Be

here

It was all a dream

I woke up to the metalic door sliding shut. He said something to me.

"Where you going?"

I told him, "207th Street."

"You better get off now, you'll end up at JFK."

I jumped up and ran out to find myself standing on the far side of the platform, and staring at the uptown train coming, and going. I knew the next one wouldn't come for a long time. It was 5:30 AM. I called Su:

"Hello? Hello? Su, are you asleep? I'm in Queens."

I uttered the last bit with a swallow.

"Hello? I'm sleeping..."

"Oh, sorry. I'm in Queens. Sorry, good night."

The station stands solitary in the clear night sky. A small crescent moon dots the distance. I'm on the other side now, and it's as cold as hell on this platform. I feel as if I'll freeze to death, and my body will float up into the massive black sky, my body just another shell wandering the bitter cold, my body trembling to the merciless schedule of the patient A train, my body, so close to having been dropped off, like luggage, at JFK.

It's 7:30 AM. I climb into the living room couch and under the covers.
I sleep.

Anything dead coming alive.. feels that way

First thought: I hope this can last.

Second thought (more like a fear) : If it does last, where will it take me?

I went down to the gym tonight to start working out again. I took a three week hiatus after two weeks of working out at the gym downstairs from my office. I drank a can of "Tab" (the original redbull?) this afternoon and was buzzed all day. When I went down I must have been sustaining the high heart rate, or at least the chemically induced enthusiasm, because I went at it a little too quickly. After half an hour, I was burnt out. I huffed and puffed, and climbed up to the locker room to take a shower. I could feel the muscles glow. The flesh around my bug bites shimmered red, and the scabs looked as if they were going to erupt like little volcanoes.

Itch Itch Itch Itch

The last two weeks have been difficult. After pulling an all nighter, and coming in on Sunday, I felt the weight of a job that I do not enjoy and that takes up most of my time. Everyday I would work up the energy and motivation to get through the day with various exercises: drinking ice water, red bull, coffee, or tea; nibbling on pastries, potato chips, and gum; getting up to stretch, walk, chat, and poop.

Also, the last two weeks have left my body riddled with bug bites. I have a bed bug problem.

I sat there in my cubicle thinking of how boring the job was, and how pointless life felt, and all the while scratched, and I scratched, and eventually there formed a patch of red scabs on my chest. Gross, really.

After showing my rosey scabs to person after person, grossing out each unsuspecting onlooker, I went home this weekend and I fell into an itchy, bleeding, depression.

There's nothing more unsettling than being unsettled. I have yet to get a mattress for my bed frame, itself missing a piece that I must have forgotten at IKEA when picking up the item, and the air mattress I have been sleeping on has left me full of bug bites.

So tonight I'm going home. I've packed my bags, and I'm ready to leave. But before I do, I am going to open the closet door, take apart the drawers to my clothing chest, and deflate my air mattress, laying it out on the floor. Then, I will pop open a can of bug fumigation and shut the door behind me in hopes that when I return tomorrow, the bugs will be gone.

Remember to:

SCREAM

You, your best thing

What you do, and where you've come from: believe that this is it. Believe that there's nothing more. And listen to the wind, hear its language--this is everything. Find a way to love. Do your best. Simply remember that this is your time, and you'll not let anyone take it away from you. Struggle because you want to, not because you have to. You are not a martyr. You are not a sage. You are not a poet. You are not a peon. You are the complexity of human experience, not a peg in the sand of time--we are either all nothing, or all everything. There are no classes, no races, just a terrible storm of skin, hurt, and homes. I haven't written in so long. Perhaps I have no voice. Maybe we're not talking. Let's change that.