i'm around the corner from anything that's real
i'm across the road from hope
i'm under a bridge in a rip tide
that's taken everything i call my own
[...]
i'm on an island at a busy intersection
i can't go forward, i can't turn back
can't see the future, it's getting away from me
i just watch the tail lights glowing
this is why i dislike to be away. silence. disconnection. it hurts. it brings up a general malaise, and i don't know what to do. locked behind a thick rubber wall. can you hear me scream? even my joints hurt under this weight. a storm brews inside. can you see the rain through my eyes?
away. removed. alone.
save me.
Booth: Here we are, all of us. Basically alone, separate creatures, just circling each other. All searching for the slightest hint of a real connection. Some look in the wrong places; some, they just give up hope because in their mind they're thinking "Oh, there's nobody out there for me." But all of us, we keep trying over and over again. Why? Because every once in a while... every once in a while, two people meet and there's that spark. And yes, Bones, he's handsome, and she's beautiful, and maybe that's all they see at first. But making love... making love... that's when two people become one.
Bones: It is scientifically impossible for two objects to occupy the same space.
Booth: Yeah, but what's important is: we try. And when we do it right, we get close.
Bones: To what? Breaking the laws of physics?
Booth: Yeah, Bones - a miracle.
[303]
Before I write these annual review letters, I really need your prospectus. It does not need to be elaborate. Just 10-15 pp. plus a reasonable bibliography.
how do i tell you that i could not care less? how do i tell you that this life makes no sense to me anymore? how do i tell you that i completely lost interest in this? that, for me, it's all empty words, written without a purpose for an invisible audience? something that will not help anybody? or make anybody's life better? that my batteries ran out years ago? that i got to this point just because i didn't want to leave? that i like the kind of academic life that you so much despise? that research is pointless for me (at least in this field)? that i stay for the teaching? that it hurt to be set aside to favor someone else? that i despise all the competitiveness of this world? that i wish you found a place for me so i can stay, and not have to leave everything i hold dear? that i loved working hard but lost the pleasure for it when i was told 'we'll miss you'? what for then? so that you could pick her instead. good to know. but after all, i should be used to that feeling by now. always second choice.
i just want this day to be over.
dazed and confused, numb, still awake at 5 am for who knows how much longer... read stuff i shouldn't have... just made it all worse than it already is... is there a bottom to this, at some point? it's silent outside, just the faint noise of cars on the freeway - where are you all going at this time of night? - and crickets, or whatever other critter makes that noise. it's a night, summery noise. summer. i like heat, but i have come to dislike summers. it was the time of year i loved the most, the time when i would go to the beach, see friends i hadn't seen in a whole year, enjoy freedom, swim, be in the water. now summer is time for silence, for distance, loneliness. now i hate summer. too much pain came from summer. and i have to go through it just to wait for the fall, just to come face to face with yet another nightmare. my world, infected, again. will i make it? will i be able to take it? will i get used to the feeling of blood freezing in my veins every time, cold sweat, muscles blocked? run away. i need to learn to run, and then start running and not stop. or get a car, and drive away. i wish i could walk to the beach now, sit by the water. i wish i didn't know how to swim. almost left. but where to go? and what for? i don't like the expiration date i have been given. i'm not an object. i feel like one. plastic. recyclable. bends, never breaks. glass core. shattered a long time ago. pick up the pieces, will you? put it together. 'we can make it better, we have the technology.' alanis as god, with a fancy skirt and long hair. like mine. would i look prettier with shorter hair? would i look pretty enough this time? thinner? taller? darker? malleable, like plastic, indeed. say what you want, you'll have it. genetically engineered perfection to fill your void. there once was something i was good at, i forgot what it was. i forgot a lot. poster child for lack of brain capacity due to sleep deprivation - hang on, i'll give you a photo. lack of short-term memory, they call it. and a scar, still there. did you know that? and everything else? the hidden, the unspoken, what i do and don't say. if you knew, what would you say? speechless, probably. more cars on the freeway - where are you going? can i go with? or am i destined to see you come, and go, and leave me behind?
some days you wake up early, not quite rested, and can't go back to sleep. thoughts start flowing into your brain against your will, seeping like a poisonous oil that prevents you from closing your eyes and drift back into safety, into numbness. thoughts that make you realize, clear as day, like a slap on the face, what is going on, what you have been trying to avoid, what you do not want to see. thoughts that answer the call for the sign you have been waiting for. that clarity that has the uncanny, unwelcome ability to ruin days, if not weeks, at a time.
i always knew i was a night owl, that my brain works much better at night, in silence, away from the distraction of daylight life... it had been a long, long time since i last experienced the bliss of a) understanding, let alone b) agreeing with a scholarly piece of writing, and c) finding the inspiration to write scholarly pieces myself.
don't know how to react anymore, or what to say. asked to understand and accept something that is never explained. asked to keep doing something that is always turned down. asked to quit doing something only to be berated later for having stopped. offer unconditional friendship and love, only to be told there's nobody who cares.
i: [quizzical] n: [matter-of-factly] i: [puzzled] a: [grinning] that's right.
