come on down

Haven't seen anyone in a couple of days again by hare christian


i slept for 14 hours. woke up my back hurt. that's normal. stumbled around the house for a while. watched four episodes of the Practice, had no choice i've watched all of Boston Legal now. fell asleep. woke up, watched Withnail and I, falling asleep intermittently. woke up. decided to be brave and go outside. summer is too much. heavy, stagnant air. dried up flowers and grass everything brown and glaring in the sun. my face sweats and my glasses slide down my nose.

bus. sit. stop. stand. stepout. oh yes, Adelaide. only it's Christmas and there're people everywhere bumping into me. i'm dizzy and can't keep my eyes open. when i close them i feel like i'm falling. i still get spasms, just left over electricity in my body from a winter cloud or two i swallowed. i think pancakes can fix this, but get lost and eat at a tiny cash-only Japanese joint. go to the T-bar where the woman's smile recognizes me (despite my not having patronized them for over 6 months). still, she smiles like i'm a regular (and i am, just an infrequent regular) and knows to warm my orange and poppy-seed muffin. i sit and try to write. listen to Max Richter's the blue notebooks, which ends up being soo good i can't write. or eat. i try reading and but keep falling everytime i close my eyes. and keep closing my eyes because i can't keep them open. and can't keep them open because i'm dizzy and the words on the page merge. J.M. Coetzee's Nobel Prize acceptance speech leaves me breathless. the music doesn't help. now i'm dizzy, breathless, feel like i'm falling, and can't write.

i admit defeat. in under two-hours. i'm not ready to wander yet. back home. need to be at home. in PJs. where it is safe to indulge a little narcolepsy. where it is ok to collapse stupefied and watch obscure British cult-classics and read Nobel acceptance speeches and drift in and out of yourself feeling your veins and arteries clench up tight holding their breath for another whiff of the white powder. where it is ok to be dizzy and stumble into walls and drop forks and sit on couches and occasionally spasm. my dad looks at me oddly. shiver? he asks. __y e s. i answer slowly, a deliberate lie. as i shake my leg up and down dreaming of white clouds and white pills and slowly body is returning to me i feel pangs of lust - is that all it is to be human? (how disappointing).

on my bed i shiver and shake a little while my heart slows itself and my eyes squint, letting in just a trickle of light, just enough to write this. and my hands sticky with sweat and my bed reminds me if i fall asleep my back will hurt when i eventually wake.

frozen coke. Ingmar Bergman film. sleep? shiver it out. shiver it out. sleep it out. in a safe place, close your eyes till you finish falling. then rise and get on with it.