cut 'n' paste life

The days go by, the anxiety grows. This fragile existence becomes weak under the strain, and I feel sometimes as if I’ll never get even just a little bit ahead, just have a crumb of comfort and security.

It seems an endless loop of always trying to catch up, of it perhaps being just within my grasp but unobtainable, taunting me, luring me, giving me hope but never delivering.

Somewhere out there is a place where I will be able to have just a bit of financial security, just a little peace of mind knowing that the bills are paid, the personal debts settled, and maybe even at least just a little money saved.

Somewhere I won’t have to endlessly worry about where rent is coming from, how the bills are going to get paid, how the money will be most effectively divided up to appease those who hold the power of valid threats.

Somewhere.

Someday.

Today, however, I need to figure out where the rest of rent for this month is coming from and how I will pay next months, how much it will be to get my internet service turned back on, and how to keep a positive outlook in the midst of all of this.

Sometimes, it’s not so easy.

10.30.04 5:15am

Sleep is stolen again from me by worry and anxiety, rousing me before the sun to toss and fret for the coming days, and what they might bring if things don’t change.

The end of the month is one day away, and with it looms the dreadful possibility of eviction if I am not able to come up with something more for my landlord, and very soon. At the very least, the rest of this months rent.
I haven’t been in a position so delicate for over 15 years, where things could completely fall apart within days.

I’m not accustomed to worry – it’s not something I like to have be a part of what makes me “me”. Though I try to remember that things have always “worked out”, I don’t want to be in the situation ever again where I am nothing but a pawn, to have such little control, to just simply “hope”.

There are already enough things I need to improve in my life.

I can’t help but think about when I was homeless before, so many years ago, and the discomfort and backwards motion that was a result of that.

There was a time where, in beauty and peace
I walked arm in arm with life
even skipping and laughing, in wonder
appreciating all it had to offer.

Now, I stumble
my stride is broken
and though it tries to keep me from falling,
it doesn’t wait.

And peace,
and sleep
are stolen.

Advertisement

cut 'n' paste life

The days go by, the anxiety grows. This fragile existence becomes weak under the strain, and I feel sometimes as if I’ll never get even just a little bit ahead, just have a crumb of comfort and security.

It seems an endless loop of always trying to catch up, of it perhaps being just within my grasp but unobtainable, taunting me, luring me, giving me hope but never delivering.

Somewhere out there is a place where I will be able to have just a bit of financial security, just a little peace of mind knowing that the bills are paid, the personal debts settled, and maybe even at least just a little money saved.

Somewhere I won’t have to endlessly worry about where rent is coming from, how the bills are going to get paid, how the money will be most effectively divided up to appease those who hold the power of valid threats.

Somewhere.

Someday.

Today, however, I need to figure out where the rest of rent for this month is coming from and how I will pay next months, how much it will be to get my internet service turned back on, and how to keep a positive outlook in the midst of all of this.

Sometimes, it’s not so easy.

10.30.04 5:15am

Sleep is stolen again from me by worry and anxiety, rousing me before the sun to toss and fret for the coming days, and what they might bring if things don’t change.

The end of the month is one day away, and with it looms the dreadful possibility of eviction if I am not able to come up with something more for my landlord, and very soon. At the very least, the rest of this months rent.
I haven’t been in a position so delicate for over 15 years, where things could completely fall apart within days.

I’m not accustomed to worry – it’s not something I like to have be a part of what makes me “me”. Though I try to remember that things have always “worked out”, I don’t want to be in the situation ever again where I am nothing but a pawn, to have such little control, to just simply “hope”.

There are already enough things I need to improve in my life.

I can’t help but think about when I was homeless before, so many years ago, and the discomfort and backwards motion that was a result of that.

There was a time where, in beauty and peace
I walked arm in arm with life
even skipping and laughing, in wonder
appreciating all it had to offer.

Now, I stumble
my stride is broken
and though it tries to keep me from falling,
it doesn’t wait.

And peace,
and sleep
are stolen.

cleanse

awakened to the sound of the rain as it comes down in sheets, I slide over to the edge of my bed and move aside the curtains, watching the detritus of a city and myself being washed away.

I could stay here for hours

for I am a rain dog, too.

sacrificial days

Forcing myself to do this – I don’t want to get out of the habit – even if what comes out is mundane bullshit. At least it’s coming out.

I sacrificed today to a birthday party the night before, accomplishing nothing, doing nothing but laying around and feeling like I should be doing something. Fuck it. Nothing is okay once in a while.

I got alot done yesterday, though – cleaned the apartment, and finally started – and came close to completing – the polishing and restoration of a beautiful brass candleabra that was my favorite grandmothers. I took it apart a while ago with that intention, and it has been sitting in pieces ever since – at least a few months.

I went out and got the screws I needed to replace the ancient ones that had deteriorated over who know how long, tapped the holes, and spent hours polishing it, bringing it back to a beautiful shine that it probably hasn’t experienced since Grandmother Dorothy passed on in 1988. It’s a beautiful candleabra, an incredibly ornate and detailed six candle centerpiece, and I found it in my sisters garage a couple of years ago, just sitting on a shelf, completely unapreciated and forgotten, like so many things I hold dear eventually will be, I imagine. I took it with her “whatever” type of shrug, put it in the trunk of my car, and brought it home.

It has given life and light to the places it graced, but the five arms extending out were bent down and tired, and the finish was long tarnished and unproud.

It deserved more. It was my favorite grandmothers – the one who brought my sister and I Chicklets when she visited from Wichita when we were children, the one who snuck in tiny bottles of booze to put in her drinks when we went out to eat, the only member of my family to have a picture on my wall.

The picture was taken in the ’30’s, and in it you see her obvious beauty, her undeniable strength. Though I am told she had a rough life , she always helt her head high, and proud.

Her candleabra should do the same. It just seems fitting. Memories should properly reflect the image of their origins.

It was strange, when I began to polish the first of the seventeen pieces that it is constructed of – it almost felt that as I rubbed, as the old tarnish was replaced with a shine and life not seen by anyone in over fifteen years, that I was invoking her spirit- something like the genie in a lamp thing. Silly, I know – but that’s what came to mind.

Maybe it’s not so silly – except the genie link.

It’s almost done. I have one more machine screw to get, and I need to drill out and re-tap another that broke off as I was putting the pieces back together. It will be completed as soon as I get a bit more money, as the last I recieved went directly to my landlord and gas tank. I can’t wait. I’m a nostalgic, sentimental fool, and hold on to the little pieces of the people I’ve cared about dearly.

It’s all that’s left in most cases.

=============================================================================

I’m absolutely thrilled – this Friday I am going to the Opera! It’s been over two years since my last, when the girl I was dating took me to see Mlada, directed by M.T.T. and with an amazing performance by Evelyn Cisneros – who came out of retirement specifically for this.

http://www.andante.com/article/article.cfm?id=17558&highlight=1&highlightterms=&lstKeywords=

On Friday it will be an entirely different atmosphere, with the attendees encouraged to dress up in costume and with an amazing group of people. http://ggreg.com/ggregslist.asp?id=121

=============================================================================

So I’ve decided. This coming spring I will be hosting a Mad Hatter’s Tea Party with a fetish twist in either G.G. or Dolores Park – perhaps continuing to a club. This won’t be the Alice *you* know, kiddies, but it will be an Alice you unquestionably enjoy. This is something I have been wanting to do for a while – a long while.

There is a beautiful, strange darkness behind these beloved stories. Let’s embrace it.

There are no details yet, only the theme and vague ideas that keep swarming around in my head and need to be netted.

I want it to be big, beautiful, enrapturing and of course – twisted. Scenes, props – the whole deal, if it’s workable.

Any ideas welcomed, encouraged, and appreciated.

past isn't.

Tonight, reader, is hopefully one of the few entries that will be mainly for you, as I need to explain things that have come out in previous writings since I began putting things down on this, and want to excuse any future shit.

Mainly, I think I’m using this as a tool to get these things out, and give me more of a free reign and much less inhibition when this particular subject comes up and I purge.

This was all brought about innocently enough when I was thinking of what I would write tonight, and read the comment from a good friend in the previous entry. You might want to look at that now.

These are things I very, very seldom have shared. Only to the ones I cared the most deeply for, the ones who I wanted to give everything to. Maybe a total of three people, always offered with hope, and searching for a glimmer of understanding in their eyes. Perhaps that’s the wrong way to go about it – to go about the healing, if such a thing is possible. Perhaps that is what prevents me from getting close to many people, the way I hold all of this inside and keep it almost solely for me.

Here, I try something new. Here, I offer a few pieces to anyone who might want to read them. In a way I feel like I am betraying the ones who I have shared a few of these with when they were a much more hidden part of me – betraying the way it might have made them feel a bit more special. I hope that they don’t feel that as well, as they were the ones that I gave such an incredible amount of trust – and still do. Things were much different before the decision I made tonight to share these openly, and this decision doesn’t alter anything. It’s just something I feel I need to do.

Is there a chance in doing this that I might be able to let it out, and move on? I don’t know, and honestly, I doubt it.

But I do want people to know me – or at least if I even think they have read these, I might be able to give them more, offer more of who I am, be more honest with them – and myself. Be better for the people I care about.

Maybe even stay for them.

It is a quest, a journey, an exercise in wanting to be better in myself and for everyone around me that I put these here. They are raw, incredibly personal,and not pretty at all. A product of wanting, of a necessity to release, of a perpetual feeling of loss and the anguish that is its close companion.

The first was written to be published within a few hours at work, the rest were written out of need, with no intention of anyone else ever seeing them.

Very few have.

Now, at least these few – the few I’ve transcribed onto the computer and only selected few of those, are for anyones eyes.

I feel I owe it to you. I feel I owe it to my growth. I feel I might be able to give more if I give this.

I hope you don’t mind.

=======================================================

The Way It Was

When I was a child
It was just
The way it was
I lost myself in the secrets
That were lost in me

Taught that I should learn to accept
That where I came from didn’t matter – but
(who am I ?)
I was chosen
I was loved and
(this boy who never began)
I just was.

I remember the birthdays –
Presents, friends, all a child could want
We rode the train up to the beach in Del Mar
(the train was always so magical)
And everything was so wonderful, so perfect
The doors inside of me locked up so tight
(mommy, tell me about when I was born)
I had taught myself so well.
I was chosen, and
(sorry son, I wasn’t there)
I was special.

At school,
Always in on the outside
I could become almost anyone
Pretend to fit in anywhere
And with nowhere to look
To find who I was
I became an incomplete chameleon
I pretended that I was them.

As the time went on
It got darker each year
As the loss I had locked away
So long ago
Began to seethe
And the questions I had taught myself
Never to ask
(who am I ?)
Remained unanswered.

As the pain grew,
I found my own ways
To numb it,
Suppress it,
My best friends were the drugs
And the escape they offered,
But always, a sense of loss would seep out
From unknown origins.

I’ve spent my life wandering
From city to city, coast to coast
Looking for something, though never knowing what
Always leaving the people that I loved behind
(before they could leave me)
With promises of staying in touch.
I could control
I needed to control
Who
left
who

this time.

But the promises I had made
Always turned out to be as empty as I was
And in the end
I disconnected so easily
Detach and go on
(it was the first lesson learned)
And I always
Went away.

Thirty three now
And just a few years ago
The doors that I had locked so securely
So perfectly, as an infant
Burst open.
After nights and nights spent crying alone
And the days at work trying not to
I was finally able to welcome the pain I had denied for so long
To become a part of me
I let myself remember
That there was something I had lost.

Now I knew where the anger that had been eating at me came from
And the emptiness that I feel
When friends talked about from which part of their family
They got their eyes, their hair, their temper
And all I can do is listen silently,
Anger seething,
Never a part of these conversations.

I began my search just a few years ago
For that piece of me
That might come with answers
Might fill the void inside of my heart
Might help everything about me make a little more sense
But as soon as the search began
I found that, for some reason, someone decided
I am not allowed to know the things about me
That everyone else takes for granted
And I have no birthright
No right at all
To my history
To my ancestors
To know why I am
Or how I became this way.
I am turned away from trying
To give this pain answers
To give this pain a reason
To try and make at least some of this pain go away,
Or perhaps even fill something inside
That has been empty for so long.

Around every corner
There is more red tape
Or another dead end
As I try to find that piece of my soul
That has been denied me

I grow weary
And I want so much to be able
To give up
Shut those doors again
And go on with this façade
Slowly destroying myself
As I drown in my own lies and denial.
(it was so much easier
When I didn’t have to care)
But I’ve torn down the doors inside of me
Now I know what I need
And no matter how many people may stand in my way
I will find my mother.

Yesterday, I read about a woman
Who, after years of searching, was finally able to find her father,
just a couple of days ago.

She found him seven weeks after he was buried.

Seven weeks.

Through all of this frustration
Through all of this pain
Through this oppressive feeling
Of irrevocable loss
I try to keep on going
To find a reason,
A beginning to this life
And maybe, if I’m so blessed,
I’ll get some answers, as well.

And though each small victory in this search
Is met with a thousand more defeats and dead ends,
The search goes on
And the years pass by
Allowing less and less time
For any chance there may be to make things right.

If I ever do find the woman
Who gave me these green eyes
This crooked smile
A heart full of sadness
And my life
I don’t want the flowers I bring the first time we meet
Offered in thanks for what she has given me
For the life I have been blessed with
For the sacrifice she made

to gently be laid upon her grave.

When I was a child
It was just
The way it was.

It can’t be that way anymore.

-Casey Porter 4/6/01

12/28/98

dirt.

This remembered strength
manifesting itself as such a twisted new knowledge in me-
A warped and beautiful sickness
wrapped up inside of me for so long
— is released —

Visions swimming in my head
not allowing sleep to come
I want to do for you
I want to do to you
Make it whole
Tear you apart
whose pleasure, whose pain
in these thoughts that are
no longer
any

simple

game

I want to feel you inside
I want to watch you fall apart
Blood dripping from the ragged marks
the nails inside of me leave

on your soul

Drink this blood this

dirty blood

Feel the sickness
that it brings
Feel the cold as it drains from you
know this release
And feel the warmth as it is again

consumed

Worship this release this
escape love it feel it
so deep inside of you
Seems so wrong so dirty
So

fucking

delicious

Melting your will
Building in
your soul this
sweet sweet filth this secret
sickness
these unclean thoughts doing a grinding dance
in my head your pussy in my cock in your ass so
wrong and so obscene and so

fucking

good
The pain making the pleasure
swell the pain yes so nasty so
exquisite
because only when the pain is there
can this level of
pleasure
be reached be realized yes dig your nails further into me
as I slowly slide into you as you bite down and
wrap around me dig in your nails and
make me bleed as I
make you scream as I stretch you
you slowly accept me and soon
the soft begging for me to stop

stops

and you realize that this makes
you feel so filthy and this makes you
feel like such a little whore and for now
this makes you feel
so

fucking

good
and your pleas
turn to cries
for more
for all of me inside of you
knowing that this really
shouldn’t
be
happening
that it’s so, so wrong
And loving it that much more

so much more

because it is.

12/30/98

So much I write about her
And it seems absurd, lately,
That so little is about me.
I put down my thoughts, though.
I put down the mess in my
Fucked
Up
Head
which I am trying so hard
to make well
so willingly letting it all
rip me apart
so I can build it back again
so much stronger
letting the pain change me –
Changing
Metamorphosing
Breaking out of my cocoon
my chrysalis
so much more pain coming
(but a different story there)
and my wings continue to grow
to unfold
and I won’t need the safety nets
of false hopes
and false loves that
I created in my mind
Wanting so much
For the hole in my heart
to be filled.

12/31/98

Reading what you wrote
So long ago such a dream
Such a want in its creation
And does the same fire still
Burn on this night this
New Years Eve what will it say
About the coming year
Where will it go when
the twelfth toll rings out and
the new time has begun?
So much more in me now
That I have opened myself
Without fear our guilt
So much more honest with
Myself so much more
Strength do you want to know who I am?
You read my journal and don’t
Seem to see past the words
Or the women – so much between the lines or
– do you?
Soon our time together will
Be so much more less
no more lazy mornings no more nights
without work or school the
following day always…

1/3/99
Dancing into me
Turning so much cold around
Pushing it out
Opening me again

Wet cheeks

The ache

The fear of letting you tear down
My kingdom of isolation
Meticulously built inside
During a lifetime.

Wanting
Waiting
Praying for its eventual destruction

but
my fear
of the agony which brings the
emptiness again
my hatred for you
and your boy in China

My love
for what I see past your eyes
for what I feel in your touch

it is all
making the walls
so much stronger
with the confusion that it brings
making me so strange

torn

and wishing
that it all could make sense
that it all could hurry up
and be better inside me

so I could finally show you
who I am
who I can be
without the fear
without the pain
without the hatred
without the confusion
without the so much
that has been there
making me the so much that I
am not

if only someday
I could show you
if I could open up to you and
give you all that I am and
not worry
about the pain.

1/11/99
So needed, this day
to follow such a wonderful morning
a ride to the ocean
to sit on the rocks under
a sandstone cliff
turning my face to the warm sun
closing my eyes and listening
the surf crashing against the rocks
and the distant cries
of the seagulls
I could pretend
that there was only me
and nothing but those hours truly mattered
I could pretend
that everything made sense
and the ocean
and the rocks
and the sun
and this serenity
was all I ever needed
to know.

1/12/99
Names
10:45 this morning
and the world I have known
for thirty one years
a world of wondering
a world of no blood
a world of knowing
that it didn’t matter how they called me
because it never was my name anyway
a world with no past
no history
no stories
no ties
no looking back to where I came from
no past helping the present make
just a little more sense
in looking through the blood
pumping with such a lost passion
through my veins
the world that I have known
has changed
and in this new one
I have a name.

1/12/99
Brought into this new life
as Baby Boy Mathern
the only name I know of the man
who made me alive.
Strange
how it was his name that I was given
instead of the name
Stenerson
the name of the woman
who carried me for nine months
gave her life, her blood,
maybe
her breast to me

then gave me
away.

1/13/99
“I sensed the loss
before I even learned to talk”
and yes, this
I know
for too long
kept away from those places
in me
that could feel
keeping it all in my head
profound ignorance for what it said
to my heart
How close am I now?
Is there something missing in her?
can you take two missing pieces,
put them together –
and transform a world?
The sorrow that has hidden in silence
for so long
now has gained a knowledge
of it’s voice.

1/15/99
Early to bed
early to rise
a cup of coffee
a cigarette
wet hair
the morning sun streaming
through the clouds
silence has a sound.
Ring…
Ring…
“Hello?”
(Would I know her voice?)

silence

“Hello?”
“Um, hi. I was wondering if there might be a woman with the maiden name of Stenerson there.”
“Yes, this is she. Who is this, please?”
more silence. A question I have been wondering for all of my life. a question that I might
finally be able to answer.
“Hello? Who is this?”
“I’m called Casey, but that doesn’t matter anymore. We knew each other very briefly thirty one years ago, but I doubt that you have forgotten me. I don’t know your face, I don’t know your voice, and I don’t know your life, but I’ve never been able to stop thinking about you. The three months that we had together so long ago I can’t remember, either, but it has affected every relationship in my life, the way that I related to others around me, my expectations, and my fears. There has been a profound pain, an excruciating sense of loss inside of me all of my life that in some ways, I was able to ignore, in some ways I was able not to feel, but it always showed itself in my actions. Now I want it to be gone, and I think that you can help me.”

More silence. Her turn this time.

“This is your son, and I need to meet my mother.”

I don’t want this pain anymore.

1/99…
As it comes
that always pain learns it’s name
that gift in words
written so long ago
that curse that has been
so meticulously hidden away
from my heart
still making it so easy
to disconnect everything I’ve done
disconnect everyone I’ve known
disconnect all I have been
and all I could be
and
did I lay there
and watch her walk away
not knowing how to give chase
knowing loss before love
had a meaning.
They say I was a quiet child
never cried
never complained
taught how to say goodbye
before hello was even given a chance.

__________________

Screams hidden
in actions of a fool
in actions of a lost little boy.
Make them think
that it doesn’t go past what I choose
to let them see with their
blind eyes
and fuck you all
who could never know
who could never understand
the why
or the loss
or the anguish
or the need.
They could never know the pain I felt
before I knew anything else
the pain that made me,
the loss that I became.
No, they could never understand
the alone
that I have forever been
so I simply
had to hide it all away
and make absolutely sure
that I didn’t feel anything at all.

________________________________

Of course it will be this way
pushing it away
for so long
keeping it away
keeping it all so logical
keeping it away from my heart
for all the time I’ve ever known
so now I open
I unchain that door
kept locked for so long and I open it
just a bit
and let out the first few drops
a small taste of the torrent
of the flood
try to get ready for it
and I might as well flap my arms
and try to fly to the sun.
Just a few drops
of what I’ve never dared to feel
and I can now actually feel
my heart being torn
slowly ripped apart by the shit inside
that has had the time
all of my time
to grow
to fester
to seethe
to multiply over and over
in it’s neglect it’s lonely it’s RAGE
and now I feel my heart
and now I feel my soul
and now at last I feel them

being slowly

torn

apart.

1/99

A Becoming

So another late day begins
and I wonder if
it will grow or subside
and really not knowing
what I want it to do
The agony is exactly that and
something so new and
beautiful as well
Such a small step up
up inside
and Kat saw the new
and asked if I was on drugs which
made me laugh
I said inside
welcome to a new me
who neither of us has ever known
When who am I
begins to find an answer
and no
the tearing
and the pain
doesn’t stop
but it’s all right,
at least for now.
So I go about this new day
and I go about this new me
and I feel it ALL
And the reaction machine
of who am I past
takes a deep breath of everything
and begins a becoming
of who I am.
______________________________
———————————

Rebirth I

So here it comes
Again
Releasing itself slowly
the voice of the anguish
shut down for so long
this unspeakable pain
which no language can convey
What is here now
inside of me, demanding release
If the words existed
for this gnawing agony
if the words existed
that could even come close to making
sense of this
if the words existed
to tell me why my whole body
is shaking
trembling
in this onslaught of things not known of
emotion never felt
and I know that I am strong
so incredibly strong
but my GOD
WHAT IS THIS
that has no description that
I know
What is this
that is tearing me apart
and if I could just find the words
if it had a language
then maybe that would help
make it better and
I’ve searched for them
the words don’t exist
to tell me why it
is so hard
to fight the tears back
and
I try
I TRY
to make sense of it on paper
but it is not helping.
This time
the screams just
get louder and their sound
ripping me apart
like I’ve never been before
and I can’t even find
a beginning
of a way to let
it
out
Never before like this
consuming me
eating me alive
gnawing my insides
my entire body shakes with
this flood
and what do I do
what can I do
when I can’t even function
when my mind can’t find the
way around my heart anymore
when there is nothing else
my head and my hand and my legs twitch
tremble convulse
is this what it does
is this what it is
and
WHAT
IS
THIS and fuck
what is happening to me

1/99

Rebirth II

Can anyone understand
this ever present place
this thing inside of me
that is always there anymore
Can anyone understand
the hole I’ve fought so hard to fill
and the constant agony
that has found a home there
So hard to smile through it
and after a while everything
but the pain
and the anger
and the tears
seem like a mask
worn to forget
try to forget
try to hide it
in these dead eye smiles
in this worn out laughter
in this emotional facade
because ya don’t want ’em to see
they couldn’t understand
what’s really going on
deep inside
and this mask becomes all I know
to hide
to hide
I even seemed alive
I even seemed complete
to myself
But I have taken that mask off
and
I open me up
and now I know why it
was worn for so long
Now I am alive to feel it all
and now I listen to the
screams
coming from my soul
deafening me
tearing me apart
all day long not letting up
tearing me apart
every minute
never not there now
like nothing I have ever felt
but nothing I can ever show.
Gotta play the game
because I know they couldn’t fathom
what it’s like right now
and I
had no idea
until it was let go
I opened up
and let the pain became a part of me
and my god it HURTS
and I want it to go away
I want it to leave me alone
just for one fucking MINUTE
but it won’t
it’s been kept away, hidden
for thirty one years
and now
all I can hear
are the screams
the helpless wails of a baby boy Mathern
and all I can feel
is
everything
and
SO MUCH PAIN
twisting me inside.

2.7.99

look again
to the artificial peace
look again
to where words don’t matter
look again
to erase it all for a time
to try and find an absence
of meaning
an absence of emotion
an absence of hope
an absence of tomorrow
look again to a full bottle
and the empty bodies
try to ease this mind
this desire for understanding
in the din
of vacant noise
and blank faces
and blank minds
to go beyond feeling.

Erase any thoughts of what’s to come
look to the emptiness
of now.

A shot of Jack
a shot of Cuervo
a couple of beers…

searching for the pen
to take control of my hand
searching for so much disgust
searching to bring the pain
and as I go through
enough shit of my own
why is it that I need the pain
why is it that I can’t find in myself
right now
the emotions that are so new
the torment that I want to feel
so that I might make these words wax
poetic –
I could write about the mother
That I’ve never known
I could write about nothing
And I’m drunk in the want
Of the self pity that I’m so familiar with

The alcohol releases the pain
brings it out
so I drink hard
and I know my mistake
because in the search for the erase
I fool myself, willingly
and I find that
in a strange way
this is where I want to be.

This pain is my comfort
this pain is what I’ve always known
this pain is what I don’t want
to let go

It makes me feel so alive
in my façade
in my imitation of what
I could be.
And the alcohol doesn’t work
I pretend to try to escape in it
but I know myself better.
I know that when I am this way
that it will only bring the pen to my hand
in such profound a need
to release
and I feel such an important part
is missing.

the child.
My child,
coiled around my soul.

I would call it dead
but the pain that it brings
is the only thing at times
that reminds me that I’m alive.

This pen, this paper right now
the only sanity that I have.

3/24/99

because there isn’t anything
that makes sense anymore

because there isn’t anything
that i have to make me smile right now
and the pain of my impatience
has control over me
and i feel
futile like nothing will ever
be complete
and i hate it all right now
and i hate you all
right now
and fuck this place
and fuck this job
and fuck this morning
and fuck you people
and fuck this page
fuck the moon
fuck the sun
fuck the stars
fuck this life of nothing from nothing and
i would love to open myself up
and feel this poisoned blood
leave me
watch as it stains the sheets
a final crimson
watch this morning
and everything else

disappear

as my eyes slowly close

but wouldn’t that be
just so fucking
redundant

and what if tomorrow is just

a little bit

better

3.24.99
i look out the door to the gray sky
same as it is inside
when there is nothing left
and nothing matters today.

i look to the gray sky
the color has faded from this boy
dead eyes and an empty heart
and nothing matters today

i dream of the peace in draining
on top of my bed, eyes slowly close
and i feel as there is nothing left to give
i’ve never been able to see it so clearly.

a dream of over and done with
i just don’t care anymore
and it doesn’t matter who she is
i never knew her anyway.

erase forever and always
never have they made much sense to me
when the beginning of the story is nothing but a myth
the author gets to choose his own end .

3.25.99
hoping the people
are alive enough tonight
to save me from myself
and these thoughts that scream,
making me afraid to think at all.

innocence lost when
ignorance was pushed away
and i opened unknown doors
and hated who i saw

how can this
pitiful romantic
this lost little boy
so infatuated
with the tragedy of the heart
find it so hard
to believe in love?

i want to go back
to the magic and beauty
seen through the eyes of
the child full of wonder that
i once was

lost so beautifully in the dreams
of what i once believed
could be…

3.27.99
i watch it start to happen
in a way i don’t want it to
i have no need for that right now.
but i don’t have the energy.
the fuck is all i give
and nothing is true
so i float
watching it all happen
and not even caring enough
to change the things i don’t want
because nothing really matters
and in this absence of life

i so often wish for death

and nothing means anything
in a story without a beginning
and as the fire slowly dies away
i hold nothing against anyone
i can only blame myself
when i feel like i’ve cheated
the man staring back at me
from the glass.

3.28.99
sent another letter today
to another someone else
to another vague maybe
another empty hope
to give me a beginning
to make this life valid.

sent another letter today
this one was so much harder
as the words didn’t come
it feels like wasted time
and in the hopelessness
i felt my heart being torn
until the letter was folded, sealed, and stamped
and i didn’t feel anything again

an emptiness so perfectly complete
nothing matters
it’s all fucked anyway
it’s all fake anyway
and everyone i am
and everyone i’ve been
were all fake anyway

3.29.99
i search inside
for the passion
the rage
the anger
that i have found
and hold so dear
but these past days
the deeper i go
the less i find and
the less i find a reason
to be.
these thoughts lately
i see so clearly in my mind
all actions to the end
and for the first time
i feel only the peace it would bring
and these past days
i feel as if the game is so much over
has been, for a while
and maybe the only thing
that keeps these thoughts from action
the only thing is that
i know if i act
i have lost
and I am not willing to lose.

but i can see it all so clearly
the slow drain as the white of my bed
turns to a beautiful crimson
the cold
the peace

these thoughts
terrifying me
because for now,
and forever

it’s the only thing

that may feel

real

past isn't.

Tonight, reader, is hopefully one of the few entries that will be mainly for you, as I need to explain things that have come out in previous writings since I began putting things down on this, and want to excuse any future shit.

Mainly, I think I’m using this as a tool to get these things out, and give me more of a free reign and much less inhibition when this particular subject comes up and I purge.

This was all brought about innocently enough when I was thinking of what I would write tonight, and read the comment from a good friend in the previous entry. You might want to look at that now.

These are things I very, very seldom have shared. Only to the ones I cared the most deeply for, the ones who I wanted to give everything to. Maybe a total of three people, always offered with hope, and searching for a glimmer of understanding in their eyes. Perhaps that’s the wrong way to go about it – to go about the healing, if such a thing is possible. Perhaps that is what prevents me from getting close to many people, the way I hold all of this inside and keep it almost solely for me.

Here, I try something new. Here, I offer a few pieces to anyone who might want to read them. In a way I feel like I am betraying the ones who I have shared a few of these with when they were a much more hidden part of me – betraying the way it might have made them feel a bit more special. I hope that they don’t feel that as well, as they were the ones that I gave such an incredible amount of trust – and still do. Things were much different before the decision I made tonight to share these openly, and this decision doesn’t alter anything. It’s just something I feel I need to do.

Is there a chance in doing this that I might be able to let it out, and move on? I don’t know, and honestly, I doubt it.

But I do want people to know me – or at least if I even think they have read these, I might be able to give them more, offer more of who I am, be more honest with them – and myself. Be better for the people I care about.

Maybe even stay for them.

It is a quest, a journey, an exercise in wanting to be better in myself and for everyone around me that I put these here. They are raw, incredibly personal,and not pretty at all. A product of wanting, of a necessity to release, of a perpetual feeling of loss and the anguish that is its close companion.

The first was written to be published within a few hours at work, the rest were written out of need, with no intention of anyone else ever seeing them.

Very few have.

Now, at least these few – the few I’ve transcribed onto the computer and only selected few of those, are for anyones eyes.

I feel I owe it to you. I feel I owe it to my growth. I feel I might be able to give more if I give this.

I hope you don’t mind.

=======================================================

The Way It Was

When I was a child
It was just
The way it was
I lost myself in the secrets
That were lost in me

Taught that I should learn to accept
That where I came from didn’t matter – but
(who am I ?)
I was chosen
I was loved and
(this boy who never began)
I just was.

I remember the birthdays –
Presents, friends, all a child could want
We rode the train up to the beach in Del Mar
(the train was always so magical)
And everything was so wonderful, so perfect
The doors inside of me locked up so tight
(mommy, tell me about when I was born)
I had taught myself so well.
I was chosen, and
(sorry son, I wasn’t there)
I was special.

At school,
Always in on the outside
I could become almost anyone
Pretend to fit in anywhere
And with nowhere to look
To find who I was
I became an incomplete chameleon
I pretended that I was them.

As the time went on
It got darker each year
As the loss I had locked away
So long ago
Began to seethe
And the questions I had taught myself
Never to ask
(who am I ?)
Remained unanswered.

As the pain grew,
I found my own ways
To numb it,
Suppress it,
My best friends were the drugs
And the escape they offered,
But always, a sense of loss would seep out
From unknown origins.

I’ve spent my life wandering
From city to city, coast to coast
Looking for something, though never knowing what
Always leaving the people that I loved behind
(before they could leave me)
With promises of staying in touch.
I could control
I needed to control
Who
left
who

this time.

But the promises I had made
Always turned out to be as empty as I was
And in the end
I disconnected so easily
Detach and go on
(it was the first lesson learned)
And I always
Went away.

Thirty three now
And just a few years ago
The doors that I had locked so securely
So perfectly, as an infant
Burst open.
After nights and nights spent crying alone
And the days at work trying not to
I was finally able to welcome the pain I had denied for so long
To become a part of me
I let myself remember
That there was something I had lost.

Now I knew where the anger that had been eating at me came from
And the emptiness that I feel
When friends talked about from which part of their family
They got their eyes, their hair, their temper
And all I can do is listen silently,
Anger seething,
Never a part of these conversations.

I began my search just a few years ago
For that piece of me
That might come with answers
Might fill the void inside of my heart
Might help everything about me make a little more sense
But as soon as the search began
I found that, for some reason, someone decided
I am not allowed to know the things about me
That everyone else takes for granted
And I have no birthright
No right at all
To my history
To my ancestors
To know why I am
Or how I became this way.
I am turned away from trying
To give this pain answers
To give this pain a reason
To try and make at least some of this pain go away,
Or perhaps even fill something inside
That has been empty for so long.

Around every corner
There is more red tape
Or another dead end
As I try to find that piece of my soul
That has been denied me

I grow weary
And I want so much to be able
To give up
Shut those doors again
And go on with this façade
Slowly destroying myself
As I drown in my own lies and denial.
(it was so much easier
When I didn’t have to care)
But I’ve torn down the doors inside of me
Now I know what I need
And no matter how many people may stand in my way
I will find my mother.

Yesterday, I read about a woman
Who, after years of searching, was finally able to find her father,
just a couple of days ago.

She found him seven weeks after he was buried.

Seven weeks.

Through all of this frustration
Through all of this pain
Through this oppressive feeling
Of irrevocable loss
I try to keep on going
To find a reason,
A beginning to this life
And maybe, if I’m so blessed,
I’ll get some answers, as well.

And though each small victory in this search
Is met with a thousand more defeats and dead ends,
The search goes on
And the years pass by
Allowing less and less time
For any chance there may be to make things right.

If I ever do find the woman
Who gave me these green eyes
This crooked smile
A heart full of sadness
And my life
I don’t want the flowers I bring the first time we meet
Offered in thanks for what she has given me
For the life I have been blessed with
For the sacrifice she made

to gently be laid upon her grave.

When I was a child
It was just
The way it was.

It can’t be that way anymore.

-Casey Porter 4/6/01

12/28/98

dirt.

This remembered strength
manifesting itself as such a twisted new knowledge in me-
A warped and beautiful sickness
wrapped up inside of me for so long
— is released —

Visions swimming in my head
not allowing sleep to come
I want to do for you
I want to do to you
Make it whole
Tear you apart
whose pleasure, whose pain
in these thoughts that are
no longer
any

simple

game

I want to feel you inside
I want to watch you fall apart
Blood dripping from the ragged marks
the nails inside of me leave

on your soul

Drink this blood this

dirty blood

Feel the sickness
that it brings
Feel the cold as it drains from you
know this release
And feel the warmth as it is again

consumed

Worship this release this
escape love it feel it
so deep inside of you
Seems so wrong so dirty
So

fucking

delicious

Melting your will
Building in
your soul this
sweet sweet filth this secret
sickness
these unclean thoughts doing a grinding dance
in my head your pussy in my cock in your ass so
wrong and so obscene and so

fucking

good
The pain making the pleasure
swell the pain yes so nasty so
exquisite
because only when the pain is there
can this level of
pleasure
be reached be realized yes dig your nails further into me
as I slowly slide into you as you bite down and
wrap around me dig in your nails and
make me bleed as I
make you scream as I stretch you
you slowly accept me and soon
the soft begging for me to stop

stops

and you realize that this makes
you feel so filthy and this makes you
feel like such a little whore and for now
this makes you feel
so

fucking

good
and your pleas
turn to cries
for more
for all of me inside of you
knowing that this really
shouldn’t
be
happening
that it’s so, so wrong
And loving it that much more

so much more

because it is.

12/30/98

So much I write about her
And it seems absurd, lately,
That so little is about me.
I put down my thoughts, though.
I put down the mess in my
Fucked
Up
Head
which I am trying so hard
to make well
so willingly letting it all
rip me apart
so I can build it back again
so much stronger
letting the pain change me –
Changing
Metamorphosing
Breaking out of my cocoon
my chrysalis
so much more pain coming
(but a different story there)
and my wings continue to grow
to unfold
and I won’t need the safety nets
of false hopes
and false loves that
I created in my mind
Wanting so much
For the hole in my heart
to be filled.

12/31/98

Reading what you wrote
So long ago such a dream
Such a want in its creation
And does the same fire still
Burn on this night this
New Years Eve what will it say
About the coming year
Where will it go when
the twelfth toll rings out and
the new time has begun?
So much more in me now
That I have opened myself
Without fear our guilt
So much more honest with
Myself so much more
Strength do you want to know who I am?
You read my journal and don’t
Seem to see past the words
Or the women – so much between the lines or
– do you?
Soon our time together will
Be so much more less
no more lazy mornings no more nights
without work or school the
following day always…

1/3/99
Dancing into me
Turning so much cold around
Pushing it out
Opening me again

Wet cheeks

The ache

The fear of letting you tear down
My kingdom of isolation
Meticulously built inside
During a lifetime.

Wanting
Waiting
Praying for its eventual destruction

but
my fear
of the agony which brings the
emptiness again
my hatred for you
and your boy in China

My love
for what I see past your eyes
for what I feel in your touch

it is all
making the walls
so much stronger
with the confusion that it brings
making me so strange

torn

and wishing
that it all could make sense
that it all could hurry up
and be better inside me

so I could finally show you
who I am
who I can be
without the fear
without the pain
without the hatred
without the confusion
without the so much
that has been there
making me the so much that I
am not

if only someday
I could show you
if I could open up to you and
give you all that I am and
not worry
about the pain.

1/11/99
So needed, this day
to follow such a wonderful morning
a ride to the ocean
to sit on the rocks under
a sandstone cliff
turning my face to the warm sun
closing my eyes and listening
the surf crashing against the rocks
and the distant cries
of the seagulls
I could pretend
that there was only me
and nothing but those hours truly mattered
I could pretend
that everything made sense
and the ocean
and the rocks
and the sun
and this serenity
was all I ever needed
to know.

1/12/99
Names
10:45 this morning
and the world I have known
for thirty one years
a world of wondering
a world of no blood
a world of knowing
that it didn’t matter how they called me
because it never was my name anyway
a world with no past
no history
no stories
no ties
no looking back to where I came from
no past helping the present make
just a little more sense
in looking through the blood
pumping with such a lost passion
through my veins
the world that I have known
has changed
and in this new one
I have a name.

1/12/99
Brought into this new life
as Baby Boy Mathern
the only name I know of the man
who made me alive.
Strange
how it was his name that I was given
instead of the name
Stenerson
the name of the woman
who carried me for nine months
gave her life, her blood,
maybe
her breast to me

then gave me
away.

1/13/99
“I sensed the loss
before I even learned to talk”
and yes, this
I know
for too long
kept away from those places
in me
that could feel
keeping it all in my head
profound ignorance for what it said
to my heart
How close am I now?
Is there something missing in her?
can you take two missing pieces,
put them together –
and transform a world?
The sorrow that has hidden in silence
for so long
now has gained a knowledge
of it’s voice.

1/15/99
Early to bed
early to rise
a cup of coffee
a cigarette
wet hair
the morning sun streaming
through the clouds
silence has a sound.
Ring…
Ring…
“Hello?”
(Would I know her voice?)

silence

“Hello?”
“Um, hi. I was wondering if there might be a woman with the maiden name of Stenerson there.”
“Yes, this is she. Who is this, please?”
more silence. A question I have been wondering for all of my life. a question that I might
finally be able to answer.
“Hello? Who is this?”
“I’m called Casey, but that doesn’t matter anymore. We knew each other very briefly thirty one years ago, but I doubt that you have forgotten me. I don’t know your face, I don’t know your voice, and I don’t know your life, but I’ve never been able to stop thinking about you. The three months that we had together so long ago I can’t remember, either, but it has affected every relationship in my life, the way that I related to others around me, my expectations, and my fears. There has been a profound pain, an excruciating sense of loss inside of me all of my life that in some ways, I was able to ignore, in some ways I was able not to feel, but it always showed itself in my actions. Now I want it to be gone, and I think that you can help me.”

More silence. Her turn this time.

“This is your son, and I need to meet my mother.”

I don’t want this pain anymore.

1/99…
As it comes
that always pain learns it’s name
that gift in words
written so long ago
that curse that has been
so meticulously hidden away
from my heart
still making it so easy
to disconnect everything I’ve done
disconnect everyone I’ve known
disconnect all I have been
and all I could be
and
did I lay there
and watch her walk away
not knowing how to give chase
knowing loss before love
had a meaning.
They say I was a quiet child
never cried
never complained
taught how to say goodbye
before hello was even given a chance.

__________________

Screams hidden
in actions of a fool
in actions of a lost little boy.
Make them think
that it doesn’t go past what I choose
to let them see with their
blind eyes
and fuck you all
who could never know
who could never understand
the why
or the loss
or the anguish
or the need.
They could never know the pain I felt
before I knew anything else
the pain that made me,
the loss that I became.
No, they could never understand
the alone
that I have forever been
so I simply
had to hide it all away
and make absolutely sure
that I didn’t feel anything at all.

________________________________

Of course it will be this way
pushing it away
for so long
keeping it away
keeping it all so logical
keeping it away from my heart
for all the time I’ve ever known
so now I open
I unchain that door
kept locked for so long and I open it
just a bit
and let out the first few drops
a small taste of the torrent
of the flood
try to get ready for it
and I might as well flap my arms
and try to fly to the sun.
Just a few drops
of what I’ve never dared to feel
and I can now actually feel
my heart being torn
slowly ripped apart by the shit inside
that has had the time
all of my time
to grow
to fester
to seethe
to multiply over and over
in it’s neglect it’s lonely it’s RAGE
and now I feel my heart
and now I feel my soul
and now at last I feel them

being slowly

torn

apart.

1/99

A Becoming

So another late day begins
and I wonder if
it will grow or subside
and really not knowing
what I want it to do
The agony is exactly that and
something so new and
beautiful as well
Such a small step up
up inside
and Kat saw the new
and asked if I was on drugs which
made me laugh
I said inside
welcome to a new me
who neither of us has ever known
When who am I
begins to find an answer
and no
the tearing
and the pain
doesn’t stop
but it’s all right,
at least for now.
So I go about this new day
and I go about this new me
and I feel it ALL
And the reaction machine
of who am I past
takes a deep breath of everything
and begins a becoming
of who I am.
______________________________
———————————

Rebirth I

So here it comes
Again
Releasing itself slowly
the voice of the anguish
shut down for so long
this unspeakable pain
which no language can convey
What is here now
inside of me, demanding release
If the words existed
for this gnawing agony
if the words existed
that could even come close to making
sense of this
if the words existed
to tell me why my whole body
is shaking
trembling
in this onslaught of things not known of
emotion never felt
and I know that I am strong
so incredibly strong
but my GOD
WHAT IS THIS
that has no description that
I know
What is this
that is tearing me apart
and if I could just find the words
if it had a language
then maybe that would help
make it better and
I’ve searched for them
the words don’t exist
to tell me why it
is so hard
to fight the tears back
and
I try
I TRY
to make sense of it on paper
but it is not helping.
This time
the screams just
get louder and their sound
ripping me apart
like I’ve never been before
and I can’t even find
a beginning
of a way to let
it
out
Never before like this
consuming me
eating me alive
gnawing my insides
my entire body shakes with
this flood
and what do I do
what can I do
when I can’t even function
when my mind can’t find the
way around my heart anymore
when there is nothing else
my head and my hand and my legs twitch
tremble convulse
is this what it does
is this what it is
and
WHAT
IS
THIS and fuck
what is happening to me

1/99

Rebirth II

Can anyone understand
this ever present place
this thing inside of me
that is always there anymore
Can anyone understand
the hole I’ve fought so hard to fill
and the constant agony
that has found a home there
So hard to smile through it
and after a while everything
but the pain
and the anger
and the tears
seem like a mask
worn to forget
try to forget
try to hide it
in these dead eye smiles
in this worn out laughter
in this emotional facade
because ya don’t want ’em to see
they couldn’t understand
what’s really going on
deep inside
and this mask becomes all I know
to hide
to hide
I even seemed alive
I even seemed complete
to myself
But I have taken that mask off
and
I open me up
and now I know why it
was worn for so long
Now I am alive to feel it all
and now I listen to the
screams
coming from my soul
deafening me
tearing me apart
all day long not letting up
tearing me apart
every minute
never not there now
like nothing I have ever felt
but nothing I can ever show.
Gotta play the game
because I know they couldn’t fathom
what it’s like right now
and I
had no idea
until it was let go
I opened up
and let the pain became a part of me
and my god it HURTS
and I want it to go away
I want it to leave me alone
just for one fucking MINUTE
but it won’t
it’s been kept away, hidden
for thirty one years
and now
all I can hear
are the screams
the helpless wails of a baby boy Mathern
and all I can feel
is
everything
and
SO MUCH PAIN
twisting me inside.

2.7.99

look again
to the artificial peace
look again
to where words don’t matter
look again
to erase it all for a time
to try and find an absence
of meaning
an absence of emotion
an absence of hope
an absence of tomorrow
look again to a full bottle
and the empty bodies
try to ease this mind
this desire for understanding
in the din
of vacant noise
and blank faces
and blank minds
to go beyond feeling.

Erase any thoughts of what’s to come
look to the emptiness
of now.

A shot of Jack
a shot of Cuervo
a couple of beers…

searching for the pen
to take control of my hand
searching for so much disgust
searching to bring the pain
and as I go through
enough shit of my own
why is it that I need the pain
why is it that I can’t find in myself
right now
the emotions that are so new
the torment that I want to feel
so that I might make these words wax
poetic –
I could write about the mother
That I’ve never known
I could write about nothing
And I’m drunk in the want
Of the self pity that I’m so familiar with

The alcohol releases the pain
brings it out
so I drink hard
and I know my mistake
because in the search for the erase
I fool myself, willingly
and I find that
in a strange way
this is where I want to be.

This pain is my comfort
this pain is what I’ve always known
this pain is what I don’t want
to let go

It makes me feel so alive
in my façade
in my imitation of what
I could be.
And the alcohol doesn’t work
I pretend to try to escape in it
but I know myself better.
I know that when I am this way
that it will only bring the pen to my hand
in such profound a need
to release
and I feel such an important part
is missing.

the child.
My child,
coiled around my soul.

I would call it dead
but the pain that it brings
is the only thing at times
that reminds me that I’m alive.

This pen, this paper right now
the only sanity that I have.

3/24/99

because there isn’t anything
that makes sense anymore

because there isn’t anything
that i have to make me smile right now
and the pain of my impatience
has control over me
and i feel
futile like nothing will ever
be complete
and i hate it all right now
and i hate you all
right now
and fuck this place
and fuck this job
and fuck this morning
and fuck you people
and fuck this page
fuck the moon
fuck the sun
fuck the stars
fuck this life of nothing from nothing and
i would love to open myself up
and feel this poisoned blood
leave me
watch as it stains the sheets
a final crimson
watch this morning
and everything else

disappear

as my eyes slowly close

but wouldn’t that be
just so fucking
redundant

and what if tomorrow is just

a little bit

better

3.24.99
i look out the door to the gray sky
same as it is inside
when there is nothing left
and nothing matters today.

i look to the gray sky
the color has faded from this boy
dead eyes and an empty heart
and nothing matters today

i dream of the peace in draining
on top of my bed, eyes slowly close
and i feel as there is nothing left to give
i’ve never been able to see it so clearly.

a dream of over and done with
i just don’t care anymore
and it doesn’t matter who she is
i never knew her anyway.

erase forever and always
never have they made much sense to me
when the beginning of the story is nothing but a myth
the author gets to choose his own end .

3.25.99
hoping the people
are alive enough tonight
to save me from myself
and these thoughts that scream,
making me afraid to think at all.

innocence lost when
ignorance was pushed away
and i opened unknown doors
and hated who i saw

how can this
pitiful romantic
this lost little boy
so infatuated
with the tragedy of the heart
find it so hard
to believe in love?

i want to go back
to the magic and beauty
seen through the eyes of
the child full of wonder that
i once was

lost so beautifully in the dreams
of what i once believed
could be…

3.27.99
i watch it start to happen
in a way i don’t want it to
i have no need for that right now.
but i don’t have the energy.
the fuck is all i give
and nothing is true
so i float
watching it all happen
and not even caring enough
to change the things i don’t want
because nothing really matters
and in this absence of life

i so often wish for death

and nothing means anything
in a story without a beginning
and as the fire slowly dies away
i hold nothing against anyone
i can only blame myself
when i feel like i’ve cheated
the man staring back at me
from the glass.

3.28.99
sent another letter today
to another someone else
to another vague maybe
another empty hope
to give me a beginning
to make this life valid.

sent another letter today
this one was so much harder
as the words didn’t come
it feels like wasted time
and in the hopelessness
i felt my heart being torn
until the letter was folded, sealed, and stamped
and i didn’t feel anything again

an emptiness so perfectly complete
nothing matters
it’s all fucked anyway
it’s all fake anyway
and everyone i am
and everyone i’ve been
were all fake anyway

3.29.99
i search inside
for the passion
the rage
the anger
that i have found
and hold so dear
but these past days
the deeper i go
the less i find and
the less i find a reason
to be.
these thoughts lately
i see so clearly in my mind
all actions to the end
and for the first time
i feel only the peace it would bring
and these past days
i feel as if the game is so much over
has been, for a while
and maybe the only thing
that keeps these thoughts from action
the only thing is that
i know if i act
i have lost
and I am not willing to lose.

but i can see it all so clearly
the slow drain as the white of my bed
turns to a beautiful crimson
the cold
the peace

these thoughts
terrifying me
because for now,
and forever

it’s the only thing

that may feel

real

Sir Fixalot

Lately, to feed my dog, myself, and my ISP, I’ve been going to a friends house and helping her finish her newly remodeled kitchen (damn, I adore nice kitchens, and this one is beautiful!) and do a few other things around the house. Electrical work, minor installations, the small details that weren’t completed before the original contractor flaked. While it’s at times an interesting (& incredibly frustrating) game trying to figure out what he was thinking about doing with this, where that circuit goes, and the usual things encountered when one takes over someone elses job (what the hell was he thinking *here*????!!) I’m enjoying the most satisfying work I’ve done in years. There’s something incredibly rewarding about working with my hands, facing the occasional challenges and meeting them, and the smile that comes across C’s face as things take shape.

The other day I installed all the knobs on her cabinets, went outside for a few minutes, and as I was walking back in she walks by – she’d just taken a picture of it! Now that rocks.

I like this gig. I like it a lot. I don’t want it to stop.

She asked today about a couple things that I was wary of doing, as I hadn’t done them before and was a bit unsure of myself – it requires going into the wall and playing with the circuitry in there, moving it around and installing new things. I told her that I thought it was out of my league.

Then tonight, I thought a bit.

Hell. I’ve completely rewired some of the most complex custom motorcycles, a few with internal wiring throughout, and even one where the fucking amateur idiot who built it used ALL white wires – so they would match the goddamn bike. Couldn’t tell the ignition circuit from the high-beam indicator. Christ, what a mess…

Homes have white, and black. They always mean the same thing. Idiots like Chris Brady (Mr. pretty white wire) don’t build homes, and the wires are behind something that’s alot easier to get through and replace than steel and aluminum.

Hmm.

Check the interweb for helpful tips. I wonder if they have anything on…

HOLY SHIT! Lookit all of this information! How to do this and that and the other and OOOH! I could do that too and for that all I would need is the right tools and maybe she’d like that done and I wonder if I could convince her to let me install a waterslide somewhere?…

But wait. Job at hand. Let’s see what we’re getting into. Anything that looks so complex that it could best me?

Hell no. It will take some work, but I love this work, and damn – I’ve done this all before! Okay, not all at once, but all I need to do is combine them and do it and she’s smiling again and I have more work and I get better at it and she has light where she wants it and everyone wins!

Bean eats! ISP provides! Electrical electrifies! C_ has more light and convenient switches! Marlena has gas to get me places! The Big Easy gets easier to get to! And maybe, hopefully, I’ll soon be able to get the landlord off the “call and threaten eviction every-other friggin’day” program he’s been on, and have some scratch for him, too. Just got another message a couple hours ago. I’m getting nervous…

Yeah, I really like this gig. I wonder what else she wants done?

I can do it.

Now, if only I can get that damn James Taylor “Handyman” song out of my head.

I guess each job has its bad points.

(Comma comma comma comma commaaaaaaaaaa…)

Odorimasen ka?

…Shall we dance?

“And I don’t want the money back – just the time.”
~ Short Dogs Grow ~

It’s difficult. I look back and see so many wasted years, given to drugs, irresponsibility, and the unquestioning belief then that there was so little to be concerned about – especially me.

I was the least of my worries.

I’m eight years past my due date of the time that I couldn’t see myself alive beyond, and only a few after the realization that, against all logic and reasoning, against every subconcious act of self destruction I could possibly muster, against the constant and ongoing struggle with the primal belief of my existence, I’m still here.

Two years of heroin couldn’t so it. A combined seven years of crystal meth, with the last two building up until I was shooting quarter grams into my vein couldn’t do it. The cocaine, the drinking and driving, the depression, so many other things – (goddamnit there has to be SOMETHING!…)

but nothing worked, for some reason I’m still supposed to be around, and I’m now left with an absence of about 15 years where so little growth that could have happened did, so little was accomplished or achieved. Sure, I learned a wealth of things, especially what the human spirit can go through and still come back from. Everything that happens “to” us is so rediculously small compared to what we can learn from it if we choose to, and we will all, at some point of our lives if we live them honestly and with heart, be torn, broken, and ripped apart. That’s innevitable. In order to grow, this needs to happen – but we are the only ones that can allow our spirit to be destroyed. Nothing else has that power – unless we give it.

 

Jesusfuckingchrist. I look at what I’ve written above and it is nothing that I intended to say – but perhaps i should leave it. It’s a little bit of a preface to what I initially wanted to say.

Maybe that is the primary fault of computer journals – everything is so easily deleted. Fuck, if I could delete the things I’ve written on paper that I didn’t intend to or didn’t like my life would look entirely different to the reader – if there ever is one besides me.

Okay. Back on track. This is the important stuff.

I went to Costco yesterday, with the sole intention of getting dog food, coffee, and fruit. Got that, did some wandering, and lo and behold, lookee here! Catch-up time.

I’m now taking the first step in one of my goals, which is to learn at least three more languages (very well, if not fluently) in five years. With the little extra cash I was able to spend I bought a language course in Japanese, which also intensifies another goal I have which is to spend at least one month in Japan, primarily touring the Zen temples of Kyoto, by the time I’m 40 – which frighteningly really isn’t very long from now, considering. There is so much to see that I haven’t. So much to do that I haven’t. So much to learn that I haven’t – yet.

I also got myself a Yoga mat, finally. I’ve never been able to get to a class regularly, so months ago I downloaded a few Yoga videos – then quickly realized as I attempted to do it on the floor of my apartment that “hardwood floors” are exactly that. Ouch. I realized today that a curious, playful dog isn’t necessarily condusive to yoga, either. Bean quickly figured out that I wasn’t interested in play however, and then simply sat there staring at me trying to figure out what the hell I was doing.

My life is getting richer. Fuller. I’m still here and becoming more of the me I wish to be.

But I still haven’t figured out why I’m still here.

 

That’s okay.

Apparently, I’ve got time.

Watashi wa ureshii

(I am happy.)

in brief

Yeah, I’m done.

Snuck out, as usual, skirt around and bag over, never a goodbye. Never anymore.

Drunk dial to a distant love, and I find home.

I leave. I know the necessity of sleep.

I follow, with dreams.

Rain.

Light, soothing in the sound

as it lulls.

mental scratches

It’s the solitude of the drive that lets me wander around inside, listen to the lyrics, think the things I do. I like the things that come, I like the way they make me feel – though sometimes, it hurts. Sometimes, I think of things that aren’t too pleasant. But that’s me…

It’s the drive over to Berkeley and back these days that lets me rest, escape, disconnect from everything else; driving is automatic, easy, and there is only the music and the road, letting me leave the rest behind, if only briefly.

In my car.
…………………………………………….

She sits next to me, her image reflected in the words of the songs we shared, bringing back the way she looked at me, the way her eyes shined as we sang together. My voice is deep, so I had that going for me – but she could sing.

I should have let her drive more often

so I could have looked at her just a little bit more

before she left.

 

drifting

Somewhere on my block is a concert flautist, who practices regularly in the evenings. Sometimes, on warm nights such as this, their window is left open and the whole block seems to get just a bit quieter to let it come in. It drifts into my window, and it’s such a peaceful sound in the middle of this city…

Man, I love this place.

workies

Enveloped by the clean sheets as I crawl into bed, the warmth of helping and production letting me feel it’s deserved right now.
The body is tired, a little bit sore, but the dirt has been washed away, along with the dried blood from the scrapes on my hand and wrist. I looked down at the wound when I first felt it – the pain of the wood tearing my flesh lessened greatly by knowing that this will make someone happy – that something is getting done for them that otherwise wouldn’t without a hassle. It’s something so small to me, so big to them.

We all are here for each other. Where someone falls short, someone else excells, and we all help.

We all help.

Today I feel needed. I feel appreciated.

I feel more hope.

and I feel like I should take a quick nap before I do the practice run for the fashion show later.

insomnia

it could be caused by many things – there is just far too much that causes concern right now, and though I am well aware there is little I can do but act and let the energy reach out from there, there is still that mental part where I keep running over the necessary tasks in my head. On top of all the other little challenges, my roommmate told me that she is going to move back to Cape Cod to start a business with her friends.

Hm.

Well, I’ll perform the obvious actions, and see through them what I’m really supposed to be doing.

I’ve found that often in situations like this – no job, no money, in an incredibly transitional period as far as what I want to do in my life; the things that were just a bit solid breaking off – (as if they were the supports on a launch pad letting loose for flight) – there is something lined up for me… 

There is more I want to do inside of me. I want to connect again with the outside.

Let some answers come.