Watching

Back in the dark and muffled sounds. Am practicing what was suggested: a period of stillness that has a length of about a half hour, then directly to writing. I am usually anchored in a tiredness that I am more familiar with than any other person, place of thing in my life. Oh well. It is as though I have to be plugged into because in there somewhere is the sourcing for my work. Speed in every machination you can apply here: methedrine, caffeine, excessive work, adrenalized relationships have merely postponed or rather suspended my return to…this. Perhaps I am just in a long, deep lifelong droop. Answer seems to be surrender into it which is like a giving way to quicksand. Perhaps this is why, as a kid, I was obsessed with and terrified by movie and TV scenes in which characters stumbled into quicksand. I’d study how they got out (not that they ever did or at least rarely). Holding onto branches, desperately grasping at ropes thrown to them. “Don’t struggle, don’t fight it,” I heard someone or something tell me. So, except for two pots of black tea a day, I don’t. I just sink. Into the still, heavy, thickness. Eyes barely open. I am half there in the dark. A pair of eyes, in a body. Staring out. Like all the other creatures in here. Some friendly, most not. Predatory, but still. Half dimmed. Until something or someone of interest enters into our range of vision. Then, we’ll see.