A Little Dream of Me

Friday, September 30th 2016 – 11:16am

 

Another worldly day. Another word for Otherworldly daze.

In other words, in other worlds surreal or real surviving and wasting away.

Only your whole life in one day. Every day. Everylife everyday. Every way, everything and everyone has already said and done and come and gone to stay. 

They stood silent, single file and you looked at their naked souls. Smiles and love and doubts and murder in every other face.

You tried your worst and your best and your least and the most and yet you still hurt each and every one.

You never will forget a moment. It mostly all missed your blind eyes. Can you scream your name fast enough? Can you paint your face loud enough that the echo never goes away?

Shadows and whispers of crying and laughter and sense of urgency and urgent need, urgently just to be touched one more time like the first time and time again and times back then and you timed that one touch you can’t remember, but never will forget. It was everything. It made you this way.

I almost dreamt of a new peace and a new place. I almost still believe in it.

“We have to believe in something. We have to believe.”

Right. Just like the last time.

When I am too weak to believe, I will dream. Your old men will dream dreams of a younger day.

We were able to embrace and love was something we spake.

Your old men will dream dreams. If only we could speak. We would say. 

We did this. This is our fault. Please step on the brake. Try to hurt them less than we did.

We suffer in both worlds the same. And to both we add more pain.

Just one third of a day, we flee and blindly believe another two thirds are the real. 

The last twenty four hours were not real. I know because I wrote about them long ago and the real versions were infinitely better and worse. I wrote about another waking world where pain is unavoidable. It knows my name. Nor will the terrors of night ever end.

That is what I dream about, when I am awake.

…

The last twenty four hours were unreal. I sat in a class with amazing writers and was inspired more than I had been in many, many months.

It was fucking terrifying.

I used to be cool. I used to be invincible. I used to lift weights. I still am really good looking. But I used to drive. I used to have a job. I used to…

Oh for chrissake here he goes…

Shut up! I used to drive to get a beard cut all by myself just like a grown up and not a damn kid and I’d pretend I could kick every other guy’s ass in the place, if an emergency called for it, like an apocalypse or some guy randomly hitting a girl.

Wait. Why was she allowed to hit the guy first? Forget it then. Your own fault. Plus, I am old and have a cane. That never happened.

…

I knew this is what wet t-shirt contests would lead to. Slippery slopes and sots and potshots. I don’t think Ice House had karaoke that night, but I remember they had a few people playing cornhole.

Brittany grabbed my sweatshirt and tried to throw me toward the girl getting sloppily shoved and was sloppily shoving first. Everybody is drunk but me. Somehow.

So, I grab my daughter’s wrists tight, just like I did to her mom’s only three years ago. This time, I don’t try to blindly rip hands off of me, because a monster had already arrived uninvited.

I try to remind her of that worst night. I pull her close and scream a whisper, “Wait. We have to wait until we have no other choice.”

“Oh my god, I forgot!” she says.

Hours were only truly seconds. I can’t run. I can only pause or fight. I hear a door creaking open.

Do you need me? I’m right here. I can fix this. I can break this. I can do anything.

A friend jumps in before shoving turns to slapping turns to punching turns to probation. Player three has entered the game with no weapons and better control over his demons.

Barely a moment away. “And in local news tonight…”

I pull Brittany back toward me and whisper without a scream. This. This here. This is why.

“I can’t do that. I wish I could do what he just did. I never could. My whole life. I only know how to wait or keep smashing until nothing is moving anymore. I thought I was going to jail tonight.”

I do not have fifty and seventy five percent. I have zero percent and then I am asking what did I do and who did I hurt and why am I mouthing off to guys with guns and badges.

…

Feeling invincible is way better than feeling helpless, in case you wanted to try one over the other. This freaky shitshow is not what I signed up for. The UFC Gym membership I started  in January and cancelled just yesterday is literally what I signed up for.

Actual pen. Real paper.

If I could have just punched a couple thousand faces, I bet this controlled demolition never would have happened.

Now I convulse and shake and stutter and blink and my mind is haltering and can no longer think. But sometimes, I can write.

When the seizures hit the worst yesterday, I was unable to pack a laptop and notebook into a backpack. It wasn’t a square peg in a round hole. It was a four year old and a quantum physics theory. My mind shut down. I barely was able to panic and stand, wheel to the couch and collapse.

Amy packed my bag while I slowed my breathing and waited for the bell to ring. We almost called off the fight.

Later, I stared at the class syllabus and words floated off the page in fragments and jumbled in misorder and disorder and that order.

I hope my seizures are not distracting the other students trying to create. They didn’t sign up for this. I am an auditing oddity that ought to teach himself at home. I expect I’m a spectacle. I always have been. I used to be so much better at it. It was a strength once, not kryptonite.

It is the best and the brightest and the seizing and the shaking and the hardest place I’ve ever seen. What happens if I wake up? I’m inspired. I retain. My close friend sits close by. I’m so thankful in this painful place.

Maybe I can do this. God help me. What do I even do?

…

One week ago, a neurologist gave her second opinion that I have a Functional Neurological Symptom disorder, Conversion Disorder with Abnormal Movement.

They said the hopeful news is that could respond to therapy and potentially improve. In the meantime, it gets worse everyday. I’m afraid.

When I go into seizures or stuttering, I cannot tell if seconds go by or minutes. My mind is on pause play pause play rewind erase.

This morning we are scrambling to move along the disability forms and the legal forms and Wills and powers to persuade attorneys and move some money and race against time and a different mind and man, once again.

…

Please don’t leave me. You or my mind.

This morning, I made her laugh and laugh and again I made her laugh.

But then I made her cry.

I made her laugh and cry and cry and laugh, but only one stands out every time.

I raised my voice to twenty five and I tried one more time to make it fine. 

I hate it.

I don’t like this story anymore. I can’t stop shaking. I can no longer shake myself awake.

You can’t die in a dream. You have to wake. There are rules.

Please touch the brakes.

I can no longer stand.

Once again, different man.

…