Conversations Among the Ruins

Today is my birthday and I am nine months old.

The last drink I had is clear. My favorite bar, Skylark, in Pilsen, Chicago. It was Fox's birthday and I was late. I ordered two gin and tonics, one for me one for Derek. it was last call. I left forty on the bar, the bartender was one of my favorites, a hip neo nerd that will make you dozens of carbombs in a dive is somebody special when they have cool tattoos and they make ridiculous drinks an hour after closing, as he always did in the past.

I didn't know at the time why I was sleeping so much. I had a funny way of not considering all of the addorall I had taken the weeks prior, when I stayed up for days, glitched out with my "life together."

I was only in the bar for fifteen minutes. All of the lights came on and the drink was half full. I left it on the table and made my way to my car.

I didn't know a goddamn thing except for that things had to change, and as I sit here, thousands of miles away, in this condo located in a valley that I now call my home, I'm barely capable of placing everything that has happened since that freezing February night.

For a long time I was full of this fire energy after I stopped. Where I would just stalk around and almost flip out at the tiniest of things.

Livid

is the word. Livid that I couldn't justify going out with all of my friends anymore to get fucked up until sunrise. Livid that I was twenty six years old and I felt eighty. Livid that I felt I was missing out in between two hundred billion other feelings because somewhere, at some point, going out for fifteen dirty martinis to deal wasn't an option.

I waitressed 13 hour shifts on the weekends and I didn't have a way to numb that stress any more. If I worked that hard, shouldn't I be entitled to play that hard?

"It is utterly absurd that you won't sit and have a miller light."
"I agree."

I agreed, but I couldn't make sense of why it became so wrong. Through this time I've learned that I'm not a person that can just "have a miller light" because the numbing, the drugs, the drinking, had me all along.

Seven years ago my neighbor was checking my pulse because I passed out in the hallway of my apartment with all of my groceries, which was melted ice cream and pedialight. It was Febrauary. I hadn't slept since December. I only walked in alleys and even now I still can't bring myself to post half of the shit that I've seen, done, and the physical brink of death I pushed myself to in order to not recognize any of it.

It was all so that I wouldn't have to see or feel. I crafted a world where I only had to see the people around me, and all I had to feel was fun yet when I tried to get serious, to get serious career and seriously publish a novel, granted I managed to write in between boxes of wine and styrophome gallon cup martini cocktail shifts until 2am before I went out to the club, absolutely nothing fell into place, because I was completely asleep in an imaginary life. A life where all I ever obsessed over was the past and it cost me a great deal, because talking and feeling are two very separate ideals. I just didn't stop and shut the hell up enough to ever realize it.

I miss it sometimes, being so proportionally centered in my own oblivion. But where is the sense in having a life that is built on stilts of glass? For a long time I carried so much resentment for the fact that I woke up. So often I hear people say

"If you ever want to sincerely fuck up ever getting fucked up ever again, start coming into these rooms."

I went into Narcotics Annonymous like an acting out, irritated child. "Fuck them" was all I ever really thought. But I ended up in a church one day, lost and trying to find a room. I found the room and a woman named Jessica smiled at me, and those people became my family. I learned that I am exactly the same as all of them, that our stories vary but in the end, it's all the same.

Total loss of control, that for me wasn't ever present in the first place. I started writing on my first step two months ago. I thought I'd be done in two days. But hey, hand writing how much you have royally fucked up and lost yourself is actually quite a task. At first I would sit back and think "Holy shit, that happened." but as I kept writing I would think to myself "This never has to happen to me again. Not ever."

In that writing I came to terms that my life has never ever, since I was a kid, been manageable. It was one fire skillet to the next. I'm in a place now where for the first time I feel everything and I can manage it with the help of others aren't just paying the bar tab.

My parents don't get it. I can feel them flinch on the phone when I say "I'm late for a meeting." My dad tsks me and tells me to go have a drink and meet some people. I had to write on denial and I kept it simple, that denial didn't play a roll in my life it was the only stable component. My "social" life is a joke because I spent so much time faking it, faking that it all mattered, where I was, who I was with, that I have simply lost that tolerance. I like hanging out with myself in mis matched slippers with all of my rocks and something to write or paint. And writing and painting alone doesn't make me into a girl with half the blood from my face on the floor of the bar because that's what caught my fall.

Some things in life are free and priceless. They are the most rare.

I don't have to present my life on a scaled continuum of synthetic movement. Somebody said to me recently "You're like a good mormon girl" and that just about had my blood boiling a neck bone. I don't expect many people to understand my process and it's flattering I guess, that I appear to be so far removed from the madness that I've seemingly crash landed here as a person with boundaries, standards and morals in regards to the dumb shit I don't do to myself or those around me. But I still want to start fucking screaming sometimes in the name of my own street cred. But my "bust your teeth out" mask gives me anxiety and it doesn't fill anything except ego based self righteousness, and I mainlined enough of that for enough time in this lifetime. I'm not getting any fucking younger but in a way I am. Ignore the cards walk out on the bet casino royal there is no win without sound trust.

I finished my first step today and I'm currently in a financial freak out amongst trying to deflect the meltdowns of others out of my pointed direction. Because the only thing I am responsible for handling is myself, and so far, I've done an outstanding job. For those of you trying to dictate otherwise, get fucked, and best wishes. That is my last acknowledgement of you on this blog any further, ever.

I'm a warrior sitting here with one Chicago Bears, one Count Chucula slipper and nobody will ever make me believe any different. I rarely feel scared or alone, and if I do I have the resources to change it in an instant, that doesn't involve a glass pipe, a glass bottle, a maxed credit card, a wig, hot sex outfits, shoes that kill my feet, or some asshole that I can try to change myself for.

There are very few people that I know that have what I have. Which is everything, nothing, and the ability to balance a life on that tiny line of reality. I can't stop writing. I'm getting to a point I used to get to, where even when I'm thinking I'm picturing the text on a screen of every word. My novel is a bitch ass shit show right now but I'm getting it done. When I get lazy with it I simply tell myself that it is my only way up and the hell out of the current way of which is my life.

NS I have thought of you a lot today. Thank you for all of those good witch spells.

Glitter on the west streets,
HL

He keeps a
straight
face as I

stare straight
through him
to ask

just what
the fuck is
it that you
want

from me?
Is it for me
to scream and
cry or to hang

on to your every
entity of human
breath so you can
leave?

So you can
disappear it's
been so
many
years.

We lived once
in these cotton
candy acetone
hot railed versions

of a sky.
"I was always
just telling you
that you couldn't
go back out
there and you would

leave
anyway."

"I fail to
remember that."

"You fail to
remember
a lot of
things, Heather."

"If that were
the case I
wouldn't know

how to look
so far through
you."

He goes to leave
stops and hands me
his favorite
white
hat.

I've been trying to
steal that
for years.
Walking away I

laugh to myself
because I'm sure
he knows

how well it will
hide
my
eyes.

I get
twitchy
at three am

pouring
coffee lighting
another cigarette

eyeing a half
painted red
canvas that I

painted
when the clock
ticked
less.

I get
tense
when my whole
life changes

and it isn't
my move in
my game.

I love and trust
my family I'm
just

glitchy
for three a.m.

I want a
hug and
a face to wear

to work tomorrow
that everybody
will love but

nobody
will dare
speak to.

Since I know
you came here

to see my
reaction

need I remind you

that I never
issued
an invitation

for you to
walk
back into

what you already
walked out
on.

Lets keep that
in the family
too so someday

nobody will have
to say
how much you
promised,

how hard you
cried and how

hollow I felt
when you showed me
how wrong I was

to ever
believe
you.

I love checking
my bank statement
and dropping my
coffee so I can sit here
numb as it

spills on my desk.

I'm exhausted I
don't party and
have I ever said
that I hate

the Las Vegas
strip? I wear
sky high boot heels
anyway and

watch
their glasses
empty
and fill
and empty
and
fill.

I have
asked you
repetaedly

not to involve me
in your realtionship
with
your ex.

I don't care
what happens
between you. Nor
what is happening
to that person.

But you love
to stop picking
up
the phone
when I call

and you love
to blow off
whatever plans you
said to me and you

love to call
when you have to
because you need
something

because of some
catastrophe
involving
him.

I already
lived that out
for myself
six years ago.

I got my shit
together and
I do not
deal

with anything or
anybody
otherwise.

I want you to know
that I respect
how long you

have been a part
of each others lives.
But you are a walking

contradiction
and I'm

not that
stupid. Maybe I
should go

play the
roulette
wheel

with
that.

Numb hands
pacific coast
highway the

smell of the
ocean
puts my head
in the sand.

Who is this picture
perfect neat perfect
picture with

tea cup coast lines
of quiet stories?

Where are you
going high
tide suction pattern

cuz I just
danced around my
office my

hands stayed
warm and like a

clicking padlock
it all made sense.

You know I'll
always love you just

watch that moon
so you don't fall

asleep
in the
tide. I will

end up so far
from this place wearing

sunset knitted
mittens of a

moment in time
of ruptured
kinetic movement so

kiss

kiss bang bang
and thank you

for everything
you never tell me

you read. Sometimes
you are my best friend
my nightmare and

a compact absolute
wave that never hits
the shore. I got you a

six foot canvas today I
just have to put
everything you love

to hate to love
into it

before it's
done. Gloss acrylic
lines to hand prints I

hope it fills
everything you
can't find

like a gravity
drop sunset

glowing
gamma fire

from where I always
tell you the stories
about;

when you're asleep
in the sunrise

and I know
you'll never

wake up
to ever
hear.