Emotiholic Anonymous

Sleep, Or Lack Thereof

2008-08-05T03:32:00.000-04:00

You would think I’d found the answer to the Universe with the way my brains teem and squirm in the mixtures of mmm… lack of sense or sleep –

That is, assuming the Universe is even a question.

Is it the sparkle of the delusions, how they float and twinkle above your head and beyond your comprehension, that leads distortion to be hailed as genius?

Or is it really beyond your grasp.

Does the assumption beget the reaction?

Or are we all just quite untalented, unabashed poseurs?

(Like nausea, how it swirls!) Oh, but how sweet the spin is. I could let it go and float to where I could be, wherever I may be. Allowed is not a concept, the permission is for the seatbelt, the feat that I might never come back.

But some are built for that unrestricted whirlpool. I hold, grasp and clasp tightly to the safe belief that I am not.

I am much too attached to my comprehension.

Flight

2008-08-05T03:25:00.003-04:00

My arrival is foggy at best. The city is covered in soft cotton, as if it knew I was coming and did not want to be woken. Flowers and slightly confused morning-faces greet my exit through the airport – it is far too early for these people to understand.

I don’t even have time to smoke my cigarette as the line for a taxi into the city has also decided 8am on a Saturday is far too early. We do not talk; my cab driver is a professional and my lethargic awareness chooses to pretend my professional of a cab driver is not there – so unlike the strange bespectacled man training to be a semi-driver who began the trip.

I make an educated guess that the unfamiliar territory around me is unfamiliar because it is Queens, not because two months is a long time to be away from the only city I’ve known. The drive would be long if everything isn’t always longer when you’ve been drinking and have somewhere to be. My dulled New York sense of time won’t allow lies here.

If my arrival was foggy my departure is almost non-existent. Nothing to prove I’ve been anywhere important, short of simply-printed boarding passes and a few receipts. The visit is an isolated incident, like a harmless hurricane that blows through a town you’ve never heard of.

The city is not the city today. There’s no traffic, so an historically lengthy ride takes less time than a speedy stumble from the train to my old room. I’ve got time to stand now, and it’s time well spent. This single strip of dirt and pavement and ramps is crowded like I remember. It could stand to have more foot traffic, but the scene is accurate enough.

Hudson News. “I (heart) New York”. The comfort these familiar sites allow is more of a surprise than the dozen coffee-shops I pass that aren’t Starbucks. The crowd has followed me here; maybe to say goodbye. To wish me a safe trip and wonder when I’ll be back – the steady din of the city isn’t the same without my high chime and low rumble.

There’s a section of JFK you may never see in all your travels. It’s populated by dinky additions to the numerous JetBlue gates and so similar to what I affectionately refer to as the “little shit of an airport” that serves the Buffalo-Niagara region. So similar and yet so different, if merely because twenty-four gates divided by two gates is still a lot of gates. Twelve gates for every one. Twelve flights and twelve completely different destinations for every flight home or every flight to Toronto. But I won’t do the math here and no one else will either; that magic division between early morning and the rest of the day has yet to pass.

One month for every day. I’ve been gone for only a weekend, and yet so much can change. Show up, fall into the routine. Some people need a life-halting homecoming, still others choose to pretend they never left at all. The city and its people were exactly as I left it – minus the innumerable changes, that is. Buffalo is shorter, smaller and easier to say. More compact and less populated, yet so much harder to measure. Which is the homecoming? I guess it’s a race to the finish. All I know is if there’s cake when I get to the dorm I may never come back.

Beer Goggles

2007-05-02T18:15:00.001-04:00

There are two types of people walking the streets of New York City. Sub-types, sub-categories, exceptions and specifics are applicable, sure, but the overreaching idea here is just those two types. On one hand you have those mediocre, run-of-the-mill people who walk where they have to in order to get where they have to go. Not necessarily oblivious, but definitely not observant, they spend their travels looking through clear lenses with box-shaped blinders. They know the sky must be some shade of blue, the ground some shade of dirty or green, the streets and sidewalks either crowded or empty. There’s a certain warped respect that these people glean from others, partly for their apparent ability to think so clearly, but mostly for their ignorance of the ridiculousness around them – whether positive or negative.

Then we have those with tinted goggles – “beer goggles” if you will. They see the world in skewed shapes and non-existent colors; awed or disgusted by everything around them, much like your typical, drunken individual. The next patch of sidewalk is an even newer experience than the last, speeding taxis and people with big hats or weird jackets only adding to the novelty of a walk to the grocery store. The blinders on those uninfluenced are foreign to these people; there is no such thing as scope, nothing not worth observing.

I suppose the question is, which one are you? If you find yourself uninterested, well then you’ve answered it anyway and can go on with your day. If any of the above elicited a variation on the word “whoa”, the results of this mini-quiz should be just as obvious as pineapples. Not pleased with the answer? Just change your lenses.

So it goes...

2007-05-02T18:11:00.000-04:00

There are only so many things you control, especially in a city of such magnitude. If you leave your home 10 minutes before your expected arrival time and your regular train takes 5 minutes to get you just outside the doors, then assume the worst. It’s like playing expert-level chess on the computer with a year of experience. Sure you control when you leave, how fast you walk to the station, even what train you take. But. What if you trip on a faulty sidewalk, or get stuck on the stairs behind what could possibly be the slowest moving line you have ever? Every move you make changes the possibilities, but no matter what you do they stay endless. Every move has a counter, every plan a trap with which to foil it.

Sounds a little defeatist, sure, but that’s only if you give up. Give yourself those extra 10 minutes to saunter, rather than run to the station. Plan to take the train that will get you there early, so when that sick passenger finally finds himself on your beloved train line, he won’t worry himself sicker with the knowledge that you’re going to be late.

Pleasant surprises are just as versatile as the negative possibilities. Stepping outside the figurative box creates a certain vulnerability that leaves you open to – insert shocked gasp here – other’s kindnesses. When you’re not busy running, pushing and loudly sighing you tend to exude a happy attitude that entices those around you to enjoy your presence.

Aero-plane Missive

2007-05-02T18:05:00.000-04:00

The world below is an oxymoron. Everything I know seems so small, but there's land or water for miles. I lost count of the dozens of baseball diamonds after about 10 minutes. I recognized the city in one glance - it's taller than anything around it. The park is this bright green rectangle. I wonder if anyone I know is in it right now.

More baseball diamonds, but now there's actually open space. It looks weird. We're over a bunch of clouds now. I'm trying not to think about that or the fact that we're supposedly going 400+ mph.

I'm in the sky. This is the most open space I'll ever see, short of the ocean, and I'm stuck in a metal box with tiny windows. I guess it's an even trade-off. Plus there's always sky-diving.

Speed: 432mph Altitude: 22,212ft

We're starting our descent in 15 minutes. It feels like I've gone absolutely nowhere.
I've got some animal crackers to eat before the plane starts landing. Thanks for coming with me.

Catch

2007-03-25T01:04:00.000-04:00

here it is,
ripped out and fresh--
still dripping with naivety.

here it is,
throbbing and thrashing--
pulsing against gravity.

here it is,
foreign and unwieldy--
in need of consolation.

here it is,
gift-wrapped and bow-tied--
prepared for presentation.

here it is,
prickly and thorned--
a risky endevour.

here I am,
pained and desperate--
as dramatic as ever.

The Pantoum

2007-03-23T03:32:00.000-04:00

[Explanation of the pantoum form of poetry.]

The dust settles upon my feet.
I have walked far.
Sea and landscape repeat,
unoriginal in their differences.

I have walked far.
Faces have become exotic --
unoriginal in their differences --
a homogenous mass of the chaotic.

Faces have become exotic,
my own is unrecognizable.
A homogenous mass of the chaotic
remnants of what I have seen and heard.

My own is unrecognizable.
I would not know home if I came upon it.
Remnants of what I have seen and heard
combine to form a memory of what may never have existed at all.

Love

2007-03-23T03:29:00.000-04:00

The box was gaudy. Gaudy and atrocious. It was an affront to the holiday itself—assuming the holiday had enough self-esteem to be offended, anyway. It was covered in small reflective pieces of plastic, taped to the box by a hand that had intended to send a message much sweeter and more intricate than what I had gleaned from the final product. I shook it, not caring whether its contents were fragile. The muffled banging of corrugated cardboard on corrugated cardboard told me I would have to deal with more offensive packaging before reaching the actual offering.

I sliced slowly at the tape with a steak knife, enjoying the image of some poor sap’s heart ripping at the seams that had taken hold in my mind’s eye. The pieces of the outer box finally fell away, revealing the typical heart-shaped box I could only assume held the usual unlabelled assortment of chocolates. I have never been careful or skillful enough to avoid the coconut. I hate coconut.

I pushed the steak knife into the center of last of the pretentious covering and watched in awe as blood flowed out onto the table. I hurriedly tore through the last of the box and revealed a gift I had never expected: a bloody human heart. I snatched it up to my mouth and bit down hard.

Aww, you shouldn’t have…

Fury

2007-03-23T03:27:00.000-04:00

It welled up inside him like a growing plant. Roots unfurled and dug deep into the pit of her noxious bile as if it were the fertile soil of the Nile’s banks. Its pods were a deep maroon – a sign of the rage to come with the rain of fury and spring. The weak leaves a colorless shade of invisible that would camouflage the plant’s presence until the last possible moment.

Bright lines of light erupted around the tiny growthling, digging into its precious life source, tearing quietly at the plant’s prickly roots. However, like the perfectly disjointed oxymoron it was, the bile mixed and folded and absorbed until the light gave in, short on energy and hope alike.

A trace of crimson appeared not long after the attack, trickling slowly out of the smallest of the maroon pods. It spread slowly, but powerfully. From pod to pod it moved, in the most farcical, size-order manner. Smallest to smaller to small, the weakest becoming the strongest -- the spark for the whole fire that could soon be seen for miles.

How eye-catching is a petal the color of blood? Will you see the crimson in the corner of your eye? Will you ignore it, or bend beneath its outstretched branches?

The Dancer

2007-03-21T22:50:00.000-04:00

I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. But don’t all stories begin that way?

I saw her. Through all those sheets of rain, I saw her. Whether she saw me is still debatable, but that’s not the story. I watched her, letting myself soak to the bone in the worst rainstorm I’ve seen in a decade. Despite all that happened, I’d still say it was worth it.

I was coming out of the five-and-dime – I’m actually not sure what a five-and-dime really is, but it sounds better than “grocery store”, doesn’t it? – and walked face-first into torrential rains that weren’t there when I had gone in. I tripped over my slippery leather shoes as I blinked the water out of my eyes. This wasn’t going to be an easy walk home.

I reached into my coat, holding it over my head to keep its contents out of the rain and hoping my cigarettes weren’t as saturated as I was, and found myself in luck. I stopped under an awning to light up, staring down into the small flame that practically stumbled out of the lighter. With my tools back in their proper places, I looked up as I inhaled… and choked on my own noxious by-product.

It was her.

My fingers began their perpetual nervous habit of tapping, one after the other, the air. I forget how it started, I suppose I thought it would look cool one day and decided to try it. It usually happens to my right hand, my strong hand if you will, but if the feeling takes me I can do it with both.

I taptaptaptapped with my free hand, blinking slowly between every few rounds, wondering if she could see me from where she was. My awning was in plain sight, but the black, unused doorway I had stepped into betrayed much less than my face did. I let myself fall back against the doorframe, my body focused as fully as my mind on her spot across the street. I stood there, as nonchalantly as possible, tapping, blinking and smoking -- drawing all the attention in the world. Except for hers.

She didn’t have an umbrella. She never would have. She used to say that carrying one would affect her stride, her self-proclaimed most important feature -- and it was. It hurt my eyes to see her there, letting things as insignificant as rain droplets speed past her. Her auburn hair was only vaguely recognizable under the layers of water it had accumulated, and I could only imagine how much it killed her to feel its weight on her head and shoulders. Excess weight hindered movement, and movement was her forte.

She was a dancer by day, a dancer by night and a dancer every time in between. Everything she did was set to some inaudible music, heavy or light when appropriate, flourishing or almost invisible where it counted. Her success had never matched up to her ability, but that was to be expected. Her body was a private temple, and those don’t get very far in her line of work.

She was impeccably dressed, a surprise considering it was a Wednesday night. Wednesdays were work nights, meaning she’d spend her trek home clad in sweats or leggings, not the black pantyhose and form-fitting red dress I had caught her in. I wondered out loud what could have caused such a drastic change in routine, and stopped breathing as I saw her head tilt up.

She could definitely see me now.

I could see her pretty face squinting at my ugly mug from across the street. When she was sure I was who she thought I was, she smiled and crossed the street with more grace than a champion cat. I couldn’t help but gawk as her damp dancer’s body filled more and more of my view.

“You look as dumb as a turkey about to drown itself in the rain, Harry. It’s not a good look, hun.”

I reluctantly closed my mouth, a little peeved that I’d let her catch me off guard like that.

“While you’re at it, you might wanna drop that stogey before it burns your pretty little hand.”

At her last syllable I felt the heat from the cherry of my cigarette make contact with my fingers, burning what was already scarred skin – she’d had me like this before. My hand snapped at the pain and the cigarette went flying into a puddle halfway across the street. She laughed as I felt the burn move up my hand to my cheeks and the backs of my ears. I was a mess. I let a rough “son of a *****” slip through my silence, which only added to her amusement.

She walked slowly out of the rain and into my dry world under the awning, dripping water and sex appeal. It came so easily to her.

“You going to gimmie a hug or what?”

I could barely breathe, let alone move.

“Aw, you’re a sweetie. It can’t be that great to look but not touch. You know that was never my rule with you. After all those years you spent looking after me, it would’ve gotten weird, don’tcha think?”

She never could get a good read on me. I wasn’t like the guys at the club. I might gawk and stutter like the rest of them, but there was one difference between me and all those other bozos that always threw her off my scent.

“You look beautiful, Nancy.”

She had this way of smiling with her whole body. Not only did her face relax and her eyes light up, her shoulders would loosen and she’d let her weight shift from one leg to another – like she was about to dance. A gust of wind blew through her hair, just to complete the picture.

She was the one to ruin the moment.

“Got a stogey for me?”

“You know I always wanted you to quit.”

“Well I did, you just weren’t around for it.”

I raised my eyebrow and reached for my pack anyway. I handed her my lucky, wondered if she’d notice, and started to pull out my lighter. She shook her free hand at me.

“Nah, I’ve got my own.”

I watched as the fire spread through the end of the cigarette, concentrating on the reds and oranges. I’d gotten lost in the colors when a sudden jolt of pain hit my sinuses and the bridge of my nose. I fell back a little and blinked hard.

“I didn’t know you felt that strongly about me smoking, Harry. You shoulda said something.”

“No, no, it’s okay. Go ahead and smoke. I just got this pain in my head. Sorta reminds me of the pain you used to cause in my ass.”
She smiled again and we both broke out in laughter. We stayed like that, laughing in the isolated dryness, until our faces began to settle and grow dark. The memories came back to me first, but hit her harder. She found the words first.

“He stills finds me, y’know. Once every couple of months I’ll see his face at a recital or my studio or outside my window and I’ll know I have to change again. You’d think I’d learn my lesson and stop dancing, but—“

“—you can’t.”

“Couldn’t even if I wanted to.”

I stared into the patch of sidewalk between our feet. He’d been the reason I left. I got jealous and ran off before any of us could realize a guy nicknamed “The Mouse” could still cause trouble. It’d been 3 years and I still hadn’t forgiven myself. Only the most heartless of guys would after seeing all the cuts and bruises the son of a ***** had given her the day she left him.

“I never forg—“

“Forgot? Yeah, I don’t think any of us will. Better for me, though. Keeps me running from him. I may get tired but I sure as hell look better tired and alive than I do dead and beaten.”

“No, Nancy I never forgave myself. I never got into that fight and I never broke my leg. I put in my papers a month before it happened, and was packed and gone before Tommy even found the first bruise. I was jealous. I hated him because I wanted you. And you never noticed me. You’d always give me that look around him, like you were seeing right through me ‘cause I wasn’t there or something. Like right now…”

I saw her face before I heard the car. I turned, wasting precious moments, just to make sure. The obnoxious green and $100 bill decals blurred together as I lunged forward, making contact with Nancy’s body before I hit the ground. I never once noticed I’d rubbed up against her breasts or grazed her cheek with my lips. I don’t think she did either.

The car that would make Ben Franklin roll over in his grave went flying out of sight around the corner, and I slowly rolled off Nancy in the direction of the street. I checked the ground for blood.

“Well shit, I would’ve rather you kicked me in the nuts and been done with it.”

Lying there on my back, still under the awning and out of the heavy rain, I lit up another cigarette as I felt the life drain out of me. I smoked slowly and stared at the blood on my left hand. It flowed in between my knuckles and down my fingers, slow and smooth – like a dancer.

The Party

2006-09-04T04:00:00.000-04:00

...to youuuuuuu.

I'm not big on birthday songs - or birthdays at all - but this is different. I'm a self-diagnosed attention whore and everyone is looking at me, celebrating me, singing to me. I'm in my element right now. I laugh a little, look down and mess with my hair. I've got an image to uphold, after all.

I thank everyone then turn and give my buddy on guitar one of those manly handshake-hugs, place the microphone back on its stand and hop off the stage. See, I could prolong the moment, but then these people might begin to realize the truth. It's for their own good; some people can't handle that truth. I know I can't.

Now that I've been sung to it's time for it: the cake. I don't like cakes any more than I like birthday songs, and this cake is no exception. Between my name and "Happy Birthday" is the photographic representation of the biggest lie I have ever been party to. I can barely bear to look at it.

But I force myself to stare. I try to see what my mother sees in this 2D subterfuge. Instead I get lost in imaginings I know were never real. I hate this picture and the happy childhood memories I can't remember. I'm hungry for my cake, but this image makes me want to vomit. I force myself to swallow and realize that if I truly hated it so much it wouldn't be there.

I never seem to know what I'm really thinking.

I never seem to know when I'm thinking, either...

I say to myself as I tilt my head up out of habit and realize I'm sitting in someone else's apartment with a beer in my hand. I don't remember how I got here, but that doesn't matter. I look around and see everyone that matters to me right now.

This is officially amazing.

"You're only saying that because you've got a beer in your hand."

My beautiful, straight-edge girlfriend sits on my lap and plants a kiss on my cheeck before I realize she's replying to what I've apparently said out loud.

"Probably. But I'm saying it again and really meaning it this time because you're here. This is officially amazing."

"Well it's only taken like, 5 months. Don't you wish this all had happened on your actual birthday?"

"Who cares. All that matters is it's happening. Now shut up and kiss me, pretty lady."

I smirk to prove I'm halfway kidding and she obliges. Just when I think the rest of my life will never live up to this moment, her hand drifts to my head and she runs her fingers through my hair.

I don't know how I made it here, but there's no way in hell I'm moving.

Entrance or Exit

2006-09-02T04:37:00.000-04:00

The lock barely makes a sound as it turns. I've done this too many times before to fuck it up now.

cliiiiii-cck.

cliiiii-cck.

I should breathe a deep sigh of relief here, but I can't. I can't because I know it's not safe until I distance myself from this door. Away from the door I can lie to my heart's content. With only a few choice words I can cause the kind of doubt and confusion others have so happily tortured me with.

While I grin at my beautifully spiteful thought, I realize this door represents everything that's wrong around me and suddenly I can't get away from it fast enough. I don't make a move, though, because silence is key. I can't be silent and quick at the same time.

I've always hated snakes but I'd kill to be one now. I'd speedily slither into the darkness. I'd slip away from this damn door and be done with it. And the second the coast was clear I'd hissss that devilish snake hiss because I finally get to show them - show everybody.

I take my hand off the door. The loss of contact with it makes that feeling return - the eerie feeling that keeps me up nights and mornings. The feeling breeds an uncertainty so deep that I begin to question my own existence. Now I can't remember where I'm going. Hell, I can't even remember where I've been.

That doesn't matter, though. Something inside is pushing me to move forward, no matter where forward leads. I can think about my surroundings later - all that matters is that I keep moving. At least if I'm moving I can convince myself of my realness, of my existence; I can't do that if I'm standing still. That's what I'll do, then. I'll keep moving.

With the problem solved, the dialogue in my head ends for now. I tilt my head up out of habit and realize I've been staring a hole through the floor tiles.

Toto, I'm sure as hell not in fucking Kansas anymore.

I laugh at my own joke because no one else will.

I have to think about it for a second, but I know exactly where I am. I don't remember how I got here, or where I'm trying to go, but that's not important right now. All that matters is I'm finally away from the door...