What the hell is wrong with me? I have to write. I have to work. All I can do is sit at the computer and play games all day long. Card games. Hearts and Spades and Solitaire. Until the sun sets and suddenly I want to kill myself. I don’t have any control over what I do. I cannot stop playing games and it’s not as if the games were all that much fun even. I just can’t get started working. So this is what I do for my whole life and I will never make any money and I will never be a writer and so who the hell cares about any of this anyway?
I’m on the telephone with my dad right now. I am waiting for him to finish giving my mom Windows instructions.
This is so agonizing. That I waste entire days like this. The minutes...the seconds...passing by me with each hand...and I have to meet E tonight and hear her whine and moan about her girlfriend, and all the while I will be thinking about all the words that I did no get down on the computer.
Am I just scared? I am scared. That nothing good will come out. That my fingers and brain will no longer work. That’s what I’m scared of, isn’t it?
That decision, conscious, yes, although only the length of a blink, right before I bend to kiss you or slip my hand into your back pocket -- to let go of the woman backlit in the door or leaning against the pool table or bar room wall or reading from the makeshift podium at the cafe poetry slam or walking her golden retriever -- to let her go without even a quick chat or a smile. Each time. Every time.
What happens then, there, in that moment? Is it so conscious? Well, yes because you know it’s happening, but no, because it feels like a habit, making that decision, each time. Less questioning of which decision will be made. If there is no questions of what the answer will be, then is it truly a decision each time?
And every time you do it it’s like picking a scab. Making absolutely sure that nothing will heal without a scar. Or like adding another tack to the board. Situations becoming more and more final. Pushing the needle through further and further. Getting closer and closer to the other side. Will we ever get to the other side? Does the other side ever come while we’re still alive? Well, does it? Is that possible? And can it ever come without a big, lumpy messy scar? Can it come smooth?
And it is like picking a scab, because all the while I do it it hurts, but it also feels so awfully satisfying as well. Pounding the nails in to my own coffin. (Okay, I just had to say that. I know it’s a cliche, but it’s what I’ve been thinking this time so I just had to write it and now maybe it will go away.
What happens when someone threatens to commit suicide? Does each threat, each incident bring them closer to the moment when they finally go through with it? Is that how it works? M wants to die. She says she feels she is not allowed to breath anyone else’s air. She says she knows people hate her when she walks down the street and that they wish she were dead. I don’t want her to do it but I cannot tell her why. I cannot give her a reason to live. I don’t know myself what the reason is to live. I have asked my therapist about that. She said ask your bones and blood cells. That doesn’t help me.
Chris is looking for a place to file the yellow envelope. She has opened and closed each of the four filing cabinet drawers five or six times. It seems that none of the color-coded green hanging file folders has the appropriate label and she wouldn’t feel right placing such an important document anywhere that wasn’t exactly right. She paces the floor. Once over to the desk to move her coffee mug to the left. Then across to the refrigerator to stare at the lone ketchup bottle and half a moldy orange. Then back to the filing cabinet another time.
This just is not the kind of thing I give a shit about!
So what is it then that I do care about? My writing totally sucks! Time to give up for the night!
What happened to me in those days?
We were on the roof of the Microbiology lab. We were squinting up at stars and someone a little too close to us had lit up a Salem. We didn't know teachers were allowed to smoke. Only bad girls and wayward grandmothers. Fran leaned into my back and dug her chin into my shoulder. I let it stay there for about ten seconds, then shoved her off of me. She pinched the back of my neck and walked to the other side of the roof. To where the men were. Dad. Jack. Dr. Kensilla. I tightened my arms around my "Chromatography is a Gas" T-shirt and returned to orbit. To Kolob. To God again. I needed to know. I knew I never would.
What made F the way she is? What makes E so afraid to say "no"? What makes us all want so desperately to be equally good and bad girls?
Just one song...Glory...that guy from Rent with his guitar...I get that. I don't know what to do about it. I want so awfully bad to leave a mark in some creative way. Why was I not so afraid on the plane to die? I almost wish I would die. Like M says, then you're off the hook. But what if not? I'd want some connection while I left I think. If it were on a plane I hope my seatmate would hold my hand. But some people just want to be alone. That's their choice. I wouldn't want to mess up someone else's dying.
Dad's afraid he's dying. Whatever. I could die as easily. Look at Princess Diana. Her funeral was today. Ruby and I stayed up and watched it at 3 am PST. Was she terrified or relieved to be off the hook? Did she desperately want those doctors to stop massaging her heart and let her sleep? Or did she wring out every last drip of life? Was there any left on her plate when the meal was over? Leftovers for the servants? Was she a big eater? I know she liked dessert. But she was also anorexic at one time. Did she think of her sons at the last minute? Was she eating for them? Did she warn them about being eaten?
Madonna says she cannot commit another selfish act. Bull. She could as easily die tomorrow. Or tonight. She could be dead right this minute. Mother Theresa. 87 at her death. Nancy Reagan. Still alive as far as we know. Ronald Reagan. Does he still know his wife's name? How can one ever NOT be selfish?
Are the stars selfish? Are they even real? Just a memory of light. Like a photograph that's supposed to prove you were having fun, when all it actually proves is that you had enought down time to take pictures. Maybe the whole trip was downtime. Maybe those suns never warmed anyone at all. Maybe they're memories of loneliness, spinning solo in the vastness. Never knowing that by the time those lonely memories reached us they'd be sparkling jewels. Fish. Buttons. Earrings. Rain. Love. Sequins only catch light. They have none of their own. Unlike stars. Still, both make black glitter. What's the difference?
I wanted her slit open and gutted.
This pull in my gut lifts me up, hovers my ass above the bed, so I can't tell if I'm taking off or sliding down; this opening in my belly, this beginning hole, this sliver of flight. I grind down, grasp and groan, grow tight. I want more. It's too much. I want less. I stay. It is indeed that falling feeling, head tucked down between my knees, pillowed, the floor falling as fast as my feet. The man beside me looks away...looks back...looks away. Too much terror. I want his hand. I want to live. Instead I die.
Fall.
After the fall.
During the fall.
The fall from grace.
Fall from the tree.
Fall FOR the tree.
Fall in love.
Fall away from the Church.
Falling from the sky.
Fall colors.
Fallen Angel.
Fallderall.
Falwell.
Fall well.
Fall down the well.
Rush.
Don't rush things.
Line up.
Take your time.
Calm down.
Easy there.
Don't run or you could trip and fall.
Ashes ashes we all fall down.
Kill me please. Tiny hairs quiver my belly. It might rain. The coffee's already burnt. My right foot asleep. I want a doorknob. I need to drag my bottom along a sharp rock. Driveway. Riverbed. It's only a desk chair. A black staple gun. A knife. Kill me or kiss me hard. But no feathers or fingers this time. No powdered wig. No lotion. No foam. You can push me from the plane with the butt of your gun but let me hit the bottom before I wake up. Okay?
Procrastination
I should be killing myself with work. I should be reconciling numbers. I should be calling clients.
I am.
But I should be calling them with answers and not with excuses. I should be sweating. I should be cleaning the dirt from under my nails.
I am.
But I should be digging dirt in the garden instead of picking the scabs from my lower lip. I should be cooking. I should be planning. I should be eating lunch.
I am.
But I should be eating vegetarian chili instead of cheddar cheese potato ships. I should be responsible. I should be dependable. I should be writing to apologize for all the times I have called in sick. I should be sick. I should be writing my dreams in a journal. I should be writing in a journal. I should be writing.
I am.
But I should be writing well. I should be published by now. I should be writing the truth. I should be knowing the truth. I should be dreaming and knowing and writing and speaking the truth. I should be on stage.
I am.
But I should be on a real stage. I should be singing. I should be acting.
I am.
But I should be acting on a real stage with a paying audience instead of in the bathroom in the shower in the kitchen under the table. I should be feeding the poor. I should be poor.
I am.
But I should be poor by choice and not by paralysis. I should be.
I am.
But I should be me.
I am.
But I should be me in a thousand different ways than
I am.