Dialogue of the day:

The doctor looks at the paper, then looks at me. “Well according to this you are down to 14 points from 20. At least we’re moving in the right direction right?”

She’s referring to a list of statements on a piece of paper that I have just looked over and applied to my own life/situation. 6 months ago I scored a 20, which is high and refers to being very depressed, as opposed to my current 14, which I assume represents a “mild” glum rather than “very” glum. Or something. It’s a stupid list where you can circle “not at all,” “somewhat,” “more often than not,” or “all the time.”

I felt the tears damming up behind my lashes and I heard myself say to her “Yeah well all I know is how I feel in my life day to day–not what some stupid survey on depression tells me I feel.”

Then she left to print out my scrip and I sat in the chair wiping my tears off with such shaking fists–I was so angry. Angry and defeated because I sat alone in that room, and I felt like I had found another dead end to curl up in. Why isn’t there an answer for this? Who tells the truth on those damn things?

“Do you feel like you still struggle with anxiety?”

“I know I do.”

They referred me to the in-house psychiatrist, sent me off with an elevated doseage and instructions to talk to the front desk about scheduling an appointment with said psychiatrist. On my chart the doctor has noted “asap.” Funny thing is the psychiatrist’s next opening? Late-October.

Commence the pre-recorded, canned laughter.

Those morning seating arrangements, the bus, your book and sun acting stupid all over both of us. Through the window and into our eyes, across hands. This had its effect. A stone dropped does something before it sleeps. It’s the new word on the street. Supportive everything but a safety net–they need protecting too. It is not just a man’s world. It is a sane’s world–it is a straight and narrow and I careened from the beginning.

Swaying gets you nowhere.

Rejection for publication? No problem.

Just add that fuel to the fire. Just keep on adding. I’ll use the excess for my internal rocket. Keep it comin’.

The dark is not so harmless;
It passes.

Waiting for another turn
For the worse
Waiting for the Sunday cue
Waiting for the 25th
26th
27th day
waiting for the pull of pain
in marionette head,
waiting
and posing
looking good
and
being selfish,
social backwards juggernaut with
shoes around
walking creases through the songs.

It’s the leaning on the nearby wall
That I can’t stand.
Just come and tackle
If that’s what it’s all about
Just swallow me up
Drain me baleen
Fire up the frenzy fingers
No music lessons just
Dirt and fingernails
Time and consequence
Space, indents, margins oh
You know.
That in between stink.

I’m supposed to watch the lights
Across the hill and
Pretend to see something.
Manic little barbed insulin alohas
Barter back the spaces for rent
Hand them down
Getting tossed between halos
Cocked up enough for curve to hurt
When they bang the hips.
A side to side
That never stills,
A brand new blur
For an old ache
We talk in story
Flurries and rumors
We talk in crime
Yesterdays and through
The thick-tongued drug haze
But
At least we talk.

Hear me out.
It will get closer
Before it bends away
It will take more of everything
Before it leaves me alone
It will be a beeline to haites
Via some valves in this hubcap heart of mine
Spittoon-shaped and rocking
The slightest easiest push just spilling.
I want to be a soldier
But I cannot stop giving up
Picking at the hardened wax
Left behind from past ignitions
Chippin’ bits of ghost

I’ve said it so many times
I wanted to see you
But I didn’t
I wanted my footing beneath me
Yanked from lips and I wish
I would just eat whatever I buy for the cupboard
I let so many good things rot
Watch them age with a detached sadness
Reserved for those too-high moments where you feel like
And you know
You in fact yes
Are going to die
You and everyone
Anyone
Else
And these trees will still stand up after me
And that dead branch will never reach the fence
Those vines instead will make it hostage

Do we have cups around
Just so we can overflow them with
ash and ourselves and
The last drink winking in the bottle
Do we lie to have secrets
Something just for us
Do we drive places so we can get there
So our eyes do see again
Something unusual
Does the babble make sense
When it is so quick
And the art of listening that I deem reasonable to preach
Is anything but practiced

We think we’re so brave
Stoning all those mirrors
Before they could find us
I never want to be called crazy again
I want the palms of everyone who ever has
I never want to hide again
I want to believe what I smell
I want to understand what I feel
I want to write it down
And say it to you
Regrets forget themselves
And wings grow from knots in the wood
All those things I tried to be,
I will not;

I will not

I won’t

not me.

My hands are on my knees, just resting, and I know that I need to cut these nails more often and get back on stage soon. These two things.

I am trying to figure out who I was, who I am now. I have no idea. That’s all I ever wanted to know. All I want to do is take care of myself, but there always seems to be a new way to destroy something. You can touch a neck, you can squeeze the heart. My chest pump is a sprinter. I get so excited about certain things that I have to catch my breath, remember to extend it, keep it slower than my pace. The wind still feels so good. I still dig the smoking circles. I still hope for later nights for good conversations but lately I’ve been going to bed early. I feel like I have a story to tell but where do I begin? I guess the middle and go both ways and reveal too much. A snake admitting its tail is a rattle, revealing. The blades of grass I crush under my feet. I am sorry for that. I am sorry too much.

So, Miss New Jersey and the scandal of someone trying to blackmail her with “scandalous/racy” pictures.  Oh noes.  What ever is the world coming to?  Caught her on the Today show this morning while I was getting ready to head out the door.  She decided to do an interview and, for the first time, reveal the “scandalous” pictures in all their glory.  They included a spread eagle jeans-covered crotch shot in a limo and some dude grabbing her boobs from behind.  “He’s my boyfriend,” she explained, “and the picture was meant to be private.  Nobody was supposed to see them.”

More here on the interview and whatnot:  http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19674044/

First of all, Miss NJ, babe, listen.  You posted these pictures on Facebook, hon.  The internet is not private.  Shaddup.  What are you complaining about?  Let this be a lesson. 

Second, the interview horrified me this morning, and I could only stomach 5 minutes of it, at most.  One by one, she went through the pictures and described what the situation was about, why she was posed like that, etc.  How horrifying would that be?  Think of all the pictures of you, the really silly/buzzed/strange pictures of you.  Thinking about it?  Good. Now, imagine having to explain them on national television, at 7:30 in the morning. 

For example:

Explain.

Oh so this is funny:

I’m sitting outside kind of cursing my fingers and brain simultaneously. Or maybe I should just have words wtih the nerves. Either way, a synapse between is a bit off and the words are just knocking heads trying to get out. I get frustrated and start darting my eyes around the yard. This large, amazing feather drifts down and lands on the overgrown patio. Somehow it lands like a pro in a tuft of weeds and stands up out of the ground. Straight up, at rest. The wind kicks it just a bit and I see that one side is black, and the other is one of the most brilliant blues I’ve ever seen on…well..on something like a feather. Yeah yeah, so I’m not that into signs but maybe I should be this one time?

I strained my back at work today while lifting some boxes with printer paper in them. I did some half-ass bend at the knees and it felt yanked and seized–yuck. Rode home and now I feel stiff. Smooth move, genius. I’m rocking the five different shades of brown right now thanks to all the biking and sleeve/cuff variations. The back is throwing a little protest but overall things are just swell.

I started sending submissions to various publications. A handful a day, at the least let’s hope. I don’t feel like I’m doing much right now, as much as I should and could and the only thing that mends that is change, and conscious effort. So I’m here outside writing and here comes some feather, trying to make me a believer. I would not be convinced, if I wasn’t at that exact moment hoping for some tiny trigger to click.

Thanks, bird.