was it something i said?

Things seem to be so quiet today. Or maybe I’m just feeling contemplative about my trip. Causing me to latch on to this penchant for over-analysis and grinding things down into bits. I have a habit of taking perfectly usable items and, with the intention of gaining a better understanding by getting down to their origins, tearing them into irreparable pieces. I used to have a theory that I ruined all things I came into contact with, but lately have been forcing myself to let the phenomenon play itself out unacknowledged. There’s a certain power that can be gained by not naming things. It’s a contradiction. For sure. Like everything I tend to do. Writing things down so that they can remain real. At the same time – trying desperately not to recognize reality.

I went for a walk this morning, and I thought for a moment that some reckless painter had stolen the world – recast it only in various shades of grey. Sublime. The result of thunderstorms that had kept me awake all night. Listening to the rain against the window like scurrying cats on a wood floor. My socks still feel cold inside my shoes from crossing through the soaking grass. I stopped by the river near my house and watched it cut ferociously away. Its sounds drowned out any thoughts that didn’t escape into its depths – they jumped out, down, and were gone. I didn’t have anything more meaningful to throw. And all that remained were the symbols of punctuation.

The monochrome of the day begs me to fill it up with the words and images that get stuck in my head. To clutter it up like a desktop, a bookshelf, a school bag. From the concrete to the sky – suddenly all I can see and hear is El Beso . . . Violets . . . lines and lines like endless avenues . . . and so I sleep . . . and so I eat . . . and so I rise. Tepid water or cool refreshing springs – these kinds of moments arrest the kiss as a dream that I no longer want to wake up from.