Some people turn to pills and things
To help them through the day
To take them up or down or just
To ease the blues away
But me I really want to feel
The ups and downs of life so real
Happy or sad emotions reign
My tears flow just the same

—Lamb, I Cry

I had been trying to write this for nearly a month, but couldn’t get it down until I really listened to the lyrics of I Cry on the walk home past the power lines. I decided to split this up into two separate entries, after realizing that I have two similar ideas in my head, but two very distinct issues. Perhaps it just took a few extra rough days of work to force me to think about this. All the things falling apart that I have to fix, responsibilities, deadlines, and tons of other miscellaneous things are definitely making me think of ways to get the tension out of my arms and shoulders.

Sometimes, when I come home, all I want to do is get piss drunk or mindlessly stoned. Maybe go recklessly buy a bunch of things I don’t need, to make myself feel better for that little amount of time. Sometimes I just feel like doing something irrational, even though I have no idea what or why, simply because I believe it would get my mind of things. And yet I don’t do any of this, especially when I’m having a particularly bad day, because I don’t want to be dependent on anything.

I don’t want to rely on narcotics, or material goods, or self-mutilation, or anything at all to make myself feel better. I want to be sure that I can handle things, no matter what, on my own. I force myself to feel every stressful, miserable, forlorn emotion, so that I know that I can get through them.

Sometimes, every day can be a test. Music and writing are the only things that I allow myself.

And sometimes I have to tell myself that it’s enough.

One of my greatest fears is that this will fall into desuetude. I doubt it’ll happen though, because I’d try my best to keep this in practice, but one never knows. I’ve been too tired or busy lately to really write something. Writing is an effort for me, something I need to concentrate and focus on. I don’t like to publish haphazard material. I’m considering a break actually, until things settle down a bit, but I think I’d start to get a nagging feeling about not posting anything for two consecutive days.

As long as there is something to learn, there is something to write about.

Why do I write? Mostly because I feel like it. I can’t write with a pen because a computer allows me to organize my thoughts much better. I choose to publish my thoughts online. Yet I don’t write for an audience, I don’t care who reads, I don’t know who’s interested.

Does it take a reader to validate my thoughts? Not quite. I doubt I’d feel as good as I do after posting an entry if I just typed it in a text file and saved it on my hard drive. Everything I write is posted and made public. So why do I post if it doesn’t matter whether someone reads or not?

This is similar to my style of dress. The clothes I wear are a reflection of my mood, even though I don’t think anyone takes notice or actually cares.

An exercise in expression is its own reward.

The legless man in the motel room next to me
listens to country and western music
all night, an endless song
about going down on his knees
for some faithless woman’s love.
I turn in my bed, thinking of you the day
we thought our daughter had gone
missing. The moment
before she disappeared you’d seen a stranger
on the block, the kind who wore
a stained suit from the Sally Ann, the kind
who couldn’t know innocence
existed. Our daughter was supposed to be

next door, playing in the fenced yard
with two neighbour boys. You’d been
on the phone and I’d turned my back
on the moment to do something
predictable — move the garden sprinkler,
open the morning mail — acts
that would never again seem so ordinary
once we’d made up our minds
between burial or cremation. Your body

had never felt so alive as you took off
in the car, driving down
every back lane, listening for her
glove-muffled cries. You drove

deeper and deeper into the kind of hell
we reserve for ourselves and never want
our children to have to know. You knew

at this moment she could only be suffering
in the hands of that stranger who would afterwards
stuff her trusting body into a single forest
green Glad bag, then tote her to the park.

They would find her legs first, dangling
from the swing, shoes on the wrong feet
as usual, arms hanging from the jungle
gym. I’d want to touch, to straighten
her turned-in toes: how clumsily
we lived on this earth!

She was lost only for a moment, locked
in a spare bedroom with the two boys
next door, not wanting their privacy interrupted,
but in that moment when she was gone
forever, death in all his beautiful variety
sang to us, off-key and aching
inside our cheated hearts.

—Susan Musgrave, The Moment

After reading Things That Keep And Do Not Change, I deleted my poetry/prose section. There is nothing that I could ever write that would actually be considered as such. Susan Musgrave has put me to shame.

She writes so…ghastly, so raw, so erotically, and so piercingly. It’s unbelievable how she can come up with the ideas in her poems; often it’s as if she’s lived in that moment and describes what she sees. And yet, one knows that she only creates the images she talks about because of their very permanent and scarring nature. One of my favourite things about her writing style is the way she begins with a very ordinary situation and leads the reader along with her thought pattern.

The way she sees the simple things around her with such vivacity, the passion and emotion she expresses in her written voice, the poignant way in which she views the world…she is someone who lives life to the highest degree.

And some day I hope to do the same.

A little while ago I put up an up-to-the-minute script that would tell me how many people were viewing this page, out of curiosity. It’s always interesting to find out that someone is visiting at the same time that I am. This week I noticed that I had 3 visitors online while I was updating. I was pretty surprised, since most internet surfers spend much less than a minute at a page before leaving (most will leave the page if it doesn’t load within eight seconds, a useful fact to know for web designers).

I checked my stats and found out that I’m still getting more than 100 visits daily, which is something that I don’t understand. I haven’t done much to advertise my site aside from a few Canadian blog listings, and only a handful of the people I personally know check on a regular basis. I don’t think I talk about controversial issues that really generate any discussion, or anything that’s very interesting for that matter. I don’t pander to potential visitors, I don’t censor myself, I don’t address an audience, and half the time I’m just venting about this or that. I first made this site over a year ago as an outlet for personal expression, and the purpose hasn’t changed one bit ever since. I wonder if people come here by mistake or looking for something specific. I personally have my daily reads (most of them female authors, since there seems to be a shortage of male bloggers) of people who have lives that are very different from mine. Most are just plain interesting, and some give me a few alternate perspectives.

I wish I knew what people came here for.