this is writing by my friend andy hill. he did a zine called vanarky and since he's lived on the east coast he hasn't done another one yet. so i asked him to give me a few things that should have been read awhile ago...

have you ever been on the subway and it just stops?
all of the sudden, the rumbling underneath ceases, spilling conversations out into the open, the lights flicker, and you just coast down the track?
tonight, there was a girl sitting across from me in the train. late teens, early twenties, reading a book. on her arms, there were very intense cuts, burns, and scars all over and across her skin. every once in a while, she would look up from her book and stare out the window, for a few seconds. the book she was reading was on incest. this place is so different, so big. i feel like i'm the only one that feels it. i could really use a friend, someone that knows me.

its these oscillations that kill me.
not the search for the perfect rope, the loving knife, or the sympathetic overdose.
it's not the urges to end all of this. no, the real obstacle is riding the rollercoaster of elation and
sadness which i got on somehow, somewhere, and can't seem to get off. always waiting.
waiting, waiting, waiting...
waiting for the depression to come and take hold, to enclose me.
waiting for the high feelings that move in; colorful, happy, almost content.
and when i am up, i wait for something better. when i am down, i wait for the lightning,
the tidal wave, the emergency. i am always waiing. i have learned to be patient. not completely
alive, but not completely dead. complete, completeness...
almost there, we're almost there.
almost.

10-13-01 - 4:09pm
i got on the subway and headed in. i had the counting crows on. i started thinking about all the people that i missed. i was staring into the window of the next car over, mouthing the words of the songs like a crazy man talking to himself. for the first time in so long, I felt connected to what i was doing. in trying so many new things and going to so many new places, seeing all the faces, i have learned to be patient and just let the connectedness sink in. i had felt so detached from myself for so long, many months. so detached from my deep, intrinsic needs, the voices calling to me from the depths of my soul. i covered them up with chemicals and intoxicants, while i was trying to amplify and better hear them. i only found that they became distorted. i wasn't paying attention to what my spirit needed, but what my body needed, or wanted.

i feel like i broke a promise to someone.
an important one.
maybe by growing up, moving out, becoming a man.
i feel so strong right now. but not like muscle, not myth. it's not because i believe in any particular thing. its not because i agree with someone, or because i disagree.
i'm just not scared anymore.
and i'm not, by latent brute force, waiting for the depression or the sadness to come; crouching, waiting, one eye open while i sleep. i'm not over-appreciative of the souvenirs of the heart that i have clung to before.
i don't feel myself fighting anything, i don't feel any unconscious barriers. i just feel my heart beating, slowly but surely. because if the sadness comes again, with the morning sun, or with the bleak grayness of midday, i will embrace it like an old friend. not sadistically, not with clenched fists or contempt, but with a brotherly understanding. because i do not see the value of fighting anymore, and fooling myself into thinking that the night does not follow the day. but i have also let myself give up far too many times, crumbled to the dirt, praying for sleep to take me. the real peace is not in the forfeit or the fight. it's in the appreciation of your own deep agony.

1
i follow cars
i pass on the ownership of air
i give up the supervision of ghosts
floating in and out of doors
floating out towards their cars

2
the alcohol is processed to sand off the
awkward and unwanted edges of
the unsparkling, glaring morning after-
looking into mirrors with one eye open,
afraid to say with sobriety, at 5:13 in the afternoon,
that it's still the morning after

3
the simplicity of this cradle,
cooing myself to sleep periodically while awake,
walking from bed to shower to workplace to other houses
and back to bed again,
is in the constant buzz underneath the harmonies of conversation
and the melodies of senses, cooing me awake again,
greeting death one day closer,
toiling with interest.
that leaky faucet.
that buzz.

4
the sound of that organ
the lights that reflect off of cars stopping suddenly
a man is on the side of the highway getting a sobriety test
what an empty place