Prognosis

It's becoming clearer.

You can feel it speeding up, picking up under your feet as you walk, as you stumble to keep up. It's coming, it's coming, it's coming and it will be clear to you, you can feel it--the thought makes sparks go off in your stomach. Faster the messages are coming to you and with such direct clarity it surprises you.

Cut it off. Cut everything off, all of the excess. You're screaming to break out, you're so close. Cut everything off and split away until you're left with nothing but yourself. It's all getting in the way, you know it. It's going to happen soon. Pull the trigger, let it go. Calm, wholeness will follow when everything settles.

You can't let this pass you by.

A Connection

You never invited it in--you never do--but here it is in the underground. It comes with the compulsions and sits near the window, waiting patiently like it's waiting for you to respond somehow. You can feel it there and you know it is expecting something from you but not necessarily any time soon. It knows you'll know when the time comes.

When you first saw it there in the corner it surprised you, and then when it kept coming back it began to scare you. Why is it there? What are you supposed to know? How are you supposed to learn? When will you understand? The more often it comes the more you know that you'll know sooner. Seeing it there has become comforting, expected. Much better than what was done.

Someday you'll know why. You don't now, but that's okay. It's there, and its patience is soothing.

Misfortune

It wasn't supposed to be but it was. To you it wasn't supposed to be and shouldn't have been but when has reality ever listened to anyone? Turns out it was and it wasn't because of something you did but rather something you didn't do. There's a strange sort of irony to the fact that you had just recently heard about the virtues of doing by not doing and here was a perfect example of doing by not doing lead to something done that really shouldn't have. You do have to remind yourself that your not doing was not the cause of the doing but doing could have stopped the doing from being done. But then you remind yourself that your not doing wasn't really a conscious doing on your part in the first place. Now it's like someone took one of those single hole-punch things and punched some skin off of you--there's no way that will close up like nothing happened.

So now you have to live with this weird hole punched into you and go throughout your day in hopes that no one notices because if they did what the hell would you say? It's not like they'd believe the real story--the hole punch thing. The problem is even if no one knows it's there because you do such an amazing job of pretending it's not there you still know it's there and it's itchy. It's so itchy you have to scratch it but then it gets bigger and skin flakes are getting everywhere. For some reason you can't stop scratching it.

Four Minutes Nineteen Seconds

Seven times per day

Like a deaf-mute learning to speak

Trying desperately to be understood

It's All About Technique

Going in, the overly-sweet syrup sticks to your throat, clinging to every surface as it climbs down. Going out, static-textured smoke that smells like medicine seeps from your mouth and buzzes in your head. It blankets you, calms you down. Makes you think. Each breath like the beginning of some scripted meditation, some zen-like policy. Your brain settles but stays awake. You let the drawings of hands and eyes drift by, relieved that the messages are slow and creeping. Sound files clipping--they should be alarming but instead they feel natural. It all feels natural. You let yourself sink through the floor and into all the various stimuli, and you experience.

Siphonophorae

The nerve fires and has been firing over and over again like someone pushing a button in the back of your head--it fires over and over and compulsions are flooding from everywhere and while it scares the hell out of you you also know it can only bring you closer to perfection. Isn't that what compulsions are for, anyway? To remind you to do things that make you feel more complete?

Is there a connection? A way to become more whole? Something like the phrase "being closer to God?" It would be nice if the firing nerves could speak but then maybe that would be too simple and perhaps more than a little strange. There are compulsions to do simple things that should be leading to more complex ideas and revelations but somehow there's still a disconnect and you can't for the hell of it figure out what. Someday the firing will become clearer and in the meantime you can continue listening to the simple compulsions until something more concrete comes out of it. Then you might be getting somewhere.

Junction

Where is it all going?

It's silent in the underground, and yellow from the floor lamp with the bent neck--the one not quite broken enough to replace--and there should be noises outside but there aren't. It's black and gold outside from street lamps that could possibly be bent but-not-quite-broken-enough but you've never been close enough to one to really tell. They are very high up.

It's silent and there are so many words running across your eyes and you feel like there is something more. Whenever you feel compelled to let your fingers leak you know there is something more but never in your damn life have you known what it was. You wonder if you sit here in the yellow-and-black would the something more become something here. But then you think that would be an odd thing to see.

The purpley bugs that did such a good job of leaving you alone for months are back but shrunken, and they climb the walls tentatively, knowing you are now the one who was here first. It doesn't matter to you or them anyway. It isn't long until they're a tangled mess of legs between the whitewash and paper napkin.

Lines are being drawn and will be connected soon, you know. It's time to make a choice about when they connect even if it's far down the line. You sit and study the plastic slats of the blinds and hope that time comes soon.