Pure Thinking

I am a writer, every bit of me, and writing is my drug and my safety net and my pure unfiltered happiness, I am shaking and eager and I feel my fingers twitching half an hour is too long I need to pour the words out ---

I am desperate, not waiting for things to load, pulling up the document so fast that the computer can barely register that somehow there is activity on it but it is able to get there in time;

I choose technology because my thoughts can be transcribed as quickly as I can write and then I don’t have to worry about messy handwriting and an inability to read what I have made.

I am shaking, drug withdrawal, swallowing air as I almost-run, the decorum of school and the need to write keeping me from saying softly “how are you” even as I give a routine answer to the same question.

I feel a sense of covering peace and I allow my thoughts to swirl barely bothering to organize them as I forgo typical conventions and write, I will make it better later perhaps spread it out I am broken and I am whole and memories are flooding and I am choking

The overdoses and old age and cancer and death and life and the way I rocked my two-day-old baby cousin to sleep the first time I met him and how beautiful he was, I am, you are, we are all bursting at the seams with light!

No man is an island, so the saying goes, and it’s true that we cannot live in isolation but no creature can have eternal loneliness, there must be connection even if it is only a day that marks the connection it still has to happen

Loneliness is fatal to any living creature think of the redwoods together they are the biggest trees in the world and I can’t see how people forget the beauty of the natural world,

The beauty of smog-covered cities with their dazzling lights and the way the people walk, an organized chaos that doesn’t exist in the natural world - and it is gridlike or curving but a labyrinth that is impossible to comprehend.

I am pacing back and forth in my room I am waiting for news did he come home I do not know him but my friend does and something tells me there is bad news,

There is something wrong when he comes back he’s not acting the same and I cannot breathe I am afraid of what will happen there is destruction but my friend laughs it off and says that things are fine he’s just being weird no problem ---

And then I am in another place, another time, and I cannot go to school I am in a strange bed and I cannot breathe my mother could die her heart is malfunctioning no no I am too young I cannot lose her not like this stay, stay, stay ---

I am crying and shaking and shattered how could she betray me like that I thought we were best friends and how obvious that I am wrong that she did not feel the same way I felt about her ---

I am watching her run and I do not hesitate I follow her outside I hold her and she is crying and nobody has run after her before and she says I’ve saved her and I am whispering and I am comforting and I am the friend who followed her when she could have died they do not move ---

He calls me I am not at home I see the message I am staring oh no oh no oh no he is upset I know he is depressed is he dead I am waiting anxiously and with the reply a breath of air leaves me, one I didn’t know I was holding in oh thank God he’s alright he’s alright I cannot think ---

I am angry she is drunk she is writing me messages saying she is fine but I think of her liver and her brain and it’s illegal but her health I want her alive I tell her to stop she says she wants to and it makes her happy, but what if she dies?  I can’t take another one ---

I am at home and my dog cannot move all she does is wag her tail and I am crying and my dad lifts her and we go and she is wagging her tail, sitting in back with my dad; our arrival marks her death as they slip the needle in and I see her tail stop wagging I know she is gone and I cry ---

I am stunned I cannot move he can’t be dead I was going to visit him this week, I mean I forget but I couldn’t forget again life wasn’t that busy where has he gone I can’t think; I run and hide and it is words that console me ---

And embers and flames and light and I see it we are all bright light we are meant to be shared, there is no isolation in humanity, the conflux of ideas the sharing of ideas, this is where great things happen, share your light it is the most bright blinding white I have ever seen - I am watching and I see it flicker out and there is a gaping hole in the universe.

I scream, I scream “NO” a million times over how are you gone?  How do people leave?  I am left behind, I am broken, tape and glue can only do so much.

I reach out, catching hold of anyone I can and drowning them in love and letting them know I care and being there for them even as I shatter.  I carry my weight and your weight and the weight of the world I feel every death so keenly and it hurts,

I am left awake at night hurting because of death and sin and the way so many people are lonely, the worst one of all is the children without families and the animals left in cages ---

I am reaching and burning wait no stop come back run away I cannot think I cannot breathe I am chasing my own tail I am drowning I am dying and falling ---

Lights intermingle, I feel at peace, there is happiness.  I see the world in bright Technicolor, and everyone has the clearest light everywhere.  I see the sadness, catch the way the grey has an almost-look and I reach out for a hug ---

I am craving kisses and warmth and arms that hold me I am thinking I miss him I am thinking about him all the time he is fine though he is solid he listens the weight lifts I am in love and it is love, a pure love and I’m thinking it’s true but this relationship is so unfamiliar we are on unsteady ground, me eighteen and him twenty and how do you count the days?  April 16th I actually remember his birthday ---

I am craving late nights writing together and I am dreaming of her coming and us giggling and her getting frustrated because I am clingy but I am hoping hoping she will come I want to see her eyes in real life, herself in real eternity instead of an image on a screen, I reach and I comfort and she is everything to me ---

I am loneliness and isolation and there is no-one, no-one there.  They are all gone, all busy with their lives and nobody is left to see me ---

I am skipping lunch to write but later I will eat I just need to let it out, my drug, the way it makes me feel whole.

I want to save everyone but I know I can’t.  They may save themselves but I am thinking, I did not save myself;

I’m not sure who did, really, maybe it was a little bit of all of us - of me, of God, of my mom, the people I love ---

I am being held back by five hands as I go to hurt him, hit him, how dare he make my friend uncomfortable I will kill him I will kill him - suddenly I remember myself and sit back down and the lunch is quiet I am afraid of myself, I am not violent ---

It is dangerous, it is a curse, it is a blessing pure I can count myself lucky as someone who has seen the power of God and someone who has what seems like an impossible web of protection while I’ve had friends who’ve nearly died because of evil spirits ---

I am counting lights in the room, I am a light, I get a vision briefly of our infinite colors tied together.  It is nirvana, I use the word easily because I feel such a great sense of peace and I realize in the end there is safety, there is love,

We are all a million colors in our souls and our souls are free, in our bodies or outside of them, and I am taking deep breaths because I can breathe.

Strange how in the darkness there can come great peace, and strange how in the light pure thinking seems silly,

And strangest of all how words are the only method to heal.