obsessions

i know something about obsessions. i realized the difference between where i work and the licensed stores is the level of ocdism going on. the real whacked out ocd people are in the actual stores. you have to have some kind of ocd to be able to tolerate the mindnumbing tedium combined with the otherworldly demands this job puts on you.

yesterday i went in with raccoon eyes. i wore dark eyeliner and scowled at my coworkers (not all of them, just the ones i knew were talking shit). because i'm tired of it. i don't just let that shit slide by and it comes to me that the person who pressed me so hard until i lost it, and then cried, was just talking shit. or at least that is the line i'm getting. but who to trust? who do you trust when you think you know a thing?

i have talked to nearly everyone now, definately to those i respect most. and they say,

bullshit.

they look at me astounded at the line i was sold, and say,

that's crazy.

which helps, in some small way, because i didn't believe it to begin with. first of all, i have an oldschool work ethic, which means i work circles around just about everyone. so for anyone to say i'm not doing my job is madness. sheer madness.

the guy says,

look at it from my perspective everyone is complaining to me.

i said,

look at it from my perspective, you're the only one giving me shit. every time we work together.

he didn't say anything after that because it's him. it's all him.

i blew up, which i was trying not to, but after two hours of being slighted and picked on by someone who thinks they are doing you a favor by being "honest" --then i left in tears because i couldn't hold it together anymore. it was just too much for me.

so, to my obsessions.

i have come to understand that i am a poet.

news to all i'm sure. but as such, i need a muse. do i want a muse, not necessarily. but i need one. do i look for a muse, no. but i'm always open to one. do i find them? hell yes.

my current muse is like my other muses in that they find themselves under camera eye. they are the center of my intense scrutiny, hear obsession.

that this is taking place during my semester, that i've watched the entire thing unfold and fought it, grappled with it, written about it, lived it. is something profound for me, because i don't want to just be a quivering mass of reaction. i want to weild my power. to harness it.

at the moment, my power sometimes weilds me.

when this was going down during residency, i came to a moment when i was pacing the floor saying, can i do this? do i want to do this? this is vulnerability. this is weakness.

(and by weakness i do not mean frailty. i mean, i am intentionally leaving myself open to an emotional subset--my god i sound like an academic.)

this is also strength, and who am i to forego now for what may come. consequences be damned, is what i ended up deciding. which is what i mostly go with. i like to live.

so i did.

so i do.

and now, consequences.

i am inside of me with a muse who may or may not want to be there or that. which leaves a profound dilemma. pursue the work, or defer to the person.

i try, i really do try to defer to the person, but sometimes, the work comes. i don't stop it. i don't try.

and i realized this too, what i've always known, but i must write people out of my system. that once they are in, there is no other outlet than my words. here. in poems. on the page. until i pour them out, they simmer in my mind, in my heart. can i stir the pot and make it worse? certainly. that's a given.

but what i'm trying to learn now is how to let go.

the delicate art of letting go.

i often think i've got it down, as inclined to leaving, as inclined to walking away as i am. but how do you let go of something, someone you want to keep? how do you grapple with your process and separate the person out?

i don't know.

hence the grappling.

i am obsessive by nature, but my obsessions are more the emotional entanglements, the mental diversions i so enjoy. i said to my muse,

i am going to relive things, it is how i write about them. so it's going to get rocky.

i do not say this lightly. i do not say this easily. it is not something i do willingly, but some part of me wants to forego the writing because i don't need to trap the muse.

i have never walked away from a muse like this before. never said,

here you are. rattling around in my heart and mind, get the hell out.

never, that is, until the works have come, the process has largely had its run.

but now, now i'm trying to separate out the living from creating. they are two distinctly different realities and while the source material was fun, i'm not sure it is healthy for me to spend much time in it. thinking about it.

i'm trying to learn to take care of myself.
that is the conclusion of these dilemmas for me.

how can i be most gentle with myself and preserve my heart and mind.

there will be other muses, to be sure. i understand that now.

but what do i do with this?