Hello, I am Wisconsin.
Not only that, but I am the dirt poor kid on the blue striped couch throwing rocks down the drain.
The rocks hit the sides, and the piercing noise is one of the last things I remember of my first home.
Nostalgia's often resurrecting qualities only work as far as I let them, but I forget.
12 years later, I am sitting on another striped blue couch, and the camera in the corner is pointed directly at my face, and the fabric itches my back, and the carpet is unbelievably ugly.
12 years later, and the kid that woke up every morning to name his 47 dinosaurs is gone.
12 years later, a stricken heart resides in his place.
12 years later, Wisconsin is merely a dream, and Wisconsin evaporated and was lost like 46 of the dinosaurs I kept on the shelf.
Nostalgia doesn't come now, and 12 years from this very moment, nostalgia will only remember 2 things. Kinley, and Paris.
12 years won't remember the therapy.
12 years won't remember when I fell so many times only getting up to slam the pavement again.
12 years won't remember the cold.
12 years wont remember, unless I let it.
But by then, I won't be Wisconsin anymore.
-
I never learned how to paint with watercolor or how to use pastels.
Maybe it's because the colors have gradually faded from view and the shades change from gray to gray to gray to gray to black to forget.
So catharsis doesn't quite feel real.
But dreams did, and falling asleep was merely waking up.
Alarmingly my reality became disturbed, and the dreams were becoming hope.
And even when I didn't dream, I was becoming hope.
And sometimes I could remember Wisconsin when I woke up.
Finally a cathartic heart found its release, and wary eyes were able to open again, and see the gray.
And if 12 years saw me today, I think 12 years would start to remember.
And I think 12 years would cry, just a little bit.
-
My load feels lighter.
My eyes feel brighter.
I think Wisconsin has gone though, and Wisconsin has been replaced by Jern.
And for a split second, I am going to miss the times that I cried.
Wisconsin embodies 16 years of a fractured and forgotten life.
It aches with the pains of a wayward mind.
It sobs to the harmonies that protrude from my guitar ever still.
And sometimes, I think it loves it all.
But Wisconsin is ready to go.
I never learned how to paint with the watercolors.
Instead, I wove my veins into the bristles of a brush that purged my being onto the screen.
I grafted the broken mind onto my tattered lungs, and they seemed to breath again.
And the ravaged guitar in the corner has never made more beautiful melodies than now, even without a string.
-
Show me the secrets within your consciousness.
Confide in me the workings of your heart.
I think I've learned how to walk.
