Ain't Fucking With Them No More

I wake up at 7:00. Only three hours sleep. I did not get up. I turned on the laptop and listened to music and drifted off until 9:00. I still don't get up. I drift off again, this time waking up at 11:00. I'm not getting up, but I'm not going back to sleep. I need to get up and head across town to the Metropolitan hospital to see if I can make another appointment with my mental therapist, Dr. Energy. Yeah...Energy. Something like that. I call him Energy. If I'm saying it wrong, sue me.

But I was not motivated. I was tired. I was not inclined in any way to move. But I made it happen. I got up, used the bathroom, dressed in clothes, put on my shoes, threw out my trash, took apart my laptop and hid it when I left. I move off, heading downstairs and out of the building, feeling a sense of exhaustion. I don't want to deal with humankind. I don't want to bump into my fellowman. I just wanted to stay in my room.

I wait for the 96 bus, and ride it across town directly in front of the hospital and head to the mental health department. The woman behind the reception desk tells me that I can either call him in the morning or wait in the waiting room and jump on him when I see him walking around. I know that the chance of talking to him over the phone would be slim, so I wait. After about twenty minutes he comes out of one of the offices and I call him over. He takes my appointment card and gives me a new date to come in to see him. This is good.

I got my new appointment. I head back home, feeling as if I accomplished something. I got out of the house. I walk on, taking the bus home and up to my room, getting undressed and jumping into bed. I finish blogging because I don't feel sleepy and I want to go out, to go and do something, but what? What exactly? There is nothing going on in any of the area poetry haunts that I know of, no one reading that is featuring that I want to hear. I am stuck in the room tonight.

I am not depressed, I just don't want to be here. I go food shopping with the little money I have left and buy another portable to hold me through the night. I go down in the elevator and when I reach the front of the building, in the mantrap, is a pair of New York City Police officers with a man in handcuffs. The handcuffs are black. This is the first time I've ever seen that before. Black handcuffs. I wonder if there is a reason for this? They walk outside and there, standing at the left of the front door, is a woman in handcuffs being held by another police officer. The three officers march them to two waiting patrol cars and push their heads in the back seats. Shit. I wonder. Drug dealers most likely. They purge this place of them often.

I am not tired. Maybe a little drink will make me sleepy. I sit behind my computer, which is still running, and work. I write. I write my blog, I write email, but I don't feel creative enough to write a poem. I am without my muse. I have no desire to create prose. I am cast adrift in a sea of words without any rhyme or reason. I cannot make a poem. I just can't.

I can't write. I can't think. I'm just existing. I take a drink. It's alright to exist. That is a good thing. I think that if I can deal with existing, I have the game half way done. Look, my life is not that great, and if I can still get up every day and deal with all the issues that I face daily, then I have life half done. To stay motivated to do something, THAT is the other side of the coin. I have to do something. Not let depression keep me in the bed with my head buried. I have to get up and do something. I think about that. I think seriously about what I'm doing. Which is next to nothing, and I feel terrible.

I was highly motivated when I lived on the streets. Highly motivated. I made the poetry readings, I listened and wrote poetry. I was busy. Somewhere I got de-railed. Somewhere things changed and I was cut off from my creativity. I have to find it back, and if it takes drinking to get there, I'm not too afraid to try it. I'm not. Fear for me if you will, but I'm not. I'm taking the bull by the horns. Many poets were crazy, suicidal, alcoholics, mental patients. It's our stock in the trade. It's what we do. We are just that way. I'm not afraid of this statistic. I AM this statistic.

I just want to be good at what I do. I have always been that way. I always feel that way. I want the chance to write, to to create and to get paid for my work. I shake my head. How many people are lucky enough to be that way? How many people get the opportunity to be creative for a living? Not many, and certainly not me. I just don't want to waste time. What little time that I do have to be creative, I want to use it. It's been almost five years for me.

I think about the streets again, about Electra, still out there after all these years. Shit. How does she do it? How? Every night, the struggle just to find sleep. Now I can't sleep. I would be perfect for the streets. I am somewhat sad. Sad for all those that are still out there. I am sad for myself, that I am here. I don't want sympathy though, just understanding.

Time to get to work. After blogging, I'll see if I can write a poem. Then I'll see if I can go to sleep. Tonight it's supposed to snow pretty heavy and through tomorrow. Our first big snowstorm of the year. I worry about that. I have to go up to Queens this week, to social services, to deal with them and get my hands on a new budget letter for Roberto. I'll see. If it's snowing too much tomorrow, I might just say fuck it then, and wait until Thursday.

Fuck fighting snow tomorrow for anything.

Hobobob