Bright Enough to Burn Me

How many times can I say things before the words run out? I wish they would. I’m tired of thinking them; it hurts my head. Makes it sore, the chaffing thoughts that scrape the same spots raw over and over and over and no sign of it ever stopping.

Because of course, none of it is my fault. Of course nothing is because I lack discipline or self-control or perspective. Because I forget so many things.
I saw some Blame lying around somewhere. There it is; I keep tripping over it. It’s always under my feet but there’s no way it belongs to me…

I need to get away for a long time; away from the glaring sun streaming through passenger-side windows and this valley that once felt safe but now it just hems me in; the overdue library books and clothes that don’t fit anymore and plastic over the windows and promises cracked down the middle and just all these things that feel so much like trash.

But I’m finding that location, location, location doesn’t change anything, anything, anything. The sky is still blue thirty miles from here. The sky is still blue, the earth is still round, the sun still sets in the west and I’m still tired.

I still feel dirty, too; just unclean everywhere and I’ve been more phobic of infection, exfoliating any cuts or scrapes. I shower every day and scrub I scrub I scrub till I bleed but it doesn’t help. It’s my blood that is dirty. I know I am contaminated from the inside and it makes me feel so strange, like I want to claw at whatever it is that’s under my skin, ruining me. Rip it out, throw it on the ground and run away. Just leave it there, genetically mutated litter.

It’s systematic, the wrinkles in my sheets, the way things pile—plates and laundry, and people; appointments. Lists of things: to do, to say, to pray, to hate. It’s inevitable, the way it all becomes about nothing else. Maintenance, sleep, sustenance, pursuit of fleeting distractions. It’s necessary, to think only of practicalities. What is “want”? There is only “can” or “cannot”. There is no room for plans or for specifications; for promises. There is no relativity. There is only this, that, and the difference.

Just give me a bit to close my eyes; a few minutes to rest on the floor in the dark, there between the bed and the wall where it feels safe and contained. Like I won’t drain out of myself, or if I do I’ll be able to draw myself back up again. Not that there aren’t times when it feels nice to let myself leak out forever; liquefy and spread, pretend I could evaporate and just cease to be--at least for a little while. But I have to go back downstairs soon, so I must be able to gather myself up again quickly. I am able, and I do, and hard decisions are made but I know it can't be any other way.

I suppose that means some of my future is open again--clear--so I can gaze up at my high-rise dreams and preserve the perfect image I’ve created in my mind; what the view might be if I ever really ascended to such great heights.

I’ve been having real dreams lately too, such vivid experiences of such mundane events that when I wake I have to check my memory of the day before; I don’t know if it might’ve actually happened. There’s so much light in them—in the dreams, that is. The people and places are all different but the light is the same every time:

Florescent lights in the office building where you work, all white and bouncing off of the plastic table where we make small talk during your lunch break. You fiddle with your blackberry and talk about important things, grown-up things that make me feel thirteen again. I glance at the snack machine off to the right; I want Doritos but I don’t want you to watch me eat them.

A Target parking lot on a hot day. The air is strange between us, and so thick we can’t stand the car anymore so we walk. I can feel the burning asphalt, and stray pieces of gravel stabbing through my thin-soled shoes. You run on ahead of me, calling something over your shoulder but the city-sounds are too loud; I can’t hear you. The sun is bright bright bright like glass in my eyes and my head hurts from it still.

My room, I’m on my computer and I’m looking for something, the answer to a question that feels urgent. The screen is mostly white, and the light gets more and more and more intense until I can’t read the text. I squint, try harder, because I need this information. It is for someone else, not for me, but I need it now and I can’t I just can’t look at the light anymore so I close my eyes and it’s too late and I fail.

Now my eyes have been hurting, when I’m awake. I think maybe I'm rubbing them in my sleep, trying to rub out the light. I can’t though, not when it’s stuck there behind my eyelids where I can’t reach to block it. So I try to keep them closed; try not to see brightness. It's a little sad; I do so love sparkly things. It hurts to look at them now.