i never really thought about it before but it was pretty nice. walking around that womens college campus at eight this morning with just wet jeans, old sandals, and a bag over my shoulders. i guess it was fairly obvious what i was doing there: hat stuffed over wet hair, carrying my swimsuit rolled up in a damp towel. the more i think of it the more someone crazier than me might have seen it as some small creature i had murdered and was moving to dispose. someone crazier than me that is. it was nice though, the fog settling. a gray day, the clouds backlit by the sun. trace little rain-drizzle sweeping every now and then through the trees rustling leaves and haze. quite a contrast from the stuffy chemical pressurized sanitary atmosphere inside the gym-pool. where the sanitary smell seeps into the showers and makes you puke. ten times the pressure of the outside air and twice as hot and dead/clean from shock chemicals. its enough to make you stare hard in the mirror all alone all wet and sad and wonder why you are even there at all. but its fine back in the pool. the pool's water is just cooler than the stagnant air but when you surface the air is cooler. and when you are dry the outside air is clean and cool and much nicer because it is sweet smelling of rust and rain and natural in the trees like it was filtered by the last green leaves. and it hangs on you, your muscles seizing with every step and calms and cools so that you are all alone even if people walk by and it doesnt even matter.

on the other hand im changing. all my life i have appreciated myself for being a good kid, inwardly good, somehow divinely blessed to enjoy being kind and friendly and pacifist and whatever else is holy. and that still applies. i manage to suck it up without thinking about it, get along fine with my parents and most authority figures, make friends with just about anyone and mostly keep them... but im feeling like that little flame inside of me is flickering a bit. a breeze is trying to refresh me from the inside out, a cool upwelling that threatens the sheltered light. im feeling like an evil human being. im pretty sure this all sprung out of the original bad idea which i had no real say in. in some way i think we all know how that turned out, even if im never explicit about it. well it gave me a soft spot. a very specific soft spot. as much as i try not to be offended it makes me angry, bitter, violent inside when provoked in that one way. when you leave at night it kills me. pisses me off, makes me want to say things to hurt you back even though i know you are nothing more than a perpetual hard day, a tired kid, busy, fucking busy. i know all that and i get it, believe me i do, but it doesnt stop me from wanting to make your night a living hell because you have to leave. thanks for the terse conversation kid. bye. its what i would have said had i not been the caring stupid kind person i am. and someday its going to crack. that little glass barrier between the goodness within and the evil seeking to become my within will leak and splinter and i will be replaced by some heartless bastard. i can feel him inside me already. you always said you knew my thoughts even if i wasnt expressing them, that i never was really good at keeping things to myself anyway. well heres the deal. i work on concealing that and even if you enjoy it, to hell with it. you work on making yourself a little more available and somehow fulfilling this vacancy that was your fault to begin with. leave me something to feel and i will leave you peacefully. its all the hope ive got left.