A cigar in purgatory

Roll with the punches, occasionally throwing one back

Morning,
Hello. I missed you.
And I dreamt last night of sky voyagers.
Who tear upwards in flashes and spirals, carving holes in the black
and peeling the darkness back for light to burst through.
An explosion in the sky.

Morning,
I think, you are good. For the citrus dance in dew drops, dripping into the earth and shooting upwards
over days, months, years.
You are patient. I can learn from you.

I find myself cooped up inside, with this little machine in my lap, playing me dark songs and lovely melodies to accompany the slow pour of my thoughts out onto the screen. Portishead - Deep Water.

"I'm drifting in deep waters
Alone with my self doubting again
I try not to struggle this time
For I will weather the storm
I gotta remember
Don't fight it
Even if I
don't like it
Somehow turn me around
No matter how far I drift
Deep waters won't scare me tonight"


This was a week of intensity. With people. Again, people. All sorts of people I met, caught up with, or hung around with, in silences and laughs, drugs and smiles, boredom and many cigarettes. The car ride up and down California with Robbie in the front seat, reggae blasting, sporadic conversations with depth and some with relative unimportance. The joints rolled up and down, the cigarettes sparked afterwards, sometimes with no music, just the sound of a drag every once and a while. Me, looking straight ahead, but seeing the smoke spiral and dance upwards to different tunes and different moods.
Pool in the city with Nick - his words - "yea, just do that man." With a real look, having been there, struggled through it.
Silence at nights, deep thought often.
E at Thievery Corporation. The drug hit powerfully and came off slow. Too much to say here. This is for my head only. Basically - I remember beautiful smiles, a "foot massage," and standing up at a certain point right as the music dropped in. And inordinate amounts of water, cigarettes, sprawled on the staircase.

Seeing Spencer. Laughing - the smiling life. Where everything becomes a lovely joke. And it is beautiful. And things were natural and good. People people people.
Riding back fast through dry, dying Salinas. THoughts of "East of Eden."

Beach at night in Santa Barbara after arrival. Finding satellites in the sky, building things, stealing a cart. Hesitant. Robbie and termites. Spliff. Jumping in the water. Very fucking cold.

Too much to say after this. Strange how exhausting it can be to access memories and steal them from your mind to put down in WoRds.

I didn't speak much this past week. I played guitar often. I lost myself and grabbed myself over and over again. Whatever this self is anyways - there is some core to it. I know how "i" "think"...And I can recognize the same patterns - ah yes, I remember that thoughtJourney. I've been there before.
I went up and down in violence and tore open new depths within me.
And felt a fool the whole time. For thinking too much. And for whatever else.
And the Portishead lyrics from thread play: "i'm tired of my head. i'm worn out. I'm always soooooooo unsure."
I need to find this Portishead singer and marry her.

Now I move to San Diego. I don't know how long I will be there. I will work, sweating to make money. I will probably smoke copious amounts of marijuana and write pathetic and fantastic songs daily. I will be at the ocean all the time - the Deep Waters. These waters where, this past week, I found refuge on, under and with the waves. Whatever energy the ocean carries, it would crash into me and through me and wake me up from whatever distant place I had been traversing in my strange mind.

When I was in the airport in Sweden a girl came up to me from the study abroad program , we talked for a bit and she asked if I'd ever read "House of Leaves." I said no. She told me I would like it because "You're pretty weird."

It is strange to think that this is me. And that the opposite is true. And really I just do things and analyze them. Some weird kind of animal.
I think I am happy about this. But sometimes I don't know.
Things can change so quickly. And sometimes they never change.
Same old, same old.
We're always returning to things we love and things we hate. For the comfort, for the pain, for the passion, whatever. I'm always stuck in these same spirals - not circles, I am moving somewhere. I don't know where.
But it's okay.
Two steps in the wrong direction takes me right where I need to be.


Life, I love you, but you're bringing me down.

People

When I spoke this afternoon, in the morning first, with new people, tired and sweating, smoking a cigarette and drinking a cup of coffee. Being jolly and laughing. Making people laugh. And then later in the day, more talking more people more more more.

Things were very good. Many good things came from these new people. New dialogues, new topics, new laughs and looks. New books and films. Older people, different jobs. The stories. New stories.

And I also feel like I might always be on the verge of a mental breakdown. Like the walls can just crumble at any point. And I don't know what would happen. If some white cloud would just melt over my brain and soak me in some mist, some confusion, some trip, beyond 'me'.
Or would it be a great lightness, a splendid feathery touch.
What would become of me.
Where would I go, see, try?

I'm thinking of my brain as this sort of complex structure, with walls and pathways and whatever. And then all the barriers break down. And you're left with the infinite.
To maneuver within this space of emptiness, but in complete chaos. Of desire, loneliness, temptation, passion, total and burning fear. Most of life is a barrage of emotions, symptoms, thoughts, whatever - but they work within these walls. The chaos when there are no barriers...How we create them, reinforce them. It's a process. And being on the Verge - this is where you begin to understand. When you stand at the edge and look over. And then you know. Where you are. And what you can destroy, where you can walk. This is where thinking happens. Where you actually get somewhere. On the edge.

witches

That witch. And her dirty hands. Stole my bread and scurried away like a mouse. But that is the last time. Mark my words. There is no tomorrow, no tonight, no now.
And if for some reason she spills her face into my world, again, then I will give up.

Perhaps it's time to be done with trying.