PaperScreams

Let loose this graveyard in my mind

Or, forbid, let it become and I recede

Let these tears flow in rivers

Or vanish into the desert forever

Let the prints of my fingers weld to the rails

Or pry them and lift me into the wind

Whisper me the secret of your stifling shadows

Or mute my ears until I hear not even my own breath

Cleanse me from my depths

Or fling me into them with no tender

For this is emptiness

Or  pregnant mystery

As I wait

For this child

This fade

This curtain closed

Or pulled back

Take my silent prayer

Or I roar in terror

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I hate that you’re miserable.  I hate that I’m miserable because you’re miserable.  I don’t know what more to do.  I pray.  I hope.  I wait.  I hold my breath day after day.  I fear that you’re making yourself worse.  I see you need something.  I see nothing I can give you.  I have all this love, and I haven’t lost a bit since ever.  I don’t know how to give it to you.  I cannot find a path to do anything.  I thought I had come to terms with the possibility that I wouldn’t be able to do anything, but I think that’s not something I could truly be.  At least, that’s what it seems like now.  The directions are missing.

What more can I tell you?  What more can I show you?  Where is there anything I can do but pray and hope and wait.  I’m holding my breath still.  There is no fight, there is no winning you over.  I sometimes fear, maybe rightly, that you have no control.

I thought maybe I was strong.  Or maybe wise.  I thought I was sensitive and passionate and filled with answers.  Perhaps this is my wake-up, that I don’t have any of those things.  But of course, if I’m waking up, why am I so tired.  My time is so filled, now, with doubt and worries.  I fear that coming home, now.  I fear leaving.  I fear the phone.  I fear waking up, sometimes.

Though this is not all about me, much as it may seem, but about what I guess is happening.  These things will not form into words I want.  I guess that something in the progression of events must happen next.  I don’t know what it is, but I dread it the same time as I am impatient for it.

_____________________________________________

(thanks to U2)

I don’t.  We don’t.  Know what more to do.

It’s not getting any better

I think you feel the same

Nothing makes it easier on you

What is new to take the blame

I tried not to disappoint you

Keep the bad taste from your mouth

Why can’t you seem to see love

Why is everything kept shut out
Sometimes I feel like I don’t know
Sometimes I feel like checkin’ out
I want to get it wrong
Can’t always be strong
And love it won’t be long…

Oh sugar, don’t you cry
Oh child, wipe the tears from your eyes
You know I need you to be strong
And the day is as dark as the night is long
Feel like trash, you make me feel clean
I’m in the black, can’t see or be seen

Baby, baby, baby…light my way

You bury your treasure
Where it can’t be found
But your love is like a secret
That’s been passed around
There is a silence that comes to a house
Where no one can sleep
I guess it’s the price of love
I know it’s not cheap

(oh, come on)
Baby, baby, baby…light my way

I remember
When we could sleep on stones
Now we lie together
In whispers and moans
When I was all messed up
And I had opera in my head
Your love was a light bulb
Hanging over my bed

(oh, come on)
Baby, baby, baby…light my way

_____________________________________________

I don’t want to hurt you.  I didn’t.  I won’t.  I love you and it’s all been done for you.  I’ve put me in behind you in all that I am able.  When it doesn’t look like it, be assured that, though I can’t get the words or appearance right so many times, I’ve had you in the front of my mind.

I’ve taken all that is here on me because I WANT to, not because of some reluctant attendance to duty.  I’ve done my best, in my flawed little way, to think it all through and reason what I’m doing in light of you.  All of it, from the little things to the big ones.

When I screw it up, it’s when I’ve lost sight of me, of you.  Or I’m just not wise as you need me to be.  And I hate those times, but I have torn myself from them again and again, and I swear to you that I will continue to do so as I have breath in me.  Nothing splits it.  Not until, just never.

Maybe there’s more I have to change.  More I have to do.  So be it.  Anthem.

Sent this long ago. Just heard it again today.

Toad The Wet Sprocket:

one part of me just wants to tell you everything
one part just needs the quiet
and if I’m lonely here, I’m lonely here
and on the telephone
you offer reassurance

I will not take these things for granted

how can I hold the part of me that only you can carry
it needs a strength I haven’t found
but if it’s frightening, I’ll bear the cold
and on the telephone
you offer warm asylum

I’m listening
flowers in the garden
laughter in the hall
children in the park
I will not take these things for granted
anymore

to crawl inside the wire and feel something near me
to feel this accepting
that it is lonely here, but not alone
and on the telephone
you offer visions dancing

I’m listening
music in the bedroom
laughter in the hall
dive into the ocean
singing by the fire
running through the forest
and standing in the wind
in rolling canyons

I will not take these things for granted

Thankfully, it’s not lonely any more. It’s been a long time since here.

The phone seems to have gone out of style.

But I don’t know what I’d say if I still had one.

I love the quiet. Talking, again? Someday?

I guess if I’ve learned much at all since here, it’s that I can’t take these things for granted. And maybe I did, and maybe that’s why some have vanished.

I keep thinking maybe something has changed in just these short weeks, but I can’t feel particularly confident about what. Suspicions insecurities lead…bah…I don’t know. And I don’t know if it’s real, anyway. I want to think all’s not just well, but better. That there was depth.

Definitely there is a thing burned into my memory. Something that’s waited and waited for a long time. I know what resonance feels like. I’m working on putting this into a paper scream that holds cloud sketches in my soul, that rides ribbons of wind between my fingers and seems to launch in a roar so intense it is all but inaudible. For that is what it was.

But I think it’s waiting for some sort of confirmation. Worth, maybe. That there’s something more than a dream to it, after all.

And there’s nothing faded, regardless of the conditions surrounding. Everything remains. Including a heavy, potent, muffling peace that a sigh from heaven couldn’t begin to encompass.

But she says I need to resolve it. That all this is why I am all this right now. I guess I have to make sure. So I’m off to ponder. Off to stare at me until I’m crosseyed. But I’m not throwing it away unless something is different. Different from how I think it all really is. Maybe I’ll be surprised. Maybe it’s another shadow. Haven’t had a new one in a while

Did I disappoint you or leave a bad taste in your mouth?

Tell me, where were you in all this? What were you thinking. I wanted to tell you what was in me, but I didn’t. When can I? Is it all too late? Burnt to ash, that moment?

Remember this? They were talking to me, here:

You can bend my ear.

we can talk all day.

Just make sure I’m around

When you finally have something to say.

And just think, I didn’t used to be here, and I didn’t hurt anyone and you all thought I was good for it.

I made a new pipe two weeks ago.  It was a rush job because of a deadline.  Took about 12 hours or so to make.  This is the second one I’ve made from scratch.  Stem included.  All it really needed to be truly finished was a second round of sanding and polishing.  I chose to get it close as possible so I could deliver it in person.  It is Pooka Pipe #10, Bridge To River.  Not bad for a tenth attempt.  I have two more on the bench right now, as well as a few more completed carvings to show off.

There’s something I think I finally grasp about the good life.  It’s something that’s probably been the source much of the chill factor in my house.  The remaining challenge is how I’m going to override my existing programming to change as well as avoid going overboard like I usually do with new things.

In a nutshell:  A warm place, comfortable and cheerful does not require everything to be tidied away in perfect order.  The laundry doesn’t have to be perfectly folded: the papers don’t need to be filed alphanumerically; the toys don’t have to be in their boxes as if they’d never been played with.

At some point during vacation, all this sort of penetrated.

Of course, I’ve been scolded on this many times.  The battle between my twisted form of perfectionism and the natural clutter of a life that is lived in has seen skirmishes over and over.  And I guess maybe this is sinking in at last.

I’ve been the bringing the fight to the front all along.  And I think it’s caused tension all around me.  The kind of tension that makes kids afraid to just go play.  They need permission or even direction to do their thing.  The polly pocket princess petite smallest petshop team never gets to just play.  The laundry drives ‘em all crazy and the rooms, the kitchen, the car.  You name it, I can’t stand it unless it’s dressed to the nines.

And the stress sits on me, too.  I get nervous, shifty, unsettled whenever I’m sitting in the midst of most disorder.  Not just stuff, either, but in how things are done and what is going on.  I have to have a system.  First thing in the morning, everything has to be clockwork.  Which is fine for me, but I think I need to get out of demanding the same thing from everyone else.  Order is not specifically just how I see things should go.

I’ve taken the autopilot out of just plain living.  This house of ours is ours, not just mine.  It is lived in, not a museum.  This life of ours is ours, not just mine.  I don’t pretend to live through my kids, my wife.  But I sure act like it sometimes. I suppose I got this disability over time, with the military and with my complete inability to exercise self control in many situations.  My artist nature doesn’t include that innate clutter that comes with most artists I know about.

I want to take my finger off the launch button for just a minute and maybe have some peace.

With less worries and perfect puzzle piece placement, Life should be lived in.

Too much just isn’t working.  Too much technology breaking and I’m tired of fixing it all.  At least I’m tired of trying to fix it all.  Some of it is material, like the truck breaking, whether it’s big or little problems.  Or like the saw that will. not. balance. no matter what I try to do.  Like the needed accessories for the saw that just won’t work.  Or the lathe.  Or the computers.  Or the water cooler.  Or the van.  Or the passes to the zoo and the park.  None of these things will leave me alone.  And they keep coming, throwing me into this thing.

And the people.  The hurting ones, the growing ones.  They’re all broken in some way.  I can’t seem to do right for them.  I can’t seem to do right for much recently.  I think I hurt somebody.  I think I don’t know how to keep from hurting another.  I don’t know how to help yet another face the challenges coming up in life.  I can’t fix them.  I can only see myself adding to the problems.  I don’t know what to do.

I thought I might just be tired.  Maybe lack of sleep.  It was a pretty fun, even wonderful vacation.  If anything was broken I’m sure it could be mended.  Physically, that is.  But a week from the end of the trip, I’m still here.  Broken.  Can’t get out of this shadow.  I’m worried about you.  And you.  And you…  And finally, about me.  Why is this all dark of a sudden?

Work is actually up this week.  I’ve had things to do.  I’ve been blessed with the chance to really work on the mission for which I was assigned here.  I’m involved with fixing things, and though I’m not the genius repair-man I’d like to be, it’s satisfying.  But it’s not following me home, this goodness.  It’s not following me into me.  I can’t shake it off, this shadow.

Did I mess up last week?  Was that whole thing a total disaster?  Am I in the middle of a serious screwup that I can’t perceive?  I feel like I’m being ridden.  I can’t focus on the thoughts I think I should be working on.  And it’s been noticed here, at least, in this house.  And this is the last place that needs me to be un-square.  Somebody has to be fully up and running here, with all that isn’t working right.

But now I’m not working right.  I lost my temper tonight.  Fortunately, nothing was broken and I didn’t hurt myself, which is usually what happens.  I don’t normally get that far.  Sometimes I lose it for stupid reasons; I guess just to vent.  But those are isolated, short-term cases.  This was a build-up sort of rage, and one that lingers.  One of those helpless, impotent feelings that tells me I’m out of my place.  Something really seems wrong.

Yesterday I was sure there wasn’t anything going on and denied it all out loud.  Now I’m thinking I was wrong.  But I don’t know what it is.  What it was that set me off.  And how does it go away?  Am I wallowing in self pity?  Probably.  But don’t I want, just like I used to, to resolve, to help, to fix things?

Cold Waves