward me.  Leaning in.  Her hand is moving.  Slowly.  Toward me.  Down into my lap.

And I'm riveted.  I'm shaken.  Lightening bolts are shooting up and down my body.  It actually takes me a minute to realize she's no longer next to me.  That she's seated back, next to the boy.  Knees to chest.  Feet on chair.  

And I've lost my popcorn.

12/30

Sneaking through neighborhoods.  Across backyards and around house sidewalks.  Avoiding windows.  Seeking out trees.  Bushes.  Swing sets.  Anything to obscure the view.  Anything to keep me invisible.

And I feel like a teenager.  This feels like something I did as a teenager.  Walking about the earth as if it was all mine.  Walking about as if there were no boundaries.  No conception of your side or my side.  No notion of: keep off.  

So I dart from this end of a porch to that end.  I hop this fence and push myself through that hedge.  But along the way I get this creeping sensation that I'm directionless.  That there is no true destination here.  Nothing more that lies ahead than behind.

This makes me pause.  By the bird feeder hanging from the pink magnolia tree, I pause and dig deep.  Prod and poke for an ember of reason.  An explanation as to why I'm moving.  Why I'm progressing through private properties.  

Then I lock eyes with a boy.  He stands in the living room by the sliding glass door.  Watching.  Observing.  His eyes are piercingly blue.  And nothing happens for a few moments.  There's no panic or fear.  No worry or trouble.  There's simply this boy and me.  Standing.  Breathing.  One outside and one in.  One older, one younger.  One guilty, one innocent.

Then he lifts his finger.  His arm comes up and he's pointing at me.  His mouth is moving and attention broadening and soon he's looking toward the kitchen, summoning someone.  

I'm gone by the time he looks back.  When his mother quizzically strolls up behind him, scanning the grounds for anything peculiar.  But there's nothing there.  Just another child excited by the great, big world.  

And another man lost in the maze of his existence.

Or in the maze of neighborhood backyards.

12/29

I'm under a blanket smoking cigarettes with a past lover.  Waves of grey fill the air on the light cast through the green comforter.  We breathe it in and out and in again.

And I'm pretty sure this is a dream.  It feels like a dream.

It would explain the other lady present.  The one that doesn't look like someone I've slept with.  The one that doesn't quite match up with any significant figure in my life.  Surely, no one with which I'd share my bed (this is my bed, right?) and my cigarettes under my own comforter (again, mine?).  

But I'm not completely sure, so we all simply laugh and puff away.  On the bed that stretches for miles.  Fire hazards?  Health risks?  These aren't concerns of ours.  Only laughter.  And we have that covered.  With the smiles imprinted so blissfully in my memory.

And there's some reason I must leave.  There has to be.  To part with such lovely and jovial women.  As I raise the blanket and watch the smoke plague the room.  Pour up and out.  Free.  So very free. 

And I travel to unfamiliar settings.  I move to terrains unexplained before being jostled awake.  Before alarms are buzzing and beeping and alerting and summoning me to a place where there might be less smoke - but surely less smiles.  And I want more smiles.

12/28

Cold feet this morning.  And I wonder of all the times I've had cold feet.  Of all the times I've stalled out.  Reversed.  High tailed it out of there.  Of all the times I've felt what I was doing was wrong.

The profession.  The hobby.  The apartment.  The relationship.  The focus; goal.  Perspective.  Motivation.  The faith.  The will to push past the failures and move forward.  Move on.

Cold feet every time.  

I've had it when receiving a raise in a vocational position or receiving more responsibility from a hobby.  When exploring a deeper level of intimacy with a partner or analyzing information for future decisions and debating the feasibility and benefits of those decisions.  When broadening the view of my life.  Changing.  Evolving.  Culminating.

Cold feet.  

And I suppose this allows for easy travel.  A possibility for more experiences.  Granted, they are more than likely less rich experiences, but there are more of them.  More waters in which to dip more toes.  More lakes to skim the surface of.  More ponds to ripple with a finger.  More streams to step above.  Droplets to balance on my tongue.

Almost seems like less and less.

12/27

Sounds emanate from below.  A new neighbor.  Another body.  A fresh occupant.

And I hear her cough throughout the day as she shuffles about beneath my floorboards.  Nailing a picture frame to a wall or maneuvering a desk across the room.  I lay and I let the sounds permeate my apartment.  I welcome the invasion.  The orchestra of moving in.  Getting settled.

It's only later when I'm greatly disturbed.  Only after I've taken the time to lay down and close my eyes for the evening.  When the smokey gentleman who haunts my consciousness chooses a new victim.  Chooses to leave my side and stalk someone else.  And though this seems a favorable event, maybe even an opportunity to obtain some peace, he chooses the girl downstairs.  He chooses this girl at midnight.  When the darkest of the world seeps from the shadows and into other's lives.

And she's unassuming and accommodating, the way his prey tend to be.  I hear her offer him a glass of water and a pillow for the place he chooses to sit on the floor, which, of course, he immediately accepts.

Then I'm being shaken by his grating voice.  By his nauseating rants.  By his anarchistic view of the world and his incessant urges to harm other people.

And she's oblivious.  She plays the part he's designed for her.  That he's laid out.  

And I can't listen to the slaughter.  I know it too well.  I've been around him too long.  So, I put on some headphones and turn the volume up.  I cover my eyes.  I even grab the bottle of whiskey for a swig or two.  Anything to create distance.  Anything to make a little room.  Maybe there's peace over here.  Maybe I can uncover it for just a few hours.  Hold it close.  Return it when I'm done.  Just long enough to cross over for a little.  Please?

12/26

It's quiet in the city this morning.  The hum of electricity alone fills the streets, beyond the occasional passing car.  And I'm awake.  My eyes are fixated on the blades of light cutting across the ceiling.  The underside of the leaves from the plant  seated above my spot on the floor.  The blinking LED from the power button on the computer.

And my thoughts run rampant.  I can't control them.  When I shut my eye lids I can feel my face shrivel up in concern.  Twisted brows and contorted lips.  My eyes jut wildly behind their veils.  

So I stare at the ceiling.  I stare at the ceiling and wonder how many more times I'll end up here before I get to a place, and this place doesn't necessarily have to be physical, but I get to a place where I can lay down for sleep and not have the worries of the world pounding at my temples.  Where I don't wake in the night from fear that love simply isn't enough.  Where random and ridiculous prerequisites for a peaceful night's rest don't need filling.  Where I don't have to back track the course of my life trying to distinguish how many warning signs I missed that could've prevented the tragedy when it all came crashing down.

And where I'm left sifting through the rubble.

12/25

There's a man in the window.  He's perched on the ledge, smoking a cigarette.  He takes swigs of the forty ounces of cheap beer in his hand.  And he is so pleased with himself.  He smiles because he loves his smile.  Because he loves exposing his teeth to the world through grinning lips.

And he spouts absurdities.  About anything.  About everything.  He has a theory for whatever it is you're looking for.  He has a solution for your problems.  Of course, this won't be an appealing presentation.  No, it'll be an outlandish suggestion generally praising violence or resulting in aggressive confrontation because that is all his soul knows.  That is the path he's cut for himself.

So, as I'm conversing with this smokey gentleman.  As I'm foolishly hearing him out, for a time that can only be too long, he throws his beer at me.  In a haze of carbonation and cold liquid he hurls the beer in his hand at my skull.  And there's a moment of confusion.  Of utter shock.  As I wipe away the drops falling down my beard, and he moves for the exit.  His dramatic goodbye.  His so long and farewell.  It's almost complete.

And just as he's passing the threshold I tell him never to return.  I tell him I prefer drinking my beer rather than cleaning it off the floor.

And he no longer smiles.  

But I do.

12/24

And I'm taken back to my parent's house.  To the porch out back on a summer night when the authority figures had left for a Friday or Saturday evening and left the lookin-afters of the place to me.  Left responsibility where it was not right.

But, oh, what a time.

There was a large wooden table with dilapidated wooden stools circled around it.  Some ill fitted lawn and beach chairs had been unfolded from their place against the aluminum siding of the house to support friends and random party goers.

And we were all drinking.  The summer nights were soaked in alcohol.  This was no different.  Music vibrated from a speaker.  A bottle was passed around.  The fridge door opened and closed with beers going in and out.  Wine aplenty.

And on one of these drunken summer  nights a figure spoke.  A pale figure with dark hair and sharp eyes that recorded everything in nonchalance.  Like that of a cat.  And what did she say?

Let's get on the roof.

She said, let's get on the roof.

And we all did.  A ladder was retrieved from the garage and bodies went up.  And though a body was dropped through a decayed potted plant upon decent, bodies went up.

And whiskey was drank and stars were gazed upon and drunken fantasies bloomed and withered within an hour's worth of time, but we all experienced consciousness from the roof top of a suburban household for one night.  We did it.  And though it may have seemed as though nothing came of those moments, they were just the seeds of so many lives to bloom and whither in time.  So many pathways to converge and separate and come together again later.  Or grow farther and farther away.

But seeds were planted and they are still sprouting.  Life continues on.

12/23

I flee to the woods.  It's a gray day and there's a fine level of mist in the air I'm certain will get me soaked, but I head out anyway.  Shut down the roaster.  Lock up the warehouse.  And head out.

And it's quite messy, as one would imagine.  My boots slide about in the mud.  Slurp and spat with each step.  And as I'm watching to avoid twisting my ankle on that rock or tripping over that tree root, I hear motion.  I hear the rustle of leaves from up ahead.  

And though I imagine a squirrel running by or a bird poking around on the ground, when I raise my gaze from the forest floor I see a woman approaching me. Her blonde hair is like a lantern amidst the dreary browns of the bare trees.  Her eyes are framed in wide brimmed glasses and she wears baggy blue sweatpants with what I'm assuming was her college university written down the leg.

It takes me a moment to realize I've actually stopped walking to stare at her, but I'm too entranced to move.  As she steps so delicately forward in worn gym sneakers, with her little fingers poised at her lips, my dreams take over. I fixate and fantasize about how soft and warm her flesh must feel against the receptors of her finger tips.  I see myself stepping towards her and taking her in my arms.  Lifting her off the wet leaves and broken twigs.  Holding her tight.  Pulling her in.

And she does lower her hand to smile at me.  She brings it down a few inches and tickles my spine with her attention.  With her brief acknowledgment.

Then she's looking forward.  As she moves so close to me, she's looking forward.  As she avoids that rock and that tree root to get so close.

Then she's beside me.  As she leans right to step left, left to step right.  Arm's reach.

And then behind me.  As she steps on.  Keeps forward.  Away.  Gone.

And I'm stuck with my feet in the mud.

12/22

I wake with the cat chewing on my fingers.  I take them away and he goes for my nose.  Dig that into the pillow and he mounts my back.  Kneads.  Purrs.  Seeks out an ear.  Takes a bite.

And I'm trying to think of why it's so hard to get up this morning.  The haze of gray and trickle of rain beyond my window aren't exactly inviting.  The burlap sacks of raw coffee beans downstairs aren't urgently calling to be tossed in an oven.  And I suppose I did venture out last evening.  Saw an acquaintance, went out, met up, killed time.  When I returned home I even took the effort to throw some water on the stove and pour it over some Vietnamese noodles.  With all the spices and dehydrated vegetables a ninety-nine cent meal could ask for.

But maybe my inability to rise can all be attributed to a Tuesday.  A holiday week.  The season to gather with family and friends and exchange gifts and warmth and I'll be doing none of those things.  

I'll be camped out on the floor wondering why my cat can't find as much solace as I do in the vast lands of unconsciousness.  Ho hum.

12/21

I have my plans to go out.  I have them and they're set and all that's between them and me is a few hours.  A little over two, maybe.  

Then I get distracted.  Like I always get distracted.  I see clothes laying about the floor and I get the idea to throw some of them on.  This enormous yarn hat, that long white belt, this gray and black striped robe, and then I'm searching for pins to hold the entire attire in certain cascading folds.  My roommate is watching me struggle to fasten a piece behind my back when he loses interest and leaves the apartment in search of amusement elsewhere.

Then I'm rolling on the rug in the center of the room with the cat.  And it's more me rolling, and more the cat staring in disbelief.  Even he turns to his throne of pizza boxes after a few moments.

So I look to the window.  And the fire escape.  With the congregating birds singing their daily songs.  I stay low and crawl across the hard wood floor in efforts to obtain a better view without frightening them all.  Which I do.  And as they flutter away in pure abandon, my attention is brought to the stack of neglected entertainment magazines I've been receiving in the mail without a subscription lately.  And it's as I'm poking through this mountain of pop culture, reading how great of a year Taylor Swift had and how anticipated the new Star Wars movie is, that I wonder of the time.  I wonder of my plans.

And it seems they passed me by.

12/20

I flee to the woods.  I wake and put on a pot of coffee, steal a cigarette from my roommate and then I'm out the door.

Puffs of smoke fill my car as I pound back swigs of coffee from my thermos for breakfast.  I crack the window for air and am enthralled by the winter chill.

And regrettably, I have to stop by my place of work.  I have to retrieve the jacket I drunkenly left behind the night before.  And although I'm hoping to do this undetected, hoping to be in and out, a ship passing in the night, that simply doesn't happen.

As soon as I breach the main entrance of the building, I run into a PhD who frequents the café.  His fiancé is present and I try my hardest to best display a sense of normalcy.  I shake hands and smile so warmly and convincingly.  Try to keep hidden, this trembling core that is worried if it doesn't walk among the trees within an immediate future it will explode.

I don't believe I pass though. The averted eyes and stern suggestion that work needs attention gives me the greatest sensation of failure.  

But I am relieved when they march off down the hallway and I'm free to grab my coat from the backroom.  Hurry far away.

And the woods welcome me like they always do.  The soft flow of streams and crackle of trees swaying in the wind is pure nourishment.  An absolute elixir.  I walk slow.  Because I'm in no rush to return to the awkward situations I gravitate towards when among other people.  The ill conceived ideas and poor decisions I make afterwards.  

They can all wait.

12/19

So, I'm walking past the dance floor, and mind you, no one is dancing.  But I'm walking past it to get to the ice tub filled with beer.  This is after I slammed the whiskey sour in the bathroom.  While staring at myself in the mirror.  While making some snarky remark about how socially challenged I am and how reckless I'm being.  About how public expectations are a joke and how I should embrace my wild individualism.  Something like that.

But I slam the whiskey and dispose of the cup and head to the beer tub.  I do this because I think grabbing a beer after slamming a whiskey sour in the bathroom is a responsible decision.  That I'm thirty and I know how to handle my cocktails.  That I'm in control.  

But it's somewhere between grabbing that beer and taking the time to make sure the ABV is high enough to satisfy my social anxiety that I wind up back in the bathroom.  And then I may be staring at the ripples in the water of the toilet bowl or gaping at the drops on the drain of the sink while my friend unloads a sermon of self worth, love, and acceptance into my ear; as I'm trying to determine whether I'm going to wake up with my cat on my chest, relieved that it was all a horrid dream, or whether I'm actually going to have to straighten up and navigate my way out of this place at some point.  When my friend's hand is on my shoulder and he's making sure our eyes are locked and he's telling me about how everything I do is enough and how I am worth it, I realize I drank way too much.  That I probably should've eaten more of the food instead of pummeling my public unease with alcohol.  I realize this way too late.

So I wind up back in the stall.  And then a different friend has her hand on my shoulder.  And she's telling me there's nothing to worry about but I also need to get home.  I need to leave.  And I don't want to hear this.  So I bury my face further into the well.  But she's unrelenting.  And I'm too incapacitated to really do anything.  So I'm guided along, out the building and to the back seat of a car.  I'm given a trash bag for emergencies.  I'm covered in shame.  But I make it home and I make it to the floor and I make it to unconsciousness and then back to consciousness and it's all ok.

It's all ok.  But I still can't think.

12/18

Someone said to write.  It may have been me.  I may have told myself to do these things.

Someone said to write.

And here I am.  Pulling words from the depths of my existence and arranging them in a fashion that ideally pleases me.  That'll calm my rattled consciousness.  My uneasy waking hours.

So I stand, leaning against a dilapidated trash can in a café on the Johns Hopkins undergraduate university.  Sad acoustic tunes seep from the speaker seated atop cubbies of flavored sugar.  They sing to me alone. 

And there's a reflection of myself in the window.  A slouched figure.  A bearded contemplative mess.  A mound of ruin dressed in black, punching at the keys displayed on the screen of his cell phone so urgently he looks as though he may flatten out before his thumbs finish the sentence.

And through these cloudy morning hours, as I watch and listen and think and punch at these keys, I can only hope, only pray, that somewhere along the way I've succeeded.  

I hope I've succeeded.