My Whole Expanse I Cannot See…

Is it 2008, again? Sitting in a room, my room, some room, any room, alone, wanting to be someplace else. This isn’t my room, at least, not the room in my head. That room, it’s so different.

Watching movies alone, wanting to be someplace else. Not any place else, not, “Oh, God, anywhere but here,” but someplace. Someplace nice, someplace I’ve been, but can’t seem to stay. Writing without writing, or not writing, not there’s much difference. Though, the writing without writing, that’s really more of a 2005 kind of thing. I’m so 2008, or 2005, or early 2007, or even the latter half of 2009, not that it matters. They’re all pretty much the same place.

Oh, Peter Smith-Kingsley, where are you?

I’ve decided that I need to really examine my life and focus on my writing, as well as reading more. I have so many books piled up. Doing this is going to require some solitude, a good deal of it. To this end, I’ll no longer do any IMing, texting, or social tweeting, until I fix what’s broken in me.

I will still reply to blog comments and e-mail correspondence, and of course, in-person interaction.

I’m aware that at some point, probably soon, people are going to forget me if I don’t start writing again. I’m sure this is already starting. I really don’t want this to happen.I love words and writing, arranging words into something whole, and hopefully beautiful. I like that people read my stuff, and when someone tells me that something I wrote affected them. I don’t want to be forgotten, and I don’t want to disappear before I’ve written something of real importance, something that feels important to me anyways.  I’m just stuck, and the desire to write things, anything, isn’t in me. I’m drowning in anxiety, and fear, and a certain emptiness, and ennui. I hate these feelings, though they’re so completely familiar. The thing is, I don’t feel “lost,” I’m not lost. I know where I want to be, what I want to feel, I know everything I want. I always know what I want, I’ve never not known. This, it’s like a bad dream, and I can’t wake up. I so can’t wake up.

Still, I need to write. I need to force myself to write, something, anything, everyday. Maybe everyday. I need to try, at least.

So, Rigor Amortis launched today, the collection of zombie erotica and romance flash fiction which contains one of my stories. It’s a really good collection, stories ranging from sweet to sexy, disturbing to terrifying. Rigor Amortis mixes horror and love, death and sex, it bends genre barriers until they break, creating unexpectedly wonderful stories. If this sounds interesting, pick up a copy on Amazon. I’d love to get some feedback on my tale sex and the undead.

She’s in your head and in your heart, she’s all over your skin. She’s this beautiful, nebulous maybe, yes, I don’t know, possibly.

She’s please God, please. Let me stay here, just let me stay. Please. Talking to God at 4 a.m. with the voice in your head, the voice no one hears.

She’s bright light and right in front. She’s vanish and perfect dark.

She’s sad songs, and lonely songs.

She’s Heaven and Purgatorying.

She’s want and wait, air and breathlessness.

She’s love and safe, peace and sleep.

She’s home and away, too far and away.

She’s your muse and your torment, forever in you, and on you, and with you.

So, I thought I’d write lots about my trip to Cincinnati, I thought I’d write everything, but I just don’t have the desire. I feel more like writing the Reader’s Digest version.

I went to have my trach looked at by the foremost airway specialist in America, Doctor Robin Cotton. He personally looked down the hole in my throat, changed my trach out twice. He decided my trach tube should be 5 mm. shorter. So, we’ll see how that goes.

I did a lot of wandering around the city, and it’s actually a very cool place, I just wasn’t in good spirits, because of some things that I don’t plan to write, probably ever. I got a tattoo my first night in town, sort of a physical reflection of my intense melancholy. It felt necessary.

In the hospital, I mostly spent three days watching movies, as my left eye was swollen shut because of a weird sinus thing, so I couldn’t wear my glasses. I’m a little blind without my glasses. Mostly, I was lonely. I thought I was past lonely, but before I left I became not-soo-certain.

Anyways, I’m bored, this is boring, and I don’t have the will to make it interesting.

So, I didn’t write anything from Cincinnati… I’ll explain further, but the short version is that my left eye swelled shut, so I couldn’t wear my glasses most of the week. I didn’t get to finish reading The Bluest Eye, or The Red Tree, and I definitely couldn’t write anything. I’ll elaborate soon.

Anywho, right now, I’m leaving Macon, Georgia, en route to Tampa.

So, right now, I’m at a La Quinta in Lexington, Kentucky, but only for another hour or two. It’s only about one hundred miles to Cincinnati, then I’m off the road. It’ll be good to get off the road, too much time for quiet reflection in a vehicle speeding toward somewhere I’m already nervous about going hasn’t been good for me. I’ve convinced myself into some pretty awful things, like, “You’ll never be anything more than you are right now, and you’re going to die a lonely failure.” I don’t always do so well alone with myself, I’m not particularly good company.

Last week was really weird, the morning I took to the road was exceptionally bad, and I’ve had too much time alone to think about all of it. I suppose I could write about the weird, but the bad I’ll just keep to myself. It’s weird when someone explains that they can no longer be your friend because you’re just too dark, they just can’t stand you anymore. That’s weird, and pretty unsettling. Maybe they’re right, that’s what I keep thinking. Maybe I just need to quit people, because I’m just too damaged. I mean, I could just pretend to be someone else, but that’s the same as being alone, except with a lot of work, constantly writing and being some character who isn’t you. I’m only genuinely close to one person, but maybe I shouldn’t be. I know she deserves way better than me. Maybe I just don’t have a home, anywhere with anyone. I hope not, but I’m almost thirty and that’s what scares me just now, that’s what’s scared me every day since I left Tampa.

I’ll write again from Cincinnati, but I doubt I’ll have figured anything out by then.

So, in about an hour, I’ll be on the road to Cincinnati to see a trach specialist. I’ll be back online regularly, probably Monday.

I feel like I should write something important right now, but…this big ball of sad isn’t worth even filling with air…

I don’t have anything spectacular to write at the moment, it’s been a long day. So for now, I leave you with this…