kylebellamy's journal

I sometimes write to myself long letters explaining just how I felt at that moment, how my head hurt or my chest ached, how long the night was, how strong the anxiety when waking.

It's not so much to catalog it but to be able to see the differences between that moment, that strange twist in my head and the place that my mind is currently at when I tear open the letter, be it better or worse. Most times it is better.

Except for lately where I find that the panic or the darkness of depression is still present days or weeks later, still viable and vital in its persistence, varying only in it's intensity, touring the levels of the trough so to speak.

It is a truly strange feeling to realize from afar that you are trapped in a tightening spiral, not having noticed it in the first place which is one of the chief qualifications of it in the first place, I imagine. Supposedly, it's more difficult to identify your own problems because of the problems which I can attest to.

Knowing your depressed is not necessarily recognizing the damage it is doing to you or the rest of your life.

The reason this all came up is that I was reading through some journals of psychology to try and understand where research was and medicine and all that and I came across a reference from a doctor at the Johns Hopkins University where the gentleman in question began to notice a subset of his cases that would be perplexed when he would question them about the highs and lows of the depression and it's episodes.

At first he dismissed it as a communication issue but upon describing to them that depression is cyclical thing, that it comes and goes, even in chronic cases, this subset would tell him that they had no idea that it occurred that way, not because they weren't cognizant of the fact but rather that for them the depression never goes away.

It is a constant thing, a drone that continues on and on everyday, every night never allowing the sufferer to come up for the proverbial air. It has its darker times and it's lighter moments but continuing unabated, it grinds on the mind in sleep and waking.

Disturbingly, there was no information on what this does to the subset sufferer so I have only myself to understand.

It's just too bad that there has been nothing further on this that I can discover since I find it a topic very dear to me. Any light in this tunnel is welcomed with open arms.

So i doubt many of you will remember but i used to haunt these places once upon a time, writing and dancing and living among the pixels and prose.

Well, i am sorry for the long delay but i have returned for the time being to see how everyone fares. I'd love to tell you all about the things that have been happening but you will have to suffice with a simple "been busy" and live with that, ok?

I'm just glad to be able to come back and say hello and hopefully get a star or two back so i'm not stuck with this 5 posts a day crap for very long. Lol

anyway, drop me a line to day hello if you like...

I can see the reflection of lights in the glossy coating of color on her fingernails, rippling with an undulation not unlike the flow of water in a swimming pool. Perhaps not as crisp and varied but still, it captures my attention. She doesn’t seem to notice my fascination as she continues to look around the crowded bar.

Besides, she isn’t looking for me.

This gives me the advantage as I sit and take a long pull on my cigarette, popping out a half dozen of sloppy rings that float across the candle burning in a small glass globe in the center of the table, right between a cheap set of salt and pepper shakers. For some reason it makes me think of a nuclear power plant, the sugar caddy taking the role of an out lying storage building, perhaps where they store the spent fuel for transport.

Where this comes from is beyond me but might be one of the reasons as to why I sit here alone.

She reaches down with one hand to scratch absently at her knee, shifting her skirt ever so slightly so that the outside portion of her upper thigh is revealed, smooth and hairless, a flash of bright against the black of the material. It is a brief look at a sinuous length of muscle, toned and exercised as if for some race yet to be run although if I were to guess, the race is more metaphysical than anything else, a careful and measured pace towards some ideal that perhaps her mother inspired, some point in the future where dreams are made true, children born and fences painted white.

Then again, all things being what they are, I could be wrong. Since I do not know her, I can only speculate. But there is a bearing about her that suggests that there is more to being here than to breathe in used tobacco and swill around overpriced alcohol in cheap glasses.

She raises her hand from her knee, neglecting the righting of her displaced coverings to, instead, tuck a stray lock of slightly curly, deep auburn hair behind her ear. The lock immediately decides that it preferred its former location and works its way out of its confinement to resume its position along the curve of her jaw. This is repeated several times until the hair is forgotten, winning by way of persistence and sheer stubbornness.

An unlit cigarette has now appeared in her hand, gleaming beigely in the muted bar lights that cast the whole room in an amber glow so that I can almost imagine that I am in the future, looking back on a scene in a bar and the color has faded from the film on which it was recorded. I half expect to see little bits of dust and the occasional hair stuck in the corner of my vision. The only thing that keeps me from slipping into this illusion for a while is the glow of her lipstick as it darkens the end of the cigarette, a permanent kiss, etched in beige.

She has a way of pursing her lips when she smokes that makes me think of the children in that Norman Rockwell illustration in which they are drinking a milk shake, lips pursed outward to counter the thickness of the icy fluid they are trying to pull up through their straws. She lifts the burning stick, purses her lips and draws deeply, the glow of the cherry reflected in her eyes and shading her face as if a small sun had somehow appeared to cast its light, for a brief moment, on her skin.

She exhales and the moves to place her cigarette in the ash tray next to her while her other hand grasps the sweaty glass of liquid. The coaster, seemingly in love with the bottom of the glass, stays firmly planted to it so that she has to knock it loose where it spins for a moment in a small circle before settling back on the bar in a final manner. Her glass, also bearing its own evidence of a kiss is drained of its contents in a quick motion that stretches tight the skin of her throat so that the motion of it is plan to see.

Collar bones and clavicle are evident, overlaid by a small golden chain that seems to dance in the light with an abandon that is entirely out of place for this atmosphere, this dark and somewhat lost place. The chain is weighed down by a small, golden cross that lays, slightly off kilter, in the cleft that forms in the middle of her chest, visible only occasionally as she moves and the fabric of her black, buttoned shirt moves to reveal hints of what lies beneath. Sometimes, as I watch, the cross falls out of the shirt altogether and at other times it vanishes as if it was not there at all.

I am taken by the way she always seems to be in motion, flowing through her as if she had too much energy to be able to stop herself, first to the cigarette, then the glass which had been refilled, then to that lock of hair, glance around the room and finally back to the cigarette, only to start the whole process over again, varying the steps but never halting the process. Move and shift and move again. Check her phone for messages then back to the process. She is waiting and nervous.

Suddenly, as if a switch is thrown in some unknown location, her face changes to a beacon, teeth showing, muscles pulling at her face so that it becomes a smile. Little lights dance in her eyes, put there by some unimaginable fairies who expended all of their power to make them as beautiful as could possibly be, these dancing lights. And he is there, the one she has been waiting for.

Out of all of the people in the world, he is the focus of this woman, the brighter moment that she now is passing through. Their lips meet and I turn my eyes aside for a moment to allow them a small bit of privacy in this public place, a small measure respect for the sanctity of the moment. There is a little sadness in my heart, however, a small bit of rain added to the shower there.

It would be nice to have that joy, that focus be for me.

(if the structure doesn't make sense, it's
because it's song lyrics)

I wanna break it open
I wanna tear this thing off clean
And leave it lying right there
for all the world to see
I don't need to prove you my friend
just exactly how this thing will end
I can't think of anything to say
that will make it right, so anyway

Go on, it's not that bad
and maybe you can find some rest
Driving all the night and
in the morning still heading west
You dream and I can scratch the surface
hide away from all that's good
I hate for you to walk away
leave me misunderstood

And I, I tried my best
And you, you didn't care
And we, we fought all night
you broke the tv there
And I, I promised you
that things would come around
and look at what we found...

...Life's not fair

So drink, and drink some more
and smoke until you wheeze
There's nothing left for me to say
and no more begging please
I don't think that time will mend the wounds
and make your spirit whole
No matter what you get yourself
or how much you control

And I, I tried my best
And you, you didn't care
And we, we fought all night
you broke the tv there
And I, I promised you
that things would come around
and look at what we found...

...Life's not fair

...Life's not fair

'Till time does pass and life is gone we stand beneath this driving rain, so cold and stripped down to the bone we see the truth, becoming sane.
We screw our faces up with might to see the future we might take and bend and crack our little souls to grab the tail of that fair snake.
With lies we sow what we believe to be the crop we wish to grow, that money tree, that golden mine, that greener grass beneath yon snow.
But still the drizzling skies do tell and wash away the covering white 'till all that's left is what we had: a frozen ground deep sown with blight.
So charge your glass and raise it high "Come drink and sup and be with me, for on this day, with open eyes, we Bitter call for company."

I happened across this image in a bunch that I got with a collection of photos on one of those disks where you get a billion photos for $29 or something or other. I love those things for building web sites.

Anyway, here it is...

Suction