did i mention the inability to stop this crap?

 the slow devolvement of the sense of propriety and dignity into some lower form of reptilian offshoot that hunts large black insects and sucks a foot long tongue. i feel the decline in my self to some other layer of being. the one that isnt this isnt that but sees through them all and can wear them like old t shirts and shorts. the time i spend is time spent away from myself but in close examination of what that meant, how it made things turn the way they did and become some thing like now. i dont know if this is practical but sometimes its all i can do to just be even near me. i want so much to not be. what i am and who i was both seem unreal and leave me somewhere else. not me not that but the ghost in the dream, with neither a chance of waking up or sleeping. i look at some of the good times and they seem small and some of the high times and they seem old. the real work is in here in this scant time we exist presently, everything else is gone. theres no back or to and nothing seems saved or remembered, just drained of names or feelings, i remember i had them but not what it was like. i feel off balance sometimes like the handle on the closet door is not where it should be but i reach for it anyway. the last step is gone and the light switch is missing.i go out to start my car but its not here. where was i yesterday or last week. the months are hopeless but even today is blocked off. i wander the minutes and hours like a sleuth in a bad movie coming up with clues that dont make sense of me.  i know i was there but who was i, and why did i act like someone i dont know. the truth is theres no one home and the sign on the door says, closed, death in the family. its the start of a long weekend and the river is high and wide, the parking lot is full and the beach is crowded with rubber toys and white sunburned flesh. the green water looks cool but dirty and all the ice cream is melting on my fingers. im six and rocks are burning my feet as i hop along to the  nearest beachmat, dripping white dairy freeze as i run, my eyes staring into the hot white sun and sky. the trees nest a hawk and smaller birds across the river and the redwoods grow right to shore line. im too little to jump into the dam but i swim to high side and hold a little desperate to the thick metal cable above the jimmy boards holding back the water. my feet dangle and the chin tightens to the pull of the water down the sluice gate and the white water beyond. all the older kids let go and tumble down laughing and slashing into the deep white froth. i stare transfixed at the cold wet world beneath me, dark as death and lovely as sin.