i feel like there is a brink i can’t quite put my finger on, and i am teetering over it. i could fall one way into lighter. lighter burden, permeable responsibilities, possible, open. i could continue sliding back the other way to sink, to watch horrified and struck-still as my life turns to stone, my self, into immobility is i think the gist. where i don’t have the physical energy required to open a window, where i don’t have the mental energy to flip open the laptop for our (fake) internship.

where good intentions bob close and impossibly out of reach. i’ll do my dishes. i’ll get some real coding done and make up for lost time. i’ll do the laundry. i’ll make my space clean and bright and usable. i’ll eat meals as opposed to sunflower seeds (which nowadays is code for the random crap i eat when i can’t prepare food (always) – cookies, luna bar, dry tortilla chips, almonds, yogurt, ice cream, whatever. not BAD for me but not meant to be all that is eaten.) i’ll organize my life and make usable my time, my empty spaces. i’ll deal with the scary mail. i’ll get back on top – just – not this second – in half an hour – an hour – tomorrow. when i try to move this second people scream and act like they’re drowning (maybe they are). anyway, i guess my stupid back has made most cleaning impossible today – bending and turning are both pretty much torture.

i want my life to be a clear running stream (purity is a myth), filling the low places, touching but not concealing, sharpening. beautiful, sustainable. it’s fairyland. it’s why turning over a new leaf has been such a habit, especially when we were young. at 13 it was all we knew how to do. it worked then, for a short time. maybe would have been longer if we were singular. now the balance of power in the system is too different and it’s hardly ever practicable.

my hands and feet are uncomfortably sweaty but i’m not warm. in fact, my feet are cold. typing feels clammy, my palms lubricating the front of the keyboard, my grimy fingers touching and rubbing off on the keys. the part of my back just below the neck is there, like a hot stone, pressing. yesterday it was like a hot iron, so i guess that’s progress. i am stiff from holding my head in one position.  my body feels hollow and sticky and fraudulent. finding words is pleasant but not as it could be, and not lastingly. a ripple of rest for each novel accuracy in what i write, but the pool is in a thimble.

there are so many thoughts and they are so, so lost. i store myself in talking to edges, only, and now edges and i get maybe two hours together on 2/3rds of the days. nobody’s fault. but it’s empty-making. then again, maybe it got me writing, maybe that’s good. everything is unsure, open to saturation. permeable, but i say that too much. you know how it feels sometimes like the boundaries are kind of fractal-ey, the finer you go the finer holes there are to fill, things that seem connected from a distance are a riot of gaps? shrug.

there is no destination. there is no journey. there is only a cruel mocking glimmer of motion, lulling and damning, because it never comes. only i’m so close. if i could just move… then i’d have motion. but it’s like exercising to stop depression. if you could exercise, the depression might be manageable. if i could move, then maybe i could cover distance.

blah all of it is starting to feel too pretentious, what gives you the right to be delicate and obscure and fake-poetical. and this is part of everything too. drink any draught of feeling deep enough, there is the coarse bitterness of self-hate. i don’t even think it shows when i’m mocking myself. i meant to close a paragraph ago. what am i doing? what is there to do? we want to die.

i can’t do it anymore. nothing will ever be ok again. there is nothing to say. there is nothing to do.

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there’s an impulse i always give into, because i see it as virtuous. it’s the shrinking from receptiveness to our inner work. it seems so tiresome to be lauded. i always see them in my head saying “i’m proud of you” and it stills my mouth. it is intolerable to please them with my floundering. i don’t understand this impulse entirely. it’s not an old one.

i don’t know that i understand it at all. what is the risk in being received? there are a thousand plausible suggestions but there’s none my intuition particularly points at.

it devalues something. when things are private and safe no one can try to understand. it might lead us to be unable to get distance from it. it’s embarrassing. guys don’t do this, don’t show you’re not one. i don’t want a fuss made over it (why?) – i don’t want i don’t know i don’t know i don’t know it’s just so shameful. privacy is the only safety. this is a new thing for me. i think i used to have no pride. certain things are available when you have no pride.

maybe reception feels like condenscension. if there were a subvocalization, it would be “i can’t stand to have you pawing over it!” you’ll decide things about me based on it. you’ll pity us.

the worst thing would be to overstate our feelings. understate is a mantra. we’ll be laughed at. no one will understand. no one will trust us again. how can we let go of the man we’re turning into?: stoic, supportive, giving. no, we don’t want to be one-sided. but anywhere else danger lies. i am still, just shaking, and there are no torrents. i can kind of see them. but it just doesn’t happen. don’t hate me. don’t hate me. don’t hate me. the torrents are unoriginal and melodramatic. i hate myself for them. i hate so much that in turn i have a torrent of rage which also must be carefully not stated, because that is just as melodramatic. but at least the rage knows not to express itself when others are near.

i used to be able to be incoherent and derivative. and how can i mourn the loss when it is making me who i want to seem to be?

it’s also hard to write because i have a reader that i’m uncomfortable with. not enough to take my whole journal down as others in my life have been forced to do, but enough to make the thought of writing depressing.

i guess we haven’t been making too much progress in therapy, except getting to know our new therapist, whom we like. another quarter is nearly over – we need to drop one of the classes. it sucks. two classes composed entirely of quarter-long group projects. ugh.

we got the unpaid, part-time internship and are starting around the end of june. it terrifies us so much we can’t think of it.

i’m avoiding homework right now. everything is so futile. we’ve had a lot of bad headaches.

of course there is strong resistance. there’s never been anything to say. what are we supposed to do about it? we care, some of us, but we are bone-weary. others, of course, actively maintain the walls. there is a sense of passionate reserve, invisible uncontrolled weeping. it’s all very victorian. not that that’s satisfying or nourishing as it could have been in times past. we were obsessed with that time when we were 12.

everything is unwise and irreversible. you don’t care so why should i say this to you? i think there are several things locked together filming over with a skin of apathy, like a chemical reaction. i do miss words. i love words. parsing semantics is one tiny thing about words, it feels like a toy compared to healing and self-expression, compared to depths (we call it deep processing but everything is relative), it is angled like a skipping stone, but it has our full focus. i think some are dissatisfied with that. maybe it’s just because we’re getting closer to our graduation. who knows. isn’t it a dream to use toys for your living? what a strange word “living” in that sense is.

i need to work, but it’s no good today. i hate being this worthless. and on top of it all i’m starting to fail inside as well as out. hence, skin of apathy.

after all, isn’t it virtuous that the inside should be a chore? it is much easier to work. look, i’ll let you clean and self-care. i’ll let you play games and read books. i’m not cruel. aren’t you happier this way? and anyhow, never forget you don’t have a choice. stay focused. you can do this thing or you can lose everything. how can you even pause? don’t forget that it is selfish to look in. it is selfish to die or to want to. so losing everything is not a choice; it would penalize those close to you, and let you off the hook. come on, it’s ok, it’s okay, i’m not asking for much, i’d never ask for more than you could do. come on, isn’t this nicer anyway? isn’t this smooth? lozenge the interrupts smooth before and after, they slip away on through, back to work. avoid them when you can, but when you can’t, let go of them. you do not want to stick to that. you do not want to hang on to that.

this is for you, you, you. this will get you where you need to be. i bend so much. you have so much. there is no point in going further. it won’t pay off. you can do it later. in the break. you’ll have time someday. you don’t now. just go, go, go. slide on, slip on, i’ll help with the corners, we’ll get through it. this isn’t counter to your purposes. aren’t you better than you were? isn’t it better to be stoic, doesn’t it feel masculine? i thought that’s what you wanted, what you liked. just go.

there are two people in our life. we are too broken for one and not broken enough for the other. it feels cold inside. we’re not grand and i can’t see how it matters that we are having a hard time. i don’t have the energy to churn or be a white flame. it’s winter, the sleeping season, the dead season, and there are so many reasons to deaden. but we feel ourselves losing them and that pierces the armor. but even then, what? how do we be what they want? i’m not sure what we’re doing wrong but i know it’s something. i’m not sure that there’d be any way to do right, but there must. cold with fear. we’re going to lose them in so many ways.

dull and dead and cold, so what do you want? what now? what then? why are you here? what am i supposed to give? so you’re leaving. so that’s that.

is it weather? is it only feelings? it is somewhere we do not know how to go. except them.

can’t get towards it, but also nowhere away.  hurt beyond hurt, shock beyond shock, so stunned they can pretend not to be. sounds, smells, movement are an affront & a threat. we bring them out of the close, dark places into the brilliant, searing, unconcerned world. and my head aches, deep & low & tense everywhere. nowhere away. and my chest aches, short breath, slower and lower with each one. shaking like a background, like inhabiting a vibrating world and then suddenly removed. your frames are no good here. words are no good here, but someone told us we get at those wordless places, worldless places, better than anyone. how can we not try? but oh, how sour the notes sound, every approximation like a loud, flat horn or a wide, bright cymbal. everything’s stopped.

they are as serious as children, literal and present. any gesture to them is wrong. there is no holding and no light. no gentle touch. no casual thought.

& the hurt is low, & there’s nothing else. there’s no-one, no-one, no-one. there is no away.