tbrinsley

     The conversations are quieter now. Muffled white noise of me speaking to myself and answering back and all within my head - tens if not hundreds of exchanges at once. I used to lessen them more through the diversion of deeds. The busier I was the less the noise registers. But empty activity demands an increasingly steeper toll for its escapism. Then one day (when least prepared for it) you come to a complete stop and the forward momentum of all the noise and conversations chasing you spill out and over you, thrown forward almost ejecting them past the point you actually are so that they are at last in front of you to both see and hear. So many gathered noises chaotic and tangled, mixing and mulling in front of you like a crowd of people pressed breast to breast. Too wide and large to go around. Too loud and undeniable to ever ignore again. I ask politely to be let by. I clear my throat and lift myself to see if I can spy over their heads to a point of finding a way around. In time, I even come to stamp my feet and shout my excuse me’s, but all to no avail. And then I have a terrible thought. Far more frightening then suddenly being faced with one thousand conversations I never wanted to hear from within myself. I think: what if there is no way around? What if time continues to march ahead and I am left stuck here in time behind all these noises forever? At that moment the great sea of me’s speaking to me’s silence and snap their heads around to look at me, pausing only long enough to grin before charging and overcoming me. -- And here I remain, fourteen years later. Still in that very same spot I finally came to stop and the noises caught up to me. Exactly in that spot where the preparedness and nimbleness ran dry, when the miserable machine finally broke down and the all the empty business halted. Where the noises spilled out and over me and, eventually, charged and attacked me. They are here too, in this very same spot. Every minute of every day for these fourteen long years now. They slowly circle around me like a whirlpool, swirling inward in a way where one has a go at me while another waits its turn. Some like to spit or bite, other prefer a quick punch to my guts. But the worst are the whisperers. The ones that lean in close and remind me of that one terrible thing that only it knows. Its whole purpose to speak of that one thing, and every one of them their own different purpose. Their own separate and unique thing to whisper. And as years blend one into the other indistinguishable from one another, I begin to wonder in the few seconds between each noise taking their turn if it all might finally end once I am stuck here as long a period as I was not? That maybe that is how such indebtedness owed is repaid? If maybe another thirteen years right here with the noises might balance the scales for the twenty-seven years from before? Who knows. Not that I have a choice, this is all there is now. I can wonder such things but it really doesn’t matter. Whether another thirteen years makes any difference or not, in the meantime: I can take it. The unbearable nature of my own unforgivable choices, the swarm of the noises. Not just because I have been built for it by the things outside myself. but also because due to the twenty-seven years of choices before: I have chosen it.

     04/24/12

Oppressive anxiety conducts an impossible orchestra seemingly in the back of my neck. I know this because it unconsciously causes my eyes to wince and head to bow forward until I am nearly folded in unto myself. As if a weary letter v has toppled on to its side and longs to close its gape and become but a single underscore. The musicians themselves are irrational thoughts which are at least one hundred strong. But that is only at first glance. Upon brief further inspection it becomes clear they are merely the very first row. Behind those flailing in the forefront and before a single synchronized note is played, the thoughts/musicians fan outwardly one behind the other - the entire stream of performers rushing to greet the horizon and looking almost militant were it not for their instruments rather than weapons in hand. Yet there is nothing organized or precise about this procession. The sonic clutter and visual chaos give the impression that they are all simply tuning up; readying themselves for some future, proper beginning when in actuality the conductor has already long since started waving their ridiculous, granite baton. The concert has begun. This is apparently what I am here for.

Nothing makes sense. No one is minding the erratic meter of the one who is supposedly dictating the direction of all others. Every musician, every thought seems to have its own aggressive agenda against every other nearby resident. And for a moment I wonder if it isn’t all intentional. If the piece itself isn’t some choreographed conflict or audible abstract. Because there does seem to be some uncomfortable beauty here were the senses and the mind of the beholder mad. But to even be that charitable feels too taxing to try. Measurable mindlessness is afoot here. Rampant and amok, so much so that even if we could believe order might eventually reign in what feels like a chorus of outright belligerence we would exhaust our interest long before that improbability became reality. We are initially interested, yes. A bit. More accurately is that we may merely have questions. Alas, even having stumbling in upon it already in progress… it all still feels far closer to a beginning than to a resolution to intelligent observation for us to wait to ask. Which is why some quietly (politely) rise and slip towards the exits within the merciful darkness. Which is why it may be merciful I suppose that for the most part this insanity is performed sporadically, sparsely and to limited or at least inattentive audiences in the first place out here in the cool, featureless landscape.

Except for me.
I did not stumble in upon this frenetic scene. I was born into an inheritance of this property upon which this malevolent, organic kalliope has always been mid-performance. Always somehow between the beginning and the end of its opus of imposition. I cannot leave nor would any sensible buyer offer to purchase these grounds and thus these happenings. Regardless, the band plays on. Whether people stumble into this scene with unfortunate awkwardness or not, the band plays on entirely indifferent to whether its sole permanent audience of one approves, curses or pleads. It causes me to wonder then if this isn't all for my benefit while being to my infinite detriment. But curiosity passes. Numbed by the menacing lull of so many insistent musicians.

12-11-11

My lids swell and circumscribe my eyesight into darkness
And rupture into light once again only after an apogee of effort
This is not sleep - This has never been rest - This is not surrender
This is what can only be described as collapse
Failure to function any longer
So my eyes swell shut and my body sputters and shuts down
And what looks like sleep
Is inability to continue
A physical failure - One system crashing into the next
Bringing them all eventually to a somber and messy halt
Except my mind
It’s just getting started
Now it is free to run rampant
Much the same way my emotions do
During those instances in public they too crash one into the other
For me crashing and losing all function
Is the closest I come to my actual self
All else is either lies or performance
So I keep the instances where I must be functional to a minimum
And I keep myself for the most part isolated and without witnesses
Not out of pride
But because it is the closest I can come to consideration
Without faking

12/01/11

    Telephones, seemingly always the dark conduit of pain and heartbreak to her, at least was reliable in that sense. At least they were loyal to her in how they always harmed her somehow.

     Of course, that wasn’t really the truth. It was the voices on the other end that did that. And the sounds. Their intentions always seeking her out - usually at her weakest and most vulnerable - to sharply pierce some part of her and watch it bleed. Sometimes without any perceivable reason or provocation. That never failed to pile on to her already overwhelming self-perception that she must deserve it. Why else would it keep happening again and again?  Maybe the voices just wanted to see her absorb it, take it. Or maybe she was just another void, a nothing place in which the world enjoyed dumping such things. But it’s difficult for her to care about the motivations behind why it keeps repeatedly happening. Impossible to care once the tears begin to fall while doubled over with her arms around her stomach and a phone against her ear, listening…

               …In those moments, she envied the deaf or the dead of heart.

     “You know why,” is what he said to her when explaining how he wouldn’t be coming home that night anytime soon. His words slurred together and drawn out within the obvious cadence of drunken resentfulness. She knew how he got when he had been drinking and could usually guess the things he’d say before he spoke them. They were after all often how she felt about herself. But that never served to brace herself against them. It’s not that she was weak or could often be caught with defenses down, but she found herself more and more exhausted these days and unable to galvanize herself against it like she used to. She supposed his long habit of corrosiveness had done its job well. And something in the back of her mind thought that this is exactly where she should always wind up, that furthest point from all health and happiness. Something always whispering to her that winding up doubled over crying silent tears to herself while on the telephone, listening, is the way it somehow always has been and always will be.

     She didn’t have to ask, but she did anyway. Maybe she was unconsciously an enabler to him like that. Or, maybe she just wanted a few precious moments more to try and sturdy herself for whatever the next abuse to come might be. “Because you’re a bitch,” he said with a bit of a chuckle, his words drenched with a genuine mixture of both cruelty and glee. He enjoyed saying it. Maybe he thought she enjoyed hearing it? Maybe that was what made him turn so hateful so quickly at times. Maybe he just hated himself and distrusted and resented her for claiming to love him. But she did love him still, in some ways. In others, she loathed him for how he could make her feel. But again… her mind could not quiet its insistence that she very probably deserved it.

     The call stops abruptly and the long, indifferent tone that signals a person that they are alone once again seems louder than it probably should to her ears. Another conversation whose words are carried upon the wires of telephones ends without emotional resolution and she powers off the handset and resigns herself to another long night of loneliness and unfavorable self-rumination. But - maybe not. Maybe her friends could help her feel a bit better within the moment. Or at least maybe they could help her put off the hurting about it for a brief but grateful time. So she turns back to what she was doing before the call came, back to the people whose faces she had never seen and possibly never would. Those people who exist only through the safety and distance of computer screens and text-borne sentiments. There were caring people in the world if she gave them a chance, if she dared allowed them a little closer. At least, she has always hoped that. And there was one who seemed more caring and interested than the rest whom which she often conversed with through the glowing rectangle of her computer screen. He always seemed to be kind if not a bit quirky to her. And after the couple of keyboard clacks and the few minutes it took to offer her troubles to him for convalescence, he was indeed instantly and fully present to convalesce her. Part of her still questioned why anyone would or could care for her like that enough to want to say such comforting things to her even though she’s the one who did the rare deed of initiating his attentions. Especially when they’ve never met her in person to realize how much she was sure they should disapprove of her. But for the life of her she could not deny: It felt good, it felt healthy despite the fact they had never met and maybe never shall that someone did at least seem to care. Almost as if she weren’t the terrible thing she often felt and saw herself to be and that so many people had told her she is.

     So it was with great surprise and some admittedly mild trepidation that when hearing of her telephone conversation with him and how it had caused her to feel he offered to set down his keyboard and call her in voice upon the telephone for the very first time to help her through it. She felt instantly apprehensive of a phone call. She wasn't sure if she ever wanting to use a telephone again. No good had ever come from it. But she felt torn down and vulnerable. She hated to admit it, but she felt a real need to be receptive to his considerate offer of kindness. She supposed even people who didn’t deserve kindness as she felt she did not does still happen across it every once in a great while. And was still a human being, was she not? It was human to snatch at things when being dragged down or when falling. She was hurting and felt needful for someone, anyone, to give a shit. Because in this moment and in moments like this she inched closer and closer to not giving a shit about anything anymore. (And you know what happens after that, don’t you?) some part of her asked herself. She did. And she did not wish to ever get that far into the darkness again.

     So she accepted. And she gave him her telephone number.
     And for several minutes, it did help. It felt good, honestly good to be seen and asked about affectionately.

     And for a few moments there with this man she had never met, she was so appreciative to feel a bit more human again. A little less self-hating or outright hated by others. There’s a hopefulness that offers a weak but tiny ray of light when terrible times can turn and feel a little better like that. And for those few grateful minutes they conversed about her aching heart, she felt valid enough to question if maybe she didn’t deserve it. That maybe she might actually deserve something better and decent and good. Heartache warmed into faint smiles, and she enjoyed stealing a smile from a world that has always rather she didn’t.


     ...But it wasn’t long until the man who seemed to genuinely care and who she had never met before in person had devolved his asking her about her feelings and had began to increasingly and aggressively asking her graphic descriptions of what she would do for him if they ever met; groin-to-face. Shock instantly hammers her ability to feel outrage down into herself (just as she has always been conditioned to) and sweeping in was that old numb and Pavlovian haze that causes her to comply with another’s predatory insistences from her. It was all that she was ever good for, wasn’t it? (Yes) she answered herself with a dead and unaffected feeling inside. Being that thing that others wipe themselves on when they want to hurt something that has long since lost all ability to refuse them was her lot in life. If she wasn’t sure of it at any time before she was sure of it now. Robotically, she rattled off a few descriptive things she knew he wanted to hear and that might bring this trauma to as rapid an end as possible. And with the unmistakable sound of a zipper unzipping and that other sound, unmistakable and repetitive, she bends at her midsection and slips her arms around her stomach while holding the telephone against her ear with her shoulder… and listens…

     Telephones have never failed her, have they? They have never cheated her of what she deserves. She wants to cry, but tears and hope have abandoned her. There is only a telephone once again, and the listening…

     09/19/11