I woke up with my insecurities and mind-stories lingering as dream. Bits and pieces from the past few weeks of reality mingled with fever programming. Night sweats in an indigo caftan, with intermittent jolting awake in a coughing fit, sleep's become a tangle of sheets, tissues, phlegm and vague hallucination. The X's and O's, 1's and 0's, colored my transition to awake with a hazy blush. A blush of desire or anger?, it's too close to call...
How could it have gotten this far, in just the tiny few inches of my headspace? It does stretch further than the eye can fathom doesn't it? The mind... How was I going to get the answers I needed?
I woke at 6:24am to the alarm. And then to a snoozed alarm. And then to my friend leaving. And finally to the irritating dream that was him kissing me goodbye to go on a date with some unknown other (was there one, was he seeing others? It's unknown) and forgetting my name. But his face was that of a comedian. He makes me laugh. I did enjoy turning on my heel and walking away, throwing up a middle finger without looking back. Redemption through alienation, how bittersweet indeed. The ego is fucking sticky. Especially in dreams.
How am I going to tell him all this? No -- you can't fucking tell him any of this! Be cool. Ugh I'm tired of being cool! And the ping pong goes on...
I finally woke up. Called my sister in Berlin. No response. Text my friend in the Middle East for advice, the check marks still grey by her name. Tick tock. The blanket like a weight I gave into, not yet ready to make anything of this day; I turned over again. A vague resolution to make it to the coffee shop, out of this apartment, eventually, at least, hung over my obstinance.
I didn't write back to A or J or give into K's advances for this guy. I deleted Tinder. Fuck. I like him. He's probably got some other chick. Or maybe a few. Oh God. Am I alone in this?!
But I can't fucking tell him. Yet. How the hell. This is torture. (Sweet and definitely maddening). Another giant indicator that massive shifts are afoot. And my rib cage rattles thunder in cough. It's all breaking down.
I just want to get in an RV with him and drive away. But first, who's gonna text and break the silence?
And questions of negligence to my own cause shoot up like arrows from my own back. I shot them, like boomerangs they followed me as I ran from the answers. Ran to some blank page in my journal where figuring it out might take place. But I pace from the stove to my typewriter to bang out halting refrains. We could make good music together I bet... And the phone rings.
"You never call me betch. Ew.", I drawl. My sister. She commiserates while at the same time sighing in relief that she doesn't have to date in this crazy climate of flaky whatever the fuck.
I end up breaking the ice. It all seems fine, of course, with his sweet replies. And that inner gnawing is softened some... Until next time the pressure in my head becomes too much.
Oh God do I love this shit? Only as much as it lets me know I care... Isn't there a better way?
I took sugar in my coffee. I need some sweetness. I kind-of rejected it from him. Or at least teasingly chided him for sending me a funny video after I announced in a panicked, emoji-laced text that OMG Prince. I don't do this well do I?
I said I wasn't going to drink coffee anymore. I managed to throw on some clothes and rise out from under this upper respiratory flu shiz to walk to the coffee shop.
Goddamn the weather's fucking beautiful.
I think I get it now why some people just stay checked-out in life. It keeps them from realizing too much, from the fall that eventually comes with the head trip. I wrote some depressing shiz in my journal -- "Adulthood is realizing whatever choice you make, you're trapped." Who the hell do I--? I get it now. Why being too smart for my own good is shite. So I vacillate between a rote daily grind of actions I know I can tackle and handle and ace and casting aside that basic-ness in exchange for the desperate creation of what I'm not sure I can own (it's not mine to own) but must at least try to tame, hone in on, extract, play with. Fuck. Sometimes you just need to fuck the truth out of yourself.
Or fuck yourself back onto the path.
Keep walking.