Lost and Delayed

October 5, 2016

I hate who I’ve become on days like this. Anger seethes barely under my skin and I bark, forgetting the words I am responding to belong to another person with feelings.

She whimpers with tears welling below her lids and I feel like a monster. My mother is sick and fragile in body and spirit, and I am harsh and abrupt. She is scared to call for me to momentarily emerge from my lair. “Do you like who you are?” she asks. My eyes burst, followed by my heart…lastly by my brain. But I have already erupted. It is hard to breathe during the pain I feel and what I inflict on the one who loves me most in the world. So I cry alone and sleep.

When I snap, I immediately regret my words and actions. Even more, I regret how they hurt the one who grieves from them. I’ve been lost in a personal hell…living with my parents in a state I hate; where I have no friends; where I have no future; where I am trapped and will continue to be trapped. Life is a burden most days. I’ve stopped crying every day, not quite complacent with the life I’ve been forced to accept. A life where oxygen is always five steps away and new york is on the other side of the world—a world in which I simply exist and do not know how to live anymore.

When I drank too much, I slept like a baby. My mother doesn’t understand it. She’s never asked why. I needed to fall asleep—to fall away from the world and dream I was 28 again. When I lived alone in a studio apartment in Midtown, had hope for my future, and had someone I loved beyond comprehension—people aren’t supposed to love someone who is not a blood relative this much. I felt destined to be lonely when he showed up one day. Suddenly, my life turned on the “life” switch.

It was an adventure—cliché, but true. I was young and vibrant and he helped me realize I was worth being wined and dined once or twice a week. He was my best friend. He was loved more than life. He broke up with me twice. It crushed my soul. I refused to respect myself after that. Suddenly I knew he’d figured out I was a fraud…pretending to be this special person while I was just a giant mess of immaturity and emotional baggage. He woke up one day, and knew…and it took him a few months to gather the courage to do it. When I think of him, I feel dead inside and my throat closes. I stop breathing.

Being sick is stupid hard. I never feel even close to decent. It leaves me exhausted with a glass of wine, writing a confessional at the airport. So here I am. I am in a cubicle workstation, mascara running down my cheeks, nose dripping, waiting to escape the country for a week. I can be someone else for a few days. I am someone amazing and alive.

Wednesday, 9AM

When I compare moving to a death of sorts, way too many people are offended.  I refuse to become defensive because unless one has spent his/her formative years in a constant state of upheaval, the concept of personifying a location will seem bonkers.  In this respect–I’m bat sh*t crazy.

This is an indisputable and eternal fact: New York is the love of my life…so boys, get in line.  I rented a storage locker the other day to fill with my packed belongings and I am semi-terrified I will lock myself inside on moving day and cross my fingers no one checks it out for awhile.

I want to roll around on the uptown “6” platform in Union Square and climb atop the boulders in Central Park where my Multicultural Literature professor recited Reinaldo Arenas so beautifully, tourists would pause to listen.  I want to create performance art at midnight in Madison Square Park and run through Bryant Park on my birthday.  I want a security guard at the Met to yell at me for not having a metal clip with “M” attached to my sweater.  I want to share a cab with a stranger and for him to pull over to get my number before he drives off.  I want to bring my dog into every store I frequent.

I’m not very good with making and keeping friends…the ones I am able to grab ahold of for awhile are treasures.  Because of this, my city has become part of my identity.  I hope to be back in a year…there is no certainty, however–I expect only the unexpected.  But I can dream.

The Most Familiar/Dreaded Sight In My World

and all i see are bare walls

white clouds blind me 10/12/15

only bare walls, once again, all i see

industrial

shiny

white

a blank canvas comes to light as i spin all alone

no beginning

no end

always white shrieking–

lacking fulfillment

a soul always shrieking–

low-lit empty hollows

always, i am shrieking–

starting over again?

again?!?!

my industrial heart cannot be painted anew

he tries anyway

whitewashing my life with the salt from my tears

he still tries