“Okay,” Exasperated. “Explain back to me what you think I just said.” 

He can’t of course, because he wasn’t listening in the first place, and I start to fear these conversations will begin to age me. My eyes are hard. I try to articulate as best I can, but the discourse is inane. We’ve lost the plot. 

How did I get here? My problem is existential, and not in terms of dread or neurosis. It is quite simply the fact that I can't take a thing for what it is. Like taking the lid off a mayo jar and shoving my hand to the bottom of it. 

I like intimacy with words, and with feeling. I used to fantasize about being this ideal. She was strong, aloof, smart, understanding. All the qualities of a power house. Except one day I realized that she didn’t have a sense of humor… but otherwise she was *sigh*  perfection. 

Sometimes I strive to be her.  Sometimes I hate her. To be honest, she doesn’t even look like me. Not in disposition or even understanding. So, what is her purpose? Her utility? Why do I keep her around; lingering at the back of my thoughts. 

Context. Someone I can strive to be, she places me in a subliminal space. Liminalism. To be somewhere and nowhere. 

She's not subliminal, but superliminal. Living at the top of my being, up high where no one can touch her. A deity; she is divine. 

As opposed to where I am now. Tonight, I got “into it” with an asshole, and not in a sexy way. A lexical gap. Our hardwear was different. The air permeates  with a sort of toxicity. Misunderstanding; an inability to translate. 

“I don’t know if you understand what I’m saying.” 

“No, I do but I disagree.” 

“Okay.  What do you disagree with?” 

“With what you said.”

“Which was what, exactly?” 

He can’t articulate it, and I am running out of energy. No context. No place to place information. No bridge to facilitate. 

I absolutely do not understand.

photo by me 2016