crack

what a word.  i crack myself up.  you're a tough nut to crack.  crackalicious.   i'm just thankful that i've been sitting here looking at a blank screen (other than the original post title "can you smell that smell?") pondering the twists and turns of what a mental break actually sounds like in the annals of one's mind, distracted by my recent ability to smell odd metallic smells (or is this some new sentient phenomenon of other worldly proportions?  or perhaps some well known sign of some fatal disease....) - i have been listening to the widening crack in my brain for what seems like a good length of time, when suddenly the drug just popped in.  i used to couldn't hear the word in any context without images of waking up in lee's bed to his absence and a foreign smell and looking over that nappy couch at his desperate, crouched, six feet, folded like a mutant origami crane on a cold, hard floor.  flooded with confusion and heart wrenching pain, i put my cape on and leapt across the room into a future of twisted memories in that dark, unfinished, green room.

"are you?"  i hear his words ringing from another night, a few months later.  "am i what?"  "crazy.  is it you or her?"  i don't even remember what i said.  did i call her out as the crazy one?  my mother who had locked me away in an institution full of tales.  and horns.  bring on the horns maestro!  i could certainly hear a full brass band as they put a straight jacket on the woman with the blood running down her cheeks.  perhaps i should write about that.  i keep telling myself to write the future.  but then i know they'd come after me.  muah ha ha ha ha....  the fabulosity of live theater, or even the potential video blog, is you would have heard that muah ha ha ha ha in the dead pan villasonican delivery of a tired and jaded woman.  a woman who realizes in retrospect the answer to lee's question is obviously, both of us.  the apple, sadly, can only fall so far from the tree.  thank god for the evolution of legs.  after endless tangents, i wonder why i resist that advice and occasional urge to vid.blog - to add more perspective and reveal more intent through tone and to occasionally sing or play - or atleast to care if i've got on a decent shirt.  i know the sounds of my voice are the essence of my gift, but as a i struggle to let go of mounds of books, i cling to the written word.  hoping people still read.  hoping i will find myself somewhere on the page, knowing i'm off in the sound.  why am i still looking?  i no longer wish to play the seeker.  it's a black hole sort of conundrum.  co.nun.drum.te.dum.dum.dum.

she hears winnie the pooh bear humming along in the distance, only slightly more audible than the creaking of the crack in her brain.  she wonders if he can hear it.  if they are one in the same, insane.  they all sit patiently now as she looks around in there.  her father sits rigid in a straight back chair, feet planted wide with his elbows on his knees, hands held together with his fingers interweaved.  (yes i know it's interwoven but you see how much i care - enough to make up words, it seems only fair.)  her mother paces in the distance, alternately wringing her hands and running them through her hair.  him, playing guitar under a willow tree.  (that blanket is so inviting and obviously made for me.)  men and women pushed to the perimeter, busy with their own scripts.  with the occasional dialogue, she feels like a burden instead of a gift.  everyone's nose to the grind.  noone's got time for a lift.  which is fine, she's got a ride - she just really wanted to play.   she has no real experience with others though, so they slowly fade away.  eventually she grows numb.  her son is under a thumb.

i am frozen, desperate to reach out to him.  their evil prophecies have come true.  their selfish indignation because they couldn't reach anyone else to blame.  "you will push him away" say THEY.  they who wrote letters to help the predator drag him away.  they who claim to be more than they are.  they who love from afar.  they who cry in the night and put change in a jar.  they who have seen just how ugly you are.  atleast they think they have, but little do they know, they only know what they know which isn't all of the show.  so much more in tow before she let go.  they can't see the truth for their own righteous glow.  so, on with the show.  off we go.

on with the show uncle bill!  it's for you!!  and old uncle wilbur, hell, it's for you too.  uncle william was huge next to sweet uncle bud.  uncle frank made everything fit like a glove.  uncle dwight, uncle henry, dear uncle al.  so many uncle's just confuse a young gal.  uncle gene, uncle roger, roger me this - what other cool tricks does it do besides piss?  and what about you, dear uncle chris?  do you think that you might have been wrong to dismiss my words and my truth and the breadth of my pain - to leave what was left of my theft in the rain.  more curbside trash, that's what i'll grow up to be - for all of the judgement passed upon me.  i'll let you all sculpt me with anger and fear and we'll see what turns out at the end of the year.

but WAIT.  STOP.  no, seriously - let's cut before then.  i thought perhaps last year could just be the end.  this year, no more drama, just find a real friend.  if i let you have one more year with your way, i'm not sure i can take it - i might just waste away.  by the end of the year i'll have scabs on my ears from all of the ringing and clawing, i fear.  and scabs on my cheeks that sting when there's tears.  and scabs on my legs from the man in the night that comes when i sleep and can't wake to bite.  the teeth marks i hide, i pretend they're not there - chewing my knuckles is too much to bear.

i'm begging you.  wait.  stop the drama mama.  i'm calmly requesting a re-write.

for the last year he just kept saying it was too far, if we just lived in west asheville he could see us alot more often.  we live less than a mile apart and had visitation this weekend.  we're supposed to have visitation every wednesday.  i'm flexible.  we can have dinner any night of the week.  we would love to have him over for dinner every night of the week.  granted, we would like to have had the money to buy groceries in the last few weeks, too, so i understand why he doesn't come here to eat.  there's no food.  but his brother's love overflows.  joshua's love is like the niagara falls of adoration and affection.  granted, his beautiful brain isn't as flexible as a teenager might like.  and neither is mine.  i'm still so incredibly devastated by the loss of my son.  legally and literally.  i've attempted to let him go - knowing i lived on my own at his age.  knowing he's already much more responsible than i am.  certainly more aware of the world and it's workings than i was at his age or several years older.  even after he was born, i struggled through so much confusion.  even on this morning, i find myself a bit confused.  (she hears winnie the pooh humming calmly in the distance.) 

i remember hating her and not understanding why.  i know now that my brain was attempting to process how i had left home and decorated a fabulous apartment i didn't have to pay for, had all the booze i wanted, all the men i wanted, all the power i could fit on my plate.  i was amazed and refused to admit, overwhelmed, by my ability to overachieve.  i painted, i wrote, i directed, i adapted.  i made spirograph art out of social circles and hosted an endless string of debaucherous liasons.  i attended underwear parties and wore stilletos to breakfast.  i constantly craved more.  i was a hot mess and a drama queen of varying degrees, depending on the concoction of cocktails and cock previously devoured.  i was a vampire.  i was a bitch.  i hated her because she gave me life.  now.... now, i just resent the conditions of her affection and attention.  enough to be silenced?  oddly enough, resentment festers, like a bubbling chemistry experiment, and becomes explosive when you least expect it.  people who attempt to silence the truth of others often forget that.

i miss my son, but i'm tired of pining away.  i'm tired of feeling like something is missing.  there will always be missing pieces.  because every time i think the puzzle is complete, the numbers fall away.  i am complete.  i love who i am now.  i find my life to be excruciatingly boring, but that's my fault - i've grown boring to the measure of being bored.  the only sure fire fix for that is to get moving.  to write.  to paint.  to create more.  to unplug from the drama of others.  family, friends or television - it's all the wrong outlet if it includes drama.  more comedy.  more game shows.  make some action and adventure if that's you're thing.  i'll take the family channel, sans the after school special aspect (remember the no drama rule).  we'll take a song&dance variety line-up, heavy on the tweener education and pop culture trivia.  and can mama get a side of porn please?

i hear the birds singing outside my windows and i wish them warmth.  i can almost feel you by my side.