Eat Your Own Tail
There was a brief moment where I assumed that the absolute fluorescent light that is a partner —one I could actually see myself being with for decades —would turn it all off …
… All of the noise.
Not a year has gone by that I have not struggled to sleep. Struggled to feel energized in the morning. Just plain struggled, with that whole nightly fast-forward and reinvigorating meditation. And yet, there was an inkling that maybe something akin to fictional true love could satiate a horrible blood-bound desire to obtain a “real” night’s sleep.
That . . . is not exactly how it played out. Through years of unconstrained adoration and the feeding and nurturing of what can only be described as my most favorite relationship to date, I see a mountain of hope, and I can hear the rivers rushing down it, singing us to sleep. For the first time in my calm and adult candor, I can claim that I want to be with someone for as much time as I possibly can be.
And it didn’t help.
The ache in my brain would peak around three in the morning, and yet I have never wanted to climb into be more in my entire life.
Turns out, there wasn’t some sinking hole within my chest, waiting to be filled by satisfaction in love and sex, rather, a persistent need to feel busy.
Something of a serpent itself, Ouroboros, I may have figured it out by some sort of freak accident; and it is a mind-numbing focus.
Through frantic attempts to fill the time between the day and the night, I have recently begun partaking and producing in multiple projects that have been mounted upon a list of ideas and desires for what has felt like years.
It has all matured to me writing again. Every waking-fucking-moment I am thinking about it. Obsessing over it. And this is on top of the thirteen other plates currently being spun by this circus performer of a thirty-something.
So much to contemplate or actually accomplish in a day that the weeks are melting like ice cream I wish to be consuming before it all splashes amongst the concrete. By the time ten o’clock in the evening rolls around, I am flabbergastingly exhausted.
Something is working.
Miraculous in its ethereal condemnation, so few moments pass by in the daylight in which I am not writing, thinking of writing, or reading other’s. It has been an absolute whirlwind these past few months.
You eat your own tail, kid.
As it turns out, there is some magic in the practice of going in circles. Each day, I have my to-dos, plotted out six of my seven days a week, and the repeat and rinse cycle has been thrilling. And, it doesn’t feel like it is killing me.
Sure, there are days in which I feel like a past version of myself is a dickless child for filling up our schedule to abusively. However, I would quickly kiss that balding fucker at the end of the day, because I spend much more time in a free mind these days. It has eased up so much of the rambunctious noise, and when I do take the time to open the festering word document that is my briefly inspired poetry book, everything I am writing is above par. Even if I am not pen-to-paper crazy, I have been incredibly less impulsive with my self-loathing during any sort of editing process.
Perhaps I am just growing older, and wearier when it comes to tearing one’s self apart, penmanship-wise. Regardless of the why, the fact that it is a thing, all alone in the dark, molesting my least functional of intentions, is kind of beautiful.
I get to feel like a writer again …
Except … for the moment I needed to be.
One fun adventure then I imbibe myself with a few times a year are intricate and restricting writing competitions. It is functional escapism. Only a few days a year I get to shut off all of unclear bullshit I try to sift-through, and I am forced to play by someone else’s rules. Sort of.
Of course, I never follow their rules. Trying my darndest to perpetuate my immature rebuking of authority.
Technically, I write something that fits the described constraints I am given. Though … it almost doesn’t. On one hand, it is emblematic of how I construct most creative endevours. On the other, I stick my fountain-pen between my ring and middle-finger, and throw a pathetically childish bird to no one in particular.
Gracefully, I find it both heartfelt and hilarious that there is such a large disconnect between the stories they prop-up as winners and worthy, and some of the praise or prodding I receive by the “judges panel” and none of it ever aligns.
Either way, it is fun practice. By allowing myself to be told what to write, and (sort of) how to write it, and I am left to throw a pair of horse-blinders on and try to punch something out on a whim.
The grotesquely queasy part of it, I fucking loathed it this time around. That feeling of being on a roll, strumming out songs that I would gleefully sit down and cut into vinyl and sell with my dumb mug on the front of, it all went away when the competition started. That prosecuting email, with its subject genre, “buzz” word, and word-count restriction it crashed the fast car I was belting down the highway in.
No chain-smoking, no rolling downhill without possible knowledge regarding how to slow, no loud music and concentrated I didn’t even realize I was holding my breath. For the first time in years, this competition showed up at my doorstep, and I felt like I had an unwanted visit from a family member that I do not adore.
I had to stop, in order to start
Something I never thought I would be so torn up about.
Even though I completed what I set out to submit, the entire process felt like a hideous chore, and this is a sensation that is new to me. At least, as far as these competitions go.
Putting my pen down—followed by my head—for the night, I felt over it. Perturbed even, by the flailing I felt. Stepping off that roller-coaster to jump in a bumper car wasn’t gratifying, experimental, or even practice.
Turns out, these competitions are palpably useful during times in which I am not writing day-to-day. If I am, especially such words that do not immediately make me feel like throwing up a little lunch in my mouth, then these feel like time away.
And there it is.
Pour one out. To a pattern that posted a particularly poignant practice. One that I will not — most-likely — partake in again in the near future. Assuming this run of strong writing I have been having survives to see its adolescence.
- wf.
