Monday, March 22, 2004

The Downward Spiral.

Went for a walk. It was beautiful. The most beautiful thing that happened all day.

I had my headphones on, stuck my .mp3 player in my pocket, and listened to music all the while that I walked. It took a while to find a good song on the .mp3 disc I had in, since it was full of stuff that I downloaded from my mom's cable modem. But I first fell right on a Tea Party song. I did not care to check the name, but it was great. And long, too. I like The Tea Party in general. Good stuff.

From there I listened to Nine Inch Nail's, "Something I Can Never Have." I really like that song. I like the piano playing, barely heard in the background. I like how long it is. It gives a nice feeling.

I walked for about an hour. It was about 33 degrees out, so I was kind of cold, but it was fine. I had my leather coat on and my hands in my pockets, so it wasn't too bad.

My eyes kept getting all teary though. I'm not talking about crying, it is more along the lines of the wind and coldness in your face gets to your eyes, and it just makes them kind of swelter. Then my nose started to run, too, as noses are wont to do when it is cold and wind blows in your face.

It was dark as I walked. I like night, it is so black and lonesome, just like I feel sometimes. It also showcases the beautiful moon, whose beams may come to your eyes if it is full enough.

There is a certain wonder to find almost nothing moving around as you walk outside. To find people inside their homes and the outside deserted. There is a certain feeling to that as well, a feeling that you are alone and walking all alone, in the wind that there was, and the cold that there was. And that is a nice feeling.

There were streetlamps on as I walked, too, and they came to my eyes. It is too early for there to be insects out, but I am assured that if it was that time, there would be moths and gnats flying around those streetlamps, a festering swarm of gray in the meek light of the streetlamp's giving.

This is the first time I have walked in months and months and months, and it felt right. It felt good. It felt like it was meant to be. Just me, walking, the music, singing for me, and my feet walking, walking, walking.

I played my music as loud as it could go, and as I was about forty-five minutes into my walk, on Century Avenue, I began playing David Bowie's "Five Years." Tony had given me the song, and I had instantly found a liking to it above most of Bowie's other songs I have heard.

I listened and careened my neck down to swelter and focus on the music. On David Bowie. On what he was saying.

It got to the part in the song where it said, "Your face, your race, the way that you walk, you're beautiful, I kiss you, I want you to walk," and I was no longer walking. I was in my mind. I was hearing the music cadence in my ears, mumur and rumble there and it was beautiful. I was in a trance and David Bowie was taking me there. Five years was what he sang over and over again, and I know what the years are like and how they pass, and I know how they get stuck on your eyes. When they get on your eyes it kind of blinds them and you can't see, and you wonder, wish, you could have that year back and it wasn't stuck on your eye forever, just a memory you'll never remember fully. Just a memory that will reappear as your eyes see it stuck there.

The song ended and I was almost home. My feet ached in a nice strong way and my head felt like it had been given CPR by a woman who was good at mouth-to-mouth CPR.

I felt alive. That is how I felt. I felt alive, like I was living, like I was breathing, like I was here. It is a feeling that is always taken away from me. It is always mishandled and thrown aside, the box being bruised and scarred and the tape being put back on it. That box is the one that is most alive, that has the most flesh and has the most heart.

Nine Inch Nail's "Heresy (Blind)" came on, and Trent Reznor sang that he sewed his eyes shut because he is afraid to see, he tries to tell me what I put inside of me, he got the answers to ease my curiousity, he dreamed a god up and called it christianity. And I decided I could not agree more.

God is dead and no one cares hit my ears like a hammer hitting in a nail to flesh, and then if there is a hell I'll see you there hit me even harder with another hammer that put the flesh in on my other arm, put it into the wooden frame of the cross. The pain of everyday life was buried in me on that cross, and like Jesus, who I respect but do not believe he is more than a man, I suffer through my cross, just like everyone else. I suffer through the walking to where I'll finally be hung on that cross. There is already a few nails that I have torn out that left scars. Eventually I won't be able to keep the nails out of me and I'll be hanged from this cross, my crucifixion as a human being complete. My death complete. My life cycle complete.

But then I still felt alive. I approached my house: it was a devoid edifice to my eyes. I went in and shut off Trent Reznor's voice since I had the power.

My dad was arguing with my brother to stop messing with the dogs. I simply went in and made myself a sandwich.

And I still feel alive. But how long will it last? I have a math test tomorrow that I only made some notecards for. I also have a Latin assignment that I wrote down but I can't find.

This is the downward spiral. And all spirals keep going over places they've already been. They are beautiful things, spirals. The deeper you go the more likely you are to go back up and come back up to the top, then fall back down into the spiral's bowels. Yes, this is the downward spiral.

I hold myself up and carry my cross. But I do not do it for God. Not for Jesus. I do it to survive--I do it to feel the pain--I do it to know maybe, someday, I will have a lover, maybe, or maybe I won't and I'll just have writing, still, and I'll be glad I kept it alive.
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