Feeling the Evening

On the menu tonight: Emo Crap. Skip it is you don't like it. But, as far as emo crap goes, its not too bad. For me.

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If you asked me what I saw tonight, I would tell I saw the clouds. Skitering tight against the sky and rolling over the moon so that it seems like Halloween in fast forward. Soft, grey and edged in ebony. If I took a fistful of obsidian and threw it hard across the grass, that would be the clouds this evening.

I'd tell you I saw the stars. Stars are so romantic. Right? That shimmering softness in the black of night is a guide. Somwhere up there is the people you love, the people you miss, and they watch over you and you can feel safe because they are there, shining on you. I don't see that in the stars. Tonight I see them laughing at me, the twinkle is the shine in the eyes that hide a smile beneath a serene gaze and fingers lightly tripping over the mouth. I can hear the soft sigh as those fingers move, the secret laughter of the earth in the wind this evening.

Its not the stars so much, its the spaces between them, another romantic notion that there's more out there, more to be had, more that can be sought. How sad- to think that the brightness of the stars, those loved ones looking down, is just the reflection of the greater blackness around them and me and you. How terrifying to think that between all those spaces are not only the hopes and wishes of everyone, the things we strive for and the all of the untamed and wild possibilites of life; but also the things we will never achieve. It seems to me tonight that the sky is the backdrop, the canvass of all my future failures and lost dreams.

Tonight I see nothing, nothing I want to see, nothing I can hope for. Tonight I see the blackness and bleakness of life. It doesn't depress me, it doesn't bother me. In a way, its comforting to think I am not alone in the constant toil and failure that is life. Keep moving, keep moving and I will share it all with you and we will be alone together in the dark looking at the laughing stars and thinking that there's more.

Ask me what I hear. Ask and I'd tell you I hear the sound of trains moving in the distance. Its lonely and comforting and beautiful all at once. Its work- work to be had, work completed and time that will never be gotten back, however long we moan.

I hear the sound of water moving, though I couldn't tell you where or why. I can hear the babble of water over cobble, dripping off my roof and sliding down over the windowpanes through the cracks in the ceiling and dripping into the floor. Its a soft sound, almost noiseless, the fall of water into carpet. I like it, the falling, the tripping, stumbling, freewheeling feeling before you're silently absorbed into nothingness. I can her the water playing and it makes me wish I was playful tonight, that I could rollick and laugh and be silly for no reason at all. I wish I was clever like that water; moving, changing, never seeming to mind where it goes, so long as it does, so long as it moves on. I love the water tonight.

I love its sound and I love its feel. I want to slide deep into it and lose myself in its heat. I want to pull myself in over head and fill my ears and my eyes and my mouth before breathing deeply, spitting it out and laughing at the feeling of it pouring down my shoulders. I want to feel it all over me, on my legs and my hips and running down my back, tickling and teasing me and reminding me to keep moving. I want to hear the splash and know that I can scatter it too. I can move and push and change the things that move and the things that won't stop. Somehow, there it is, I can feel it and touch it and change it and somehow its the same all over again.

I couldn't tell you if it was raining, I couldn't tell you if there were water running nearby. But tonight I hear it like the roar of the ocean in my head. The waves lapping at my feet and teasing and tempting me to move onward with it. It sounds so good.

Tonight I smell things too, of course. I can smell chocolate, faintly, ever so slightly and it makes my mouth water. I can taste it on my lips and I wonder where its come from too. Tonight I can taste nicotine on my breath and it makes me think of countless nights and countless kisses and tears and screams that I was never really able to let go of until I smoked. I think of the soft tap tap of the pack and I can taste the filter and the paper in my mouth, like I've never lit the ciigarette, but it doesn't matter, because it burns for me whther I light it or not. That makes no sense, does it? It makes no sense to have the fire there, when it was never lit, but so it is. It burns and smolders and fills me up.

I taste mint tonight, I feel it in my teeth and on my tongue and on the outsides of my lips every times I lick them, I can taste it as I breathe, deep inside, and it teases me with its scent even though there's no mint here, no oil, no candy or anything sweet. No, tonight it just me and the water and the stars, but the smell of mint lingers like I am laying in it and it has been all over and inside of me. Somehow I am made of mint tonight.

Thre's something else to scent. It isn't the thing I want but its there and it echoes and teases me and I can't stand it because its not...its not anything. Its like earth and rain and dampness and sweat and the smell of leather all together at once. It smells like the center of a seraglio with inscence burning and women dancing and there's life and light and painful lust and I can smell it. I can smell the scent, like fresh turned earth, like grass freshly mown and it drives me crazy. Its the smell of shampoo and rubber and plastic and salt. Its sweet, so sweet and its not sweet at all. It stings my mouth as I taste it and it burns as the scent moves up into my mind. I somehow think it is the mosnt inescapable scent of all. I can't stand it, but it is always there.

But to feel, isn't that where this must go? What do I feel? What can I feel? The immediate is superceded by all the things that overwhelm when I close my eyes and let go and try to simply feel. I feel wet and cold and hot all at once. I feel tiny blades of grass all over my legs and in between my toes. I feel the breeze moving its teasing laugh over my chest and into my hair and tossing it and tangling it until thtere is nothing for me to do but throw my head back and laugh at it . I feel the touch of love, the touch of pain, the touch of everything, like laying in a feild full of blooming flowers and there being nothing but nettle when I stand. It feels like pavement beneath my feet; sticky oils competeing with the softness of the grass, trying to heat me, warn me, drive me to somewhere new and different.


But to feel? What do I feel? What can I feel? I want to say nothing, nothing at all. I want to say there is an empty, echoing, hollow part of me that feels nothing but that's a lie. I feel everything, all at once, and that seems wrose sometimes. I feel like there is fullness to the point of pain, aching to the point of terror, and love to the point of weeping. There is so much, there is everything. There is me and you and everyone in the world and it feels tonight like all of them are crying and I can feel it all over me. Somehow though, I can feel it too, the hysterical laughter. I'm alright, I'm alright, its says. I'm not afraid, I'm not anything. But to feel it, to feel it all..

Tonight, to me, its perfection.