Haunted Roller Coasters Keep Rolling, Themselves.

Dark wood and closed buildings at night are exactly what I need 98% of the time.

There is a closed antique mall across the street from the building from which I am writing. I want to slip inside, hold every article that calls to me, and listen to the exact stories that have been absorbed within them. I will fall, slightly, onto my knees and hope that Micki and her cousin-by-marriage, Ryan, from Friday the 13th: The Series walks in.

I don't scare easily, and yet, when a loud noise happens as part of a film in a movie theater, I am one of the only people around me who jumps.

(pause)

There are surprises that make one cover one's mouth; there are horrors that make one do the same. Perhaps it is a carnal response: a reflex that traps the soul within our body when, startled or horrified, it attempts to escape. Birthday parties and atrocities. Sneezes ('bless you' because, it was once believed a sneeze would expel your soul from your body) and eye-tearing fear.

I've been seeing ghosts lately. I'm not sure why. Today, in slight rain, I took my bike helmet off, ran my fingers through my hair to put it up (think: shampoo commercial) and felt someone watching me (think: being hunted). I decided to ignore it but then heard “Hi Kaden”. When I looked up, I saw it moving accidentally towards me in anorexic straw-hair and too much eyeliner trying hard to look "together", purse clutched, jaw defiant. “Hey- what's going on?” but it had already glided false-confidence past me. I remember when she claimed me as best friend. My hands remained at my sides (stories, people, and tornados that do not move me keep them anchored there).

I walked into a grocery store, bought hummus and a small loaf of bread, and sat on the sidewalk under an awning to enjoy my feast and watch the rain.

(pause)



(photo credit: Dark Daze tumblr)

.exit game.

What I now know:

1) I can't hang out with people who use toilets but who have never fucking cleaned one.

2) I realize I can't *really* drug someone. But I can want to. Not to do anything sexual to them, but rather, to get them to calm the fuck down.

3) Going to the Latino Bar Association's discussion on immigration at Town Hall last week was a really fucking good idea. (Thanks, N.T.)

4) Swearing is a part of where I am from. So is ripping on people as a form of love. It shows we're paying attention; watching to make sure you don't take yourself too seriously or end up taking yourself out. We've got you: The rough hand that pulls you by the back of your collar out of traffic. It's not something that I-statements can do, friend, and perhaps that saddens both of us.

(pause)

The West may be making me soft, or it may be making me harder than I ever actually was. But what of it? I may have lost or delayed something incredibly important to me, but why is it that I don't really care? I suppose caring is a problem. Not caring, but feeling. I can't seem to do it. For the past 10 years at least. More than likely 20 years more than that, but it never really bothered me before. I think because there have always been situations around me in which it behooved me not to feel. And now that these situations no longer exist- this non-feeling bothers me. But 'bothers' me in the way one is bothered watching a situation on a television show: "What? What are you doing?" you say, non-moved, but moved enough to say something, albeit, to a television screen.

(pause)

I am reading about disaster capitalism. I am thinking about how, if my life were somehow the scale of a country, there would be quite a bit of money to make. But it's not, and so, here I am: In Bellingham, WA for no apparent reason, typing away just to get my fingers going. I can feel my fingers, at least. I read a few days ago that one's fingertips and lips are the most sensitive parts of the body. Being someone with a clit, I have to say I disagree. Un-underweared days or boxer-briefed nights blows this theory out of the water, along with some other things.

I've been making lists again lately. And progress. Not necessarily progress on the lists, but they aren't the type of lists that it would make sense to 'make progress on' anyway. It's been progress in the non-documentable way.

Yes, my apartment smells horrible with my housemate's dirty laundry. And yes, it will eventually soak into absolutely everything I own, but at least I will be my own. I will just be in a smelly apartment with a new bike light, bike lock, bike, empty refridgerator, and a ticket to Detroit footed by someone who is not me or my family. Insert the proverbial train station, here. Suitcases in hand. Give me a fucking one way, goddamnit. And tell me this fucking cancer has not come back.









No point in holding back on what you're holding,
no matter it be shit or it be golden.
Foundations shift.
Instead of shifting,
We set up
we set up our falls.

Hold on tight to your fears,
'cause that's your hatred
and that's your love as well.

i must always remember:

there's no point to surrender.

-hwm



Long-term is not permanent; here is to ignition.

love,

k.