Oh, the work I could get done if my heart weren’t so full of hate.
–David Sedaris
I know this is not Church, but get close to the Lord. The world is getting close to the end.
–Little Richard
If it could happen then — in 1980 — then it can happen now.
–Scott Crawford
We love your voice.
–Rebecca Loebe
I’ve been clean and sober for over 2 years, but you’d never know it looking at my apartment. It looks like I been riding with the King, drinking with Papa and partying with Guns ‘N Roses. My kitchen doubles as a place to type, much like Bukowski and Hunter Thompson’s did-but don’t ask. Boxes full of Farewell to Armor and Anthology Philly (WragsInk), September and All in the wind (Yellow Lark Press) are underneath the War Room table. The black nest of power cords, USBs and chargers beside it ain’t pretty either, and it’s a fire hazard besides. Topo Chico bottles and La Croix empties christen the floor like cities and the bedroom at the back of the mansion is sinking in a cyclone of fitted sheets and pillows. The bathroom is gross and there are piles of clothes everywhere. “Dude clean” is apt and I’d do well to get a maid-but then I’d have to pre-clean, like Doc does, and her visits would be another deadline for me to stroke out over. I have no excuse and no one to blame. It’s a fucking mess in here.
The last 4 days on shift were an epic and colossal laziness, a laziness I needed to recover from, which is why I’m sitting here at 3 in the afternoon sipping cold coffee in my sleeping cargos, writing. The world is out there and at large. But I couldn’t get to sleep until after 2 last night, when I finally pulled earbuds from the phone and left Uncle Hank and Mike Patton mid-show. We’re not even halfway through the summer and I feel fine. The new lease starts 8/15 and I’ve got a flurry of shit to get cracking on, none of which I started, or even attempted to, since we last spoke. As per usual, I sat down to write this with the intention to bag my bad blues, let you know what’s bothering me and get right to it. Besides being beholden to a deadline, and despite all appearances of transparency at GFtT, there’s a lot of shit I’m loathe and even ashamed to admit. Mostly it’s how I haven’t done much with my time, that I’m depressed and stuck winding down the end days as an indentured servant. I’ve squandered precious time, that for the last couple years I only sensed running out, winding down, acutely and terrifyingly-fuck.
My other blunders, faults and peccadilloes-I’ve been writing them down, just haven’t posted them here. They’re in a file called FVK Daily, a draft of a blog post like this one except it goes on and on, listing and enumerating all my dirties and lust, all the venom and corruption that haunts me daily. Maybe it’s my Catholic upbringing, or the imperative of Natural Selection to never be satisfied-but I feel like I can do it, get it all out and fix what’s wrong with me simply by writing it down, posting it or etching it in ink on the lined pages of a store bought yellow bound pocket spiral I call LIGHTNING/RENDERING. It’s a tradition that dates back to 1992. I’d buy a notebook at CVS, its color informing me and setting the tone for our time together-me and my Friend the Journal, who would be with me, help me to manifest, worship and smash my idols, and self-actualize. It’s the power of writing, good Reader, and poetry. It’ll never fail to get you out of a jam-that is, your head, and help you to fetishize your pain and cast your journey with pomp and grandiosity. It’s how we mythologize, and how we make ourselves heroes, how we hang it on the fucking wall, find and take from a sense of place, which in turn gives us a sense of ourselves-our shape and color, our small graces and thunderous foibles, our smokes and charms, our roaring and our lightning, the drums of the arena calling for your head in the black and endless rain.
I don’t have any answers this week. I don’t have any answers most weeks, and I’m loathe to wrap this in a cute or poignant way. It’s the end of the world. Thank you for reading.
Going for the Throat 
You know you’re doing a 4th step, right? You want to truly purge that shit, you share it with someone you trust. Every dirty bit of it. Share it with a sober alcoholic and you’ll be sharing with someone who won’t judge you one bit, and someone who can help you parse out the trends. What AA calls “character defects” I prefer to think of as bad habits. Writing it all out and sharing it out loud helps one recognize the history repeating and is the start of ending that cycle (hello steps 6 and 7).
You don’t have to call them steps or call them anything at all, but I suggest you call someone to unload. xoxo
Love you! It probably shouln’t be you, huh?
Lol! It could be, that is your call. I definitely wouldn’t judge you and I would keep your confidence. You have to feel comfortable. Safe. That’s what matters.
I was always amazed with people who could regularly write in their teen years. I tried writing in high school and it always felt trite and superficial. It wasn’t until later in life that my writing had any meaning, but like GFtT what I shared was filtered. I admire your ability to get those thoughts on paper. It will show you how far you have come even when you think you are struggling to make it through a single day. …. On a separate note, the song True Colors by Cyndi Lauper comes to mind – “You with the sad eyes, don’t be discouraged. Oh I realize Its hard to take courage. In a world full of people, you can lose sight of it all, and the darkness inside you, Can make you feel so small.” Share those feelings even if it’s just in your private journal.
If only I still had that first journal! I burned it one summer and started a horrible trend of not saving anything. Too many moves back then-it’s probably what got me rattled to begin with. Now I save everything. If anything, writing will absolutely provide you with the best picture of how you were-an inner one. Those lyrics are wonderful. Thank you Annemarie, as always.