poetry in motion

Upon taking out some trash
After years of mental deterioration
After a lifetime of training my mind to be anywhere but present
I threw my old xmas tree,
and a garbage bag
and my goddamn keys
into the dumpster.
Just present enough to render the jingle of the garbage falling as "odd"
My mind slammed back into my body
just as the high security garbage bin gate slammed behind me
and I thought
"Well shit"

Upon loitering near the front door
I encountered a tenant who let me in
with only a mildly awkward stranger danger moment
as it turns out we were briefly walking the same way
I'm sorry lady
I just wanted my spare keys
I threw my others in the goddamn dumpster
Good night, god bless, where are my spare keys

Upon retrieving my spare keys
After opening the garbage gate
which for some reason has three
THREE
strings of barbed wire over the top
I opened wide the dumpster lid
and peered within
"I see them!" I cried
to an audience of nobody

I hoisted myself up
low self-esteem about upper body strength aside
between the two dumpsters
and neatly levered myself to the top
and then adroitly over
it was poetry in motion
but stinky by scent
a descent into stench
in search of lost keys
I was touching it
oh god, I was touching all of it

"Aha!" I cried
betrayed by their own saucy jingle
and though they tried to slip,
slip
slip
further
and further
into the reverently collected refuse of my neighbors
I grabbed them
leaped nimbly to the top
and then over
and then down
poetry in motion
hell to smell
and it was then that I showered
for one million years
poetry in motion
wash this aroma
straight into the ocean

Regrets, a partial list

I briefly dated a guy from Scruff who seemed very sweet. I broke it off because he was extremely allergic to cats and I couldn't see it working since I have 2, and he moved to Japan a couple months later anyway, but I really liked him and I regret breaking it off. The cat thing was probably an cover for insecurities anyway. C.W., it was truly my loss.

I've had an on again, off again thing with a handsome artist that seems like it might be stuck permanently on off again, and even though we were frequently talking past each other and ghosting each other constantly, I regret somehow not making it work. He was beautiful and an amazing painter and once again my insecurities probably got the better of me. Alas. I didn't really try and it is again my loss.

I have a story idea about once a day and I never write any of them. Not all fo them are gold, but I'm never going to be an actually decent writer until I work through being a pretty bad writer. last night's though was time travel envisioned as a fully 3-D space once you're there, where multiple versions of you can co-exist, where travel in these coordinates is travel through time, but not space, you'll still re-emerge in the same spot when you leave. Maybe in that 2-d space only 1-d travel is time travel and lateral movement is dimension hopping. Maybe you look sideways to wave at the next version of yourself, as you like to do, and see down the long line of alternate yous something coming for all of you.

Or maybe you just have an old fashioned diving suit that travels through time, with only a thin tube of air connecting you back to the present.

Anyway, regrets. I haven't made any progress at all on job problems in like a decade. I haven't even put a resume together yet. i think sooner or later the universe will force me to act in a panic on that front and I'll regret not having done it earlier. I pre-regret that.

I would like to be in better shape but depression still has the better of me. I regret not prioritizing my health. And like, my hygiene (gross).

I regret I could not do more for my cat as he was dying. I hope there is a cat afterlife and he is happy there. I have asked Bastet to watch over him, but who knows if she exists or what she chooses to do with her time. I like to think she is kind to cats at least.

I regret being a 43-year-old man who seems to have figured very little of adult life out. I worry that I am going to die this clueless and unhappy. I would regret that too.

I am hopeful to someday be a person that takes more assertive action and has fewer regrets. I have more or less wasted the last 20 years and friends, I experience some regret over that.

This has been a partial list of my overwhelming list of regrets.

the Funky Chicken

I have been in the most ridiculous funk recently. Women are sensitive to "pent up dude feeling frustrated" so they've given me a wide berth, which does not feel good, but also I get it. I don't really like me when I get like this either. People tend to like happy, friendly and loose and I am not happy, friendly or loose right now. There may also be thousands of years of gender dynamics driving some of these responses as well, which also make sense to me. Avoid grumpy dudes, check.

I'm extremely frustrated with where my life is at while also keenly aware it is a result of my endless choices, or rather the hole where a series of choices should be. Further, I am even more keenly aware, a point so sharp it cuts me, that I haven't made significant problem on a few important life things for about a decade now. Frustration, with the world, myself, everything, is probably underselling it at this point.

I don't know what to tell me or you or anyone. I feel extremely trapped in my life right now in just about every way and I don't always have a good grasp on how much of that is circumstance and how much of that is a story so paper thin I could break free if I stared at it really hard.

Of course, I am not a hole where a series of choices should be, I am a series of choices I do not like. Choosing to do nothing is itself a choice, of course. Of course it is. As always, this is a problem of motivation. What is my motivation? Who do I want to be? I don't know. I genuinely have no clear conception of how to answer those questions. All I know is I don't like much of this society, I think it is proudly cruel and selfish and shallow for the most part, and I don't know where I belong, have found little to actually believe in post-Adventism and I have no idea where to start looking for those things, although I think I can rule out "inside my apartment" at this point.

I think I have never fully created the quiet moment I need post-coming out 10 years ago to sort some shit out. Nor will I be able to until my extremely noisy and needy cat finally passes on (I love her, but this is true). But I should probably try harder than I have to get there. This shit ain't getting better on its own.