lines can haunt you

2006-02-09

All straight lines circle sometime

When I fall asleep, sometimes I think of everything. I think of this planet, of the hardness of stone, of the complexity of atoms and collisions in galaxies that, for all the ways they affect my life, might as well not exist, or of meteorites traveling at thousands of meters a second and smashing through my roof and killing me. I think about how our bodies fail us. They age, fall apart, suffer indecencies, humiliate us, and in the end, die, taking us with them. These thoughts, if ever there were obvious symptoms of mental illness, surely must indicate the same. What else could they? A higher power?

I think about the day the sun will go out. What it would be like to sit on grass in the falling light, and to have it fall all the way away from us. Who put out all the lights, we'd say. It was God, or the laws of physics, that made all the fusion in the furnace run cold. How cold and immediate our lives would suddenly become. Seconds is what we would have to say our goodbyes.

I think about the 26 years that are behind me. The ones that brought me here irreconcilably, uncontrollably, and which I will never get back, can’t undo, change, or even regret. At every moment I made decisions and they lead here and that is all there is.

I think about why I can’t write fiction to save my life. Why I can’t create characters or care about anything that happens to them once I do. Why can’t I make things happen to them? If they exist, if they are real, surely they are screaming up and out of the blackness of half-cocked ideas, for something, for anything to happen! Surely they are scared and shouting and praying for a God they cannot see or trust to do something with them! To exist without meaning and context…to be half conceived and forgotten...they are rotting in the dormitory halls of my brain. And tears fall and they are forgotten, perhaps not even marked.

And for the longest time I have feared death and not anymore. Now I embrace it, I move toward it, I know I do because I can't wait to see it - I will recognize it as the path that looks the same coming and going, that it will be some fine peak from which everything is reconciled, the sea and sky, the maxima and the minima, all the joy and suffering and careerism and the many, many defeats. Cause I'm not who I used to be; masterfully disguised, it was, the moment when a life turns and runs like a river all the way out to the sea.

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Navigation previous entry next entry latest entry archives profile notes e-mail How lines can haunt you... Recent Forays 2009-03-10: The names 2008-05-21: in medias res 2007-11-14: The things I meant to write about: 2007-07-29: More than meets the eye 2007-04-13: Where the words have gone. Links Abroad in medias res Modern Drunkard Ftrain The Onion Exploding Dog McSweeney's Internet Tendency The National Pist Higher Blogs Palinode's Palace Schmutzie Friday Films Luvabeans Sprigs Fairlywell Dirty Laundry Boombasticat f-i-n jonquill Stray Sparrow Swordfern Pablo Ashahands Erasing		2006-02-09 All straight lines circle sometime When I fall asleep, sometimes I think of everything. I think of this planet, of the hardness of stone, of the complexity of atoms and collisions in galaxies that, for all the ways they affect my life, might as well not exist, or of meteorites traveling at thousands of meters a second and smashing through my roof and killing me. I think about how our bodies fail us. They age, fall apart, suffer indecencies, humiliate us, and in the end, die, taking us with them. These thoughts, if ever there were obvious symptoms of mental illness, surely must indicate the same. What else could they? A higher power? I think about the day the sun will go out. What it would be like to sit on grass in the falling light, and to have it fall all the way away from us. Who put out all the lights, we'd say. It was God, or the laws of physics, that made all the fusion in the furnace run cold. How cold and immediate our lives would suddenly become. Seconds is what we would have to say our goodbyes. I think about the 26 years that are behind me. The ones that brought me here irreconcilably, uncontrollably, and which I will never get back, can’t undo, change, or even regret. At every moment I made decisions and they lead here and that is all there is. I think about why I can’t write fiction to save my life. Why I can’t create characters or care about anything that happens to them once I do. Why can’t I make things happen to them? If they exist, if they are real, surely they are screaming up and out of the blackness of half-cocked ideas, for something, for anything to happen! Surely they are scared and shouting and praying for a God they cannot see or trust to do something with them! To exist without meaning and context…to be half conceived and forgotten...they are rotting in the dormitory halls of my brain. And tears fall and they are forgotten, perhaps not even marked. And for the longest time I have feared death and not anymore. Now I embrace it, I move toward it, I know I do because I can't wait to see it - I will recognize it as the path that looks the same coming and going, that it will be some fine peak from which everything is reconciled, the sea and sky, the maxima and the minima, all the joy and suffering and careerism and the many, many defeats. Cause I'm not who I used to be; masterfully disguised, it was, the moment when a life turns and runs like a river all the way out to the sea. Tell me when this blog is updated email: