Thing-a-day.com

falling ever and ever farther behind, she still plods along as she has done since time immemorial.

The sun was setting outside the Home Depot Super Do It Yourself Emporium. It cast orange light on the orange-themed store. My job was to try and capture something of the experience. Perhaps I succeeded a little. Perhaps not. Be that as it may, it is now thing eleven.

Fuck you, anyway, whoever you are.

Today’s thing is a poem. best I could come up with, being that I’m writing this from on the road. Far away from home.

As though anyone were listening.

Progris riport

I’m falling apart, but I’m ok
I look and feel worse than I ever have in my life
But my life is better than it’s ever been in my life
Except for the fact that what’s good has got to go
Always
That’s how it is and that’s what pains me
That and the fact I’m falling apart, but hey, I’m ok, ok?

I’m out wandering, again
For a time I was seeing town from within
Walking the streets, getting on soapboxes
Nowadays I come alone to the borders and look in from the edge
Observing from a distance, not seeing much of anything at all

Got the usual inventory of late-middle-age ailments
Bad teeth, bad eyes, bad hearing, not enough money to fix any of it
Gone fat and slovenly and barely able to care anymore
Vital signs are good but the patient reports feeling like shit all the time
Sounds a little paranoid, says she’s “under siege”
Whatever that means

I still have my buffer against the harsh realities of Life
Beauty, and Love, and more of the same
And I still haven’t figured out the trick
Of how to not feel all things all at once
All the time
Quod me nutrit me destruit

I take drugs whenever I can in pursuit of the warm and fuzzy
some of them legal, some of them not
Sometimes I steal them, even. Oh yeah, didn’t
know I was a thief, did you? I’m good, too; only been caught once, and
plea-bargained my way out of it. So it goes. It’s my own childish little way of spitting in the eye of the universe. So there.

I’m pretty much convinced now this was all some big mistake, yes,
I’m unconvinced that sense or meaning or purpose is behind or below or inside it
I’m aware that it doesn’t matter what I am or am not convinced of
It is still true that the only thing I really really want is the only thing I really really cannot have

In a life that has been filled with unreality the world is stranger than ever to me
More of a haunted place
Hostile as ever, that’s for sure
Harder to hide from

Plus I’ve an intimate understanding of the meaning of the phrase “terrible beauty”

I guess I stopped believing in magic, looks like it anyways
Or stopped believing in my ability to believe, or something
Ready to entertain the mundane as a very unwelcome guest
Because I sure don’t have any better explanations, and yet
I still feel something of the mystical on a wild, cloudy-ragged day
And experience something akin to distant grief when the sun manages to
Tear a hole in the sky

Yeah, I still feel touched, just seems like I’ll never get to know what it is that’s touching me
If nothing else, then that, but no
Still not remembering my dreams anymore, but lately I’m waking up remembering
Having had them, so that’s something, anyway, right?
It’s sad not to remember them,
but remembering them is sadder still

It’s winter, now, as if it were winter forevermore
Interrupted by Spring, perhaps
Or a bit of summer
But basically winter
Singing to my soul

And of course, my soul sings back

Late, okay. But here. Remember: click the pic for a full size treat.

edit/update: less baffled now. Think I’ve got a handle on this thing…..

but I don’t think I know what I’m doing…