half-received bad news

'i was covered in blood' she wrote.

but i wasn't. 

i sit here 

in the dark. 

in the folds of the quilts. 

and i rock backwards and forwards in my despicable safety. 

mortified by my freedom.

'they grabbed me by each arm'

i lift my arms to my face. and breathe air freely into my lungs.

i run my fingers through my hair, to find the best place to pull at it. to try and drag some clear thoughts to the surface. my eyes squint- narrowing to try to pull me back to the room I was in. i curl up and i spin around and around and around in sheets and in quilts and in desperation and in futility and confusion and in frustration.

I listen to music to try to tear my guts out. to try to wrench tears out of my stubborn eyes. The heat of the quilt burns my skin tonight because it is soft to touch. and blades are not.

There is no sleep. There is none there to be had.

because this is not about me.

post recording post

listening all day to my own songs makes me want to stick my head in a pond 

until my whole head fills up with water, and there are enough tadpoles and pond scum in and around my larynx that i can not sing 

and enough algae in my ears that i can not be forced to hear the already immortalized forms of my recent vocal expeditions.

Singing into a microphone that picks up every tiny eeny weeny little fraction of my voice

that is then  blasted back into my ears the very second my lungs get it out of me

makes me want to be a really tiny little person and crawl into my throat 

and sit amongst that tall jungle of sound to get intimate with the cracks and tones of my voice in good humour and good fun 

instead of having to fret that this is take 20 000 and i am no closer to a non-disgusting take than i was 20 000 takes ago.

*****

getting home and lying in my bed with my headphones on...

having the pleasure of listening to these songs that now are more like friends to me...

so close to my heart- 

listening! without having to even move a muscle: pure bliss. 

to have them sung to me! makes me a puddle of relaxed and satisfied melted joy with a headache.

sleep time.