So lost. So-laced.

There are so many wrinkles in my knuckles nowadays. So many lifelines that speak on so much self-induced stress. I've worked manual jobs, I've worked office, I'm working a physical one now...and I see my hands, and the roughness that has come to them, and the wear that each day adds and I've thought all it takes is a little more lotion, a little more care, a massage here and there, and the age will wear away. But I don't get that it's just as prevalent in my visage. It becomes just as obvious in my face, in my eyes, in my demeanor, and not out of anything flagrant...but I worry so much about my hands that I'm damn sure gonna show worry on my face. Not that it wasn't there to begin with, but it all adds up. I hate ending sentences with prepositions.

So one more thing for me to worry about; one more thing for me to stress about and deliberate on and consider. And get mad at. Sloppiness. Lack of consideration and awareness. Lack of awareness really fucks with me. It's so easy to pay attention. But we don't. But I don't, rather.

I have woven a mighty fabric throughout my life, intertwined with the people that I've come to love, and I think have come to love me too. This fabric is stronger than anything I have ever felt. This fabric, at times, is the only thing real to me and by far the only thing I can cling to. I rely on each of these threads as one relies on an IV. And I recognize that there is a back and forth, that as much as they give me life, they also feel and perhaps feed on that life force, but at the very least they recognize that it is there and will absolutely feel the pull when that IV is detached. So now I have all these plugs in me. And over the years I've been slowly pulling these plugs out. Slowly unraveling my blanket, string by string, in the most initially innocuous but unavoidably thorough manner. We can build castles in the sky...

I'm just waiting until I can yank that last string. But I can't stop thinking about what will remain, and then my fingers become too weak for that last pull. And my spirit is too weak to consider anything else. But that's okay. Because no one will ever know about this.

-Andus Toohey

Diss-connect

I was just staring at her picture (do you realize how revelatory the face is?--rather, do you allow yourself to recognize it?) and where once there was jealousy and hurt-pride (in this instance, merely for that picture, in others, ubiquitously) somehow a storm a-brewed in me brain, but twas only a flash. And that meager bolt broke the chains of propriety with regard to any "us" there was/is/may be. En-lightening.

Somehow I saw passed the happiness I presume stems from the cropped other in the picture, and I just saw happiness. If not, at least, momentary joy. And that is beautiful. It need not come from me, though my ego wills that it all must, as long as it is felt. And you can see, in this picture, that it is felt. In this face.

It is a magnificent visage, and they all are to me, all but the one in the mirror, of course. While I know my facade replays the muscular recordings of happiness, joy, glee, excitement, even sadness, skepticism, etc. I've always relied on the fact that it plays those tapes back well. Thoroughly. I see that my reaction is appropriate (i.e. encouraging in whatever sense necessary) by the reaction to my reaction by those with whom I communicate. Rapport is easy, you really just have to be a reflection; though that reflection must be genuine. Over the years that I've been establishing my ability to regulate the comfort level via a visually expressed, shared empathy, I have always always felt there was some small thing amiss. I never considered it was my subject's scruples, I'd always considered it my own misgivings about perpetrating such a flagrant affront (albeit my genuine desire to be as genuine as possible), but two instances over the last few days have illuminated the inner darkness residing.

"I don't know why, but I always feel like I can answer you honestly when you ask how I'm doing...I don't know what it is, but I can sense the angst in you." From one I would call a friend more readily than a stranger but if described to others w/r/t our intermittent meetings would be seen as the latter, unquestionably. And then from a body whose seen my full spectrum, but particularly what I'd thought was truly joy or positivity cutting right through that and pointing out (not for the first time but for the first time I'd actually heard it) "I want you to calm down and enjoy yourself...lost and angry are two different things."

That is the flash I see in everyone, despite how comfortable I am able to make our meetings and conversations. That flash of recognition that while I am pleasant fellow, there is an undeniable flame seething deep within my eyes. As readily as I can recognize what you truly feel versus what you say, the world can see that in me. And I thought I was the master of obfuscation. Twas only I, though, as I thought I was content.

But she is happy, at least in that moment captured by that photo booth. And that moment is not I, or rather, there is no I in that moment. And she is happy. and I am removed enough, at least for the moment, to feel happy too. Not Happy, but it's a start. A momentary existential bliss in an otherwise angry reality-tunnel.

Grrrrrrr, world. see me growl.

-Andus Turnin' red