Awake and Dreaming

At night I lay with my limbs intertwined with his. I can feel him breathing hot minty air on my neck and cheek. His face is so close to mine that I can feel the tips of his long eyelashes resting against my skin. It seems so peaceful where he is. Asleep.

"I want to be where you are baby. I miss it there."

I could fall into you
the affectionate inviting heart of you
cradled snug in the levels of your existence
cuddled up with quiet longing persistence
I could fall, but you wouldn't catch me
I could fall, but you turn from me, passively

I miss everything regarding what you do
still trying to fall into you
but I can't even imagine where you are
running out of sheep and counting stars
and as I lay me down, awake and dreaming of sleeping
the insomniac hours are mine for the keeping

Sleeping pills contemptuously resting on the shelf
I reach for the container to save me from myself
I close my eyes for a minute
I'm lucid but slowly fading in it
back through the folds and my mind is free
I'm falling -sleep, come rescue me

Monsters and Angels

My mind can bend reality as you know it, shifting into cross existing dimensions. I'm important because of this. That's how it was explained to me, stated bluntly as fact. Which was really hard to take given that the person I was talking to, according to my doctor, didn't exist.

Let me back up.

My parents found me in the throws of becoming another teenage statistic. I tried to end my life with some easily accessible muscle relaxants, prescribed to my mother and a bottle of something that smelled like paint thinner, from my dads liquor cabinet. While hospitalized, I made the mistake of telling the physicians that I was tired of the strange people telling me what to do. With some probing, they assessed that when I said "strange people," I wasn't talking about my parents.

Who knew that it wasn't normal to have people that no one else can see, telling you that you have a higher importance. It's all I've known. In fact, I wasn't aware that no one else could see them, until right before the incident.

My best friend Travis happened to be with me when I began to panic that I couldn't find my way home. He tried to reassure me that I was already home, but when I told him that there were other people in the room and they were telling me to stay away from scientist Donnor Starbord, he fell silent. He stayed with me until my world shifted back into reality, which is quite a task for a seventeen year old boy. For anyone.

It's happened before, but never with anyone around. Never before did I have someone explain to me that it wasn't normal. How can a reality that I've always known, not be normal. It wasn't always that bad, but it had been noticeably increasing since last year.

And all of this I chose to explain to the doctors, while very well medicated. I was mentally numb, and I feel that I said more than I should have, but couldn't stop.

"We'd like to keep your daughter, Paige, under our care for some extensive research. Her case of schizophrenia is very uncommon, in that, she's the youngest we've seen showing active symptoms."

... unfinished story. More to come later.

Haunted By a Thought

(a repost from my myspace)

I complained today, as I sat at the edge of my bed, waiting for the numbers on the alarm clock to sober up and straighten out. It was a blurry 5:12 in the morning on Saturday. I rubbed my eyes and cursed under my breath. I complained about having to wake up, about having to work early on a Saturday morning and about my life in general.

I complained while at work, as I sat and listened to my co-worker behind me express himself with words that would make your mother blush. I complained about his complaining.

When my shift was over, I complained about the traffic that was standing in the way of me getting to my pizza. I should have been happy that work was over, I should have been happy that I was on my way to get pizza, I should have been happy just to feel the sunshine on my face and the cold breeze blowing through a typically hot town.

I rolled my car into the gas station next to Straw Hat pizza, when I realized that the police had roped off the entrance of Straw Hat with yellow tape.

The man that took my order over the phone never mentioned that there was an issue and the restaurant was closed, so I approached one of the police officers outside.

"I ordered a pizza, is it ok to go inside?"

"Yes, but we are asking everyone to exit through the back door. We had a gentleman pass away in the parking lot and we're trying to handle this in a way to allow him some dignity." He responded as he lifted the yellow tape to allow me passage.

I could see the outline of a body laying underneath the police blanket and I instantly felt my heart sink. I complained today. I complained all morning about nothing. I was complaining about my life, while this man was losing his.

This man appeared to be at the restaurant by himself. There was no other person in the parking lot, crying over the loss of this mans life. I had wondered if he was reassured that he was loved today before leaving the house. If he was happy or sad. Was he content with life? Or had he complained all morning about dumb stuff ?

It's hard to appreciate every hour or minute of your life, until you realize that you can lose it. I complained today, I complained about nothing at all and the idea that it could end unexpectedly with not having really enjoyed any part of the morning, bothered me. I would hate for everything to come to an end after being unnecessarily irritated that I arrived at my destination two seconds later than I wanted to because some " idiot," in a green Honda cut me off and drove 2 mph slower than I wanted him to.

I don't want this to sound like some insincere lecture, about how you should be grateful for every minute of your life; like some kind of cliche, presented as "profound wisdom," forwarded via e-mail with some chain-mail type of note on the bottom instructing you to pass this on or you'll have a year of bad luck. Shit gets tough and it's hard to love every thing about what goes on in your world every day.

Really, I just can't seem to let it go. I've had lingering anxiety about this and I can't figure out why. What I do know is, I was consumed with the idea that this man left his house, just to get pizza without any idea that he was coming to the end of his minutes. I was bothered by that thought, but talked myself out of posting this. Then hours later I saw this section from the novel I started reading:

"It's a stark thought that when we die most of us will leave behind uneaten biscuits, unused coffee, half toilet rolls, half cartons of milk in the fridge to go sour; that everyday functional things will outlive us and prove that we weren't ready to go; that we weren't smart or knowing or heroic; that we were just animals whose animal bodies stopped working without any sort of schedule or any consent from us."

~Steven Hall The Raw Shark Texts~

Greeting Card Obsession

Squibknocket Cards: Brilliantly simple, wonderfully cute and memorably funny, but unfortunately no longer being made.

Another card, under Apologies, reads like this:

You Can't Squeeze The Toothpaste...

back into the tube.

What's said was said, and I deeply regret many of the things that came out of my mouth. Especially the part where I said you were only the second generation in your family to walk upright. Or wait, maybe that was another argument. Anyway, the point is that I was wrong. And I do apologize. I really don't much like being at odds with you.

This is a strange little thing to dwell on and I know this, but I think it might be because I thought I could easily get more and when I couldn't... well, obsess much? At first, I figured I couldn't find them because I wasn't trying hard enough. You can find anything on the web nowadays, right?

Surprisingly, I did find a few and a nice little update from the maker himself.

10/25/2007 Lane F. says: Sincere apologies for the winnowing supply of Squibnocket Cards. I've been a bit occupied over the past two years with a couple kids and an unexpected return to the advertising/design world. However, I'm not one to stand in the way of those who are Holy Grailing after a particular card. So if you were to let me know what card(s) you wanted, I suspect I could help you out. Send me an email at: lane.foard@mac.com. Oh, and thanks for doing your part to help further the Squibnocket Revolution there in your part of the world. -LANE FOARD, Squibnocket