My Body is a Cage.

I am too cut off. I am too afraid. I am too intimidated by other people to drop my guard. I let myself allow very limited access to even my friends. I still do not give them passage to the one way train ride that is me. It is too full of chaos and volatility and I am scared that they may not like me anymore if they see how emotional and intense I can be. Maybe that is how it is meant to be. Maybe you are not supposed to let anyone in. Or maybe that is the conundrum of people in general. Perhaps they are never supposed to get to know you, no matter how many intimate moments you may spend with them. You can laugh, joke, drink, fuck, move, cry, and commiserate but it does not entail closeness. It just gives rise to comradery. And that may be the best one can hope for. That unlooked for stranger that glances at you on the train is probably not going to be the answer. They are more than likely never going to be your friend. But that one moment of connection might be enough. A lock of the eyes that says that you are, for the moment, one and the same. Losing yourself to the sinister neverland that is too brightly lit and highly indicative of the world you’ve chosen may mean finding yourself in the cataclysm of disarray.

Walking through the street, Arcade Fire blaring into my headphones I could not help but ponder the inevitable. Death and instability. Fearing getting into my bed that has it out for me, which I have already fallen out of twice, I stay awake. It is an eight foot climb into my bed and on the night of infamy to my friends I slipped while getting out of it and slammed my face on the radiator, cracking my jaw and leaving a swollen face that lasted for weeks. My bed is determined to kill me. Further proof that it hates me and that this fraction of my life needs to end, because it does not fit me.

Subway ads are repetitive and shout pathetic pictures of second rate movies and bad colleges that no one will even pay attention to.

That guy you pass in the street has a story. He probably lived through the Vietnam War, as the majority of the homeless are vets, and you just walk by without stopping or considering because you get asked too many times to be able to spare change for all of them.

I am not making the transition well. I feel like when I get into a home that is a more comfortable space that feels like mine I will be able to breathe. As it is I feel scattered and discontent. I drink too much and spend too much of my time hiding in my bedroom that never gets cool and sweating out a New York summer that is more intense than any I'd ever experienced in Florida. I am forever walking into every place I go with a sheen of perspiration on my face to a point where the first thing they ask is if I’d like a glass of water. And I’m a Floridian. That’s just sad.

When I hang out with my friends from here and listen to them talk I can barely keep up as they have been here for years and have their day jobs and knowledge of the city that I cannot remotely understand. I try to research New York politics as it is my first love and come up with random sites on the web that yield very little unless I have access to academic databases, which I do not. The news focuses on local stories, which gives me nothing in the way of the inner workings of the political animal of NYC. I'm drowning. None of my friends up here care about the same things I do so I have no resources to tap.

Nights of endless drinking lead to mornings that are mostly afternoons.

I'm missing something. I know it's there it's just not showing itself to me, despite that I keep looking.

I'm lonely. In so many ways. I am tired of coveting. I just want to meet someone I can feel a connection with. Sexual, emotional, intimate, friendship, or otherwise.

I lay awake at night and I see this image, much in the same way that they do in movies in the bad flashback dream sequence that has the horribly cliched muted and blurry scene and I see a person that is not real lying next to me. The other night a dream I had was so intense that I rose between the waking and non-waking world and felt someone squeezing me. I awoke with a gasp, shocked and looking over my shoulder, fully convinced someone had crawled into bed next to me because the sensation was so real.

When I lay in bed and cry now I no longer cry because of the person. I cry because they were the night thief who pillaged my ability to trust others. And I hate him for that. Every person I meet I size up with the constant, lingering question of "How are you going to hurt me?" And it's really unfair. My youth is slipping further and further away from me and I am standing on the precipice, watching it go and knowing I don't get a second chance. When the image fades there is nothing left but blank, white sheets that abandons me with the stark image that I am totally isolated. In every capacity. And that leaves me with a quiet, but resolute, desperation that others can probably see all over my face, the mask that covers the cavernously insane damage that makes my heart the 38th parallel. One of the most dangerous zones in the world. At least in mine.

I don't want to be some project for a guy to rebuild anymore than I want to be someone that they use and leave in the dark. I live in the dark. I don't need more shadows looming over me, making what little moonlight that comes into my world even more menacing.

If this is love I want to treat it the same way I would as the mafia. No affiliation.

I thought the demons that have stalked me for so long might forget me and remain in Tampa but it appears that someone gave them my itinerary to New York and they took a first class flight to follow me. It's unfair. I did much in the way of subterfuge to get here without them knowing. I guess it's true that you can't flee from your feelings.

It is becoming more and more apparent to my friends that I am holding back. They can tell that I am hesitant about everything and scared to death. I am happy that I moved here but feel no closer to answers. PBR and Jager may know me better than anyone but they are not exactly the best networking connections to a bigger life beyond the escape that I need to escape from.