Again with the brillo pad

Welcome to the stream of my consciousness. I've been back in the US for a few days now, and having an unexpected though utterly predictable reaction. Good luck staying afloat in these words. They twist and turn without restraint...

Where does one begin...deep down. Facing it is the key to getting through it, they say. Conrad says. A man much greater than me. Not even a native English speaker but wrote a narrative that makes me shudder in utter inferiority.

And some people say learning other languages destroys your ability to write well.

I need to start writing again. I feel too awful when I don't, and everything gets fucked from there. Vicious cycle and all that.

But this shouldn't be so hard, being home, even though it doesn't feel at all like home and never really did. I had forgotten that. It's poison when things get Romantisized with distance.

Distance makes the heart grow fonder and familiarity breeds contempt.

And blending cliches does not a great writer make. Why does this place make me feel like such a failure? Make me feel like a naive child, even after everything...Why don't I have anyone to say these things to in this place but resort to telling them here, to no one, black and white on the screen which is a terrible thing because out loud they have color. On this sheet they just sit there, pretending to be true. Nothing that sits unchanging and unchallenged can ever be true. How unamerican of me to say that, with all of our great, fundamental truths.

Draft me now. Straighten me out. Simplify my language.

Take away the stress of the unknown and self-scouring.

I never accomplished anything worth writing home about until I left. And being here makes me feel like those things that happened far away from here weren't real. So I feel like a failure who just keeps getting older.

I jokingly said to someone before I left that I would go home only to be met with all the reasons I left in the first place. I don't know why I thought it was funny at the time.

And I wonder who will read this, and wonder if it isn't going to cross the eyes of certain people I'd rather it not. But sometimes these things just need an out. Even if there is no response. Even if I still feel alone in the end. Even just to see how absurd my thoughts are.

Especially that last one.

Sure there are lots of details of this and that which has happened over the last days. If you feel so inclined, ask away. I find those details too fucking boring to put down in writing right now.

Just breathe, man. You've stopped breathing...