...sometimes I shut down for a little while - hold up on my couch with a varsity bumper up my nose and some Vodka in my belly and stop interacting, with this blog, my family, my friends...and in all viens I am plagued by the same feeling - talking about the pain - shuts people out.
 
But then there I sit, many layers deep in a K-hole, drunk and too messy to answer the phone - and the phone rings - and rings unanswered.
 
So here is how those states come about.
 
Lately I keep waking - usually around 4am, but then lately even earlier, no matter what a stupor I drink myself into - the curious dark stirs around me and I'm awake. Sometimes I feel like he's there sitting at the edge of the bed - sometimes closer - "don't wake him, let me watch him sleep", he says.
 
So Wednesday night, I avoided friends, the gym, I drank, weaved my way to the Jack-In-The box and ate food that reminded me of being 19. I slept - my three retrievers surrounding me - I slept not next to them - but amongst them - part of the litter, the runt, the one who may not survive.

There was a nightmare - there is almost always a nightmare - the last guy I slept with on an on going basis told me who the screams would wake him in the middle of the night.
 
In the dream I was at a party in a beautiful, skyrise penthouse, my brother - still younger than his impending marriage, still 40 lbs away from giving in, attending with me - we brought our beloved nephew - a mere baby boy would had just learned to walk.

In the dream - the party switched unexpectedly from a cocktail party to leather - my brother was charming men near the wall on the penthouse floor - he let my nephew perform acrobats on the railing - in the dream I ran to the wall screaming and screaming to my brother "Get him away from the wall!", my brother startled turned and his arms sent my nephew flying outwards - grasping at empty, night air and then falling and falling in to an nighttime abyss...I screamed and cried - "Oh my GOD - OH MY GOD !!" - my brother and others turned and looked at me - "Look what you've done - YOU, YOU'VE KILLED him", the guilt swelled, yet I knew I couldn't be responsible for this - "...but, I did nothing I stammered!?", my brother screamed, "You saw what you did, you know this is YOUR fault!!". I cried and the guilt filled me - I need to die - I'm cursed - I ran for the wall and stoped short grabbing the edge - I don't want to die yet, I thought - I'm not ready.
 
I awoke - my breathing harried, heart racing, tears spilling on to my  pillow - I killed him, I cried - this is all my fault, but I'm not ready to die.
 
I paced up and down my hallway - I wasn't stupid, it was all starting again - the guilt, the blame 0 I grabbed a dvd and pulled all my pillows around me - and with bumper at hand sailed far away and felt peaceful again.