an attempt to pinpoint something.

This is what it is like:

I am at the hot dog place. There is no food but there is water and I am waiting and on the television the sports channel is on. But like every time I come in here it is extreme sports and today in particular it is skateboarding. I watch the screen as a camera pans out and it is a solitary figure on a skateboard skating circles up and down a dried up pool. I am transfixed and hypnotized watching his smooth movements. The wide arcs and rise and fall from bottom of the pool to the lip. As if the water were still there and he were surfing the invisible tides it brought forth. Everything is fine.

Within two hours I am at work and suddenly, with no real catalyst. Or perhaps none that I am willing to admit to, it is all over. It is like a deep nothing has been bred inside of me. Like a balloon or a tumor that is made of something cold without having to feel it. Pressure without form. I feel my insides pressed against my skin like something trying to escape and the chill of loneliness sweeps through me like some emp. I feel it all and suddenly I feel nothing. There is a heavy weight dragging me down. An understanding that no matter how close I am to someone I am not close enough. Not to love or be loved. It is irrational perhaps but it carves up my spine and I have never felt so distant from anyone as these moments. In the midst of friends or strangers. It doesn't matter. It doesn't care.

In the newly isolated afternoon glow of a bookstore it is as if I can see all my emotions tumbling down my skin and shattering on the hard tile below. Abused and forgotten. Mostly by myself. I cannot remember a warm day or anyone's warm touch or pleasant words once whispered in my ear. Just this pressure building somewhere in my guts and I would fear exploding if I didn't fear imploding even more.

I feel faint and heavy and light and nowhere and stretched too thin and stressed and lazy and ultimately just so very unhappy with myself. And I start to think that perhaps writing about it, narrowing down these feelings. Trapping them in electricity to be observed like something wild will tame it. As if putting it on display will dull the edges of the beast; make it less ferocious.

Perhaps. I think I get closer to the state of things at times. But for right now it doesn't make anything feel any more right.