experiments with calibration: Day 4

____within the grasp of Thy hand Thou holdest the determined measures of all things.
________the Bab


the sound of the beach used to scare me. for the longest time. that subtle pounding seemed precarious. i stare out at it through the windshield. grass, trees, waves, field of blue, continuous line of the horizon, dark clouds. a couple of drops land on my windshield. i stare out, listening to the ocean, while he finishes reading. it's unimportant to listen i think. if you do you do, but if you don't... it's enough that those words are being said. mumbled or whispered or orated out loud. the air changes. the whole universe readjusts and notices you again. two children squeal as they go down the path on their bikes. a few seconds later: two mothers power-walking side by side.

i like the colour of grass on overcast days. i like the colour of everything on overcast days.

it never stops surprising me how these words grow suddenly vast when you feel small(est). how the sounds suddenly become soo intense that even as i mumble breathlessly i struggle to speak. almost cry. how incredible it all seems when you realise you are nothing. when you spent half the night reading about postsynaptic receptors and indirect noradrenaline stimulation and pharmacokinetics. controlled substances. issues with dependence. symptoms and causes and differential diagnoses and tried to imagine your own brain buzzing with these little chemical flies and flickering on and off in the soon-to-be-morning hours as little bursts of electricity kept you functioning. (and you are terrified)

i exhale. lick my lips- my lips are always dry. mouth too. i drink more water than a blue whale. there in the corner, now that i'm sober again i see my old self sitting, slouched against a wall. he looks beat. unshaven. he smiles at me. it is such a tender moment, like seeing an old friend. all is forgotten. him and his bastard self-sabotage. his rambling neurotic blahblahblah. his shaking hands and his phobia of dark rooms and silent nights and wanting to touch every woman's lips. it's like loving everything you hate about your sister. we embrace and i kiss him on the forehead. (and his paranoia. his fixations. narcicissm. his week-long zombie can't-do-anything see-anyone marathons). we stare into each other's eyes and smile. how you been old friend? neglected no doubt. i'm worried about us you know. how we're gonna get through all this, sort it out ya know? he smiles. for once he's the calm one.

____Whatever God hath willed hath been, and that which He hath not willed shall not be.
________the Bab

it never stops surprising me how welcoming these words are. how even after ignoring them for months... rebelling agianst them and pretending they don't exist and turning and walking the other way when you saw them coming, how willing they are to smile at you and take you back. and where else can a small(est) man hide if not there? where else will i and my loud.noisy.self-hating doppelganger go? who will smile at me and hold me and brush aside curtains so i can sit and stare at oceans?

i've only slept three hours. my eyes sting. i think i had two little tins of tuna yesterday. coffee. i have evolved beyond food. beyond sleep. when was it, must have been yesterday (seems soo far away... it is soo far away when you never sleep), i lay on the grass by the lake and stared at the clouds. when the sun finally came out i swooned. delighted. i am soo sensual these days. constantly focussing on what my body is doing. tightenings and dilations and tingles and clarity. i'm keeping a mental journal of the evolving world. also i flipped through a dusty book, read this, and realised how good it is to be human. (whatever the hell that means).


SOME TREES

____These are amazing: each
____Joining a neighbor, as though speech
____Were a still performance.
____Arranging by chance

____To meet as far this morning
____From the world as agreeing
____With it, you and I
____Are suddenly what the trees try

____To tell us we are:
____That their merely being there
____Means something; that soon
____We may touch, love, explain.

____And glad not to have invented
____Such comeliness, we are surrounded:
____A silence already filled with noises,
____A canvas on which emerges

____A chorus of smiles, a winter morning.
____Placed in a puzzling light, and moving,
____Our days put on such reticence
____These accents seem their own defense.

__________John Ashbery