Note to Self: There are More than Two Sides to Every Coin, Really

Some people are averse to pain.  I thought I was, but now I’m not sure if I mind it, although I can’t remember the last time I’ve experienced intense pain, like really intense pain, like pulling an oak door shut before your finger can get away.  But there’s that gray area in the middle that people don’t really talk about much, the dull sense of something being wrong, something unidentifiable.  It could be pain, it could be discomfort, or it could be a figment of the ol’ brain.

I’ve always felt, see, that I’ve existed in this space.  Not to be a downer because I think that’s an OK spot to be in.  I think others are also in this spot, and I think they’ve reconciled that as well, even though they may think they don’t have any company, which is just not true, I really think it’s untrue.

No one has ever really asked me about it.  I mean, how would anyone know to ask?  Most people can’t properly identify themselves.  Most people (and when I say Most, I refer to everyone who I think I know who may fit into this category, see, but they may not and may not appreciate a label of sorts) exist in this void that makes other voids seem normal.  If this void exists in more than one place, and possibly in every place in between those two places, does that make it a verifiable void?  No one has ever told me, but I assume these things, if only because if I don’t think about this kinda stuff, no one else will.  I think I’ve mentioned this before and I just wanted to make that clear.

People, and I mean some people, expect black and white, forward or backward, on or off.  And sometimes things don’t work that way.  That’s all I’m saying.

Chapter T, as in The Absence of Light Makes Us Stronger

I was told later, at some point in time, see, that my behavior in the office that day was entirely “irrational and highly inexcusable”, according to the cops, and “a horrific, frightening day for us all”, according to the family (I mean, no one really told me this as much as read it to me from a blurb off of page A-8 in the Herald), and to be quite honest, I don’t remember much of it. I remember one instance of almost slipping in some dog crap, but that might have been from another day. I mean, I’ve stepped in dog crap a lot.

What puzzled me was the time frame, in that that doc’s office is somewhere on NW 79th, and my guy is down on NW 29th, and how I got there in that time — I mean, it seemed just a matter of minutes, with the running, and I don’t know how I ended up in the expressway, but I guess you could say it all worked out, at least for everyone else involved.

Anyway, I really do think this isn’t as bad as I thought. I mean, I could have done it differently — I could have stayed the course, lived the live, but you know, I get bored and it sucks the life out of me a bit, and everyone has to get moving, make progress, shed those old layers. But regardless, I have a lot of time to think and, you know, that’s been helpful.

Not having any light has never really bothered me, or the smell of piss or my own sheet, which I get a whiff of more often than I used to around here. If the floor was any harder I would probably be screaming every minute of the day, and the mildew, and the buzz from the lights in the hallway.

I often wonder if my roommates really think about me. I mean, maybe I gave them a raw deal, and maybe I didn’t spend as much time with them as I should have. I mean, we all have our own things going on.

I thought I’d miss the pills more than I do right now. Maybe I have too many other distractions. Maybe the biggest distraction is the lack of distractions.

Every once in a while, someone beats on the door, I put my hands up, and food comes through. It usually smells alright. I try to make out what it is, but my eyes, they seem to squint much of the time when the light comes back, I can’t really focus. But at least it’s there, and it makes me feel better than not having anything at all. I’m feeling really optimistic right now, I really am, although I know that won’t last.

It seems like a few days past, and then I hear a noise, and then the lights go out from under the door. Now there’s nothing to look at. I don’t mind that as long as I can sleep through the night. Sometimes I do. I don’t know how many nights I’ve been here because I’ve lost count. I tried to count for a while, and then I gave up. It wasn’t solving anything. It doesn’t make the air around me smell any better, and it doesn’t grant me any visitors.

Typically I lie on my back with my eyes pointed straight up. It wouldn’t matter if i was lying on my stomach and looking straight down — the view is the same. One thing I don’t like is lying on my side. I used to like that quite a bit, really, but it doesn’t give me a good feeling anymore. Either up or down, that’s it.

The worst feeling I’ve had in a while is when I thought something crawled into my mouth. I reached into my mouth and whatever was on my hand, it ended up in my mouth. It made me want to run to a bucket of water to wash out my mouth, but of course I don’t know where I can go to do that. I don’t think I’m allowed to do that. Not unless the little hole in the door were to open and something like a bucket were to come down through that, but I doubt that will happen. I really do.

I have thought about the things I’ve done in my life, and whether or not I’ve made the right decisions.  Most of the time I’ve done what’s best for me — I can’t think of any other way to go.  I suspect that most of the people around me would do the same.  I don’t know if anyone would really tolerate what has happened to me, you know, that happening to themselves.  I’ve always thought, like I’ve said a few times before or at least one time, that this solitude wasn’t much different than what I was already doing.  So my decisions, yeah, they pretty much got me here, and since I asked for it, well, I can’t really complain.  Like someone once said, be careful for what you ask for.  Unless you want what you ask for, then, you know, don’t worry about being careful.  Do what you want.

The Doctors Office: Act 3

I’m once again back in the doc’s den, and I’m on the couch listening to the chirping originating somewhere near my feet, see. This is the first chirping I’ve heard in my doc visits and, I mean, it’s more than a bit off putting. It’s making me concentrate very hard on what I’m trying to sell (and as you know, I sell myself in order to get what I want, and you really do know what that is, really) and it’s causing me a bit of anxiety that I don’t necessarily deal well with, at all, really. This chirping is going straight into my right ear and in some cases up my nose and through my eye and every other orifice that leads straight to the root of my brain, the place where I get pissed, and yeah, it’s starting to show. I’ve got to keep my composure or things won’t go as planned. The doc right now, he’s looking at my kinda funny, maybe because I’m rambling and intermittently mumbling under my breath about that damn bird, all the while staring straight at it, with it’s stupid eyes and beak. I don’t waver from my stare, see, and even though I hear someone talking very close to my ear in a raised voice, I can’t really respond, just stare in the direction of this thing that obviously has it in for me, and I don’t feel much of anything when someone grabs my arm — I grab back, and push — not taking my eye off that bird, that little tweeting asshole, I’m going for him, forget anything else, I’m up …

… and I’m out the door, running. Can’t think much now, but that probably didn’t make me any friends. I’m wiping feathers off my coat as my feet sloppily hit the pavement and navigate, wildly turning and looking back, and the feathers have already mixed with the blood. This is not a good way to get pills, not a good way, I can hear someone behind me, feet running fast, skidding tires, screaming and wailing and lights. Got to keep going, left, I’m close to his house so I shoot my way in. I’ve bothered him, he’s in the middle of something, I turn around, he hears the wailing and oncoming commotion and he’s screaming, at me and himself and the other end of his deal, and I’m frozen, can’t go forward or back, my clothes a mess, so I run for the bathroom, small window, grab a bar of soap and throw it at it, wailing is closer, yank down the shower curtain rod, whack whack against the window, some screaming behind me, my dealer “friend”, someone’s beating at the front door, he’ll go to jail he says, I say what and swing the rod around, he goes down as the front door bursts open and dogs, and lights, and the smell, I swing my arms, my head …

As I go down, I think about how I should have learned to like birds when I was young.