2 AM

(This was inspired by something my friend Torrey said to me about writing:  Talent can take you places but it's skill that keeps you there.)

Day Two: eyes burning, mottled veins, massive sleep deprivation, caffeine O.D. Words, words, mocking me. Read aloud, thought, typed, backspace, delete, retype, fuck . . . where IS that arrow? Type again, fix, beat, bitch, bury my fucking head in the sand and sink.

Had a stroke of genius (it happens) and thought about waking the doc up at 2 a.m. Tell him I have that dry eye syndrome I saw on t.v. and need a script. The convo goes like this:

"Hey Doc, its me. I have that . . . uh . . . dry eye syndrome. YES, my eyes hurt . . . no . . . I have not been drinking coffee . . . what? I don't owe you money! Look, can ya just call in a script? Yeah . . . yeah for that, ok . . . and uh . . . while you're at it, can ya pick me up a pack of smokes on your way to the O.R.?"

Life should be that comical.

I wouldn't mind the side effects anyhow: heart palpitations, kidney disease, possible stroke, urinary retention, migraines, constipation, stomach pain, blurred vision (oxymoron), short term memory loss, confusion, dementia, risk of diabetic coma, and eventually . . . death.

I can risk that for a dry eye or two.

Sat in the mall today. I despise the mall. Forced to go there, was the only place this one store was and I felt my heart beat fast, chest pain (great), onset of perpetual migraine, so I grabbed a cappuccino. Walking, walking, thinking if one more motherfucker nudges into me that's it. I am tearing into the fifth toy
store I pass and grabbing me some lethal childs toy.

One by one take 'em out, like a nutjob in a bell tower. Sit in the middle of this excuse for a living room where we can "socialize" and hide behind a plastic palm tree. Wait for a bratty pisspot to come running by, stick my foot out and watch the parents half heartedly console the spoiled replica of themselves they spawned.

If there is a Hell I live in it so please, dont even think of telling me I am going there.

Figured I should probably eat, my legs hurt, wandering around, wondering what the fuck I was doing in this place and how much I would rather be in a bookstore or a cafe or at home watching Tony Montana shove his face into a pile of snow. Instead, I took a seat in the "Garden Cafe" and looked around. Felt I was the only one without pennies on my eyes.

Lil' girls with g-strings pokin' out their low cut bootleg sad excuse for a wanna be somebody they never will be showing off to boys who only wanna get in their pants.

As if that would be a difficult task.

Pierced everything up and down brow to lips, backs of necks and kids kids kids with cell phones, ipods, portable dvd players and I thought I was cool when I had the Bionic Woman and her arm opened up and you saw wires and shit in there.

Saw a woman sitting alone, had a laptop in the booth. Thought, Man, you should be at a cafe what in the fuck are you doing in a mall? Felt like walking up to her, handing over the a book of tattered poetry, a "Get Out of Jail Free" card. But, I didn't.

The mall is ----> Denial from the misery felt by those who still think that the world is flat.

There was an angel there today. Was just a man - olive skinned, radiating supernovas swirling like sunspots by the mouthful and I gobbled them up. Watched him there smiling, the angel. Brown leather sandals, a nylon cord sneaking inside his shirt, wondered what was on the end of it. Curls of sardonic silk reflected light shining from his retinas, cerulean, and I looked around felt like screaming:  "Am I the only one seeing this shit?

Nobody stirred, kept right on stuffing their faces with eventual heart attacks, talking, fake smiles lipstick stained teeth grinning skeletons already dead to themselves.

This man sat on a hill and I was a child. My chin upturned listening as he told stories. He was cotten robed, his raiment, a burlap bag. The whole scene, transparent. Lucid dreams and waves. Sketches of memories past.

He was one word ----> IMAGINE.

Compelled to talk to him, every bit of strength I had (which wasn't much, trust me) kept me from doing just that. Pisses me off now. I saw him there and knew it. He looked right into my eyes and said:

Ssssssssssssssssssssshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh . . .

I heard THAT inside my skull.

then he continued talking to the ghosts seated next to him.

The cursor blinked. Maybe it wasn't my eyes after all. An hour had passed and I  had not written a single thing. I stared though . . . at this:  There are plenty of talented nobodies in the world who are too lazy to do jack shit with their lives.

Held my palms to my cheeks, cracked my knuckles, put on some tunes and began to type.

© Susan Marie 2006