My Whole Expanse I Cannot See…

I have to say that Negative Creep is probably the most fun song to sing when in a dark mood. The words are garbled, Kurt’s pretty much just screaming into the mic, it doesn’t really tell a story, but it’s just so full of raw energy. I like to sit here sometimes, screaming with Kurt, and sometimes I still expect to feel air move past my lips and hear the voice I hear in my head.

So, a few months back, I had a poem published in an issue of Weird Tales Magazine, and I wrote it a few months before that.  I got the idea in my head listening to a Nirvana song, Stain. I was feeling especially lonely, especially empty, and the song just sounded so right. I felt like a stain, something awful. I wanted to take the word “stain” as a metaphor and make it something more literal. I wanted to write about how being close to someone can end up causing so much pain, how it can cost a person everything. I wanted to write something beautiful, and dark, and brutal, all at once. So, I went out, had couple of vodka tonics, and wrote what I wrote. It’s just a quick little piece about a woman who seems beautiful, and this fellow, and an encounter that ends very badly. I wrote that, and it got published.

I often still feel the way I felt when I wrote You’re a Stain, and it’s the first thing I’ve ever had published in print, and I love the song…

Tattoo by Colt, hardcore fuckin' badass at Doc Dog's Las Vegas Tattoo, Ybor City

Hence tattoo #26.

Aside from love of the craft, I write to be known, and to make honest connections with people, that’s why I started this blog. Nobody has to read what I write, or like it, or even like me, but the writing’s always out there. Lately though, I’ve been really down on my writing, just hating every single fucking word I slam down. Which isn’t really right. I love writing, and I know there are some people who like what I write, sometimes it even helps people. The problem, a problem, is that I just hate how I feel. Lonely, bored, depressed, uneasy, functionally suicidal, afraid, it’s all me, and it all shows up in whatever I write.

For awhile now, I’ve been very self-conscious about showing these things in writing. It’s very easy to write wide open when you feel like you have absolutely nothing to lose, it’s so easy. Palahniuk writes about it, there’s a certain sort of freedom in losing all hope. It’s a horrible freedom, the sort of freedom where slitting your wrists seems like a fuckin’ awesome idea, but as a writer I could feel that feeling, write it into something, and not worry that someone I love will read it and maybe stop loving me back. You don’t have to worry about someone to lose, when there is no someone. When there is someone, honest writing gets complicated, at least to me. The thing is, and it’s something I almost forgot, if I want to feel genuine closeness to someone, I can’t stop being honest. I want the freedom found in honesty, not hopelessness. I can’t stuff things in a box, and stick that box in the attic, and expect to feel close to someone.

My writing has been the one place where I don’t hide things. I’m the sort of writer who bleeds out in words, that’s how I write. Even when I write fiction, I’m still in there somewhere. People write differently, for different reasons. I write descriptions of whatever’s in my head, dark or otherwise, because I don’t want to fade out feeling like no one ever really knew me because I never let anyone in. I’m not perfect, and I write about those imperfections. I want someone to love me, imperfections and all. I want to be worth it to someone. I’ll never find that if I’m locking things away.

So, I’ve decided that I should go away awhile. I won’t be Tweeting, or IMing, or Facebooking, it’s all stopped. I’ll still answer e-mail, and blog comments, and I’m going to try writing more, but all other digital communication is ceased. I really don’t know how long this will last, I suppose until I figure some things out.