see, my sister had been telling me for weeks, maybe it's been months now that i needed to hear this song. i'm not too quick to get around to requests lately. i've just been focusing on one foot in front of the other (i'm told this is how one moves forward). so when i heard it, i knew it was the song. THE song of my life at the moment. so many reasons, so very many reasons.
i don't care by apocalyptica
(Feat. Adam Gontier & Mats Leven)
Try to make it through my life, in my way, there's you
I try to make it through these lies, that's all I do
Just don't deny it
Just don't deny it and deal with it, yeah
Just deal with it
You try to break me,
You wanna break me...bit by bit,
That’s just part of it
If you were dead or still alive
I don't care, I don't care
And all the things you left behind
I don't care, I don't care
I try to make you see my side
Always trying to stay in line
But your eyes see right through
That's all they do
I'm getting tired of this shit
I've got no room when it's like this
What you want of me just deal with it
(nothing can care about, nothing can care about)
(you won't be there for me, you won't be there for me)
If you were dead or still alive
I don't care, I don't care
And all the things you left behind
I don't care, I don't care
...
i try to sing it like i mean it.
I DON'T CARE,but that silly girl voice in me still says,
but i do.
I DON'T CARE.
but i do.she's pathetic, really. sometimes i wonder when i'll be able to not care. but she keeps her vigil by the window, with the damn candle lit, and i try to blow it out, i really do. i scream at her,
he's gone. dead. not coming back,but she just sits there. even looks at hawks still. kisses him in her dreams, and i wake up screaming.
...
brokenness.
my birthday was a joke. if it weren't for the people that held me up, the kids i work with, that came beside me and loved me, i would have crawled in a hole and died. i had forgotten how it felt to just lose it completely in that way, in a griefstricken way.
today is the two year anniversary of his death and i still sit here, fighting the tears and it was okay until this point, because i was the ice queen. i had no one to thaw out that tender heart i locked away. but then, someone did and now, i'm all gushy again.
damn.
my boss and i had a long, six-hour long conversation about everything (i awoke at three am and went to work though it was my day off because i needed to get some things sorted out, some things said).
you're whole here.he said.
yes.
and that's the toughest part. being entirely, every good bad and damnable thing about myself in one place at one time. i've wanted this. i wanted to gather up my scattered selves, but i never knew how, never knew it was possible. but now, here they are, all with me, all of us, like that ironic video riding in my pony singing
I DON'T CARE.and, that one of me keeps saying,
but i still do...
my boss realized i was trying to jump ship, to run away, to abort process. this is what i do, leave. i'm terribly good at leaving. but it is why i chose my master's program, so i could stay. i want to stay. to be here, now. but it's frightening reckoning with your demons. finding those parts of you long neglected and so needy, and having to figure out how to get those needs met. how to meet them yourself and not depend on anyone else.
i think that is what it comes down to, for me. i have to be, to continue to be honest with where i'm at. the kids were grateful, i think. my boss was not happy, but i was not in a place to care. i was broken.
...
wholeness.
it's not what i expected it to be. being present. being acutely aware of how impossible you are. but all i can do is state my case, make myself known and move forward.
i picked up my poetry books last night, time to prepare in earnest for my reading. it will be here soon. i'm reading from stalking the dead and will honor it. it will be, perhaps, the last time i dedicate a reading this way to that book. more is coming. more always comes.
i have decided to go about it like i've seen so many poets, just bring your book and flip through it. i will dogear some pages, but for the most part, i'll try to just speak my truth and read.
a kurtis lamkin line comes to me, that sums up the whole thing in my mind (and that girl again says,
see...)
the hardest hunger in the whole wide world is reaching for someone gone forever.
and that line sums it up. this hard hunger.
perhaps my next book needs that title. hard hunger.
that is what it is.
...
kindness.
i'm always surprised when i find it. one of the kids i worked with early on my broken birthday came back late that night with a little pink cake and one candle. he stood there smiling at me, telling me to
make a wish.
but i don't wish for anything.
well, you have to.
he would not budge.
so all the kids were eyeing me then. and i stood there for a long time, until it came to me, what the one thing i would wish for would be.
and so they sang to me, and we cut the little cake and made my wish.
...
writing.
i awoke that morning at three am. i had two things to do. writing a letter that i heard, like a poem, tracking through my brain. i haven't had the desire to write anything of late. not one word. i am trying to keep a journal but it's a lackluster attempt. i don't consider that writing, more spending time with pen in hand. very different in my mind.
when i awake to something, when i am writing what is written in my heart on the page, that is what i consider writing.
all of my writing comes this way, subconsciously. that is why i trust it. the true writing. the words that matter.
i wrote you a letteri said.
i'll read it later.
you don't have to read it,i replied,
but i had to write it.
wax seal,he said with a smile.
at least your still smiling.
what else is there to do.
you see i'm the kind of person who must get it out there. all of it. if i'm going down in flames you're going to know exactly where my heart was at before i bit it. that is all i can say. this compulsion to honesty.
it's not so much that i want to force an issue, though it probably comes off as that. it's that i kept messing it up. i kept trying to say something right and it kept coming off wrong.
at least, when words present themselves to me, they are strong enough to be on their own. i can trust them.
i sat up in bed and decided to get ready, to start my very long day, and so, by five am i was sitting outside my store writing by the street light waiting for my boss to unlock the doors.
what is the worst thing that could happen?
my pen ran out of ink. i, who always carrry refills, had none. so i commissioned a lesser pen and wrote on.
all morning my boss tried to get the letter, to read the letter, but i kept jockeying it away, maneuvering it just so, so it couldn't be seen. and i sealed it with wax right there in the store, and didn't address it until just before i handed it off.
then, i went and bought a new pen.
...
the red tail.
circling just now, he caught my attention, held it for a moment, lit upon a tree then drafted away. always leaving. they are always beyond reach, but i guess, i expected that.
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