burnt lips

Every summer I tell myself I'm gonna write something substantial. This is the beginning of this years effort, which will probably also fail in the face of 'chasing paper' to pay rent - making this start of the story itself 'kind of meta', or something.

When Ed awoke on March first he was filled with a self loathing he could not endure. “I had no desire to continue living with all the problems that were inside my head.” Unable to make a living, at age 49, he walked into the woods near his house and shot himself. “I have taken my life in order to provide capital for you.” [Please note the above paragraph is 'stolen' from a Dystopia song entitled 'Sanctity'. Dystopia themselves 'stole' the sound clip from a mental health documentary. I had hoped to steal these words, not acknowledge the source and make 'mad cash' from it, but was 'called out' by some guy who's obsessed with the word 'chud'. Pretty crack up, all things considered. Thank you for reading my word blog.]

Years ago, I'd planned this as the first paragraph in an epic novel spanning the scope of modern life, love, anomie, destitution and the poor of spirit. Within these meager lines, I'd hoped, was a hint of something much more – a Celinesque promise, maybe, towards a lost and rambling hero who wasn't exactly cut out for life on this strange, brutal planet we happen to call home but was in any event, like, trying to make his way, or something.

It was this general idea of self-loathing that brought those fleeting lines of barely promising prose to my mind as I stared at the peeling floral wallpaper of James' living room and tried to keep from succumbing to the putrid nausea of a terrible cask wine hangover. In the years which had passed to date, that opening paragraph had become a cairn stone marking my unbeatable inability to complete a single worthwhile thing. To my credit (and perhaps, again, due to that terminal inability to see things through to their end), I hadn't drank the whole three litres of barely passable wine – roughly 1/8^th remained in the plastic sack hanging over the cigarette-burnt arm of the damp brown couch I was calling home 'this week'. Looking at it in any great detail caused, without fail, the terrible gland-rush of saliva familiar to afternoon waking, shivering deadbeats the world over. In slow time I decided that maybe self loathing and regret are two words for the same buried feelings.

Already the day had announced itself as an obnoxious, denim short and socks+sandals wearing American tourist – too loud, too close and bearing an awful damned headache. The problem with this metaphor, of course, is that there's no opportunity to steal a camera from an idea like 'today' while it makes expensive dental work into a cheap smile waiting for you to take a picture. With small minded and petty revenge off the cards, the only option available is to stare at the ceiling and ride it out. Lord, I hate your day.