I'm Free

I was in a sammich shop, getting a sammich, when this oatmeal and barley guy (definitely granola) starts strummin' away on his guitar the following song:

She's a good girl: loves her mama
Loves Jesus and America too
She's a good girl, crazy 'bout Elvis
Loves Horses and her boyfriend too.

This doesn't describe me at all. I'd have to be a good girl, now, wouldn't I, for this song to be about me. But then he sang this:

Now I'm free, free fallin'

I wanna glide down over Mulholland
I wanna write her name in the sky
I wanna free fall out into nothin'
Gonna leave this world for awhile.

And I'm free, I'm free fallin'

Free fallin' now I'm free fallin' Free fallin' now I'm free fallin'

"Free Fallin'" by Tom Petty

— `phfina analysis:

You really do want to know, so I'll tell you. Why you want to know, I have no IDEA! But you do, so you can tell me how fucked up I am, and so I put in all this effort to tell you, really and truly, what's going on in here in this nothing that is me, and what do I get for it? I get punished for trying, so why even try?

Why. even. try.

When I heard that song, the unchewed food in my mouth turned to ash, and I had to go. There are anvil clouds overhead and a good, cold stiff breeze, and I should be happy, as I am the wind and I am the water, and I am in my elements.

So why are there tears falling down my face. 'I am water,' I say, and all I do is cry, but I haven't cried in weeks, and now it's hitting me. Hard. 'I am air,' I say, so all I do is talk-talk-talk, that's all I do, that's all I am, wind and water, tears and air. Nothing.

I saw it, a vision so hard, in that sammich shop that I had to leave my unfinished meal, I had to get out of there away from people.

I was ...

Remember "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon"? At the very end, that little waif of a girl at the temple carved into the cliff's edge, looks out into the air, whispers

"Goodbye"

and jumps.

I am on the edge of the cliff, looking over, looking forward, looking down into the abyss. I don't have to look back. I am not that girl who had a devoted lover calling out for her to stay, willing to help, to be there for her. I have nobody behind me.

And then I raise my arms and I ...

It's a chemical imbalance. I tell myself. I'm chemically imbalanced, and the silence has worn me down so I listen to that not so little voice in my head telling me exactly what I am and exactly what I have to look forward to, and those two things are the same thing.

And I know who to blame for keeping myself an arm's length from any and everybody trying ... or not trying ... to reach out to me, to tell me that I am lovable and loved. I won't let anybody that close to me. I tried looking into a friend's eyes today from group, as she was teasing me about ... about what? my sammich, my silly tiny little mushroom sammich for silly tiny little mushroom me.

Yeah, I'm a mushroom. I can't go out into the sunlight, just like a morlock, and I eat girls, but the girls I eat do scream and moan, but it's not 'cause they're complainin' nosirree, bob!

Hm, the medication is starting to work. Starting, `phfina?

But I couldn't look into her eyes.

I couldn't.

I couldn't look into her teasing eyes, I couldn't look at me in them. I couldn't.

And I had to go, leaving everybody because some stupid song was playing by some stupid granola guy, ...

... and I never say stupid.

And I had to leave them.

And here is where I complete ch 2 of Sirens, and I go to that cliff's edge, and I ...

and I go home.

I return to the dust. Oblivion awaits.

You know: I have this post all prepared. It's here, right in my back pocket. It's a one-liner. It's entitled "The Sublime Art of Suicide" and the body of the post is just one word: "goodbye."

No note. No 'explanation.' No nothing.

'Goodbye' ... 'God be with you' because He won't be with me anymore.

Not where I'm going.

So when you see that post, you'll know what happened.

So I was supposed to finish here with 'Goodbye,' and fuck the special title.

But I took a walk, and okay, I have a chemical imbalance? I'll self-medicate. I saw Thor. I (now) know what a boilermaker is. I'll rebalance, and then rebalance again, then rebalance again, until I lose my balance.

A can of guinness with that cute little fizzy ball inside is a full meal, and only costs two dollars at the supermarket. AND happy hour is in full swing now.

Warm up exercises, you know.

And then after I rebalance (after which I will have obviously hit the hay and have that ashen taste of dehydration in my mouth when), I'll wake up tomorrow, and we will see from there.

We will see.

This isn't a cry for help. So don't bother. I don't want your help. You have to be something to want something, and I don't want anything.

Or maybe I have it backward, and I'm so full of ... something, that I've filled the space that is me, that is: I'm not a clearing, I'm just this big huge blockage, so I have no room left to want for anything.

Do I want anything? No, unless 'wanting nothing' is something. No, unless oblivion is a desirous state.

It isn't. Oblivion is the abyss; it isn't a state, it's a ... dis ... what is it? A disintegration, a rending, a destruction. It's not a state, it's an end.

Shiva. Kali. Lila.

Me.

----

οἰκτροτάτην δ᾽ ἤκουσα ὄπα Πριάμοιο θυγατρός,
Κασσάνδρης, τὴν κτεῖνε Κλυταιμνήστρη δολόμητις
ἀμφ᾽ ἐμοί, αὐτὰρ ἐγὼ ποτὶ γαίῃ χεῖρας ἀείρων
βάλλον ἀποθνήσκων περὶ φασγάνῳ: ἡ δὲ κυνῶπις
νοσφίσατ᾽, οὐδέ μοι ἔτλη ἰόντι περ εἰς Ἀίδαο
χερσὶ κατ᾽ ὀφθαλμοὺς ἑλέειν σύν τε στόμ᾽ ἐρεῖσαι.

Homer, Odyssey, Book XI, ~400-430