sleep not

the rain is just starting and i can't sleep. sometimes my mind cannot shut down. try as i might to quiet myself and even go so far as to pray for my mind to just stop thinking so much, i cannot make it stop until i have no energy left and sleep finally takes me. i was reading in bed earlier and falling alseep... when i turn the light off and lay down my thoughts came in a flood.

ian lindsay turner. i can't stop thinking about you, my friend, who is dead. i can't believe how dead you are. cremated even. no longer walking and no longer laughing and loving every movie you see no matter how bad it is. because to you, being kind is the most important way to be. no matter how angry you want to be. no matter. you, my friend, my father, my most loyal companion. who for many years i didn't talk to because you refused to stop being friends with my mother. no matter what she did to you. no matter that she bled you dry and left you alone to die without her. no matter. no matter that i can't stop thinking about you being alive. you should be here. there's no good reason that you aren't here. there's no good reason you shouldn't know my children when they arrive and there's no good reason you are dead and she isn't. only that perhaps god does things he shouldn't. shame on him. to take away a person who if only he had more time could have done the things he was too afraid to do. you were a mess and in a sad state but you could have come through and you could have been happier.

i lay here in bed and you are the catalyst for the flood of thoughts that come rushing at me tonite. family is really the main issue. your family. my own. why there are so many people i am supposed to love who i don't even know what to do with because they are never around. i'm never around. i can't really be mad at my family for being so splintered when i just do the same things in the end. i don't want to have them because they don't want to have each other and they don't want to have me. i keep thinking about my aunt who i became so close to in CT and who never calls me, never writes and it's as if we never spent the winter with each other. what impact has it made on her life? i know i think about her all the time. i know i love her. i can't say if she feels the same. i call and call and call and she never calls back. i finally get her on the phone and she says "you caught me". as if to say "if only i hadn't answered you wouldn't be talking to me and i would be so much happier". i don't know what this family of mine is in to. both sides are the same. they are all in little cliques a few of them that get along well or live near each other - they are close and hang out and do family things together. they are all groups that don't talk to each other. and then there's me and my mom who are 3,000 miles away my whole life and i don't know any of these people. and when i try to know them as an adult i can't get close. it's too late.

i realized tonite somewhere in the flood, that i have no name to call my own. yes i have names, first, middle and last. my last name does not belong to me. i am not a hodson. i never lived with my father and i never grew up with that family. why do i have his name? i am not a krause by blood. my mother is adopted and she didn't take her maiden name back when she divorced my father. why did she keep the name of a man she dispises so intensely? even my middle name isn't mine to keep. danae is a greek myth. a name for a woman whom zeus impregnated and gustav klimt painted. this was supposed to be my first name. the fact that it isn't means it's not supposed to be here with me. and i never go by my full first name. this is the name my mother calls me. and anyone who calls me by my full name makes me cringe. my nickname is what everyone calls me. liz. it's an awful name. i never liked it.

beanie. that's what everyone called me when i was growing up. but i made them stop. and now no one calls me that. i regret thinking it was childish as a young teen. i was too serious suddenly and that name seemed silly. i never laughed and i never joked around any more so it didn't fit. now i wish it was the only name i had. it's better than any that i have been given legally. ian lindsay turner is a great name. i remember how much i wanted to be you when i was little. you lost the hair on your head when you were still young and i cut off my hair on top to make it look like yours. when you said my full name it sounded nice. not mean or cringy.

i miss you more than ever my friend, who is dead, from now on.