Okay, so I'm laying on my brother's futon, trying to stay awake, listening to the rain and Nate play counter strike...I look over to Addy, sleeping on the futon across the room, and honestly, I just feel ... ... mmm... ... congested.

Yeah, that's it, congested. Like something in my chest that shouldn't be there and it's blocking me all up and making things just seem...bizarre. Even kind of impending, but not in a good way. I don't know, it just seems really surreal.

I look over at the TV and Reality Bites comes on. So yeah, I've never seen it, but I've always wanted to because Ethan Hawk is just pretty and I love Janine Garafalo. And I realize that...holy fuck, this really is everyone that I know. It's so funny. In a ... sad...Schindler's List kind of way *tilt of the head*

And I'm feeling so discontented, detached and after a weekend of acceptance, rough acceptance, but something I thought I could definitely get used to and really was used to, I mean, I slipped into the role very, very easily for some reason, but none the less, a weekend where I felt pretty damn good, got to chill with three really great people who I just immediately felt this kind of...almost audible -click- with. I mean, really, it was uneasy, but for some reason in the back of my head I thought...yeah, this could actually work. I mean, if allowed and stuff. I don't know, I'm ranting, but it felt good.

Then again, maybe I'm just affection starved and going out of my skull, who knows *cackles*

But anyway, after that, I'm laying down, as always...I'm never alone but always lonely.

You get that feeling? Where you're always in the room with someone...you never have time to yourself, but these people you're with, they're distant. They're unreachable. They have no...well, none of that warmth, almost like no pulse, like stone pillars that move around you, as opposed to wind that moves around and through you. You inconceivably alone...or rather...never alone but always lonely. Locked inside yourself. Caged Bird kind of bullshit. And really, you know you have no choice, so you just close down and cope.

It's even worse when you'd love nothing more than to reach just a tendril of thought, of energy, of...something, a hand, a toe, a foot, a hair even and reach out to someone who's three feet away sleeping peacefully. But you know that that energy would simply recoil, whiplash and slice you across the throat. Not in a slasher movie grotesque way, but in a razor blade, paper thin, going to run a strip of paper across your throat so that a hair of blood trickles down your collarbone, down your chest and dries across one breast or the other and you slowly die of infection as opposed to quick blood loss.

That kind of palpable, startling, body wrenching, gut clenched, hybernation mode ain=.

...and then Benny comes upstairs.

Yeah, Benny, my sister's dog.

And he pulls at my blanket I'm wrapped up in, as if some felt could possibly protect me, when in reality it's Addy's blanket and I'm simply cocooning myself in the a furry covering or pins and needles (and I'm not talking about the exacto-knife blade I found in my leg this morning from the futon either). It's ironic none the less.

But right, Benny. He pulls at the blanket and noses his way underneath (he's odd like that...he likes being under a blanket. And he coils up in that sweet spot. You know that spot. The spot in your midsection when you're curled on your side, in a lazy fetal position and there's a cove there, between the top of your thighs and your shoulders that creates a perfect cove, a sanctuary for someone to lay in.

And oddly enough, when you do have someone to hold there, it's almost like you get more pleasure and safety from it than they do...people fit together like that, like puzzle pieces.

*laughs* Like the postal service says!

I am thinking it's a sign
that the freckles in our eyes are mirror images
and when we kiss they're perfectly aligned
And I have to speculate
that God himself did make
us into corresponding shapes
like puzzle pieces from the clay

Which makes me think that the next line is most surreal and true as well...

It's true, it may seem like a stretch
but its thoughts like this that catch
my troubled head when you're away
when I am missing you to death
when you are out there on the road
for several weeks of shows
and when you scan the radio
I hope this song will guide you home

As if there was someone out there that could fit into that little space between the tops of my thighs and my shoulders when I'm coiled on my side, staring off dazedly into the heavy nothing that looms opaquely in the middle of my brother's room, like thick smoke...or maybe it's just the pot.

And if there was someone like that, that I could send out a song...or a tune, or some kind of...some kind of anything that was indeed a piece of myself that would guide them home. Because dear gods it does seem like a stretch, but I'm missing -someone- to death. My other half. Like Plato said. When we were split down the middle. My piece is missing, that vital piece that sat there, coiled in my non-lap a million years ago, and I can almost feel it there still, like a phantom limb. And that kind of aching missing of nothing and something all at the same time hurts worse than any broken bone.

Damn Zeus. Cutting us in two like that. Or three or four, or whatever you want to believe.

I send that song out, but how. No vessel seems suiting. Like that damn answering machine, I'm trying my best to send it out but nothing seems to suit the melody quite right.

I tried my best to leave
this all on your machine
but the persistent beat it sounded thin
upon listening
and that frankly will not fly
you will hear the shrillest highs
and lowest lows with the windows down
when this is guiding you home

And...while I'm sending this out people really are looking up at me, trying, straining so hard to scream out these tones of pure ... something. I don't know what. Caramel for all I know! HAH! ...telling me "come down now". But I don't want to. I haven't given up that hope that they have. I haven't settled yet. I still have my heart open because really, I don't know what it is...the world makes you rough and hard and 'practical' when all your soul wants to do is be childish and hopeful and sweet and loving and let people come and go like water...fluid and sweet. So many people close themselves off 'for protection', but really what is a half life? They're stronger than I, apparently, because I can't 'come down now'. Not now and not ever.

Because it's true, the further away you are, the more perfect it seems. But at the same time, the further away you are, the more you're able to see the varying shades. Like pixels on a computer screen. You 'come down' and all you see is the single pixel you're standing on. The one tone, the one shade you were born on. Whether it's called #000000 or "Rochester Minnesota", it hardly matters. But the further you back up...the higher you go...the more complete and perfect it all looks in it's ordered chaos. In all those tones, and you see that #000000 and #ffffff are side by side as well as all the tones of gray in between. And more than just grayscale! My god there's #6495ED (Cornflower Blue) and #8B0000 (Dark Red) and #4B0082 (Indigo). And all put together it looks insane, but perfect...but you see all the variations and complexities and you see so much more and it throws you into conflict with yourself.

But would you rather know and be confused and hurt and miserable, calling out for someone who can see all those shades as well from up above the picture (even if it's just a little ways above) or go down to the 'practicality' of the world and sit on your #000000 pixel for your entire life. Without complication and with the knowledge that you 'completed' whatever 'practical goal' you set for yourself within that limited area.

They will see us waving from such great
heights,
"come down now", they'll say
but everything looks perfect from far away
"come down now", but we'll stay...

Except in this case "We" is just "Me".

*sigh* Whoo, I digress.

Benny.

Benny's nuzzling to get under the covers and I let him up. Pull his little propeller butt up onto the futon and rub that spot between his eyes where the bone dips down and makes a groove.

He plops down into that spot in my non-lap and curls up against my chest, completely screwing the tentative balance between gravity, my bra and my breast, which makes me all the more happier that Nate is so enthralled with his counter strike game that he doesn't notice before I pull the blanket up over my shoulder, hiding my semi naked self.

But there's this little, stupid, short haired, coffee with creamer and sugar colored dog in that secret little spot against my chest, and he flops over onto his back and rubs his neck against mine, cuddling up. And it really almost seems like he's saying, in the immortal words of Mark Oliver Everette, "Everything's going to be all right".

I wrap my arm around him and rub his belly and chest a moment before he seems to say "mm kay then" and rolls over and runs back downstairs where my sister, his owner, is waiting. He never leaves her side, normally. He just came upstairs to let me know that...for some reason there was an interruption in that single streamed though process of "I want food, sex, bathroom break and sleep, in that order" and he came upstairs to let me know... ...what?

That there's hope?
That oddly enough someone out there's got wings as well and can see the range between #00CED1 - Dark Turquoise and #808000 - Olive Green?
That this wont be a vacant spot forever?
That he loves me in some single minded, I need you to survive and going to die 50 years before you do, kind of way?

... ...So then, my conclusion? My point? Do I have one? OF COURSE I DO *chuckles* I always do on these rants, you know that, my loves.


My conclusion to this, my thesis of life at the moment, is this:


I Need A Dog.


Yes, that's what all of this was getting to. The simple statement that I, Samantha Alyss Schacht, need a dog. A creature who is going to love me blindly and be able to take up space, never lie, never go back on his word, never tell me that I'm inadequate, never say that he wants to see other people and without me there (since I don't have a problem seeing others as long as they're still there).

Just...something with a pulse that wont be afraid to touch me, and no, not in a sexual manner, I'm not that kind of a person. Something that wont send that energy whiplashing back to slice my throat like paper and let my die of infection. Quite the contrary, something that will lick that thin wound and help it heal. Rub away that drying blood that's congealed on my chest and tainted that sacred missing cove-like sanctuary.

Yes, I need a dog.


And for those of you who have studied fallacies in school and know very well that one of the most major fallacies in writing these days is 'oversimplification', really...I have but one thing to say about that; Sometimes, when a person's life, due to outside sources or by their own means, has been purposely overly complicated, the very thing they need to bring it back into balance is some oversimplification.

It seems that the world and the people in it are not ready for the brand of love I am ready to distrubute or become a part of. So *deep breath* Until people learn to relax, and I'm able to send out that message from up above and tell them to 'come up now' instead of them telling me to 'come down now' all the time, I will most certainly settle for the love of a much simpler breed of creature.

After all, sometimes I think that humans are the simple ones, getting caught in details (and no that's not a stab at anyone in particular, it's a general observation, so no worries. I can understand how emotions wreck havok on lives). And that dogs have the right idea. Living for the moment and being content with the moment in all it's splendor. Enjoying it with the people around you, free of complicating emotions, or stress, or anxiety, or jealousy, or worry, or any other tendril of ick that can taint the glorious picture in all its variating tones and degrees.

To recognize the moment. And realize that in that moment...really...everything's just okay. *little smile* To just sit back, look around, acknoledge that things aren't perfect, but at that very brief moment... ... everything really is all right.

That in the end, life goes on, and life -makes- everything all right. Not to say that there isn't pain, but as long as you choose to keep living...really, in the broad spectrum of things, everything is all right. Not to be afraid of loss, because for every loss, there is a gain. Believe me, over the past few months I most litterally have lost -everything- I've tried to acheive in the past four years of my life...and actually longer.

But that's all right. I've gained so much. Freedom. Ability. A Chance to really blaze my own path. For every loss, there is a gain.

And just like the Alchemist says...if you really truely want something bad enough, the universe conspires to help you and give it to you. But you have to be willing to lose it all, willing to feel pain or hurt or get the ever living shit beat out of you in egypt (*laughs*), just willing. That's all you have to be.

Willing.

*little lingering smirk* ... ... Living for the next five minutes, instead of the next five days. Heh, Addy you smart little fucker. It's a good thing he never reads these things so it's safe to state that he was right.


...So my loves... Here's to the Next Five Minutes.

I'm Willing.