Lede

King of Cups, when reversed: The dark essence of water behaving as air, such as rain clouds in a gray sky: A pillar of maturity and patience, hiding a deep insecurity and an indecisive nature. One who secretly lusts for power, but lacks the courage, intellect, or work ethic necessary to take it. A charming seducer who appears innocent and understanding, but is in fact selfish and unfaithful.

forward, please

This is depressing me, wearing me down and sucking out my energy.
So, I've had a bunch of aspie friends, relatives, lovers even. Some of them before people talked about it at all much (we just realised they ticked lots of boxes afterwards). It never really bothered me - or, well that's a total understatement, I never even thought about it. Au contraire, I seem to get on really well with aspie types. Autistic kids, too, back in the days when I used to do that. Actually, I grew up being able to talk to just about anyone, in a one-on-one situation when it was just them - the shyer, more reclusive or "weirder" the better, no matter what flavour. Maybe that's why I'm good at interviewing now. Or I always had the aptitude. Something. It's from my Dad, a bit. Maybe. I remember someone (ah! that particular someone :) *sigh!*) saying, "How do you do that? Talk to people like that - you just sort of click into where they're at?". I don't know the how. I think it probably stems from a genuine interest in people -- everyone, everyone, everyone has an amazing story.
What's the problem now? Now...I just, really, wish I knew what to expect. Because I've been waiting for things to get better for oh, such a very long time. And there's a complicated layering of denial in there somewhere, too, that pretends we're ok.
On the other hand, does it matter? Not everything is excusable because of a syndrome, right?
Wait, no, that's not it. It's not about whether I keep banging my head on the wall, it's the angle I bonk it on (heh). I don't care about a having a piece of paper. But maybe I'm trying to fix things in the wrong way -- in many wrong ways, totally alien ways that will just get things nowhere. Nothing's changed so far, so that would seem to fit the overall diagnosis. So, now what? What do I need to move forward? How do I try? Because being stuck in the same old place isn't going to cut it for terribly much longer.

things my mother taught me

- that i am better than everyone (for some obscure, never-quite-explained reason)
- that i could be so much better if i actually tried and put some effort in

so now, i'm a snob who can't can't connect to anyone with chronically low self esteem. and i try and do everything myself, 'cause the perfectionist is never happy with the way anyone else does it. and then i'm always hopelessly disappointed in my own efforts.
round we go, and round we go, and round we go again.

“Think of a rock polisher, one of those drums, goes round and round, rolls twenty four/seven, full of water and rocks and gravel. Grinding it all up. Round and round. Polishing those ugly rocks into gemstones. That's the earth. Why it goes around. We're the rocks. And what happens to us – the drama and pain and joy and war and sickness and victory and abuse – why, that's just the water and sand to erode us. Grind us down. To polish us up, nice and bright.” – Chuck Palahniuk.

anima

your house is so suffused with love
that visiting's good for the soul

gah

dammit! i try really, really, really hard for it not to matter, and to be positive, and...everything. and i'm STILL petrified of needing anyone at all, ever. for anything. or asking. why??? it stops me being me?? gah.

touch

sometimes it feels like i can just reach out and hold your heart in the palm of my hand.
and sometimes it feels like running my fingers through lemonade…fizzy and sweet and tingly.
and sometimes it feels like trying to hold on to broken pieces of china as they crack and break and slip out of my hands.

...meh?

I'm having trouble making myself care about anything today. It's weird. Most of my emails are unopened. The paper is unread; online news ditto, and most of my feeds also. The Masters work I was supposed to finish is barely touched. I couldn't read more than a few pages of any of the books I'm reading. Nothing on TV held my gaze, although, well, that's hardly new. And I ignored the phone. It's all kinda meh. Why meh? I'm kinda tired, but not hugely. I hurt an old back injury yesterday, but not massively...there's no good reason to be so flat and blah at the world. Did someone put prozac in my tea?

.......

and then

except then you get there, and you think...okaaayyy...now what?

next?

neruda

When I die, I want your hands on my eyes:

I want the light and the wheat of your beloved hands

to pass their freshness over me once more:

I want to feel the softness that changed my destiny.



I want you to live while I wait for you, asleep.

I want your ears still to hear the wind, I want you

to sniff the sea's aroma that we loved together,

to continue to walk on the sand we walk on.



I want what I love to continue to live,

and you whom I love and sang above everything else

to continue to flourish, full-flowered:



so that you can reach everything my love directs you to,

so that my shadow can travel along in your hair,

so that everything can learn the reason for my song.

running out

i seem to be pouring myself into everybody else right now. it makes any time alone - really alone, doing something for me - seem kinda precious.

Can't sleep.

Sometimes I feel like my heart will crack, and all the me will run out. And then there will be nothing left.

reach

...lady lights a cigarette, puffs away, no regrets
takes a look around, no regrets no regrets
stretches out like branches of a poplar tree
says "I am free", sings so soft as if she'll break...

grope

there's a pattern of silence i get into, and i'm doing it again.
when even i can't make myself talk.
but there are silent shouts and screams just under my breath ... sitting at the back of my throat. coiled quiet against the terms of endearment and the swallowed tears.
articulate, prithee, speak? nothing. i just open and shut like a gaping ... ha, fish out of water.
grope, gasp, grope. shhhh.

gehaftet

.....but i am so much more!!

Houston

Boss: "We have a big problem, now."
Me: Oh? (Thinks: Oh, crap, what didn't I do now??)
Boss: "Yes. The thing is, this issue you've done is going to be so good, you'll have to live up to it somehow in the next issue."
Me: ...

...Okay...There's the arse-about compliment for the day, then. Um...woo!

pavane pour une infante defunte

sad, tragic even, things keep happening to people that i love. cancer. death of a husband. car crash. death of a parent. miscarriage. death of a child.
such important parts of their existence. of their identity. we structure our lives around the tender tendon connections and then when they’re torn they leave an aching, open, hanging void.
and...i can’t help, or even begin to salve. it feels so helpless! part of me wants to be the good-in-a-crisis type (like frideswide) and run around making casseroles and phoning people. sending flowers and making lists. the other part...thinks responding in any other way rather than in person, with hugs, just seems cheap.
think. what did you want people to say to you? what did they say, that helped?
...nothing helped. i just wanted someone to hold me and rock me while i cried and cried until i until i couldn’t cry anymore.

light

oh, yes, that's right. that was the really good reason not to fall again. because the light it casts throws everything into sharp relief, and suddenly you can see all the gaps and holes. and aching voids. are they always there? just patched over with little cobwebs of denial? glossed and daubed with a carefully balanced apathy that seems real enough to dance on most of the time. because underneath is far too real.
i wonder...if you could live in the deep of the underneath all the time. and not got mad? probably not. it would be too intoxicating. or maybe there isn't a division, really. 'praps it’s all the same, just different angles. different light. falling at different times of the day...or night. ha, that reminds me of
O chestnut-tree, great-rooted blossomer,
Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole?
O body swayed to music, O brightening glance,
How can we know the dancer from the dance?

awake

sometimes
when i stay up (like this)
(for days)
or, at least, a night and a day and a night and a day
i wonder whether you even realise that i'm not sleeping next to you.

prank call.

hey, you.
gutless wonder
why not
have the guts to say
i know what it is you want, but i can't give it to you.
or
there is something i need to say, but i can't find it.
or even
i can see where it is you ache, but i can't even deal with my own pain, let alone someone else's.
and
why not
have the guts to not be afraid of people loving you. especially loving you in different ways.there are lots, you know. they don't all require you to give away part of your soul.
or not.
stay up there and away, it's easier anyway.
so, are you ever going to actually engage? yeah, me neither. it's way easier just to float along the surface of the plebs below and graze when you need to. they'll never know, right?
isn't it such a damn drag when everyone else is so inferior?
stay disengaged, bubble, disconnected. hangup.
hangups! oh, yes. yes, people are so transparent, aren't they? you can put your fingers right through in some places.

argument

i shouldn’t compare
i shouldn’t set you up to fail
i shouldn’t create tests in my mind
thinking you should say ‘this’ when i say ‘that’
and crumbling when i don’t get what i ask for

i shouldn't hope that one day you will just love me, and say just the right thing
should i?