Lists & Plans

It doesn't really bother me so much until these hours hit, when I am up with nothing to do, no one to verbally talk to, just sitting in my bed with my back against the wall trying to ignore the ever-eternal-dripping of my sink. I'll read over a passage like this one in Chris Fuhrman's The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys;

"I remembered to breathe, concentrated on that for awhile.

And then the world expanded. Two kids with problems in a circle park weren't going to bring on the locusts or oceans of fire. They wouldn't even hold up traffic. Most of the anger breathed out of me, and my face, at least, grew used to it. I've never been able to stay angry. People think I'm understanding. I understand little. But I can hear almost anything, and that's nearly as good.

I'll read this and sit back, look around my room, the clothes on the floor and the bottle of water on the half moon table next to my bed, and I keep expecting to find some one here to share the sense of understanding and calmness that has just washed over me.

But the dripping echoes. There are no background noises except for those that I make myself. I have the blankets draped over my knees and mygod, I can feel that the town outside my window is full of ghosts that have better things to do besides haunt me.

All of that is over, done.


brown bag drawing. spring 2007

Country Teasers - I Don't Like People from Satan Is Real Again Or Feeling Good About Bad Thoughts (Crypt Records, 1996)