Drowning.

It does not do well to dwell on dreams and nightmares, to hold your teddy bears while you sleep in the hopes that if you hold on tight enough… but no… it does not do well to dwell.

I knew a man who sat and dwelled, sitting on stools and drawing his doom in the firelight of a standing lamp in the corner of the old bar.

It does not do well to dwell because once you’ve dwelled you can’t go back to ‘well’. The slight incapacities of your own beating heart, that beats and beats and beats like the belt against the wall that belonged to the man that sat and dwelled and sat in stools and drew his doom.

It does not do well because of the well that sits alone in the forest at night, changing and travelling, though no one believes it exists but the man who beat with the belt when he sat on his stool in the firelight of a standing lamp. No one believes but he, who crawled out of that well in the woods, who travelled in that well as it changed and it moved, with no sound but the beat and the beat of his heart.

It does not do well to dwell because of the man whose heart beat and beat and beat in the changing well who dwelled and sat and drew in stools in the firelight of a standing lamp in the bar who beat and beat and beat with his belt until the well in the woods moved again and again and again and again until the well stopped.

And he crawled out of his well to beat and dwell and draw again, not in the firelight of a standing lamp but the nightlight of your childhood bedroom, where you clutched your teddy bear and tried not to dwell… but then you did, and you couldn’t hold tight enough as the man beat and beat and beat with his belt against the wall and you heard the beat and beat and beat of your heart as he did.

But you won’t remember this, because as we all know now…

It does not do well to dwell.