fallslikesnow

On an empty stage, under bright harsh lights In a closed glass case, airless and sealed tight I sit upright on a bare wooden chair Telling myself I no longer care The world is bleached, it's all knife-edged shadows It tastes of ash and bitter smoke, burned rose And I am under the light , on the stage Sweating and squirming, lost in a deep rage At what I have lost, at who I am now And the lights blur, I tense up, I know how I feel a different kind of grieving A grief at what I am now losing I'm naked under the lights , being watched By millions of eyes and I know I am lost

your thoughts – clemmed, treacle slow, laden with seams of pit shaft dark – tread an endless groove, blinkered as a pit prop pony moithered by light your mind – dimmed, dunnock shy, cradled with songs of wind swept moors – dreams a fearless path clinkered as a wind squall diamond mantled with night your self – numbed, fossil still, layered with seals of sun starved gold – furls a nubless cloth crinkled as a sun coaxed rock rose ambered in time. by Helen Overell

Coming up on the 26th I still feel disappointed I didn't succeed. The medications have allowed me to feel normal for much of the time - the first time in almost a decade or longer I can say that. There have been highs caused by circumstances rather than chemicals and lessons to learn that have made my life immeasurably richer. The lows, however, have been corrosive, eating away at my new-found confidence and etching patterns of despair into the boundaries I realised I needed to maintain. I won't do it now. I just wish I could.

Everything was broken and poisoned. The light was too bright but had no force. It leached into the deep shadows unenthusiastically, lending a spotted and diseased look to the battle ground between light and dark. The roses no longer looked like an integrated whole but rather like a collection of random elements stuck together by the diseased light. Sounds were high pitched and painful to the ear. Escape came only in sleep and slowly the idea of endless sleep became attractive. Poor brain chemistry inexorably translated into a simple series of stereotyped actions that would end the world. If perception caused reality and , though it deeply deserved destruction, destroying the universe was impractical then destroying the perceiver could have the same effect. Suicide as mass destruction. Fall into a bottom-less pit of sleep and drag the world in afterwards.

Coleridge : A grief without a pang, void, dark and drear A drowsy, stifled, unimpasssioned grief, Which finds no natural outlet or relief In word, or sigh, or tear. (From “Dejection) Richard Burton: Ile change my state with any wretch, Thou canst from geale [jail] or dunghill fetch: My paines past cure, another Hell, I may not in this torment dwell, Now desperate I hate my life, Lend me an halter or a knife. All my griefs to this are jolly, Naught so damn'd as Melancholy. (from "Abstract of Melancholy")

"After the age of thirty the great mass of human beings abandon individual ambition and live chiefly for others."

USA Coastal Waters, 29 deg 14' N, 92 deg 24' W 03-05-2002 Losses At some point over the last three years I lost something. Exactly what is hard to put into words, perhaps because no word exists for it.. This thing that I have lost was an ability, a way of looking at the world, perhaps a blind spot of some kind - whatever, it had, I suspect, no independent existence of its own, but was rather defined by the place where other, more "concrete", psychological and emotional entities intersect. It had something to do with: mental and emotional flexibility; curiosity about the world around me; a set of precious memories that served to glow with significance and a kind of holiness and provided an anchor when times were hard; many other things, some or all of which may be referred to subsequently. As I said above, the lost thing partakes of all the above qualities and more, but had a flavour of its own. It manifested as a kind of clear-sighted and realistic optimis...

So, I am totally desperately unhappy. In case anyone is interested, I am hurt. I am not the best person available. [added 10-13-04. Damm, people are actually reading this stuff. Must be more careful about letting the despair show...]