Knock knock

The scratches beneath 505 were deep. Edward stared at them. His weight floated around as his feet shifted on the gelatinous hallway carpet and gave him the sense of being woozily carried along on some tedious voyage out in the middle of a hot ocean, pulled by a mundane current in endless circles around the equator. He wondered if he could have dug those scratches in the solid, dark mahogany. With his fingernails, or with his teeth, or his room key. He wondered if she had made any gouges after he locked her inside of room 505. If she had the strength left. The tall dark receptionist with the big happy face had a trace of concern in his eyes as he called out a greeting in a horrible caricature of sincerity. His name tag said Stewart. Stewart had seemed on the verge of accosting Edward further. But that was probably because of the big purplish blue bruise covering most of the left side of Edward's face and his torn shirt collar. Stewart couldn't have been aware of what happened. The hotel was a happy little microcosm of shoeboxes for him. He didn't worry about what the shoes were doing once he closed the lid. Not for his sorry wages. “Fucking savages in this town, my man. What's an honest fella to do?” Edward had said with a shrug of his shoulders as he walked by. Florescent lights made 4:17 AM repulsively awake as Edward's eyes continued to probe the scratches. He swivelled his head slightly to the left and leaned in. There might have been the sound of shuffling leaking through the scratches. The sound of something limp and broken being dragged painstakingly across a carpet. There might have been the sound of the air conditioner grumbling in quietly dejected tones. Edward knew better than to believe anything was true. Every utterance she ever made had been a lie. What else could he have done. Edward jerked back when a door slammed somewhere overhead. But his eyes stayed fixed. Those scratches reminded him of things. He didn't know whether to fill them in or dig them deeper. He could see her in the ruined state he left her in. His imagination dragged her into that familiar pose, lying on her side with her hands between her thighs. And that smile. A smile that had made him crumble. That made him give it all away. But it had become leering and grotesque. Edward thought he had done the thing finished, but halfway to the next city he realized he had to go back. He had gone in this deep. He had to fix it up right, or break it all the way. It had always been like that. He caught the odor of stale beer which triggered the memory of a scene in a similar depth of night from when he was seventeen, standing in the hallway of his father's home, staring at the folds of flesh in the old man's forehead as he fixed a stare back with his shoulders hunched forward and balding head beat red and vibrating. That time Edward had broken it all the way. And he wasn't sorry. The situation called for it. He wondered why these situations had a way of finding him. The whimper from behind 505 was fleeting but unmistakable. Footsteps began ringing up from the stairwell and down the corridor. Edward had his idea. In one smooth and determined motion he pulled out the key to room 505, opened the door and slipped inside. And finally tore his eyes away from the scratches.

Life is a song

Empty Devil

You probably mean well
in your own twisted way
Believing it’s all just the game
that everyone plays
Turning me up
with words you don’t mean
Smiling so wide
then losing your steam
It took you a while
to get into my head
And when finally you did
you turned and you fled
In the macabre corners of night
when the noise disappears
When there’s only the ticking
of disconsolate years

I hope red raging devils tear through your thin veins
And bore deep inside of your many glass panes
Rending and tearing till the juices are flowing
And you twist and you moan and your sanity’s going

Since there’s nothing to lose
I’m just gonna say it
You're pathetic and hollow
an assailant, a sadist
You’re much less than human
no you’ll never deserve
A place in that fine company
with your fire interred
They call you an angel
the ones who can’t see
You’re the sweetest on Earth
and nothing beneath
It’s safe on the level
nothing ventured or gained
When you hear these harsh words
my dissecting your name

I hope you become a red devil and show me your rage
And melt all the glass in the heat of your flames
Rending and tearing your walls till they’re dust
Letting everything touch you no matter the cost

It ain’t in you to change
your future’s the same as your past
But I know I have
I know I have

Various thoughts written down over the course of one day of my life

It’s odd writing down lines that I thought of earlier and decided were necessary to spell out. It’s like I’m cheating any potential readers by making it seem like these thoughts pouring out are spontaneous – living and breathing right now. It’s like I’m cheating myself by scribbling down old rusty thoughts (thoughts take mere moments to decay) instead of letting them become new ones – living and breathing right now.

But that wasn’t the train of thought I scrolled down this Word document I was working on here at the office to write down. That was a new one. What has been on my mind this morning is that yet again I’ve let any kind of my own personal writing slip when I’ve been shown over and over that I need it to stay balanced. Why is it so fucking easy to forget? This here, just letting my fingers string thoughts in disarray into solid words, is not a chore. It’s cathartic. And it always helps. And when I’m pacing across my floor, pulling my hair, aching for some release, I always forget it is an option. I wish I had it in me to be an addict.

Already I’ve wandered away from the computer, feeling better with things, and lost the drive to keep writing. Even though I most definitely know that there are muddled things in my brain that need an out, and need this place where I’m free to let them loose. Talking it out with folks is great, but restricted in many ways. And as I delete the line I really wanted to write because it was too open, because it made myself too vulnerable to any eyes straying this way, the restrictions of this space become evident. Words can only do so much, anyway. Coax it along...

Fuck me my neck is tense today. I woke up feeling as though things were lighter, but my body seems to still be drawing inwards. Maybe it’s just a sort of stress hangover. But the truth is more obvious: I just slept on it funny, it doesn’t mean anything. I’m thinking too hard again. Fuck Occam and his stupid fucking razor. I want my irrational justification today.

Much of the day has passed. My neck feels better. But the stress bubbles are returning. The project I'm working on is frustrating. Thinking about too many parts at once, can’t seem to get focused down onto one thing. But this is what I get paid for, to create something good out of difficult circumstances, within a small box. It would help if I had more confidence. Maybe this isn’t the smartest career path for someone so sensitive, so self-critical, so incapable of selling himself. Oh well, back to it go I.

I should really do this stream-of-consciousness thing every day. It calms me. Helps me with perspective. Makes me less insane. What does it matter if anyone finds this worth reading. It had fallen by the wayside anyway.

(paragraph deleted - search private vaults for missing excerpt)

Night’s fallen, feeling worn out. Like I’ve been through a great deal, climbed a mountain or two. Weird body I have. Or brain I suppose, whichever bit controls tiredness. Guess I do have more confronting me than usual, it does wear on a bloke. But good things are happening. Just need to crawl through some more rubbish and I’ll move on to a whole new shift in my life, I know it’s coming now. It keeps coming. Overhauled over and over again has my life been the last year. It’s been a long year. My longest perhaps, with a plethora of landmarks of all shapes and sizes. Landmarks show the passing of time, time drifts by seamlessly when the landscape flattens out and you drive along at the speed limit. Some people may want that. I want valleys and mountains and plunges and hair-raising leaps through empty air. Even if it leaves me inexplicably exhausted.

God my writing is rubbish right now. Until next time then, dear readers. Whatever next time brings.

Bursting and raving

The everlasting universe of things
Flows through the mind, and rolls its rapid waves,
Now dark, now glittering, now reflecting gloom
Now lending splendor, where from secret springs
The source of human thought its tribute brings
Of waters-with a sound but half its own,
Such as a feeble brook will oft assume
In the wild woods, among the mountains lone,
Where waterfalls around it leap forever,
Where woods and winds contend, and a vast river
Over its rocks ceaselessly bursts and raves.