walking

i walk fast.   At times, with a spring in my step.  Only that spring is reserved for those who make me feel bouncy inside.  Buoyant.  i walk slow, sometimes, to accommodate the lesser or more relaxed gait of others- which is difficult for me- but i am willing.  Not everyone is in the same hurry i am to get nowhere fast.

i walk into fences and branches and situations- sticky ones- and i walk into messes and secret meetings and awkward moments.  i walk into hearts and minds and thoughts.  i walk into put downs to, into the butt-of-the-joke’ position, often enough to know better.

i walk down the hill, up the hill, to the store or to my office to hide.  i walk out and in, toward and away.

i walk into the claws and fanged maws of others.  Apparently, i walk backward into knives in the back.  Who knew i was such a skilled walker?

i walk to think, or sometimes not think.  Away, but always back again, for whatever reason.

Still.  i keep walking.

Theme Fridays: pen

writers' corner

 

Courtesy of Annie…

pen

I mean, a sword can kill you, but you’ll be dead and that’s that.  The end.  The damage caused by the pen must be lived through- unless one kills one’s self.

But then I think it is not actually the pen.  It is the words which destroy.  And even in words are not where the might lies.

I tend to think that the pen and sword have no might in, and of, themselves, but are merely implements of the might of she who wields them.  And even the idea of might has more to do with heart, intent.

So then, the pen or the sword? 

My weapon of choice is the pen of course, words.  And not all penstrokes bring shame, though I’m happy to shame myself.  Over and over.  Sometimes weapons are not weapons, but tools- like glasses.  The pen can bring a clarity of vision.  The ink can stain one’s soul with love or knowledge or beauty as well as anger and humiliation and sadness.

Like I said, it’s the might of who holds the instrument.

And I sit thinking, pen poised between thumb and fingers, to exercise the only might I possess-

a little c
little i
the words moron, stupid and ugly
and don’t forget whore
hole and hate

-and kill me many times over, in a way by which the sword would never do.

(copyright 2009)  c A Hughes
07.02.09

What flows from Annie’s pen?

did You

see the clouds last evening?  Their rich rosy goldness?  How they yawned across the sky just after sunset?  Pieces of a light bright blue scattered here and there?

Did we share that sky?  Those clouds?  That sunset?

i saw You in that awesome display.  Felt Your presence.

& longed.

this unamed thing

i am an orphan with dirty hands & i touch every thing because things are shiny or soft or rough or clean and i cannot be in the presence of clean things without wanting to touch touch touch and also because i’ve no tub to wash my hands in and i’ve no tub because i’ve no home because i’m an orphan because i’ve no one to take care of me & keep me clean & that’s sad because people don’t want someone with dirty hands amongst their things & lives so i remain an orphan.

July

mark it 07/01/09

still eyeing the sleeping pills
still thinking of running
still filled with You
and regret

i remain an asshole
an impetuous child
a brat and loser
who’d rather be dead than happy

today will be hell

just thoughts, just thinking

i think about killing myself sometimes.  You all know this.  i won’t though.

Because:
*i’m a chickenshit.  i’m too chickenshit to do something so chickenshit.
*There’s not enough money to bury me.
*i’m trying to put off my eternity in hell for a little while longer.

Besides, just thinking about it makes me feel better.  It’s kind of like the pin poke on my ankle, or pinches or picking- except this is emotional mutilation rather than physical, and more easily hidden. 

i “decide” to do it and feel comforted by the thought of it.

But i won’t do it.

i wish i was dead

or never born.

And i hate every single person at my job-

except the residents because they are ill and cannot help what they do.

But the rest of these fuckers have no excuse.  i hate them so much.

 

i know i’m not supposed to hate people except that is just what i feel.  Pure and intense hatred.  So either i lie and say that  i don’t, or be honest and say that i hate them-

which i do.

Ahh…  That feels better. 
Because it is the truth.

going down

i dreamt.  He lays me upon a cloud in a night sky. 

No.

It is an exam table- dark blue with a strip of white paper crunching beneath my body.

Only when it happened in wakefulness, it wasn’t me, but ——-.  i dreamt it though.  In the dream, it was me.  And i was not being casted, but amputated from the knees down.

He was there.  You.  You are him, and he is smoothing back my hair, smoothing me away from me.  And he has separated me from myself so that i don’t feel the saw through my bones, my legs, my freedom.  Just the sound and smell of burning flesh, shards which ping and bounce off metal.  So i don’t forget what is actually happening.

i dreamt his weight above me.  i am familiar with this feeling and my neck arches- in pain, in pleasure.  But in the dream, the pain is physical, the pleasure emotional.  Whereas the previous experience was reversed- my body pleasured, my soul crying out in pain, legs perfect, working, hooked around his waist.

Funny how dreams and memories mix, become one.