"somewhere other than inside the out there." -- part thirty one.

there are many things that i don't want to tell you, and i sit here, staring at my hands, clutching a cigarette, wondering how to tell you things.

i've never been much of a storyteller. my eyes travel through the images and fall upon the ones that are relevant, but i get ahead of myself and trip over words. i like to talk fast.

he lived fast.

you just have to know what that means.

he was this short spectacle of jittery smoke with a five o clock shadow at nine in the morning.

he smoked fast, breathed fast, ate fast.

this thing that i have in front of me is stagnant, and i'm getting all the words to describe it from my same staying vocabulary.

i know, i know, get on with it, but it's not that easy. especially since it's reaching that point where it all gets a bit muddy in my head, and it's not because of my faulty memory. it's a defense mechanism.

i've been dreaming these dreams lately that fucking eat me alive. every night, i roll over and find my pillow. when i wake up, i'm not scared. when i wake up, i just don't want to be here. when i wake up, the air is too real.

i keep putting myself into two years ago. two years ago is nothing. it's a nothing amount of time. it's not an era or an epoch. it's just two years ago.

but two years ago was not like this.

two years ago, i was a completely different person.

a couple of weeks ago, i talked to an old friend. i've known her since about my sophomore year of high school. the only thing we really had in common was a mutual friend. over that mutual friend, she and i grew incredibly close. now, she's one of the few people that i still talk to from high school. no one had fun in high school, but we all tried damn hard. seven years later, i'm on the phone with her, and she's telling me that i've changed. she's telling me that our old crew, they expect the same person from senior year when they imagine me. she's telling me that it's ok that i'm not who i was. she's, essentially, telling me that i've grown and that's ok. it's harder to talk to me now, since those people don't really know. most of them don't anyway. they don't know this story, they don't know seven years ago from two years ago. they don't know me.

and yet, in three weeks, i'm going to get on a plane and go hang out with a lot of people that don't know me. we're all holding on to memory, because at least, we all remember that one time, you know? it's safe and comforting.

christ, do you know how my days are? last week, i went an entire day without really speaking to one person. my communication included eye contact and being hung up on before a word and ordering an iced tea. how is that possible? it just is. even on the days that i talk to people, they're usually customers. but what's worse is that i'm ok with that. used to be, you couldn't shut me up. hang onto that memory, i used to have a lot to say.

don't think that i'm complaining, more so than the lack of socializing, it's the shift in content that i question. i guess, sometimes, we just run out of things to say.

how the hell did i get to talking about this? oh, that girl from high school, either way, she said i'm quieter than i used to be. i just told her that i'm listening more closely.

and it's started to rain.

a lot of people, who used to know me, just can't put their finger on it. i'll tell you what it is. whenever i was up to something or about to start laughing, on occasion, he would look at me and say, "those irish eyes are smiling." i suppose that now, they just sort of smirk.

two years ago, i was living on magazine street in new orleans with a boy who could have taken over the world.

it was the end of april 2002, and now, sentimentality is stinking up this place.

anyway, we decided that i was going to move. it was mostly his idea. we were both emotionally against it. mentally, we knew it was the rational decision. finances were kicking our collective ass. opportunity always skipped new orleans door. it made sense.

nevermind. this isn't going at the pace needed.

give me a minute, i've got to explode my head.