I'm giving myself just enough; just air for my lungs; just sleep for my tired eyes.  I can only give myself that "just enough"--that small life but giant luxury--because anything more is just too much.  The too muches are so overwhelming that I find them swimming in my orange juice in the morning or foaming up with my shampoo in the shower.  They are chasing me, or catching me, and I'm gone.  I'm gone because they have taken over, and I'm no more than a dragging doll--pulled through mud, tossed through weeds, but even carried through fields of wildflowers.  The point is that I'm not walking anymore.  I'm not lifting my feet and swinging my arms.  I'm not smiling in the sun or giggling under the brim of my umbrella.  I'm tied and gagged by some exaggeration of goodness, some monster grown from the bowels of my happiest dream. 

I think it's scary that we can go to bed wearing all smiles, songs in our hearts, love on the mind, peace from head to heel, and wake the next morning to see lightning strike our world.  The lightning isn't destructive for the fire is sparks or even the way it shocks us.  But in the second of the flash of light, that luminous speck of time reveals all the heartache and broken pieces that are scattered about but glued back together to make our life look whole again.  That flash of horrible, treacherous, damned spotlight shows us the cracks and the leaks and the patches and neglected holes. 

For the hours and days and weeks that follow that morning of full awakening, there is nothing but a sense of the too-muches that we allow ourself.  We rebuild the crushed pieces of our lives and move on to grab at more, and more, and more, and too much.  It's those crushed pieces, those bits of friendships and lovers and lost dreams and ignored goals that need polishing and tenderness.  We forget, though.  But we get reminded, and it's scary.  It's numbing, really.  I'll be back to my too much soon, I'm sure.  For now, though, I'm fine with my just enough.

Being the crafty little bastards that we were--and probably still are--my friends and I might have done everything in our high school days just short of burning down the school building, and still I think the only thing between us and the realization of those flames was Dr. Schluter with his mediocre lab of objects that were ever so much more delightful to set ablaze.  Or maybe Zaring's lab was superior.  Between watching the Mexican princess picking apart a sheep's heart--unexpectedly squealling with what we are sure was delight--and actually stealing a mutilated, dissected rat from the lab with the prospects of fixing the nasty beast to the backend of Boland's car, Zaring's lab was a playground of malice and fun.  Maybe it wasn't supposed to be as such, but things can take a turn for what the school administration deems "the worst" when you pack a handful of highly intelligent, manipulative, and charismatic best friends into the same class. 

Poor Mrs. Lynch knows what I'm talking about.  Having the likes of Mr. Boland, Mr. Herndon, and Ms. McDavid all sitting in the same 9 week economics course could very well be a nightmare to any teacher.  And don't underestimate our ability to understand the teacher's feelings in such a situation:  we took full advantage of our position.  We ate a lot of her food, too.  (Well, I did anyway, Boland.  Was I hiding that fact from you at the time?)  We disrupted most of the lectures--make that ALL of the lectures.  We also got out of there with decent enough grades.  Why?  Because we are crafty little bastards.

We didn't like Ms. Crona.  We took care of it.  I hope she likes Atlanta.  'Nough said.  Oh yeah, Fluffy can suck his own nut.  Or Osborn's... I know Oz is into that stuff.

But we didn't stop at torturing those teachers that we disliked.  Oh no, we each have some kind of mechanism in our brain that triggers a belligerence toward all authority, even the figures of authority that we genuine respect or even cherish.  Ms. Whitaker--this ode is to you.  Boland and I were actually quite astute students of British literature.  In fact, I feel fairly confident in speaking for the both of us in saying that we actually enjoyed the material taught in the class.  Whitaker is a good woman and a good teacher, but even the most inherent goodness cannot exempt one from the impending forces of a troop of crafty little bastards.  Boland and I started lowkey--testing out her temper.  Moderate interruptions of lecture in the beginning; only slightly tangent to the discussion, but enough to lead the class astray into free conversation just to be reined back in by Whitaker's raping glare and peevish hair-petting.  We built enough nerve to mess with her computer though.  Changing her screen saver and wallpaper--the same stuff that we did to Mrs. Lynch on a weekly basis for nearly a year.  I think we peaked out in English IV with the in-class wrestling match as I went to sharpen my pencil during a lecture and Boland took me clean out with his usual aggression.  I might have broken a rib that day.  I recall crying a little.  Whitaker didn't know what to say--and it's a pinnacle in one's life when he can leave a woman of the likes of Vicky Whitaker devoid of words.  I think she turned back to her book and continued reading about Matthew Arnold's islands.  Boland and I sat down in our seats as though nothing had even happened.  Jodi probably dove straight into prayer, and Seth probably celebrated the school system's descendence into chaos.  Undoubtedly, the walls of Whitaker's classroom had never seen anything so out of the ordinary and--dare I say it?--undisciplined.  From that point on, Boland and I weren't quite so disruptive.  Why?  Because we know that we had no other buttons to push.  We had tested that system until it proved beyond all doubt that we were free.

I think that was the central theme of our high school days: testing the supposed limits to our freedom.  I think that in most cases we found that we weren't really under anyone's thumb, but I don't know what that knowledge actually did for any of us.  So now we're a bunch of crafty little bastards with methodical skill in picking at the psychology of authority figures, but college doesn't hand you any situation where such a skill is useful in any way whatsoever.  Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't trade my high school adventures for anything.  I'm glad as can be what I learned what I learned, but I'm still looking for its application.  Are any of you?

Sock band for life, mother fuckers.

My freshman year of college is close to an end.

Does this thought frighten anyone?  I mean, the thought of being so much farther away from the home that I still miss and so much closer to an existence that is undefined, uncertain, scary, consuming, and enormous.

I try, though, to the best of my ability, to do what I know, to the best of my knowledge, is right.  I try to make the grade.  I try to build relationships.  I try to be healthy.  I try to be a better citizen, a better person, a better individual.  I try, and I cry, and I try again.  But I don't feel better.  I am never a better person than I was the day before or week before or month, year, decade.  I feel trapped in these hours and minutes and seconds of being lonely, frozen, and hurt.  I need someone in my life who can love me and help me be better, or just make me feel worthwhile.  I need someone.  I need something.

I can't write.  Pour deer mi.

A rain came today,

Reminding me of myself.

Little liquid lonely

Raindrops fell in splish-splashes;

Crying like only a winter can.

And I was cried on,

A broken babe too far from home.

Little liquid lonely

Night spent in a bed of dirty sheets.

Little liquid lonely

Me

Washed away with the rain.