Growing up makes me sick

Pity January 31, consigned to half of a box on the calendar.


All this growing up makes me sick. Bills and IRAs and calmly resolving conflicts and being direct and polite all the time. I know I'm healthier but I also miss the days of living like an animal, gut instincts, the scent of come and blood and courage and longing and fear. My heart was in palpitations for years and let me tell you something there's nothing like a beating heart to let you know you're alive.

Whiskey and honey are a health food right. I almost forgot to put on pants before going outside to move my car. I mean who does that: forget to put on pants when it's 23 degrees outside and a blizzard is coming. I mean my coat is long enough no one would have seen my skivvies.

Richard Manuel why did you kill yourself. Could I have helped you, pressed your sweaty forehead to my palms, my lips, my chest. Could I have helped if I told you you were a shining bright light, if I told you you were loved.


I know.

Do you ever get the desire to burn all your possessions and get the hell out of dodge. Do you ever feel like you can't breathe and not just because of the bum lung. Do you ever wonder if you are even capable of feeling better.

Frankly I've been thinking that what I want from life is not more but less. Less societal bullshit, less 'growing up' in the sickening sense of the term, so that there is more room for meandering and wondering and beauty and joy. I don't think there's more to life. I know there is, and all I want is the freedom to enjoy-embrace-embody it.



I'm pretty loaded now. Wilson's chin is healing thank god. His ears are one of the most amazing things I've ever seen.

Remember when we hopped in that beater car in DC, blazed a bowl while I drank in the backseat on the way to Philadelphia, climbed a tree and spent the night with you clothed in bed. The next morning I found the subway, rode disheveled to that dilapidated gas station, there were my friends in that loyal beater car. We stopped in Baltimore on the way back and I thought people were staring because of our smeared mascara but perhaps it's because we were happy.

Thank goodness for Vader

Thank goodness for Vader. His breath pushes hot and heavy against the walls of the tent.

I won't even tell you about my dreams of late. Okay, here's something. They've been horrifying.


I was sitting on the toilet when I told him. It took me a few moments to realize that I was crying as I reached for the toilet paper.

After I said it I felt lighter. We had sex anyway. The next morning I wrote in my journal, perhaps all that's left is to say it out loud. 


The you that was has been transmogrified into the you that is now. Or perhaps not changed but split, like a cell dividing.

In either case I feel a renewed depth of tenderness as your face cries in front of my face.



At this point I suppose it's hurting me more to repress it than it is to fess up. My name is June V., and he did not treat me well. I run too much and I work too much but I'm trying to sit still more often.
 

This is a year for adventure. In a few minutes I am traveling to the other side of the world.



I will not put so much pressure on myself. I spend hours in front of the computer, reading the town calendar and clicking through images.

Perhaps already my uterus carries it--pregnant not with human DNA but with longing.    


You've come a long way, baby, toward the hope of yourself.