I'm somewhere between tasting stars
and a mouthful of dirt.
with you up there on the screen
I'd be your future Boy
my big eyed bird in the movies
I'd be your future Boy
'cause if that is what you need
a cinematic Boy like me
who'll come along and set you free
don't fear
super Boy is here
and it feels good to me...
I had to apologize to Kristin today, for not knowing the breadth and depth of Catherine Wheel, for forgetting most of that night at Toad's place a hundred years ago, all wasted and amazing, that's a few moments for me but mostly a big expanse of nothingness.
as the wisdom runs
a Boy should know his limitations
but I've talked myself through less
can I be your future pest
'cause if that is what you need
a sycophantic Boy like me
who'll tell you things
you really don't need...
so many things are so far out of my reach, in a good way, pulled out forever and slipped beyond my grasp, but it doesn't mean I still don't try to stretch for them, straining for a touch, like reaching up out into the sky after waking up from a nap and feeling like the clouds are within reach. but then that's too lofty, because it's a mouthful of dirt from that nap, and I'm really waking up choking some days.
it gets under my skin, under my nails, into my deep breaths, even from three thousand miles away, and it's utterly ridiculous. and I keep looking, like torture, like a train wreck, pupils burned out from opening my eyes too wide, and I can't stop checking to see what's happening next. I can't. and I have to. it's like that imaginary switch that has to flip by itself... "Let go," they all cry, all with good intention, and it seems like it's in charge right then, that it's not something I can leave on that dirty ground and never see again. I'm haunted some days by the ghosts of what might have been, what could have been.
and strangely so, because it's the first time in forever that there aren't any regrets. and I can't remember anyone being sad that they finally learned how to stop putting their hand on the stove, just to touch, just to see if it's still hot, just to check and make sure it still hurt. as ken would always talk about - there doesn't need to be a discussion about whether or not your hand is burning.
Just. Let. Go.
and then that's it, and it's all a vanish. but I don't care if it's chapel street or the corner of harvard and boston over the highway, or old apartments in chicago - we've all got our ghosts. healthy and whole as we may become. I suppose it's just that mine are particularly loud today.
I finally walked into a meeting here, the one I haven't missed since we arrived, and when they asked me how I was, I said I hated everybody and that my ex was fucking everything that walked back in my hometown and that everything sucked and that I hadn't gone to AA in a week. they welcomed me, and I sat in their business meeting, and promptly got nominated to several service positions. one of which is chairing the open discussion group on mondays for the next two months. and I knew I needed it, and I pushed through like pushing through the end of morning pages when you know there's more there, and technically you could stop - but do you want to change, or do you want good enough?
I don't want good enough. I know I just have to go easy on myself sometimes, but good enough is just good enough and it's not enough. I want to be amazed. I want to be blown away, and not in control in the right way.
and cut back to Seattle, where my movie roles have changed, again for the good. and I shift from damsel in distress to the counterpart, best supporting actress, only none of it is a lie. I'm the perfect chord that makes the chord before it mean more. I have black flats. I like bendy guitars and organizing office lunches with goat cheese pizza. I am camera lenses, black ink, open wounds, and post-trauma. it's nice to go from under a tree to the top of the hill. not quite a mountain. but a hill will do. for now.
well, I'll always like bendy guitars. but you know what I mean.
I thought I had more words than that, but I guess I'm more alright than I thought.
Kristin had dinner waiting tonight. I cried, for the epic moment of it all, for being really loved and cared for, the way I love and care for, the way almost no one loves and cares for in return. "It's just eggs," she said simply, and that made me cry more. It's really not every day that these people come along... the us, that when you are us, you know what I mean by us. The busking and screaming but sometimes it's just a word, or a moment, or a sentence, or a written page. But we have it all connected between us, that moment when he starts to yell and our hearts catch and skip some, just for a second - we've got to stick together.
I can't get through all these mountain passes alone, and neither can any of you.
xx
and another late night from a white stuffed animal fur couch on Capitol Hill (and varying degrees of capitalization, and then not, and then again),
Victoria
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