Falling

I'm thinking it would be more pleasant to simply have the skin peeled off.

I am letting down the people who are supporting me, the friends who have taken my cause as their own, rooting for me, cajoling, helping, searching, leading me by the hand. I do so by evincing a massive mental illness. I am aware of it, can see it for what it is--the literalization of "I don't want to go!"--and still am powerless to change it. That is why I am about to fall into a very hot soup. And I am apparently taking my child with me, he who I am charged with protecting. Whom I want to protect, and take great care of.

Ironically, I drove two hours yesterday to help a dear friend move. (She has far less stuff than I do.) She too is leaving behind a sad period in her life. She is going to get her MFA in painting. So we made a video documentary of the move, talking about art, criticism, the act of moving, and storage facilities. Into the camera (I can blather extemporaneously, just as I can in type) I mused that, without a home, my friends have become my home. It felt ironic to be moving this friend, when I can't move myself.

It is also ironic, as I only realized this morning, that it was the changes and improvements I made over the years to this house that made it so nice as to appreciate in value far beyond what I could ever buy out. So, in the end, I helped cause my own expulsion from the house I don't want to leave.

Soon, into a box will go something I want to leave you with. I'll make its acquaintance again at that unnamed point in the future when I can retrieve my boxes again. It's from an old hammered copper plaque that features a Scottie. Think on it.

DOGGIE
He asks me no questions
He tells me no lies
And when I address him
looks straight in my eyes.
Content with a little he never despairs
but in all my troubles he willingly shares.
He asks me so little
He gives me so much
then always let sympathy
dwell in my touch.