inside out

[just a glancing thought, if it could even be called a thought at all. A feeling, a barely noticeable pause in the routine. Easily brushed underneath with all the others that have gathered there. A break in whatever was happening for that fraction of time last September when the day had passed and the phone had still not rung, that one email that wasn't there. My eyes turn to look at nothing, a smile that faltered not even long enough for anyone to notice then push it all down, under, smooth out any wrinkle that might betray, fill the small hole that it left behind and it's as if it's not even there. Back to work, back to whatever I was doing on that day. Things need to be tended to…]

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Strange days, these. Something of an absence inside and out, just going through the motions, working on the only thing I have right now and incredibly thankful for that, but wondering , always wondering, how much longer I can keep doing it the way it is now. The magazine, the magazine, the magazine – the constant fight to make it into something, knowing that it can't be anything without a transcriber, but already being let down too many times to believe in anyone enough to search for another one. No, I don't trust you. I know you will go away. I know that I'll fight like a motherfucker because this is my dream, you'll copy a few interviews into print, and then, like all the others, you will abandon me. Always a fight, always the fear until that one day when I will finally be able to actually hire someone, pay them to transcribe the interviews for me. Always wondering if I will make it that far. Wondering if all this is is a charade I'm playing with myself, something to do that only I believe in. Meanwhile I bide my time, hoping that she gets back to me, hoping that the interviews get done, and this issue will finally be able to be put out. So close, so fucking close, but these weeks, these days all I can do is sit on my hands, wait, wonder… I suppress my frustration in order to keep going, I know that things will happen – but right now they aren't and if I don't sweep the frustration under, if I don't ignore it, I'll go fucking mad –

but always, always, when you hide yourself from something you don't want to feel – or hide it from you, you always end up hiding more than intended. Push away the frustration, ignore the worry, and lose some of the passion and magic. You always lose more than you want to. There is always the price to pay, But it's not only the magazine. This isn't about the magazine – not entirely – not really… (Scattered. 4am paper scratches…)

I've known that person. Beginning life with so much pain & confusion that needed to be hidden that everything was. Dead eye smiles, hollow laughter – not entirely gone but more hole than human. Pretend to feel, knowing hate, knowing there was something very, very wrong – with me – but I found my way out, found the pieces that fit the hole and thirty one years of everything is still coming out, I'm still learning, and I will never, ever be that person again… hell, now more than I have room for…

I try to pry it out through writing, but even that frightens me. Frightens me that it will be read, though I want desperately for it to be but I don't want to sound like the self pitying fool, I don't want the words to be misunderstood, taken the wrong way when I can barely find the right ones to get them out – but they need to come out. I wonder what those who do read see behind the words when it goes down too deep and I need to pry open the locks and let it out, let out what I feel. Sometimes I feel that what I write comes out as too much – "Oh, poor foolish Casey, there he goes again with the "woe is me" – but – no, that's not it. Not why I write – at least not this – even I write to pull the mess out from behind the wall, and while there, find the treasures again, as well -and perhaps I shouldn't be concerned about what people think, perhaps I shouldn't care what people think as they read this dribble but… I do, so I try to have it make some sense – some sense for both of us, posted not to be looked on with pity but as any human, simply with the desire to be known beyond the things I will never say – who I am, why, the things inside that only can find a voice when I stop thinking about what I write and let them speak, sing or scream from wherever they come from. Written when I'm in fear of finding the me that I hated again…

These are the things that come up raw, unthought, not filtered through the mind to try to have them make sense. Then hidden glances, the pieces of me that have been pushed aside and hidden because on the outside I know better than to have them affect me, the things that come up in the early hours when the walls are thin and the guard is down, when I'm alone and the things I push aside [I wonder] catch me unaware and [I wonder what kind of person] the water blurs my sight for a moment before [what kind of person I must be and what the fuck] and I write because I need to get them out to preserve the person I have fought so fucking hard to become [what the fuck did I do wrong, and how bad must I be, and what the fuck is wrong with me, why]
because I've fought hard as hell to become this person and I love the person that I've become and [why, what did I do so wrong to be abandoned by two mothers] I am not willing to go back to the me that I grew up being because [by two mothers in one fucking lifetime?] because this is ME now and regardless of the shit that swims around inside, I know, finally, who I am – and I am me precisely because of all of the things inside and because of that, I am finally able to honestly say that I fucking love who I have become, regardless of everything, and because of that, I know that I am being completely honest, with all my heart, the good and the bad of it, when I tell you that…

I love you.