Dreamt I blacked out and hit a cat and a squirrel. I was crying that none of my friends stopped me or cared. None of them seemed bothered. My car was dented and it had painted messages all over it. Thoughts upon waking up: I am trying to heal, be easy on myself.

I walked to the South Street bridge and over and back. I paused every so often to look at the water, up at the moon, the street lamps, a semi truck on the highway across that was noisy, almost asking me to see it. It was asking me to see it. I am thinking in fractions of things that I wrote down, “something’s leaving me. Parts of me.”  

I would sit on the cold bench and let time pass on the pier and then later on the river trail. Always the same spot. Almost began to mark the spot and watch the water ripple slightly. Vigilant, turning my head almost constantly to see if a biker was coming or someone was coming. This idea someone was coming. More like waiting. Waiting for time to pass. I was never cold but when I got back, my cheeks were flushed and I needed a hot bath to cool down. I began to drink copious amounts of black tea, decaffeinated and sometimes would bring my thermos with me on these walks. I was falling asleep by nine and waking up by dawn. I could pour ten cups of coffee into my system and lethargy would creep its way across my carpet, find me on the couch, attempting. Attempting motion. 

I didn’t wear gloves and if I did I took them off eventually. The metal thermos was warm and I put my hands in my pockets often enough to change the song. I was often taking my phone in and out of my pocket. I was no longer participating in the online world save to Google things which I did often. Meaning of stones. Meaning of colors. Meaning of Gods. Song lyrics. I became obsessed with song lyrics and titles and the order they played. Even when I make the playlist, I become obsessed with the order they play.  I made the first list to Lilith and the first song was “Happy Birthday” by Gia Margaret.  When I am back home, I find myself staring at the screen. Staring at someone’s name and the song they had played. They had played it many times that day. I could see every time they stopped the song and started again. I am thinking they are hearing that I am encouraging them to finish it.  I am thinking  I am touching the keys and they are receiving what I am sending.

“Happy birthday.” 

And with a wash of despondency, I am head back to the wall, eyes closed. 

12/29/2016

these journal entries I am writing are based on my real and true psychosis, however, all I have from that period of time is my dream journal and my memory. there is no social media from this time. no pictures in my phone from about early 12/2016 to may 27 2017. there are no texts. no playlists. there are inscrutable notes in my phone and a few index cards but that’s it. it’s as if that period of time is erased.

luckily, it was indelible and cannot be forgotten. a psychic once asked about my book. she was excited for this asking If I was mixing truths with fiction and I said yes. she said good. the book I am writing is fiction with a fake ending and fake characters that come into play. however, this was all based on a real psychosis. a real winter of baths, ritual, obsessive organizing and me disappearing, from the internet and my friend’s lives without a word.

you are feeling good
because you are in love
and I am feeling good
because it is over.

(i wrote a few poems while reading House of Leaves the first time so going through old poetry, always a terrible ego puncture)

See yourself sway soft
in a puddle,
break like them.

Look up to the gray and you are
baited.
Most alive
in sadness,
hoarding anger and
interminable waiting.
A door in the air cracks.
You take a step back
a few years.

And it will be someone you never expected.

–The entrance

“Of course by the following morning, Karen has already molded her desperation into a familiar pose of indifference.”

–House of Leaves

dream I was inside of crystals. they were healing me and I was healing them.

to do: continue to use pastels, continue to draw borders, continue to write, try to rest, don’t worry about school, don’t worry about work, get almond milk, complete paperwork but rest.

I bought art supplies in New York and nice white  thick cardstock with envelopes. like blessings to mail. they were decorative.  I began to rewrite poems on them and dot the edges with flowers growing up a vine. today I had chosen a  simple on by St. Francis.

“The result of prayer is life. Prayer irrigates the Earth and heart.”

I had a restless time in New York. Before Hanukkah dinner, I was invited to hang out upstairs with Alexandra and my friend. Alexandra lived upstairs, my friend lived below. Alexandra told us that a ghost had been there. that everything was on the fritz and she was running behind. she felt a very negative presence that started today. I had a hard time keeping focus as I was a little high but the edge of my ear became a whisper then a tingle then a soft chill climbing down my neck  and back, as Alex said “and you know who it is?”  she was telling a completely different story now. a man whispered in my ear  “who is it?”

I didn’t make a fuss about it but I gently discouraged them from breaking out the ouija board after dinner. just stating there’s too many people here. 

later in the middle of the night, in a dream, I was standing in the living room upstairs staring at all her plants.  i had been drawn to it as it looked like a conservatory. 

12/28/2016

winter had me florid. flush from being outside in the wind and flush from all the steam from the baths and teaching myself how to sit. also from moving and rearranging everything in my apartment.  my cheeks were bright red and my nose too.  I was examining the spots beginning to form on my skin. like little freckles. burned patches from the sun. it was only 39 degrees when I went outside but I didn’t take my usual precautions to bundle as I liked. I wore the minimum, one button up shirt and jeans and my regular big black jacket, comfy gray hat, boots. I was touching my face gently and seeing it, bare, baring. braced. only the lamp was on. I enjoyed seeing my face more distorted or shaded. I object to lights after 7 pm.  lately my nights have been dark, almost pitch black but for candles. I was unfocused on the noise of the room. the buzz that exists everywhere I go, in my ears or an echo reverberating from the street lamps. I wanted the sudden burst of color.

 I printed all the postcards I had made for the past two years and stuck them on the wall. just everywhere in the apartment. winter dehumanizes people. at its core, it is the revolutionary season. you have to tough this out. there are things that exist solely to build shell and people have to sometimes just tough things out. Philadelphia in January is one. to cope with the frigidity and my need for these long enduring walks and then long enduring periods of solitude, all my curtains were bright patterns. the house itself was painted garishly and I enjoyed it: the living room was yellow, this was carnation, a baby blue in the kitchen, a sea rock green in the bathroom. my bedroom yellow as well. I began to dress it even more: placed my brown stone mermaid beer cap opener in a corner near the tub. and my hanging rock mermaid somewhere near that. threw some shells from Virginia Beach around and began to crowd the shelf that laid there with purple flowers. I named it “Venus.”  I just needed to gaze at something every time my head was still. I cleared a bookshelf  out to hold more frames to put more pictures. I put some of the books in the trunk of my car and was gonna give them to a colleague to give to her client. the rest were put on the curb for someone to grab. I didn’t have romance novels like she requested but I picked out some short pieces about a woman’s struggle with grief. also some old russian literature that I didn’t think I would get around to. I think there was a tragic love story there.  

I began to notice the space warp and a bit of a line draw itself from the front door circling through the spare room to the mirror chest that held my brother’s ashes.  it started where the owl painting sat near the entrance and extended across the second half of my wooden chest, lined with candles, fake flowers and hung above it: many portraits, pieces. some printed, some bought, some my own photographs. a picture of an obscure red metal statue set to a sunset in the snow near the parkway. a few shots of trees set to a river, various rivers. a printed picture of a woman with a bloody lip and the rest blackened out. the line moved across another area, a shelf still being built. still being monitored. and it moved through the dark red curtains of my living room where I had pasted several postcards in between the two windows overlooking the  street. a stencil remained from the last tenant. I said it was ok to keep it so they didn’t paint over it. it read: In this house we serve the Lord. and finally circling around the hung framed piece of the dog, drooling with his mouth tied shut with flowers to pictures of my friends on the bookshelf to the mirror chest. I am in front of the mirror. I have been here for ten minutes looking past my face but I have also been seeing the line drawn from the front door over the dining room table where I do all of my work to the middle of the pink room as I stand limp in front of a mirror looking past my face. 

12/23/2016

I speak with intention. you cannot put too much stock in the written word; before the sentence is finished, the thought is already changing. a ritual can take your whole life. I think this is why I detest and seek writing at once. whatever charred remains I seal in its scrawled coffin, I lose the true physicality of the moment just by remembering it inaccurately. documenting it inaccurately. it is a rush and nothing more. 

I wrote my intentions on a piece of paper and then I drown them in the bath for solstice. I held them under water. I wanted to see what water would do. what I wrote to let go.   if anyone asked how I was doing, I would say fine. 

a note in my phone from today reads this: soul some god infusion, a pink blue violet snake winding up my spine. I started looking for a sun and started running into headlights. Bless all of this god for it is your creation, and I am only one of your created. I help you make things. I am God when they hear me. when I started looking for myself I started breathing from your lungs and found an ineffable love.

another note from today reads this: “one time a guy fucked me while I was sleeping.”

I know I smoke too much weed currently hoping I will figure it out.  what am I trying to say? just trying to find the right maantra.

Don’t rush into yourself.

I sink back into the tub, cup of earl gray on the side. it is steaming and full of honey. sometimes I pretend a man is there with me. asking me questions. egging me on. nodding. and I’m responding with stories. 

12/22/2016, solstice.