containing fury & a laugh track

it is hard, sometimes,
to know who to listen to.
voices echo down the corridor
coming back from dreams
or coming back to the moment
from somewhere within.
sometimes it is a very long hall
full of
familiar voices
strange voices
wise voices
hollow voices
it is hard, sometimes,
to know which to listen to.

a weekend of ghosts:
revived by some
haunted by others

i am happy
it is not a natural happy yet
it is a happy i have to choose multiple times a day
it is a happy against the threat of so many things that would prevent its possibility
it is a happy that resists me, sometimes
a happy i have to fight and negotiate for

and some would say that it is not happiness, then--
that happiness is supposed to be easier than that.

i/do you disagree./?

the strangest dreams have me waking up on edge-
and so this morning began:

morning commute, chugging down a diet mountain dew before a drop of water even enters my body.  nodding my head to npr as though i have the slightest idea about the arab spring or the rest of the world.  annoyed at myself and everyone on the highway.  knowing full well this is about the time when i should turn those thoughts inside out if i want a chance at any amount of optimism today.

but i don't.  and it doesn't stop-- but it doesn't get worse.
it's like the grown up version of an angela chase internal monologue.
angela chase at 29.
my whole day is an internal monologue containing fury and a laugh track.

look at the people.  look at all the weird people.  harriet the spy, judging the whole world.  happy people.  loud people.  dressed up people.  dressed down people.  moms who don't know how to park.  the umbrella.  the choices.  ankles.  volume.  posture.  world views.  the slackers.  the overachievers.  the fury.  the laughter.
i am convinced that the things i judge other people for end up becoming my own plight.
i have fat, german ankles.

attention whores everywhere
everyone performing for someone
for some reason

everyone is trying so hard &
no one is ever good enough
& everyone is hell bent on trying to be.

i am not sure what there is to learn here.

"my mind is a corridor.  the minds about me are corridors.
nothing suggests itself.  there is nothing to do but keep on."