Can't Sleep

Perfect sleeping weather but the slightest breeze stirs stinking soot and the smell wakes me. Escape mode, I reach for my keys; once, slightly drunk, I actually drive to the bottom of the hill before I realize there is no danger, or the danger is past, and I'm merely being paranoid. When you come this close to jumping in the cistern or seeking refuge in a mud puddle your view of reality shifts. I would never argue that my reality was any more real than any other, but this dip into hyper-space, where the world was on fire and your life was at risk, has altered the way I think. Like any trauma, it'll fade, with time, but I'm affected deeply and can't sleep. Barnhart was right, I need a nose-gay. This trauma was a smell thing. When I squeeze my eyes shut, I see flames, but mostly it's the smell. That damned Brit picks it up right away, says I stink, of course I do, I've been in a fire. Bridwell on a stick, smoked Bridwell, I answer to anything; I revel at being alive. That conversation with Josh, at the Dairy Bar, was important, because I wonder about the nature of reality, how we view things. This new lease on life makes me think I'm lucky. But I'm not lucky, I lose at most things. Consider relationships, everyone either asks me to leave or cuts me off. Not everyone, I have to watch those sweeping statements, I'm prone to over-statement. Exaggerated bullshit. But I find myself in this position, I look outside, and the world is burning; I live alone, I fanaticize relationships. My closest contact is with a fox. Would you trust this man with your daughters? I see a set of questions I need to ask myself, I don't know the answers, I could be rudely awakened. The story of my life.

Tom

Two blonds go into a bar, one of them has a marmot. Had I mentioned, recently, how glad I am you read me? Otherwise I'd be nuts. I think I can't sustain this then I do. Life is like that, first one thing, then another, the beaten path. Whenever I get dark I start laughing, I can't not. It's either pre or pro scribed. The daffodils or iris where a house had been. Clumps of meaning. You know what I mean. I have to peek out of the page. I wish I didn't have to, but I have to make my presence known. I think about this a lot, where I stand in relationship to what, but I'm harmless, I think, a gnat, nothing more. (Homage to Emily.) Nothing makes perfect sense. The fire, my helplessness. I am not strong, I want to make a point here, I'm not the person for the job, I tend to drift, you know what I mean, go off-track, not the person you'd want in that place, but there I am.