soup without crackers...

Old 06-14-2009, 10:17 PM
  # 1 (permalink)  
Member
Thread Starter
 
siamcat's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2009
Location: Unknown
Posts: 122
soup without crackers...

I wanted a Vietnamese feast tonight. I settled for broccoli and cheese soup...

I'm starting to see shadows where no light is cast. Moving without puppetry. Whispering inaudibly. Insinuating thoughts towards me. Absorbed not reflected...

I have soup without crackers. I hold motion without mechanism. If energy precedes matter I should have marshmallow castles and bare-breasted frauleins and angels of mercy manifesting all around me... but only these shadows. These machinating, slivering, delusory vermin haunting my peripheral whilst I stumble through this madness of echo and ping...

I want love. And not that craigslist love of shared interests and copulatory compatibility. I want that new, fresh love I felt the first time I touched my lips to another, that tingle and mystery at once terrifying and ambrosic... that love of stepping to the edge of all previous known perceptions and dancing tentatively into something with no idea of what was happening or what might become... The love you cannot find in word or gesture or storybook, only on the tip of the most sensitive organs and on the cusp of rapidly uncontrollable, spiraling emotions... that love we've all lost with youth, when possibility ceased to be plausible and embryonic dreams gave way to misshapen, debilitating 'realities' forged by previous generations who lacked the evolutionary progression and/or courage to turn their art into precedent... I want this all, for me, for us, for a dying planet, for a sickened humanity, there must be something more than this game, this politicking endlessly around the truth, the task, the POINT of life! I want to be a part of something greater than myself that doesn't involve the mobilization of vast metallic hollow tubes pointing death at other vast, metallic hollow tubes peopled inside! If I must kill at least let me choose my prey, like the shamans that led the hunters to sustenance...

Meandering through my conduit 'brain' roams these yearnings and sadnesses and tragedies through which we have always lived and died, the point, where's the point? In any of this? I'm going mad...

I intend this for my journal, my journey, through 'recovery'? Through 'madness'? Through 'myself'? Through through through into something else, something more, something I don't yet understand but ache to. Something that I can someday identify in the pit of my stomach as a spark that can propel unquavering through my own prison of time and through to the end of what decayed matter I'll eventually cease to call 'me'.

I posted here because it seemed most appropriate, more secluded, less offensive to the more indefatigable ideologies featured at any recovery site. My ideals, my delusions are often offensive even to myself, but I want to feel safe here, I want a place to purge my mental vomit with less judgment and less pain and in colorful waves of nonsensical convulsions... Paradigmal epilepsy...
siamcat is offline  
Old 06-15-2009, 02:33 AM
  # 2 (permalink)  
Member
 
Eroica's Avatar
 
Join Date: Apr 2008
Location: Htown, baby!
Posts: 384
wow great post.. I especially liked your paragraph on love. Wish I could write like that. And may we ALL find the kind of love you're describing.. without the sucky stuff and pain that comes with it of course!! Is that possible? LOL

Happy journaling!
Eroica is offline  
Old 06-15-2009, 02:39 AM
  # 3 (permalink)  
Member
 
Join Date: Feb 2009
Location: France
Posts: 783
Originally Posted by siamcat View Post
I wanted a Vietnamese feast tonight. I settled for broccoli and cheese soup...

I'm starting to see shadows where no light is cast. Moving without puppetry. Whispering inaudibly. Insinuating thoughts towards me. Absorbed not reflected...

I have soup without crackers. I hold motion without mechanism. If energy precedes matter I should have marshmallow castles and bare-breasted frauleins and angels of mercy manifesting all around me... but only these shadows. These machinating, slivering, delusory vermin haunting my peripheral whilst I stumble through this madness of echo and ping...

I want love. And not that craigslist love of shared interests and copulatory compatibility. I want that new, fresh love I felt the first time I touched my lips to another, that tingle and mystery at once terrifying and ambrosic... that love of stepping to the edge of all previous known perceptions and dancing tentatively into something with no idea of what was happening or what might become... The love you cannot find in word or gesture or storybook, only on the tip of the most sensitive organs and on the cusp of rapidly uncontrollable, spiraling emotions... that love we've all lost with youth, when possibility ceased to be plausible and embryonic dreams gave way to misshapen, debilitating 'realities' forged by previous generations who lacked the evolutionary progression and/or courage to turn their art into precedent... I want this all, for me, for us, for a dying planet, for a sickened humanity, there must be something more than this game, this politicking endlessly around the truth, the task, the POINT of life! I want to be a part of something greater than myself that doesn't involve the mobilization of vast metallic hollow tubes pointing death at other vast, metallic hollow tubes peopled inside! If I must kill at least let me choose my prey, like the shamans that led the hunters to sustenance...

Meandering through my conduit 'brain' roams these yearnings and sadnesses and tragedies through which we have always lived and died, the point, where's the point? In any of this? I'm going mad...

I intend this for my journal, my journey, through 'recovery'? Through 'madness'? Through 'myself'? Through through through into something else, something more, something I don't yet understand but ache to. Something that I can someday identify in the pit of my stomach as a spark that can propel unquavering through my own prison of time and through to the end of what decayed matter I'll eventually cease to call 'me'.

I posted here because it seemed most appropriate, more secluded, less offensive to the more indefatigable ideologies featured at any recovery site. My ideals, my delusions are often offensive even to myself, but I want to feel safe here, I want a place to purge my mental vomit with less judgment and less pain and in colorful waves of nonsensical convulsions... Paradigmal epilepsy...
Your prose is stupendous.

If you've got books out in print please list them , that I can read them.
californiapoppy is offline  
Old 06-15-2009, 03:07 AM
  # 4 (permalink)  
Member
Thread Starter
 
siamcat's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2009
Location: Unknown
Posts: 122
No books, just creeping madness...

I feel sick to my stomach. i finally got to sleep after 23 hours awake after four hours of sleep after three hours the night before that and simultaneously (seriously, SIMULTANEOUSLY!) my cell phone rings as the fire alarms start howling in my hallway! Imagining I smelt gas I frantically rummage around for what might be valuable (what do I grab my ipod? cell phone? laptop? sanity?) and slunk dreamstruck down flights of stairs. Now, barely an hour of rest and wide awake. I didn't answer the phonecall, but the message pleads for me to come in to work in two hours time. Jesus, I think I do smell gas, screw it, I'm staying, I need sleep so so so so bad, eternal or temporary, I care not...

Phal, I hope I'm safe here, I need to be safe right now, my cravings are stupendous, my psyche is fragile, I think I'm going to be sick...
siamcat is offline  
Old 06-15-2009, 07:22 AM
  # 5 (permalink)  
Member
 
Join Date: Feb 2009
Location: France
Posts: 783
Originally Posted by siamcat View Post
No books, just creeping madness...



Phal, I hope I'm safe here, I need to be safe right now, my cravings are stupendous, my psyche is fragile, I think I'm going to be sick...
Extraordinary!

I hope you're safe here too, what are you afraid of?

I think I'm in love again (that's a joke, don't run off)
californiapoppy is offline  
Old 06-15-2009, 10:14 AM
  # 6 (permalink)  
Big Idiot Man Child
 
windysan's Avatar
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: La
Posts: 5,664
I am fiendin for pho
windysan is offline  
Old 06-15-2009, 11:01 AM
  # 7 (permalink)  
Member
 
Join Date: Feb 2009
Location: France
Posts: 783
Originally Posted by windysan View Post
I am fiendin for pho
Darn Windy, sometimes I wish you'd speak French. (I don't always understand!)
and I'd like to take this moment to tell you that I'm in love with you too
and I'm definitely off topic....sorry
californiapoppy is offline  
Old 06-15-2009, 11:07 AM
  # 8 (permalink)  
Big Idiot Man Child
 
windysan's Avatar
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: La
Posts: 5,664
I don't speak French but I can speak a little Spanish. Louisiana was a French colony and we have French law. I'm in love with all the French girls !! woo hoo !!
windysan is offline  
Old 06-15-2009, 03:10 PM
  # 9 (permalink)  
Member
 
Join Date: Nov 2007
Posts: 26,425
thankyou siam for sharing that wonderful post from the heart (hug)
Ananda is offline  
Old 06-15-2009, 03:24 PM
  # 10 (permalink)  
On the path to self discovery
 
otterbearcat's Avatar
 
Join Date: May 2009
Location: Pacific Northwest
Posts: 161
Siam,

Do you take anything to help you sleep? Prescription or otherwise?
Not getting enough sleep always contributes to my mental state. (in a bad way)
otterbearcat is offline  
Old 06-15-2009, 04:40 PM
  # 11 (permalink)  
Your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your altitude
 
Zencat's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Oxnard (The Nard), CA, USA.
Posts: 13,680
Originally Posted by siamcat
I posted here because it seemed most appropriate, more secluded, less offensive to the more indefatigable ideologies featured at any recovery site. My ideals, my delusions are often offensive even to myself, but I want to feel safe here, I want a place to purge my mental vomit with less judgment and less pain and in colorful waves of nonsensical convulsions... Paradigmal epilepsy...
Secular Connections is a safe place for me...as I hope it will be for you. Here I'm finding self-discovery starts with relinquishing previous persona's, divesting in self ideas and formulating a reconstructed self based on nothingness. For when I have emptied myself of self I have become a reflection of the unbounded limitlessness of all. Then all or nothing will loose its meaning. Nothing will mean something as something that lost it meaning.
Zencat is offline  
Old 06-15-2009, 09:49 PM
  # 12 (permalink)  
Member
 
jade09's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jun 2009
Location: On my way
Posts: 173
you are a great writer...thanks for the post...please feel free to unload it all....

"Through 'myself'? Through through through into something else, something more, something I don't yet understand but ache to. "

i really liked this part of the "vomit" - don't know it just made my whole body tingle....? thanks for an interesting read

i don't know your story, but wish you well =)
jade09 is offline  
Old 06-16-2009, 05:11 PM
  # 13 (permalink)  
Member
Thread Starter
 
siamcat's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2009
Location: Unknown
Posts: 122
I play this game sometimes walking around the skyways. I'll find people who are immersed in their blackberries, not paying attention to their surroundings. I'll walk right towards them, and as they unconsciously shift course I'll imperceptibly veer towards them further until we nearly brush against one another as we pass. Sometimes we actually collide, often times the nearness is enough to jolt them out of their cybernetic daydream. Am I mean? Or is this just metaphorical of my yearning for human contact?

I often want to scream at them, wave my hands in the air, even hit them, "I'm HERE I'm HERE!" Like some gestaltian need for recogniton. I want to grab people and shake them violently until they are shocked into the moment that should bind us all together. I want to parade around the planet soliciting poems and paintings and lovemaking until the whole world weeps for its idiocy. We're wasting time, things are getting worse and we are addicted to separating ourselves from one another.

I slept a lot last night, much needed. I dreamt of someone, a friend, maybe lover, maybe myself... their eyes were black and empty... there was a pool of water, a deep black hole, it was understood by me that this dark puddle was a sucking, a vacuum in which entry would mean forever sinking with no possibility of parole, I watched this shadow, grey and diseased walk into the pool resigned, immediately sinking as I watched, able to see his face looking up at me expressionless as he went... it was raining outside, that's all I remember...

Today it's raining too, and I sit in the vacuum of my apartment, looking around at all these odds and ends, these half-read books and expired coupons and pictures of people who've long forgotten me. Unfinished tasks and soggy dreams and lost loves and embered ambitions. I remember wondering last year at this time if I would be like this still now, and I am, every time I move, trying to flee myself I find myself again, in a new place, more isolated than ever, in darkness looking into the brightened windows of other peoples lives wondering what it must be like to be normal, to want life more than death, to be able to function without eccentricities, chemicals, to settle for less in order to gain more...

Someone asked me about sleep, I don't take anything really, sometimes I'll take this tablet called 'Midnite' that's supposed to be all natural. It works ok, it feels like when you get out of a long hot bath, relaxes your body, and often it's suggestive enough to your mind that it will follow suit.

Someone asked me what I was afraid of... I'm afraid of myself... (and heffalumps and dropbears and people who think Rush Limbaugh has ever or will ever have a point)...

Someone said something about nothingness. You cannot build around nothingness, nothingness is not a nucleus, it's not a foundation, it's not an idea or material, nothingness is the vacuum realization that we are more space than matter, that none of any of this really matters, it's therapudic to empty the garbage in your brain through meditation, and this is what I think was meant, but reconstructing a 'self' based on 'nothingness' is like trying to rebuild your house in the middle of a lake, it's nonsensical and completely defeats the purpose of having a calm body of water in which to cleanse your soul...

I don't know what else to say today, I feel stable, just very sad...
siamcat is offline  
Old 06-16-2009, 05:37 PM
  # 14 (permalink)  
mergirl
 
Gypsy Feet's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2009
Location: Paradise
Posts: 4,161
You write beautifully. I wonder if you weren't sad what your writing would be like
Gypsy Feet is offline  
Old 06-16-2009, 06:03 PM
  # 15 (permalink)  
Never settle.
 
gneiss's Avatar
 
Join Date: Oct 2008
Location: Under immense pressure
Posts: 1,505
Wow. These are great posts, siam. The paragraph about love in the original post was especially wonderful. If that's "mental vomit," I'll take another helping.
gneiss is offline  
Old 06-16-2009, 06:21 PM
  # 16 (permalink)  
Member
 
jade09's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jun 2009
Location: On my way
Posts: 173
"I remember wondering last year at this time if I would be like this still now, and I am, every time I move, trying to flee myself I find myself again, in a new place, more isolated than ever, in darkness looking into the brightened windows of other peoples lives wondering what it must be like to be normal, to want life more than death, to be able to function without eccentricities, chemicals, to settle for less in order to gain more..."

i like this line...it's funny how certain emotions strike..sometimes even when you weren't even aware of them....thanks for your post
jade09 is offline  
Old 06-16-2009, 06:57 PM
  # 17 (permalink)  
Just me...
 
HLBlue's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 2008
Posts: 392
Itss beautifull writing but, I thinkk your losing yourselff in all of it......
HLBlue is offline  
Old 06-16-2009, 08:00 PM
  # 18 (permalink)  
problem with authority
 
FightingIrish's Avatar
 
Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: Washington, DC
Posts: 870
"For it is by self forgetting that one finds."
FightingIrish is offline  
Old 06-16-2009, 08:32 PM
  # 19 (permalink)  
Up from the ashes
 
Freepath's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: Northern California
Posts: 213
Your writing is masterful. Your insight concerning love, hope, human separation and indifference regarding death evoke such compelling contemplations of our lives.

I hope this is not too dark a time for you. I also hope that you find not just safety, but admiration and support for sharing these ideas.

Nice work.
Freepath is offline  
Old 06-17-2009, 01:46 AM
  # 20 (permalink)  
Member
Thread Starter
 
siamcat's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2009
Location: Unknown
Posts: 122
Originally Posted by uglyeyes View Post
You write beautifully. I wonder if you weren't sad what your writing would be like
I imagine it would be happier.

Originally Posted by gneiss View Post
Wow. These are great posts, siam. The paragraph about love in the original post was especially wonderful. If that's "mental vomit," I'll take another helping.
Gross. :p

For the first time in awhile today I didn't have any cravings, I didn't see any shadows. What I'm left with is guilt. Why am I always guilty and how do I get rid of it? Inevitably the guilt, and the fear of future guiltiness leads me back to drinking. I've done horrible stupid things to wonderful beautiful people and the fear of doing them again encapsulates me and holds me away from that outside world. Maybe it's only part of the equation, it's difficult to decipher now, I've become such a mess that I cannot read my own codes, I've forgotten all my own passwords, I have no access to my roots any longer...

New York City, 2007, I'm working in the city, staying at the Essex House, an old friend who I grew up with doing theater, haven't seen her in years, comes up from the lower east side to meet for (guess what?) a drink. I don't know why this is permissible in my mind as I've spent the previous year grappling for the first time with admitted alcoholism, with varied success but with a greater self knowledge now, I KNEW it was a bad idea, I KNEW it was a bad idea, I KNEW IT WAS A BAD FRIGGIN IDEA?!!?!! Since moving back east for this job I had been cheating in my sobriety...

Three things happen to me always when I go back, even just to visit. #1 I start swearing every other word, it's contagious... #2 I start losing my R's in mimic... #3 I start incorporating alcohol into my meals...

It starts off well enough, a third friend that was supposed to meet us feigned a headache and gracefully bowed out (after we called her when she didn't show up), we make fun of her, knowing that she's an upper west side snob and just couldn't stomach coming ALL the way to touristy midtown on the subway. A beer. A Burger. Some catching up... What I'm guessing was about four beers in some Romanian guy starts talking to us, nice enough guy, interesting conversation about I forget what, everything's fine, I step out to smoke...

Outside there's a bongo bum singing blues and his friend. I start talking to them as I'm inclined to do, 'specially when on my way to drunk, give em both a smoke and go back in...

Romanian guy now sitting next to friend, fine, I suggest a shot and a toast... Third shot round responsibly declined by friend and Romanian guy... three or four more beers in my by this time... starting to feel that slide, like all traction has been lost on a slope made of wet rubber, I'm destructive, I'm in this for the goal, I imagine I've always loved (let's call her) jasmine, this Romanian guy's trying to pick her up... I go out to smoke...

Bums drinking whiskey in a bag, I joke about the Yankees, they tell me I shouldn't wear a Red Sox hat in the city at night, easy prey... I jokingserious direct their eyes through the window, telling them that the Romanian guy is trying to pick up my girl and what they think I should do about it... obvious drunken bum responses given 'fight fight fight!', ... but it is in jest on my part... one of my vices, funking with people when I drink...

Go back in, thinly veiled funking with Romanian guy... I think I'm so slick when I drink but how horribly obvious must I have been?... eventually convincing both for one last shot together in return for my implicit agreement that it's getting late and this is the last... Remember vaguity... walking Jasmine outside, insisting on buying her a taxi, ... suggesting that she can stay in my hotel room... did I try to pick her up? This girl I watched play anne frank as I sat in the light booth with her mother calling cues?... what else did I say?... how big of a fool did I make of me?...

Somehow, being LITERALLY across the street from my hotel I took a taxi home that night. Maybe I rode the taxi with her? But I don't think so. I remember walking forever and ever around New York. I must have somehow simply gone the wrong way, somehow, being DIRECTLY across the street from my hotel. Eventually I must have realized that I was lost and, though I know Manhattan fairly well could not get an accurate reading on the GRIDLIKE street concoction they got going on there... I must have gotten into a taxi just for the simplicity of saying two words and having them take me there.... I remember pulling out my wallet... I had three hundred dollars when I met with jasmine... I have nothing in my wallet now... all of that money couldn't have gone at the bar though I did buy drinks for three people for four hours and probably gave a twenty to each of the bar bums.... I remember the taxi guy furious, and getting out and stumbling... black.

I wake up somehow four hours later, work, jesus, thank god i am so recently and deeply drunk that there is no hangover until the day is almost done, I cut off early anyhow... I have a text from jasmine, she wonders if i got home ok.. apparently called her during lost wanderings... I text back breif... 'Y got home sry abt lst ngt'... no reply. I don't expect I'll ever see or hear from her again.

I'm hoping that writing some of these out will help me little by little deal with the guilt. This was hardly one of my worst, but it was the last time I got drunk with real consequences. I lost a friend, albeit one I'd only talked to a few times since high school, it was someone I grew up with and respected and was close to her parents and have mutual friends with. It was someone who, if I was a normal person, I might have been very interested in keeping in touch with again, maybe working with her on some of her projects which she alluded to before we met up, another in a long series of old theater friends trying to get me back in the arts... but drinking acted like an atomic bomb on this situation. It completely obliterated any possibility of anything that may have existed in just a few hours. It takes so little time to ruin years of memories and long standing friendships. It takes so little, almost nothing. I hate this. I hate all of this. This guilt, this regret, and this one of the more benign episodes, not involving police or bodily fluids or self harm or sex or injury.

How can I forgive myself for any of this? I'm supposed to look at myself and say 'I forgive you siamcat, you have a 'disease' and it's not your fault, you're trying to get better now so all this is ok'. It's NOT OK! It's NOT OK that I've RUINED things and HURT people and GIVEN UP possibility and STUNTED my growth on EVERY PERCEIVABLE LEVEL EVER!!!!

Crap,... I don't know.
siamcat is offline  

Currently Active Users Viewing this Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)
 
Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Trackbacks are On
Pingbacks are On
Refbacks are Off




All times are GMT -7. The time now is 02:41 AM.