concrete feet

She said I'm tied to this land like some sort of bad habit, one that has me kissing the bathroom floor every time the bottle is emptied. I do this thing where when I'm down there counting tiles, I pretend they're tiles I never saw before, never felt before, never had before. I'll scrape their rocky insides, pushing disgust away, until I feel the little concrete pebbles fill up under my nails, blaming it on being drunk. It's true; it was a trap and I set it, no need for bait, or a prize. I'm stuck here and the air burning my lungs is no longer friendly or known, it's got more of a cancerous aroma than anything.

She told me this today, a spring day. Every footstep on the pavement made the sound of a baby's birth waking scream and the trees' buds looked like swollen glands. There is life all around me and Nina Simone like mumbles in the talking of birds, rushing waters and bugs (yes, the bugs are back). And yet, here I am, questioning my own path I am taking and whether everything that happened was a lie, a constructed footbridge to some expected outcome. How silly, I had always prided myself on being unexpected(ing).

I am stuck between dreams and reality. I wish I could take all these words thrown at me and could mold them into something strong and beautiful, or even into a pill, and take it, and feel strong and beautiful too. The problem was never that I never heard encouragement enough, it's just I could never believe it when I said it. That's taken awhile to learn and thus has been my hardest challenge: believing in what I say. Baby steps, the world is made of them. I walk slow, though my heart pounds as though I'm running a marathon. I never want to be expected.

Either way, she is right. I need to get the fuck out of this place. It's not a hate thing, it's not a love thing, it's definitely a freedom thing. I have been in the Valley far too long and these are my prime years and whatever growth I obtain is always cut short during the moments when I return home, a mere 14 miles away. It is old friends, old memories, old everything that keeps me trapped in fear and trauma. She is so right. I hold onto these expectations they have, this consistent need to outdo everything and everyone, like a rat race but, BUT! Who the fuck am I to them any more? It's as though when we meet for that yearly hello or so, we compare lives and judgments and gossip. I can't stay in this vicious cycle any more. It was never a hospitable place for me. This place will never be a hospitable place for me.

I need to travel. I need to put on my sneakers and run. I need to feel, I need to fight, I need to bleed, I need to fucking live.

I'm going to set out and do everything I want to do. Why? Well, because I want to. I know I'll end up leaving people behind but...wait...fuck it! HAH! I've been left behind so much, and on so many occasions, I can't be missed that much! It's time to take the hint and to go go go. As another good friend said, I need to find 'my dumb shit'.

Regrets are inevitable, but they happen for many a reason, and in truth, they happen in the hopes of making room for something better. The only thing I'm afraid of now, is that when I start running, I'll forget to look back, but maybe that's the point! Live through this, and you won't look back...


I'm not sorry there's nothing to save...