Bread and Bandages
4/15/2006
The Smell of Solitude
08.20.2003
01.05.2005
I'm 25 years old, in between tails, and developing a fetish for medium-nib
black ink fountain pens. They only come in packages with purple
and blue, but I also use the black ones first. The blue ones
I use when necessary, the purple I give along to friends.
I never throw out the black pens, and never keep
the blue after they run down. The lovely thing about fountain
pen ink is how it smells.
-------
"As sickness is the greatest misery, so the greatest misery of sickness, is solitude....Solitude is a torment which is not threatened in Hell itself."
John Donne
As quoted by Oliver Sacks; Awakenings (21) ¶ 4:17 AM 0 comments
01.05.2005
I'm 25 years old, in between tails, and developing a fetish for medium-nib
black ink fountain pens. They only come in packages with purple
and blue, but I also use the black ones first. The blue ones
I use when necessary, the purple I give along to friends.
I never throw out the black pens, and never keep
the blue after they run down. The lovely thing about fountain
pen ink is how it smells.
-------
"As sickness is the greatest misery, so the greatest misery of sickness, is solitude....Solitude is a torment which is not threatened in Hell itself."
John Donne
As quoted by Oliver Sacks; Awakenings (21) ¶ 4:17 AM 0 comments
4/04/2006
The Lullaby Man
The lullaby man only comes when you wish for him. When you're small and the lumps in your bed are moving, when parents and stuffed animals have deserted their posts, when the night terrors freeze your throat.....The lullaby man will sing you back to sleep. Will croon you to sleep with scraps of song, wandering melody and sing-song phrases from your dreams. The lullaby man can never dream again, has no dreams of his own to sing....only yours...only wants your bad dreams.....wants to free you from your nightmares and help you to sleep. The lullaby man weaves all his artful music from the nightmares he collects, and once your terrors become his art they can never be escaped. You will hear all your most intimate horrors in various radio genre stations, mixed into background music for commercials and soundtracks. They will find you in the elevator, will stare at you from advance release posters, you will live in constant dreadful anticipation of yourself.
¶ 1:58 PM 0 comments
Return to the Crossroads
[12.02.2004]
06.21.2004
Return to the crossroads.
Give me a room where I can close the door and turn my back. Give me sleep without the past turning to ghosts. Give me nights without my father’s grunting snores. Give me days with no need for apologies. Give me safety and a little time to stretch. Give me the sense to use my body while it’s whole, my bank account while it’s positive, my brain while it’s sound. Lead me to places I can occupy guiltless and unafraid. Give me a summer to remember that I’m brave. Lend me a room that’s as safe as a womb so I can practice breathing loudly and singing audibly—full-voiced—so I can write without fear of discovery by others whom I wish to write about; so I can get used to being naked shamelessly; so I can invite others to enjoy being there, with me.
06.21.2004
I am determined to believe:
in God.
Which I do with varying degrees of success. Sometimes I can believe that God, like quantum mechanics, makes sense at the microcosmic or macrocosmic levels, exists and is true in them, even if not here tucked into time and space with me.
that suicide is unethical between
the ages of 18 and 60 (or possibly 65)
so I might as well make it to
66 before I start planning out
anything so potentially bathetic.
that a deliberately careless death
is nearly always undignified. Thus the
condoms, thus seatbelts and vitamins
and washing of hands, thus double-
checking the labels on pills, thus
care in mixing any psychoactive drugs,
thus looking both ways before crossing
the street and staying out of strange cars
and avoiding armed strangers, thus
keeping my broke-ended fingernails away
from the temptation of open sockets;
if I cannot choose death on my own
terms just yet then I’m not going
to play coy and wait for it. Besides,
death by youthful misadventure is like
suicide without balls.
That wisdom is the way God answers
prayers.
That writing is useful.
That using your life to learn
and share knowledge means that it has
not been wasted.
That there is always at least one
person alive who may be the Messiah.
12.02.2004
I want to believe that is true almost. I want to decide that it’s bullshit some other stupid me snuck in and wrote. There is nothing in this room but worms and me, and the other room holds only file boxes of damp and mold-smelly books, parasite spores and fungus flowers. The things I see are ugly as always. I carry an ugly mind around with me. I can only believe in a God that exists wholly outside myself. ¶ 1:50 PM 0 comments
06.21.2004
Return to the crossroads.
Give me a room where I can close the door and turn my back. Give me sleep without the past turning to ghosts. Give me nights without my father’s grunting snores. Give me days with no need for apologies. Give me safety and a little time to stretch. Give me the sense to use my body while it’s whole, my bank account while it’s positive, my brain while it’s sound. Lead me to places I can occupy guiltless and unafraid. Give me a summer to remember that I’m brave. Lend me a room that’s as safe as a womb so I can practice breathing loudly and singing audibly—full-voiced—so I can write without fear of discovery by others whom I wish to write about; so I can get used to being naked shamelessly; so I can invite others to enjoy being there, with me.
06.21.2004
I am determined to believe:
in God.
Which I do with varying degrees of success. Sometimes I can believe that God, like quantum mechanics, makes sense at the microcosmic or macrocosmic levels, exists and is true in them, even if not here tucked into time and space with me.
that suicide is unethical between
the ages of 18 and 60 (or possibly 65)
so I might as well make it to
66 before I start planning out
anything so potentially bathetic.
that a deliberately careless death
is nearly always undignified. Thus the
condoms, thus seatbelts and vitamins
and washing of hands, thus double-
checking the labels on pills, thus
care in mixing any psychoactive drugs,
thus looking both ways before crossing
the street and staying out of strange cars
and avoiding armed strangers, thus
keeping my broke-ended fingernails away
from the temptation of open sockets;
if I cannot choose death on my own
terms just yet then I’m not going
to play coy and wait for it. Besides,
death by youthful misadventure is like
suicide without balls.
That wisdom is the way God answers
prayers.
That writing is useful.
That using your life to learn
and share knowledge means that it has
not been wasted.
That there is always at least one
person alive who may be the Messiah.
12.02.2004
I want to believe that is true almost. I want to decide that it’s bullshit some other stupid me snuck in and wrote. There is nothing in this room but worms and me, and the other room holds only file boxes of damp and mold-smelly books, parasite spores and fungus flowers. The things I see are ugly as always. I carry an ugly mind around with me. I can only believe in a God that exists wholly outside myself. ¶ 1:50 PM 0 comments
