comfortably numb

I depended on the fact that you wouldn't cave to my insults.  

I don't think you care to read this, but 

i depended on the fact that you were stronger than I was, 

               strong enough to take the beatings that knocked me down 

plus the ones i gave you,

 and still walk straight.  

.........................

I remembered you just before I got on the plane 

and I was surprised I did, because I had forgotten you were ever there.  

You got stronger with my steps and by the time i sat in my seat you were all there in my head 

and by the time i looked out the window I remembered how i used to 
want you 

and by the time i looked down at the clouds i wanted 
you again & 

 it wasn't until i looked out and saw the runway again that i remembered i'm not talking to you

And the lights on the asphalt made me wish i was.

and so I told myself i only wanted you to see if you still smelled like cherries. 

that was all. Just to lie to help my heart, help it remember that i never really wanted you.

like the way i lied told my memory that those wet marks on those page were from orange juice.

but its all self protection. self-preservation, right?  

I've got to look out for myself, and you were wrong, and i hate the cold and 

                                                                                    you were making me numb.

 You made me forget to care what other people thought and you made me not care about 

perfect attendance or double dating and with you 

                                              it didn't matter so much and i was numb to the fact that 

it used to.

you made me numb like snowflakes and ice cream and christmas.

you even made me numb to the cold, Heck, as long as our hands were together and you were there to give me your coat or hold me tight the cold

                                          was

                                                           beautiful.

                                                           

but i digress.  

but who care's heck this whole thing is off topic because so were you.

                    and haha we always were.

i didn't use to mind when my feet fell asleep like they are now because you would pick me up and hold me and i wouldn't feel ridiculous and you made me feel like all the gold in the world as you carried me to a chair and set me in it like a cradle, like i was porcelain. 

I don't think i ever really felt my legs fall asleep until after us.

and then other times you'd toss me into the couch and laugh hysterically because i never liked 

you carrying me except when my feet were asleep. And so you picked me up and threw me into the love sac because you knew i would laugh and you knew i didn't really hate it that much.

you told me once that they looked like lollipops, balloons. Lollipops for the people that live in the clouds making snow and lightning and drawing babies for the storks to deliver. 

you told me once that they looked like lollipops and that we would melt the same way lollipops do in water, if gravity stopped winning the battle to protect us from going up and out like balloons.

and it hurts because i don't want to care, but i do.  Oh i do.  I lied every time i said i didn't. 

you probably knew that.

But i don't want to depend on you.  you made me
 comfortably numb. 

And it was only a matter of time before i lost something from 
the frost.

a toe, 

a finger, 

my heart.

everett mills.

fear is the thing that broke her

(disclaimer: if this is too heavy i'm sorry i didn't mean to be depressing if thats how it comes across. these thoughts were in my head and so i wrote the memories down.  you asked for it.)

 FEAR
I cried so hard and so bad that my lungs ached against my rib cage and my throat was raw and i was more like a dry corn husk than a little girl.  i hurt from crying even though that's not close to what you've probably hurt and i know its not near what they hurt.
That kind of crying is like there's an ocean inside my head and right now its really hard to breathe and so the salt water spills through your eyes but it keeps the fish inside, trapped and hurting your head.

i want to write this right now because because I'm paranoid I'll forget my thoughts.  that i'll forget
         something.
 --I'm writing this right now because i want to make you THINK and make ME stop thinking and let all of the junk and the thoughts and this rising ocean and the turmoil and the peace go somewhere other than trapped inside of me.  Oh man, it feels so nice when its lifted off your heart. I just want to put it somewhere else, and if it touches you then thats just frees up my heart a little more.  
                  because it scares me to have it all there.  

I am afraid you're being let down because of me.  Not that i think these will hurt your heart too, but I'm afraid of not being good enough for you, not good enough for what you need.  I'm afraid that this is too heavy but I'm writing it anyway. I'm afraid of you because i don't know who you are, I'm afraid of you. Yes pleasefindmehere, I'm afraid of the big bad wolf too, because i never believed in him but now i do and i'm worried he's sitting right next to me right now and I have no idea.  I'm afraid.
                                                              ..........................................
and fear rocked my world:

I don't know what day it is. Maybe a tuesday?  But i come home from school and dad's not there and you, mom, have got the deer-in-the-headlights look that I've NEVER seen you have, and i get the feeling you've just been swept away by the semi and you're gone.
your mouth moves, makes some sounds.

dad is at the hospital.
they think he's about to have a stroke.
He may be about to die.

repeat.  slow down, slow motion, freeze. repeat.


drop the bomb.  drop it because i'm already gone, i'm flattened in the Hiroshima wake of empty sound and this silent wave of frozen shock.  and then it hits me like the tsunami has crashed through my being and the thunder's sounded inside my eardrums and i gasp because my breath had stopped and i break and the ocean crashing in my head obliterates my being because
my dad is going.  and i don't know if he is gone.
My dad.
dad.
i love you dad.  please dad don't go.  DON'T GO don't die please please
please Father don't don't let him die.
Father, please.
please, oh please Father, keep him here with me.  let them be wrong.  please MAKE THEM WRONG.
he's my dad.

what would i do?

Father, please, i will do anything.

don't let it be a stroke.
make him strong.
make him come home
make him come home well
please don't take him away let them be wrong I WILL DO ANYTHING just please keep him here!!
don't let him die.
dad please don't die. please dad, dad please don't die.  Come home and be all right. don't be a stroke, don't be anything, just come home don't die.
please.

I sleep crying and i pray crying and i sleep praying.
please.
the ocean on my face turns to pretzels and i cry so much my throat hurts and it hurts to breathe
because my lungs
are constricted
please
like my eyes are
raw
and my prayers
please
are my thoughts and its all i think.
please.
the ocean on my face turned into a reef and gave me a cold.

my dad was my everything.
he was my teacher and my friend and my idol, the hero i wrote about in my hero essay at school.
he is more perfect than a lot of people,
and i love him

and he came home.
                                                      ...........................

                  Dad came home alive. 

              but i have never been so afraid.

i have never prayed so hard.

i have never wanted anything so badly.

i sometimes forget and think that i am afraid of little things.  and then i remember that i have forgotten that i can be brave and that fear is not a spider or the thing like it.

THIS IS MY FEAR. This was my fear. 
and it didn't come true. 

but FEAR is the thing that squeezes the oxygen from your veins, it goes slowly, squeezes them one at a time and at first you won't notice but then you can't breathe and then you turn red and maybe cold and maybe you'll be frozen like in a Hiroshima silent shock wave

with 

fear.

and fear waits.  It will come back. 
it never left.

everett mills.

Real, are you there yet?

Nelson said be real.
And i feel guilty.

if i were real you would know that my name is not everett mills.  that's just who i think i am sometimes.

if you really knew me you would know that i'm one thing and my family is another and sometimes i feel lost around them, and a lot of times i feel lonely with those people who are always around me and who i think love me best. (and that makes me feel guilty too)

if you could see my face as i wrote this
        i wonder if i would change what i'm writing.                    i think that would mean i'm a coward, and i don't know if i really am one but i almost want to try it so i know for sure. 





if i were real,
you would know that my hands are getting sweaty and shaky because i almost just wrote my real name. 

but WHAT THE HECK who cares if you know right?  SO WHAT, i shouldn't be afraid, then 
                        why don't i just write it?

i almost have.
i think i will one of these days.
ha, one of these days, so noncommittal. 

one of these days, 
when maybe i stop being such a coward.
just like one of these days,
when there aren't any more problems.
when ebola isn't scaring people and ISIS isn't on people's minds
when we're confident about our president and about America
when the term's over
when we have time to finish that stack of Things I Want To Do that's sitting in your closet/your mind,
...
so is this really being  a coward? yeah, i think it is.
we're all cowards, i guess.

But maybe that's because there are things like ebola and presidents and terrorists and school,
maybe we've been trained to be cowards or we just want to be because its easier than being brave.

"COURAGE": aka a whole pile of lies.  
REAL COURAGE i won't write down because i'd rather see it in person than label it and make it into something that maybe its not really.  real courage we've all got.

And i wonder if we're being Real cowards by staying anonymous.  

And maybe we're really being Real by being cowardly and letting someone else's name claim the fame or whatever it is the real you won't stand up and take.

i'm sorry i'm not brave enough yet either.

Everett Mills

5 things to say from someone who's dying

things i've learned, memories.

because its been so long since i could pick a penny up from the road and think on a wish for the rest of the day  1) Please don't stop looking for coins on the sidewalk.

in case you're feeling doubtful

2) Always remember that you can catch a leprechaun with the right kind of chocolate coin.

i know because i almost caught one in a shoebox i'd decorated like a leprechaun bedroom,

    back when i was still losing teeth.

i never saw him but i only missed him because i blinked.

you want to smile? then

            3) stop thinking anything fixes hurt better than mom's kisses and a colored bandaid,

go to your little sister's dance recitals

and play hopscotch with the neighbor kids

4) Remember that its okay to

fall asleep on your brother's shoulder in the car

have to piggy-back on the steep part of the hill

pout and nod off at the dinner table

               then stay awake through story time and for dessert and until your hero-brother falls asleep too, leaned up against you and buried in stuffed animals and sleep that feels like your smiles.

5: Please, 

         love pretty rainbow-painted marker-stained hands.

                Colored-on hands are the sweetest to hold and are the softest when things feel rough.

memories are what we've learned But      

if you wait 'till you're dead it's too late,

so,

everett mills.

if Light could keep you here with me.

you make words beautiful things.

and you don't see that you're on the edge of Everything- that you're just opening infinite and you're rising above and you're so beautiful that when i picture you all i see is light and the eternities of the sky, and you're somewhere all of it at once and you're more open than trillions of pinpoints wrapping themselves around the stars.

I have two shoes next to me, and they ground me to the rest of everything. But you don't seem to be grounded, and maybe its because you don't wear shoes but maybe its because no matter what you wear no one notices that you're not touching the ground because

                they get lost in the vision in your eyes.

The stripes I wore the other day i planned out so carefully, and the details, because i'm a detail person.  i only remember that i've forgotten to make you notice those details once i leave you, because when i'm with you i feel like we've been exalted and we're talking somewhere in the clouds, and even when i trip  i hardly notice whats around me.

its a problem,

i love problems like you.

everett mills

lists to avoid the truth

He said,
make a list.
write it out, draw it out, talk it out.
buried things never leave, they just Bite.

so 
I'm writing about Shampoo, Clovers, and Hot chocolate, and what they all have in common.
I'm writing about midnights with a full moon and midnights with a new one.
I'm writing about fruit cake jokes and watermelon fights and summers when our knees and hands had dirt stains.

so really I'm writing about you.
they remind me of you

I haven't THOUGHT about shampoo or smiled when I saw a clover or made hot chocolate since then.
I haven't looked at the moon so long that I could drown in its blurred white light or gotten lost in the dark sky since then.
I don't want to laugh about fruit cake because the memories hurt.
and watermelon fights would hurt even more.
and gardens suffocate my heart.

I got some "help."
The man said, make a list.  buried things never leave, they just bite, bite, bite,
so, he said,
Make A List.
write it out, draw it out, talk it out.

We painted once at the bridge and I haven't since.
i can't talk with anyone the way we could
and i can't make the words come out of my mouth, i choke and my breath catches and the words come out on mute,
but we never wrote together.  
but i'm glad you never wrote me a love letter because paper is still safe for me,

and without these papers the words and the memories and the thoughts would have taken so many bites that my heart would only by a shape inside my chest, a small one, a torn one, dysfunctional.

and so i've listed the hurts and then, yes i burned the lists and i like to think i feel free.
but obviously i'm not because i'm still writing and it still hurts just as real as if i had never pretended it didn't.

my heart still bleeds at night
my hands still tremble when i want you back
my head still hates you when i remember
my lists are using too many matches and i need to buy some more.  
(i got rid of the lighter because there's a memory on that too.)

but i can't draw or talk and it hurts to think and writing lets the thoughts come out without a fight.
its better than being numb.
its better than it was.

i'll tell myself its better

i can't wait to believe.


everett mills

eavesdroppers on a wooden heart

I don't play the guitar.  But today with a pulse of music around me so strong it felt solid, 
and with my hand on the guitar's hollow body of wood, 
I felt its lungs beat In and Out, Up and Down. 
I was like the doctor with his tools eavesdropping on your heart.  The creature danced in my arms, the vibrations tingled my fingers, my palm, my chest.  A surge of stray thought swept me away and for a moment I was transported: the music flooded around me still, and the wood still fed the rhythm, but in the place of the patient confined to the bed was a forest, an expanse of dark Lincoln green, of hazy shadows and moonlight and growing sticks with masses of shadowed hair of lime and grey and EVERGREEN.  My arms around a growing giant lulled me to life, as my heart rhythm grew and sang and burst within me in song.  The tree I embraced was beating and humming and the vibrations through the timber filled my skin and torched my soul: The tree was dancing.  
     My tree is dancing and pulsing and ALIVE, and I am in it. 

Someday,
I will dance with the trees.
I will feel the trees dance.
I will feel their echo of the sounds in the air, and I will beat with their pulse, my ear to their songs and our heart pressed together.

For now, I can have patients.  I'll rest my hands to their hearts and pry in to the rhythm of these smaller creatures. And I'll cling to those moments that remind me of my dance, and of the tree I became and of the glory that filled the air and my arms and that filled my nostrils with its sweet, sweet evergreen breath.

And as always, Everett Mills will wait a little longer and add another craving to the list of dreams.

And really, I'll be looking for my dance with the trees.

Everett Mills.