Packing

Sometimes I don't know how to reconcile all the things I've piled up in this life. It's like I have all these things that I've accumulated and there's all this extra stuff that spills out the sides and ruins everything. I'm always going in ten directions at once. My feelings are always mixed. I don't think I've felt a singular feeling in at least a year. Back when things seemed so simple and nothing could go wrong. It was always right.

Now I have to figure out how to fit anger and jealousy and contentment and love and fear and understanding into the same suitcase. And something is always sticking out the sides. I can't ever get it all packed away and tidy. So I'm always a mess. Even I don't know what's going to come out of me next.

And I am always surprised by my own banality and blandness. I've tried so hard to amalgamate everything that it just ends up being a boring blob of nothing interesting. And I repeat it every minute of every day. If I don't do it, bad things happen. People get hurt, angry, and alienated. It is hard enough to get people to pay attention when I'm acting like a normal person. It is nearly impossible to get their attention when they are afraid you're going to fly off the handle at any moment because that's what you did the last time. And that sort of thing gets tiresome to boot. It's like I hear their whole body sigh as if it's had enough of my bullshit and they are too nice to say anything, and don't want to risk having me say more.

So I play my boring bland music to an empty house where everyone has gone out back to smoke one down because they just can't bear to sit through another one of these boring bland concerts of whiny nothingness. I suppose that I somehow sold out without selling a single ticket. I can hear my voice echoing off the back wall painfully. I can hear the words floating out of my throat, along with that vocal choke that goes with them. It seems like if there were someone here, it would be moving, but I'm singing such a sad little song that they have been chased from the amphitheater. They are through with being moved by me. They are through with histrionic desperation. I have to close my eyes to get through the song because they are burning and I keep looking at the ceiling so I don't have to look at all the empty seats. Maybe I would be able to pack the house if I could pack my suitcase.