went for a walk again

I went for a walk in the rain. Well, it wasn't raining when I left it was just one of those days when it never really stops raining and the idea of rain looms over the city all day and nobody quite remembers what it even feels like when it's not raining. Plenty of days like that in Glasgow.

Was recording graffiti again. Barely, and only whatever grabbed my notice. In the Gallowgate this time. There's the cool one on the bridge that everybody knows and then on a gate that leads to a park a playground looking a bit sad and lonely and uninviting in December rain, money kills. Just like that and just that and isn't that the most true statement there is.

Nobody needs to think about what it means. We all know money kills, too much of it or lack thereof, in one way or another money kills us all like life does but more painfully. We kill for money and money kills for us and there is no way out. What a lovely world to live in.

In the background, looming above us, dark shadows broken windows and rain-stained concrete, the
twins breathing through their last moments, organising the wind to their liking like they've always done, waiting for their death already dead, empty of people dark and awful against the grey sky of December rain. No lights though sometimes the metal plates they used to board up windows reflect city lights and make it look like someone is still there. Doors locked. Windows boarded. Waiting in the rain to be blown away.

Nobody deserves to live there but the city is going to feel strange, look strange when they're gone. Watching over us. Sometimes strangely beautiful in the sunlight. And so real when you stand right next to them, so there. What's going to be there when they're gone?

*

Hey you.
I found that place where I wanted to take you, if you remember,
and I went there by myself (because you were my only friend who would want to do something like that)
and it was gorgeous but surprisingly
I missed your unbridled love and enthusiasm for everything in the word.
Who'd have thought.
Anyway, I would still like to take you there.
I think you would love it. Nothing more to it.
Except that you've probably already been with someone else who is more fun than me.
You've plenty of friends like that after all.

clyde tunnel southbound ii

i walk through the clyde tunnel, southbound entrance pedestrians and cyclists partick to govan
writing down words i see, many as i can trying not to take too long
listening to the clanking and the dripping
dripping of water underwater scarier than anywhere else
and somebody has penned on the wall, hasty scribble
on top of the gang tags and profanities and clumsy penis doodles
love many trust few always paddle your own canoe
and i think about whoever wrote that and what they were thinking
clutching a can of tennents tears burning in their eyes, angry
betrayed, hurt, and better for it
or maybe just bitter for years now, and that would be the first thing that comes to mind
underwater next to a white wall (well almost, there were others before them standing there like they were and the wall kept being painted over like it matters what it looks like, everything anyone ever wrote there painted over in a slightly wrong shade of white i mean how does it even work how are there shades of white it's kind of freaky when you think about it)
clutching a sharpie thinking what should i write
and then going oh i know this is what i want to write
this is what i want to leave behind
taking a swig of their beer and hastily scribbling the words this is an important message i need to write it down and then taking off half running just in case
there wouldn't be anyone there with them not when they write down words like that
if they'd had friends with them they would've drawn a dick or written sarah katy johnny big dave fuck the system amy is a whore
but they were on their own
paddling their own canoe
because they had always much love to give and then slowly as years went by and people came and went careless and they learnt that to love doesn't mean to trust and they learnt to know better
do better
be better
so that's what they wrote

to live deliberately (spoilers for dead poets society)

I went into the woods because I wanted to live deliberately. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to put to rout all that was not life and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.

I have been thinking about this. About how much Dead Poets Society affected me and what it means and how it made me feel. At my friend's house in the middle of the night after a decadent Christmas dinner and hours of chocolate and Christmas telly I decided to finally watch a movie I'd been told to watch for years but I'd never quite got round to it. And there it was, in the Christmas RadioTimes, circled by me because I'd been given the mission to seek out what was worthy from among the piles and piles of crap on television on Christmas day. I was the last one awake but I wanted to see it.

It's the best film I've seen in my life, or at least the one I love the most. I bought the DVD and rewatched it on Boxing Day and I cried again and thought all over how important it is that Neil dies because sometimes even if you understand the beauty in the ugliness of the world it's not enough, and how important it is that Todd lives, that he stands up on that desk and speaks those defiant words, because sometimes despite knowing all of what killed his friend you still have to keep trying. To live deliberately. To suck the marrow out of life. To not discover one has not lived.

Neil, for all he had to suffer, did not think as he was staring at his father's gun that he had not lived. He thought, in all his young stupid wisdom, I have sucked out all the marrow of life but if I carry on, when I come to die, I will discover that I have not lived.

I'm not going to kill myself. That's not what this is about. I just understand so much of what they feel, those kids who feel so strongly about things, who so easily find that life is not worth living. Who care. Who will fight and stand on a desk and say O Captain, my Captain, and everything will stop and be okay for a second. Those kids who are only starting to understand how wonderful poetry can be and how important it is to feel the words, to experience the world. And I am not experiencing it yet, because I am always hiding a little, from myself, from others, always pulling back a bit because it is too dangerous for me to live deliberately. I want to. I need to. Things need to change.

I am writing it down lest I try to pretend I never promised myself this. I am going to go where my friend told me to go and talk to the people I need to talk and after eight years of agonising pretence and guilt and pain oscillating wildly I will go and ask for the help I need. And it will be okay, that I am like this. And I have people who care.

Anyway, nothing about this really makes sense. I mean come on look around nothing here makes sense so what does it even matter. I am an emotional mess, once again up at five in the morning struggling to understand when it's my own life and when a book a movie a line in a poem a story in my head or something else not real but it felt real enough to me so it should count. I love Dead Poets Society. Not sure exactly why so much and I merely scraped the surface and then my thoughts got away from me and turned into something else. My heart aches for those boys. And then it slides from that to

I need to stop pretending I am always okay because it's hard and I can't do it properly and every time I crack a bit it hurts the people I wildly care about because what can they do to help me when I do nothing to help myself? I am going there, talking to them, doing what my friend told me to do, and I am afraid but I need to face it I am an adult and I can't forever run from things I don't know. And it will be hard and it will hurt but it will be okay. Sooner or later.

it don't feel like christmas

So it's Christmas now. Christmas night. I've just done two services and there's a third one in the morning. I've six and a half hours left to sleep but I'm not going to bed yet. This night is my own Christmas just for me. The Word came flesh and made his dwelling among us. The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. I'm tired and it's raining outside and Bethlehem is not quiet anymore. Not still.

It don't feel like Christmas.

Not in a bad way, either. Well, kind of. It's just different. And I would be sad wherever. I'm not sure yet if I inherently like or inherently dislike most people but the result is the same. I get disappointed a lot. And protective. Even when it's Christmas, peace on earth, good will toward men.

But it's like I said. It don't really feel like it, anyway.

The star was a bit naff. I can make my peace with that. We sung well and the atmosphere in the church was lovely even though the wind was dragging the world apart outside. I have mulled wine and Christmas sweeties from home for right now, and I cried a bit in the morning but it was just to acknowledge this present state of things. I'm not really homesick. Just wondering what it's like there now.

I have too much chocolate for one person to eat. My candle stash is impressive but not nearly impressive enough. I am going to a very different Christmas Day after I wake up. I guess I'll see what it's like. I don't know what to expect and it's nice enough but it doesn't really feel real.

You get me? Just don't feel like Christmas. But not in a bad way.

I'm reading a book and it is making me so happy. Just me in a comfortable cocoon of blankets and pillows and duvets in my bed, surrounded by fairy lights and candles and my stuffed animal friends, with a book I can't put down. I'm thinking, I have so many books to read and it's Christmas break I can do whatever I want I can just stay here and read and I can read this book and finish it and it will make me happy even if it makes me sad because that's how books are.

So why do I go on tumblr and Facebook and stumble over real life reminders that make my stomach churn and my self-loathing pop up out of seemingly nowhere a brick wall in front of me and my throat feels like throats do when you're about to cry? I know it happens and I do it to myself and I wish I had never seen read heard done whatever

Blaming someone else is such an easy thing to do but sometimes it's not an option. God I wish it was an option. Then I could give myself the right to feel this way. Maybe it would be easier to forgive, too.

i'm in a place of angst

my pain has caught up with me now.
i'm okay is the longest game i've ever played and it never ends but the pain catches up and the carefully constructed wall of productivity crumbles and i say to myself
who was i ever kidding

i want things
people
until they want me back
and i do a one-eighty and run away because it's what i do best
just to trip over the choices i never made and drown alone in my
own desperate hateful lonely tears
and i don't learn ever
don't grow ever
i'll forever be five years old with scraped knees
as well as fifteen with scraped wrists
and i'll never be fit to be an adult
and i get the love i don't deserve and throw it away
just to die alone, i suppose
and there is never anyone to blame.

but she didn't talk to me? she didn't give me time? it couldn't have been all me surely not not again
(it was mostly me)

anyway it hurts a lot and it's caught up with me now