coiled

My face feels drawn. Tight. Lips pursed and cheekbones protrude and forehead creased. I'm a coiled snake in the corner. Hiss and rattle and menace. Maybe it's the fatigue. Maybe it's the bottle of wine I drank. And please excuse typos I don't catch - I will try and perform repairs later. I only dream in infrared. Who wrote that?

Should I even be making a blog entry at this hour? With this fatigue? This buzz in my skull? I take another pull of wine. I should just take it from the teat of the bottle and not this glass. I should also concentrate on the editing, but... but bleary eyes do not lend themselves to what is required. Another bottle conquered, like Hannibal over the Alps. Or something like that.

Hello - is there anybody in there?

What's this nonsense on the television? It's muted and music plays right now, Poe. I should turn it off. Blank dead screen. But somehow, these nothing images keep me company.

I did watch "The Departed" earlier today. Oh, yes, I enjoyed it. I also saw the original upon which it was based, "Infernal Affairs." The Nicholson leer. The Ballahus cinematography. And Mr. Scorsese bringing out the best in every actor he nears - the Midas Touch. Give him an Academy Award already. His moment of glory. He should have beat "Rocky." And "Ordinary People." And, for the love of every child spawned by Noah, "Dances With Wolves." Do your own research.

But, until the world realigns itself, I cannot watch "Little Miss Sunshine."

Just nod if you can hear me.

I've moved on to vodka. Oh, numb, novocaine brain. Quiet thyself! What does it take? Must I read the late works of Shakespeare to cease your humdrum oppression? Could William ever top Titus Andronicus? Methinks not.

I glance at the clock next to the lava lamp next to the 'relative comfort indicator' and realize it's early. Well, early for a Friday night. Late for my work nights. But, awake since 5:15 on restless sleep with a 45-minute nap this afternoon, and the booze.

No, I should not be writing this. But perhaps my fanbase will appreciate the veracious stream-of-consciousness of a compassionate, misanthropic madman. Come to think of it, making spelling corrections on this entry might detract from its, uh... purity. But, the editor I am, I will fix the mistakes of clumsy fingers and two-sided eyes.

There is no pain, you are receding.

I find myself smiling. No, grinning. Big wide grin of exposed teeth because I know how silly silly silly it is for me to jab these keys as storms rumble near the back of my braincase.

I am a nocturnal creature by nature. Do not read too deeply into that. I am not a goth kid. I'm close to middle age. Well, closer now to middle age than to halcyon youth. College and Darrien Lake and supermarkets and cross-country trips are a part of my withering youth. Yes, I will always be that gawky, geeky teen punk metalhead alternative geek in my head and my heart. Ripped jeans and trenchcoat and concert shirt and no game with the ladies. The kid tooling around small town nowhere in a black mustang with some music screaming from decrepit car speakers soothing his youthful soul. 1986. 1989. The creases on my face will merely reflect my physical age.

You are only coming through in waves.

Perhaps I will leave the house tomorrow night. Yes, slither and slide from these walls and into public, where I always feel like a stranger.

This path I've tread to this moment, it's the reason I smile. How could a sixteen year old kid have envisioned himself here and now, lovestruck in life and lost and a little loopy on a Friday night in 2007, far from the world he grew up in, pumping words such as these into a "blog?"

I have become comfortably numb.

But it's honest. All of this before your narrowed, quizzical eyes as you read this - it's simple honesty from one soul to another. Sure, when you read this, my mind might be in a different, and hopefully better, place than this. But it's the honesty of the moment.

That's all I have to offer.