I keep swearing that I’m gonna take a break from this for a bit. I never do.

I need to.

I am in need of repair. My social skills suck. All I can think of is how much I hate the way this country is, the way the world is…the way I am.

I hate and I love and I fight past lonely toward even keeled on a sea of medication and none of the land up ahead ever looks any different.

And you know what’s really, really funny about all this?

All I ever have to do is slap the words “first draft” in the subject, and no one will ever know.

Not completely appropriate across the board for the place I’m in, but I’m really feeling this poem right now. That whole need to let the crap go. That whole need to admit failure and move on, and give up the passions you substitute for the passions you need to feed.

This has echoed through my head all day.

Have I mentioned how much I love Etheridge Knight?

Feeling Fucked Up

Lord she’s gone done left me done packed / up and split
and I with no way to make her
come back and everywhere the world is bare
bright bone white crystal sand glistens
dope death dead dying and jiving drove
her away made her take her laughter and her smiles
and her softness and her midnight sighs–

Fuck Coltrane and music and clouds drifting in the sky
fuck the sea and trees and the sky and birds
and alligators and all the animals that roam the earth
fuck marx and mao fuck fidel and nkrumah and
democracy and communism fuck smack and pot
and red ripe tomatoes fuck joseph fuck mary fuck
god jesus and all the disciples fuck fanon nixon
and malcom fuck the revolution fuck freedom fuck
the whole muthafucking thing
all i want now is my woman back
so my soul can sing

Some of you may recall that I used to teach an ongoing class at Dorchester High School, an inner-city school in Boston (the actual model for the show “Boston Public”), to sophomores there on life and success in Corporate America.

On at least one occasion I know I must have mentioned Ed Noonan, the no-nonsense, gruff and tough and tender teacher who put the program together.

I just learned that he died of leukemia last night.

I’m ready to burn something today. To smash something, or hurt someone.

I forgot to take my pills this AM. Knowing this shouldn’t affect me dramatically doesn’t make me less pissed about it.

I hate work right now.

I hate everything right now.

I hate, I hater, I hatest.

Give me time to not be this, and I won’t be; but today I am.