writing for fun and therapy!

2009-04-11T01:39:00.001-05:00

20090411
0140

i'll try to speak clearly for a moment
(my throat chokes
now and then
in thirst and dust),
so, if you would, listen closely.

i'm whiny and self
righteous
and pretentious
about everything i see and touch and taste
today. I don’t stand much.

but i'm just working on moving my legs,
they're stiff after a long rest this winter.
i'd really appreciate it if you gave me this chance
to stretch before you slide ten steps ahead of me.

i'm pretty sure i'm not consistent,
that i lie,
and relatively certain that i've never set my mind.

but maybe if you heard this,
and stopped for a second,
(believe me! You’re curious
About whether I’ll say something
This time)
i could walk next to you
and be sure of my steps for once.

2008-03-12T22:56:00.000-05:00

INT. SMALL TOWN DINER - DAY

FRANK, a middle aged man of average height, enters the diner. People sit along the front counter. ROGER, a tall gray-haired man reads at a table. JILL, a waitress, approaches Frank.

JILL
Morning, Frank. What’ll it be today?

FRANK
Won’t be in long today, Jill. I’ll just have some coffee.

JILL
Okay. Sit yourself wherever you’d like and I’ll get that for you right away.

Frank walks to Roger’s table and sits down. Roger reads.

FRANK
Morning, Roger. You don’t mind if I sit? How are things?

ROGER
Things are fine. What do you need, Frank?

FRANK
Roger, your brother says my last three house payments never came in. Says I’ll lose my house.

ROGER
Is that so?

FRANK
But I know I sent those in.

ROGER
That’s not what the bank says.

Jill arrives with Frank’s coffee. Frank sips it. Roger continues to read.

FRANK
Your brother said the bank can get confused about these things. Said it’s no big problem. I should just talk to you about it.

ROGER
Here you are, then.

Frank bangs the table with his fist.

FRANK
Why are you having your brother mess with my house?

ROGER
Well, Frank. I was hoping you could help me.

FRANK
Why?

ROGER
Well, if you could help me, I could help you.

FRANK
I won’t put up with this.

ROGER
Then I can’t help you.

FRANK
What do you want from me?

ROGER
Well, I just want you to transport something for us.

FRANK
What is it I’m shipping?

ROGER
Don’t worry. One shipment for us. Then, no more worries.

Frank looks up. He nods, then exits the diner. Roger reads.

2007-08-24T01:35:00.000-05:00

20070823
01:51

Last time I ate steak here,
with you, like always.
that night I paid for dinner
we walked outside and said
goodnight, we hugged and
made plans for the next time
and you got into a plane.

I wish I could still dive and see those stars.
My sunroof wide open, wind blowing in,
that night I barely paid attention to the road.
I tried to record the constellations I miss -
there are too many streetlights here.

I could probably remember
those next few days
if I hadn't looked up so much.
I hear you landed,
but that one wrong turn
cancelled all our plans.

The same parking lot is a little less full now,
but my car's parking break is stuck.
I'll stay outside, looking up,
waiting for my calendar to match the one I see there,
it now holds your schedule.

2007-08-13T23:05:00.000-05:00

20070813
23:05

I'm in a session again,
one on one counseling
(talking about my words that
dissappear into the cave,
nothing coming back,
not even a muddy echo)
with a voice that speaks from
next to my inner ear.

we've talked about this before,
i need to stand up straight
think stronger thoughts -
better sleep and less pain.
I read from motivational books
and recite all those droning
self-help sleep-learning tapes.

we still listen for words to come back
i'm pushing my hearing to the corners here,
but i end up looking at the stuffed shelves.

even though i have days and days of
pages and pages of
lines and lines
to run my face over,
straining my eyes through to the letters,
my first and final shifting of the covers
are my flailings meant to quell the thought
that my message will never echo back.

so, sometimes,
I think it's time to see a new therapist.
I've tried on every door here.
i don't think there's anyone determined to
hear that knocking message.

2007-08-07T08:48:00.001-05:00

20070807
07:53

when I was younger
i pushed my arms
at the clouds.
we watched those shuttles taking off
stretch their wings and explode.
i'm 15 years older now
and the laces of my shoes are
as good as roots stuck in the ground.

but if you can keep your head up
i'll strain to move us there.

i started out then
brain expanding
at a steady rate.
but it reached the edges of my skull,
and i heard a low whining rise.
i've been hitting and
scratching my head on walls,
still hear it spinning in the frame.

but if you can keep your head up
i'll strain to move us there.
but i'm too tired to keep my promises.

but if you can keep your head up
i'll strain to move us there.
but i'll never keep all these promises.
my arms have been pushing since youth.

2007-08-07T01:51:00.001-05:00

20070807
0151

it's been a little while,
i should not wait.
it's been far too long,
those steps are washed.

your hair still rests there on the ground,
threads tangling together with those twigs.
it was early and there was that mist in the air,
i can still feel it filling and soaking my lungs,
it feels like something was rusted in place.

i should have had a plan
to follow with a row of checkboxes,
but all my paper was crinkled.
and, it's not all my fault,
i'll say it again and again,
your favorite dries too slow.

i'm closing my eyes now,
act like i'm clear water that can flow.
i'll run backwards in my head,
fall through your closed hands
and rest close to you again.

2007-08-07T01:50:00.001-05:00

20070731
0230

i'll lift my leg up,
go running at this wall
one more time.
my shoelaces are heavy.

there's an edge there.
i read about it once,
you can't get over it.
the ink in that book doesn't lie.

if i forget these weights
and strain higher than before,
the room between my soles
and the ground can grow.

there's always some cage.
but you can see through it.

the tops aren't so high,
you just learn to climb.

2007-05-11T23:25:00.000-05:00

20070511
23:25

I've been getting slow
in keeping up with things -
I don't focus much anymore.
Envelopes are forming
towers on my desk;
all my bills are past-due.

The nagging voices and
pinpricks on my neck
from a sense of epic
responsibility are
quieter after last year.
I get older
and I shrink.

There's probably a medical treatment
(removal of the skull to place a
freezing injection into the brain stem)
that is advisable in this situation.

I just can't find the number
for my local doctor.

2007-03-23T04:54:00.000-05:00

20070322

THIS IS AN EXTREMELY ROUGH DRAFT OF A NEW STORY. It has a ton of details left out (needed to finish it tonight for a class + there was a page limit). It will be about double its current size in final form.

My obituaries are even more excessive

If you are reading this, you are probably looking for a place to live for the next few months. Or, perhaps, you’re simply glancing through the paper at some point during your long work or school day, trying to stave off the boredom that saturates your brain as the hours pass. Your eyes flit over the classifieds, perhaps lazily searching for some great deal on last year’s model of John Deere lawn mower or a used guitar amp.
I don’t have anything of true to offer to those belonging to the second group. However, I do have something that should be of keen interest those people who comprise the first crowd.
One modest room (out of three) in the apartment I, and my remaining roommate, Ryan, are renting. It resides on the south side of the second floor of a house that is in a quiet section of town, a family-friendly area. This is a pristine area that has barely been, as of writing, infringed upon by the methodical creep of rental houses catering to university students. The room is outfitted with a connection to a high speed internet source, as necessitated by today’s fast paced life. The room is furnished, tentatively, by the belongings of the previous renter. As there has been no response to the requests for information about missing persons and no headway in the search for the former renter’s current location (please see endnote #1), the articles of clothing in the closet are probably up for the taking, as far as I’m concerned. That might be a little weird for you, though.
Rent for the room is 400 dollars monthly. We all pay the same amount for our rooms; don’t complain to me about the high cost of living in this city. Electrical and gas costs are not included in that sum – neither are water or the cost associated with the aforementioned internet connection, for that matter. It is, on average, 70 dollars a month total for those services for each housemate. Our house isn’t currently hooked up with cable television service, so you don’t have to worry about contributing to that fund as of now (see endnote #2). We are receptive to the idea of having it reconnected, if you feel it’s necessary.
I am sure, if you are still reading at this point, that you have some questions. I think this is natural. Any opening of a room in a house must imply some sort of break in the relations between the parties renting the house together. Yet, earlier, I employed the words “missing person” to describe the former renter. Your mind could be running through the possibility. Was it some dispute over funds which led to a late night bat to the back of the head? Or was it some type of dangerous teenage love triangle? You know, the kind that always contributes to the plots of those modern teen movies that end up as slaughter-fests or end with the introduction of some type of secondary character to allow for two harmonious pairings. Or is it something else that culminated in a terrible and bloody murder?
The set of events that led to the existence of a vacancy in our apartment are not really all that important in the terms of this advertisement. In all reality, I have already provided the details necessary for a decision about renting. Some may see elaborating on this topic any further as a purely self serving exercise. Additionally, it just so happens that placing an advertisement in papers costs a good deal per word these days. Further elaboration on this subject would simply result in the costs for this endeavor exceeding my original projections.
However, I do empathize with any readers who have found their minds wandering over the possibilities within the sequence of events that led to the disappearance of my former roommate. I often find myself extremely frustrated by the lack of disclosure found in much of today’s written and visual material.
As such, the story – as I and those involved (that I still associate with) remember – follows.
****
It was that day, the first day of spring vacation that it happened. I woke up around eight, the sound of my phone pulsing next to my ear bringing me out from some now lost dream. After getting up, I checked the time (7:30 am). I had a few hours before my parents would arrive to take me home for break.
I glanced through my door into the living room. No one else in our unit was awake yet, so I slipped on exercise clothing, grabbed my house key, and went down our stairs and went outside. The spring air was mild, all the snow had melted. The weather seemed to sense the oncoming break, it was prepared. I unlocked my bike from the tree it normally rests near, and jumped on. I started to pedal, moved out of my yard.
As you may or may not know, the city this rental property resides in is full of bike paths. Many of these are in close proximity to our house. It’s just another benefit for anyone who rents a room here. I pedaled, one foot after another, along one of these routes, crossing paths with people rushing towards work and others who were just struggling to keep their eyes open. I was back at my front door and fully awake after thirty minutes.
After reentering the house, I showered and got ready for the day. I put on clean clothing and went into the kitchen, searching for my daily supply of cereal. Ryan was awake by then, and was eating some cold pizza, blurry/tired eyes locked on the table. He looked as though he may have been trying to decipher a code in the fake wood-grain as he chewed.
“Morning. Any plans for break?” I opened my cupboard and grabbed the Cheerios. There’s too much sugar in them, but they make a good breakfast. I poured a bowl and continued “Just going home?”
“Yeah, I’m getting a ride home from my younger brother.” His eyes opened a little more and moved away from the kitchen table. He took a slow bite of pizza. “I’m just going to sleep and eat free food. Maybe see some friends from home, go to parties or something. Should be good.”
“Yeah, that sounds pretty good.” I took a spoonful of the cereal and chewed it, slowly, trying to taste the individual grains. It didn’t really work.
“What about you?” He had finished his pizza and was washing the plate.
“Well, I finished an essay due after break last night, so I’m just going to relax for a while when I get home. Probably just see friends, spend time with my brothers for a bit, nothing too exciting.” I was nearing the bottom of the bowl. Cereal always disappears too fast. “Any idea about what Kevin is doing?”
Kevin, who had not yet woken up that day, is the room mate the prospective renter will be replacing. He had (or has, if he is still alive) some method of waking up after everyone else in the house every day. This caused him some small problems in attending certain lectures. As he was the heir of a substantial mustard fortune, I don’t know that this ever fazed him.
“Not really.” Ryan rinsed his plate and placed it on the rack in the sink to dry. “He’ll probably just get in a jet and go somewhere random. Probably won’t go home during the trip. Kinda surprised he stayed for the end of the week.”
“Yeah.” I finished the Cheerios and tilted the bowl up to my mouth to pour the last straggling portion of milk down my throat. I still have bad habits from childhood, probably always will.
“He even went to some of his classes this week, for once. Kinda surprising. Maybe the bad grades caught up to him?” Ryan had walked into the bathroom and was now talking as he brushed his teeth. I was sure he was getting toothpaste all over the mirrors as he talked. “Threats of losing the mustard barony if he didn’t clean up his act, maybe?”
That seemed like it could happen
“It could happen.” I had gotten out of my chair and was washing my bowl. “I suppose you wouldn’t want anyone running a successful mustard empire into the ground. Lot’s of burgers would be rather tasteless, or something.”
I could hear a gurgling noise coming from the bathroom. I dried my bowl and put it back in my cupboard.
“I’ve got to talk to him before my parents get here. He didn’t get me a rent check quite yet,” I said.
Kevin’s door gave a slow creek and he walked out into the living room, a little bit like a zombie. He sat down on the couch and turned on the television without saying much. His eyes looked like they might be able to stay open for a few more seconds, so I decided I should take this chance to ask him about the rent.
“Morning Kevin.” I walked towards the living room. “I was wondering if you had gotten a chance to write out a rent check yet. I - ”
He stopped me in mid sentence, putting a hand up in the air in a gesture of silence. His eyes were locked intently on the television, his pupils widened a bit, jaw a little slack. I couldn’t make out what was going on that had caught his attention in this way, he wasn’t normally so rude as to cut someone off. I took a few steps closer to the television to gain a better look.
As I got close enough to actually read the television, Kevin stood up.
“They killed him! How could they!”
I looked over at Kevin. He seemed as though he might begin foaming at the mouth and his eyes looked a bit like daggers. He gritted his teeth. His jaw looked like it could snap in the pressure. Patches of red started to flit into his cheeks. It almost seemed like he was getting ready to explode.
I looked at the screen again. What I saw kind of heart the small child deep in my brain, but I couldn’t understand why Kevin was getting worked up to the point of yelling at a television.
CAPTAIN AMERICA: Dead.
That’s what it said, if I recall correctly.
Like I said, I don’t see why he was freaking out about this.
It was just a comic book character death, so no need to go to any extremes over something this small.
Kevin yelled “They killed Captain America!”
I shook my head.
Kevin ran into his room. He turned his computer on.
I sat down on the couch. The media coverage of this was kinda funny. They were treating it with the full force of the politically correct patriotism that had become very popular. He represented America, stood for traditional values, and was a symbol of patriotism. A real American hero. Wow. They actually said things like that? It’s a comic book character.
I laughed as the coverage of the icon’s death continued to play across the airwaves. Ryan walked into the living room asking, “What was the yelling about earlier, did Kevin say something about a captain?”
He saw the screen and laughed. Ryan read comics on a fairly regular basis, so I had a feeling he knew this was coming. I thought I heard him grumble something about Superman under his breath, but I couldn’t quite make it out over the sound of the television and the noise of Kevin moving around his room. It sounded like he was tearing things apart looking for something.
He came back out and said, “Have they announced the funeral arrangements yet?”
“What?” It’s really all I could say before I started laughing.
Ryan looked Kevin evenly in the eye. I don’t see how he kept from bursting out laughing.
“No they haven’t.”
“Good. Listen, I will be right back. Are you guys doing anything over the break?” He was running around the apartment, looking for something. He jumped behind the couch and grabbed his shoes. He took our silence as some type of negative answer. “Alright, wait for me here. We’re going to go to find his funeral when I get back with a car.”
****
So, it was like that. Two hours later we were in a car (where did it come from on such a short notice? Kevin claimed that his father had lent it to him for the trip, though I have my doubts about that) traveling out of our college town. Kevin seemed a little excited.
Why were both Ryan and I in the car when we had planned on going home later that day? Well, I can’t really speak for Ryan. After Kevin stated his intent to go on a trip to find Captain America’s funeral, Ryan just kinda smiled and said, “Alright.”
As I said, I can’t really speak for Ryan’s state of mind at the time, but I think he just found the whole thing a little more entertaining than spending his entire break at home.
I came along for various reasons. For one, I kind of thought that it might end up being something of an entertaining trip. I was also a little worried about Kevin’s state of mind at the time. Had something happened with his parents that had caused him to lose some of his sense of proportion? I’m not really sure, even after the fact. If anyone sees him, ask him about it and clue me in to the realities of everything surrounding that short trip.
I had one last reason for going along with the trip, one that actually made the decision for me, in the end. I really needed that rent check from Kevin. With what I thought might be his state of mind, I wasn’t sure I would ever be able to collect from him if I didn’t go along.
That is my explanation, as it stands. I called my parents, told them I would get home on my own eventually, washed my exercise clothing quickly in our washing machine (which, I should let you, future tenant, know is available for personal use of any renters in this house), and left on a trip to search down the funeral for a dead American pop culture icon.
****
Kevin had a plan.
It was already twelve hours in to the trip when he admitted that the trip had some sort of method.
“I have a plan,” he said. “We’ll go to California. One of the Captain’s creators lives there. Jack Kirby. If anyone knows where Captain America’s funeral will be, it’s probably him.”
Kevin pulled out some printouts from Google Maps, showing directions to an area of California.
Ryan laughed a little.
“What?” Kevin seemed a little bugged.
“I think Jack Kirby is dead.”
I looked at Ryan. He seemed to find this a little funny.
“Well, I don’t know.” Kevin scratched his head. “We’re already half way there. We will find out when we get there.”
“Wait, how? How would we find this guy?” I asked. California always seemed like a pretty vast area. Finding one person would be tough, especially if they were dead, as Ryan said.
I didn’t get an answer. It was a little late for me to be asking, anyways. Kevin had already lost himself in driving, mumbling under his breath. I think he had traveled too many miles to answer any questions that might limit the clear perspective his eyes had strained to gain.
****
By the time we got across California’s border, we had been in the car for a day.
I had fallen asleep at some point during the night as we drove. When Kevin stopped the car and slammed the door as he got out, I woke up. A little confused, being pulled from another dream I wouldn’t remember, I looked around.
We were in the parking lot of a gas station that I thought seemed extremely clean and modern. It almost shimmered in the light from a sun just barely clawing its way over the skyline. It was still early, it seemed.
Ryan was still asleep in the back seat, so I closed my eyes and tried to rest for a while longer.
Kevin came back a short while later. He got into the car and slammed the door again. Both Ryan and I were jerked to attention by the loud bang that flooded through the car.
“Well…” Kevin sighed.
“What?” I asked. Ryan just looked at Kevin.
“Jack Kirby is dead.” Kevin looked a little sad. “So, he can’t tell us where Captain America’s funeral is going to be.”
“Yeah.” I just let my eyes drift to the car’s floor. “That’s really quite a shame, I guess.”
“What are we going to do, then?” Ryan asked. I looked at him in what I suppose probably came off as horror. We just go home now, right?
Kevin pulled out another set of directions printed from Google Maps.
“We’re going to New York.” He said this with a very straight face.
“Why?” We had already driven across the country once.
“That’s where Joe Simon, the other creator of Captain America lives.” He kept his straight face, and turned the key in the ignition. “He can point me to the funeral.”
“Wait! Why are you even bothering with this? Shouldn’t we just go and have a normal spring break?” I was a little too tired of riding in cars to go across the country.
Kevin had already started driving, and his eyes were fixed on the road again. I was sure, now, that riding with him for much longer would not be the greatest plan if I wanted to return to school intact after break. He was probably depressed or seven other kinds of crazy.
Kevin didn’t answer, of course. Ryan had gone back to sleep. I tried to do the same, but just ended up looking out the window at the empty deserts we drove through that morning.
****
About seventeen hours later, I was able to get Kevin to pull over at a hotel in some city that I was too tired to recognize. I had gotten cold feet. I wanted nothing to do with going the rest of the way across the country with a madman and someone who was passively setting himself up for death.
I didn’t think I was going to get the rent check any time soon, so I decided to accept my losses and go home.
When both Kevin and Ryan fell asleep, I flipped through the phone book I found in our room. There was no airport in the city, but there was an Amtrak station.
I scribbled a quick note and called a cab.
At the train depot, I took out my credit card to purchase a ticket for a morning trip to my home town.
“One-way or round-trip?” I was asked.
Why would I be coming back here?
I got my ticket and waited for the train to board in the morning, sleeping fitfully on something that was the equivalent of a park bench. I would have looked at home in the 1930’s. I even had the trademark Hoover blanket, another lost person thrown across the country by a moment of failed judgment.
When boarding began, I crammed myself in to a seat on the train. I felt the last two day’s rapid movement across vast stretches of land catching up to me. I felt rather displaced.
The train started moving, probably wishing to make that feeling worse as it rushed me home.
****
At the end of the break, I went back to my college apartment. Ryan was there, but Kevin was not.
Since I was not there, I don’t know how much of this is true. I only have the limited amount Ryan told me about the rest of Kevin’s search, however reliable that can be considered.
When they got to New York, Kevin had, with Ryan in tow, tracked down Joe Simon. For two days he paced around the structure, constantly pestering the ground's guards. At the time, he probably seemed like a vagrant. Ryan said he grew more and more restless and agitated. He just sat outside the building simmering. Up until the end of the second day, that is.
A person left the front doors of the building at around 5:38 PM on the second day. That person happened to be Joe Simon. Perhaps he was going on a short trip to the market to buy milk.
According to Ryan, Kevin broke out running at him, screaming things about Captain America. Within ten minutes Kevin was in jail.
Ryan bailed him out. As they left the police station, Kevin stopped on the steps.
“You should go home now, Ryan. Break is almost over.” He reached into his pocket. He pulled out his set of car keys and a small rectangle of paper. “Take my dad’s car back to him; he’s probably looking for it.”
He gave the keys and the piece of paper to Ryan, instructing Ryan to give me the rectangle when he saw me next.
Ryan nodded, and started to walk towards the car.
“I had a dream last night, Ryan.” Kevin just kinda gazed up at the buildings surrounding them. His eyes had no focus. “I played chess with Captain America. He told me the meaning of life.”
His shoulders slumped a little, and he ran down the police station steps into the city. Ryan got in the car and drove home.
When I got back to the apartment after break, Ryan gave me the piece of paper. It was the rent check.
****
So, that, apartment-hunter, is why we have a vacancy in our unit. I assure you this isn’t a normal activity for those that live in my proximity, this disappearing act. The apartment is quite safe and not very extraordinary at all.
Any parties interested in renting the vacant room should contact Oliver at 154-538-8744 in the evening hours.

ENDNOTE 1: This account was originally included in a missing person’s report which I attempted to file at a local police station, with the intent of finding information in regards to Kevin’s whereabouts. It has brought in no information, as the report was rejected due to length. I have, however, heard rumors that there has been a man wearing red, white, and blue tights seen in the streets of New York at night. He bludgeons muggers with a circular shield, smiles at the victim, and then disappears.
ENDNOTE 2: When at my parents’ house, after a long train ride, I was greeted by the normal family salutations. After a short meal, I settled onto the family room couch and turned the television on. A news report popped up. The words “SPIDER-MAN’S AUNT SHOT, IN CRITICAL CONDITION” were printed across the bottom of the screen. I opened my cell phone, called my cable company, and cancelled the service at my apartment.

2007-01-14T00:34:00.000-06:00

20070113
00:34

My eyes are tired
and my throat hurts
so the words are getting stuck,
there's a ten car pileup
right behind my tonsils.
The train depot in my chest
hasn't gotten the message.

Letters and words and phrases
overflow my lungs,
pour into my veins,
suffocating my brain
and stopping my blood,
they pool in my fingers.
They might explode
from the jagged edges.

The weight from my message
may crush my bones and throat
and veins but it can't press the
keys or move my pen to tell
this story that will split my sides.

2006-11-14T21:49:00.000-06:00

20061114
2200

The crackle of my speakers
like all those Christmas ornaments
popping under my bare feet,
blood and cuts are the lyrics.

I'm in need of water,
to stop my throat from lighting up,
this manner of speech is too heated -
you're back in that spot on my bed.

Hands and flailing and arms
and kids making promises
and sealing them with messy
exchanges of diseases.

I'm just going to turn the
white noise up and let
my eyes droop to sleep,
can't get the glass off my feet.

2006-10-29T03:14:00.000-06:00

20061029
01:20

I can come back
eat dinner
chat like I never left,
a well-adjusted adult.
One swaying glance,
and the gravestones
holding my memories
pop into focus.

I will drive home
moving over these roads I
slept through for ten,
then eight more, years.
Make my way back
past your doorstep,
to a bridge over that river -
so many nights,
floating -
the roman candles of the sky
have not burned out here.

I might look
and see:
those constellations I stared at in
books and movies and on television,
this black page in a
book of maps for life.
Those long highways -
filling space between cities -
dotted by electric(white) road signs and
billboards.

I would drive to a home I left,
fall through the door into that bed.
Falling asleep,
can't help but tear my vision
from my favorite book of maps to
notice that time has shifted back one hour.
It could have been convenient -

we can move back on land,
yet never through time.

2006-09-30T23:46:00.000-05:00

20060930
23:44
this is the beginning of something, I don't know if i'm satisfied yet.
The house I lived in when I was a child sat about ten yards from the edge of a cliff looking over a small lake. In those days, my friends and I were attracted to that edge. The boundaries that were often given to us, like the time my mother told me that I couldn’t cross the street or climb too high in trees, didn’t have any obvious physical consequences. The cliff gave us an analogy for life.

In maps and aerial photographs it looks like any other lake, a body of water with land around it. Up close, to my small eyes, the land seemed to cut off and fall just about forever, finally stopping abruptly with an abrupt crash at a set of water-worn, mountain-like, rocks. It was a stop that frightened us, drew us closer.

We would play a game by that cliff. Taking turns, we would each run for five seconds with our backs facing the edge. Closing our eyes, we turned around and walked towards the end of the land. We jeered and yelled as someone was playing, taking the test. Whoever got closest before opening their eyes would win. No one got closer than three feet with their eyes closed. The thought of falling, while distant, was there.
------------------
Now, wake up in a room with three windows and two doors. One of the windows faces east and the others north. I wake up with the sun every day – other than the cold winter days that make you feel as though your heart is pumping dry ice, the sun rises later then - although sometimes I oversleep if my alarm clock doesn’t work. Normally I don’t need piercing noise slicing into my skull through my ears to lose sleep.

I walk on wooden floors into the bathroom. I like these floors: old and filled with experience. The feeling of worn wood under my feet, creaking with every movement, reminds me that I moved on, I’m no longer at home. The floors tell me that change is the only thing with staying power.

I shower, dress, and make breakfast. I place bread in the toaster oven, crank the dial to the sixth setting – nice and burned, every time – flip the switch to “on” and wait. I look around the apartment, trying to find some sign of life. My room mate is home, visiting his parents and fiancé. Any room seems expansive when you’re alone. I go back to watching my bread cook. The ticking of the toaster oven feels like drops of water in an empty cup.

I creak back to my room with my toast, eating with small bites. I turn my computer on. It’s noisy. Eight fans working at the same time, some in disrepair. The noise follows me through every room, every hallway, every building I walk into.

I check the news, browsing a few sites. The migration of news outlets to computers has brought an unforeseen flood of information to people. It feels like I’m wading in a sea of events, people, and dates. Almost all news today is bad news. I just close my eyes to it and try to keep my head above the water.

I put my shoes on and walk downstairs, to the porch. With a grinding click, the lock comes off my bike and I ride towards my class, somehow sticking to the road, the trees and houses turning to clouds in my small eyes.

My class is filled with people I don’t know. I no longer meet anyone I know. Since the summer faces have started to look the same, everyone a wax doll modeled after someone I knew before. When I look at the faces, I can feel the whine of my computer pressing against my lungs. I try to stay as quiet as I can; I try not to breathe too hard, worried that my lungs will collapse. The lectures are made up of words. I just take notes till my hand hurts. Then I leave. Left foot and right foot, alternating, I move through the clouds towards home.

In my room, I think about doing homework. I kick the thought under the bed, with my books, and check the news again. The waves of misery and failure tear through my screen again. I feel like my head might go under these waves, I might sink. I remember that this is how it felt near that cliff.

I stand up and look at the windows. Thinking that I might find something good, I look through them. Outside there’s a quiet street, a family neighborhood. I close the blinds, the floor creaking under my feet. I have three windows, but it’s no wonder I don’t look through them often. I don’t want to see it when the change catches up.

I creak back to my bed. I nap, dreaming of creaking waves.
------------------------------
The house when I was young was near a cliff. Once, at night, I went outside alone. I walked slowly away from the edge of the cliff, close my eyes, and turned around. I held my breath and walk forward. I could feel wind on my face and arms and rocks under my feet. A howling noise reached my ears.
I opened my eyes. Standing on the edge of the cliff, I looked down at the rocks in the water below. I thought about the fall to them. You would probably make a whistling noise on the way down, and then stop at those rocks. I wanted to feel what it was like. When you hit the rocks, I thought, it would feel like being grabbed by strong hands and hugged. Then the water would come; caress your hair and body with soothing hands. A sort of jagged kind and loving set of hands holding you. Hands like my mother and father had in my memories.
I always wanted to test the feeling of the fall from that cliff. I never got the chance; my eyes always opened at the edge.

2006-09-23T00:59:00.000-05:00

20060923
00:53

I can
wake up
below a heavy comforter,
stretch
and take a run
(one foot forward,
one foot back,)
just to keep
my revolutions in order,
and my days the same
freshly laundered
white.

Then
I can
fall asleep
below the comforting reminder
of the home
I lived in
(passing every day with
family and my dog,)
spend all this time
looking over my shoulder,
watching my window's color
absorb the day's dirt,
just black.

I can't
forget these times,
staring straight up
into a sea of
(extinguished)
stars of plaster -
try to take that
step towards the ceiling hanging
above my days and nights,
fall straight back down
there's no way for me
to move through walls.

2006-09-03T01:31:00.000-05:00

20060903
01:26

Before
we watched an orange flare,
a phoenix spreading wings and
vaulting upward into a pool of
distantly separated lamps.

Then,
wings locked straight (and a bit back)
eyes locked straight forward,
watching your target,
an egg you hope to lasso.

After
your rope is secure,
the line tangling,
pulling you in slow circles,
you look like a vulture.

Then,
ignoring the winding string,
you hold tight;
your eyes stay open,
we use them for our own.

Now
smarter trees have closed on you,
branches and leaves forming a wall.
Your path spirals closer till you land,
wings closing and
feathers dissolving
in another flare:
orange yellow red
(blood and heat).

2006-09-02T00:31:00.000-05:00

20060902
00:26

One of the star-light lanterns
wavers above the path tonight,
blinking until it shuts
the eye and sleeps (silent).

The sidewalk seems to expand,
each crack becomes a canyon;
the bottom is too far to see,
I will fall right in.

Feeling the way in the dark,
it's all up to the rough hands and
touching against walls of knives
and black pools of oil dew.

Ever since I was a child,
my eyes have hurt -
red lines like garbage,
images littered by others
in the back of my head -
and now I can't see in the night,
dark crowds of all my nightmares
(stalking and following)
surrounding the roads.

I've forgotten how to keep faced forward,
with all this rough terrain and uncharted water,
and that's where the trouble starts;
blind in the night and squinting in the day.

2006-09-01T23:48:00.000-05:00

20060901
23:43
Sometimes I just stare at the screen
waiting for my legs to plant firmly,
tense - always a tenuous balance -
and launch my body into the heights
(a stick-shaped balloon on a short string).

Somehow I manage to hear it all:
"It's not so hard" or "Just try to
GET OUT
and meet a few people, it's easy."
I tried,
placed a sign right in front -
bright advertisements and many sales -
but it got wet and the ink ran,
too much splashing from the puddles
and passing cars.

Someday I want to learn a language of symbols
(chinese japanese arabic or maybe sanskrit,
one of those that people glance at in the papers
and shake their heads because they can't see inside the ink),
write my ideas down,
and fly a single engine plane over the town
dropping black-ink drenched red loose-leaf,
the eyes of those below taking it all in;
each of the strokes an ounce of grey matter.

2006-08-18T01:12:00.000-05:00

20060818
01:22

A morning day finds me
walking over hills,
around all the curves,
following the lines.

I can watch as we arc
up and then
down,
tired
grass-drenched
dirt lifting our feet.

It will turn in a circle
(eyes straining to find
those worn, common edges)
'till our eyes roll back.

Is this
- I used to
think it was
the only road -
moving?
Or still?

(It's just fear.)

2006-07-06T00:31:00.000-05:00

20060706
01:05
This is something a little different....it's not done, it hasn't been edited, and it's going to continue with further entries. This is the first "installment." More to follow. It's "my stage routine."

I had fourty-seven bookmarks and three mail accounts to check that morning.

While I had purchased this computer - my first - a few months ago, my practices had become uniform. I woke up, slumped into the chair at my desk, and began reading. It was like riding a bike.

I had an order to my reading. The first few pages would focus on topics of relatively low interest. Yawning, I would allow the words to slide off of the screen, clearing the sleep from my eyes like a car-wash squeegee. The job was normally done by the time I reached the final few bookmarks.

Stretching, I made my way to the bathroom. My shower allowed my mind to buzz around the day's news like a mosquito. Twenty minutes later, with body and mind cleansed and collected, I emerged.

I didn't eat breakfast, that morning. I found no bread for my morning toast in the kitchen, so I gave up. My breakfasts were another routine, two slices of toast and a glass of orange juice.

I wonder when I realized that I would never get out of the house without a morning order. I think it was in kindergarten.

My breakfast hadn't been missed since I first moved into my apartment. I later realized that my order had disappeared by this point.

I left the house, locking the door behind me. The dew sleeping on my lawn was slowly being woken by the alarm clock of the sun. Its rays glanced off my part of the world in the way a sleepy lover says good morning. I thought that that morning seemed like it would make a good polaroid.

I had time before my first class, so I decided to stop at the bakery to buy some coffee. A new hire - a girl about my age, filling a counter position for the summer - rung up my coffee. She introduced herself with a tired smile, mirroring the sun peeking through the bakery windows. We spoke early pleasantries and spent some time exchanging mirror-house images of ourselves. Our conversation ate my morning's extra time, and I soon rushed out, escaping the lull created by that sleepy smile. Her name was Clara.

By the time I reached my class, I was late and my mind was occupied. That bakery stop had been a temporary break, I thought. I wouldn't think about it for awhile.

2006-06-28T23:13:00.000-05:00

20060628
11:20

I've got ten days with lack of sleep
and a declining apetite.
And this new headache,
aleve, do not exceed 2 caplets.

I've got that ten-foot list filled with
scribbles and jobs that should be
torn through with the claws of
industry, but who has the time?

I've got one bus route and a pass,
ride on that snail up
then down, glancing.
The blinds are always closed shut.

I've got borders around the eyes,
circles of people jabbering, a critique,
"eat more food, get more sleep,
drop your cynicism, think positive!"

I've got Emerson like my morning
alarm clock. He's right,
I'm wrong? Nature doesn't
shine such light for the rest of us.

I've got two hours left before being
thrown in a metal coffin and flapped
into the air by a green-duck flock.
If you wait, I'll wait. The promise in rats.

2006-06-20T00:46:00.000-05:00

20060620
00:48

Anonymous thrills,
hidden corners with
groping fingers and
stretching legs that
press bumbling and
harsh into the body.

White-washed faces
move forward -
without words or
thoughts back to
a picture (fraying,
that pair of jeans)
- and then they
plant our feet in dust.

A million numbing
open-bar parties.
I (like that turtle
ready for the race)
sleep 'till 9 am.

2006-06-15T00:34:00.000-05:00

20060615
00:34

When my eyes open,
a silent breeze coasts -
the cloud's sighing
- over my face, brings
my eyes into focus.
Their focus is now
renewed for their
profession.

Light floats over
the hardwood
floor, a dancer
on wood planks
summarizes my
limping walk:
a small part of a
virtuoso's ballet.

Windows are gems.
After my late-night
haunts I see the world
refracted,
renewed,
(revitalized).

It's the spring of thoughts,
the only reason we wake.

2006-06-14T01:04:00.000-05:00

20060614
01:02

I walked through the town,
a dotting of cardboard castles,
dirt paths an endangered species,
our earth is clothed in concrete.

The sun flew in its set path,
floating from volleyball serves
and basketball bounces.
I sat under an elder tree,
the branches now a history text,
caught by the glue between the
towering spires of camelot
and the bleached concrete structures.

As I held this stance,
I saw a girl bearing
straight into the
ear of a person
across the country.
She threw her arms,
and tossed her head,
kicked the dirt,
slammed close any rapport.

It's an odd sight to see,
an odd thought to think,
and an odd happening
to happen in our lives:
when the face breaks
(as the vase shatters)
and the water comes
out like the tsunami.

At that moment one
knows that they -
for a brief moment -
are seeing a stranger's
face as a shattered
mirror to the beat
of their (day-after-day)
emotional rollercoaster
heart.

2006-05-26T01:17:00.000-05:00

20060526
01:15

Something about the days where I
drive many minutes to my real home,
it sticks to my brain like glue.

Driving down the road
ninetyonemilesperhour,
the scenery becomes an
indescribable collage.
The car becomes an
arm, leg, and head,
sinews and brain,
tense nerves melt
(ice in the sun).

Gliding on the sun-roasted pavement
- the elder questions you again -
through farmer's fields bathed in
pesticides and whiteyellow-paint,
streak towards a peak.

Anticipation.
Shocks and frame react,
become a kangaroo for a moment,
glimpse weightlessness (too short),
take in our aqua-painted ceiling,
wonder if you are actually a bird.

Then
sink
d
o
w
n
again:

a gift for our constant guess.

Focus,
onward.

2006-05-24T23:45:00.000-05:00

20060524
23:43

Nothing but reruns on television,
we watch and then give up:
rent a movie that is familiar,
an old friend who is just visiting.

The furniture consists of boxes
(there are few places to sit)
but our friends will make due,
our tea-party must move forward.

Water from an aged pipe pours down -
snaps and creaks (with every bath) -
does this place even have a softener?
I remember that salt - when it rains...

Summertime and I'm stowed away,
cheapest place I could find.
I wanted this for myself,
I will make do (again, with the excuse).

Rarities pop-up once in a while.
Haven't watched this one before.
It's a relief.
I might someday enjoy reality (tv);

first!

it needs a real writer.

2006-05-04T01:20:00.000-05:00

20060504
01:18

I think we climb on the bones
straight out of the sky into
those eyes that glare at us
like weakening lightbulbs.

Use only 40 watt (type a!)
reduces the hazard of fire,
holds lives in a pattern,
keeps those kids in schoool.

Or we can raise our
right and left arms
at the seventy-four
degree angle, shout
intents, and we can
wave our arms above
our heads as blades
and hopefully avoid
slicing those heads
asleep in our room.

2006-04-14T01:53:00.000-05:00

20060414
01:51

Why does our world
focus on these
that hurt and scar
those fragile ones?

So, why do constant
displays lead to
these tears that fall
from quiet faces?

And why has lonely,
guiltless sex moved
in to the place
of kindest care?

You can not answer
because we are
in a deep rift
with darkened eyes.

And in the elder
piercing jests fly,
he sees that it
is clearly shown.

Our kind is losing
knowledge of the
one true word that
was uttered: love.

On then, we repeat
always the phrase
that shows our loss
in endless weight.

2006-03-29T18:41:00.000-06:00

20060329
20:46
(mediation on the KIA)

There was flipping though
an old notebook filled
with scratches and sketches
from those quickly!
get through-the-door
school days.

Find these images,
surgical MS-paint skills:
Michael Jackson with puppets,
Levar Burton
and that
dead Pope.

The gift was torn open,
like a deer's soft stomach,
wrapping paper removed
reveals any other gadget,
a momentary break in clouds.

Life can only go up
so far till it drops again.
Gravity toys with us,
the pogo-stick ride
of this small-town life.

In the middle of that night
mrandmrs c-a-p-i-t-a-l a
bought some cigarettes,
Lit up,
filled their front porch
with orange light - fireflies.

They were zebras with lost stripes,
but no one blamed them - we all were.

I write this with graphite,
accompanied by scribblers
who slammed down stories
before me.
You couldn't;
you cried your song
into those majestic
sand dunes without
a poet's pen or pencil:

your ink was
dark,
red.

2006-03-28T23:04:00.000-06:00

20060328
23:23

There's a noise in my ear,
(you will have to speak up).

I'm deaf and flipping
through all these pages
in all these books here
(can't notice your pleas).

It's true,
we're stuck
in a loop,
we just passed
that same scene
(again).

Can you please leave it?
Can you just let it go?
Can you leave this place?
Can you release me again?
(no).

There's a knock at the door.
(it's for you).

There's a knock and I won't,
I just won't.
(can't).

Let this all go,
don't let it get to you -
they can't make you.
(never answer).

2006-03-21T00:21:00.000-06:00

20060321
0025

So I'm running at that wall again,
that cold air rushing all about.
And these molecules are colliding,
explosions and flashes behind me,
our nature is really all to blame.

So our vision is coming back,
and we're staring straight up.
The stars are just burning gas,
and the light adds to the mirage,
that's what science tells me.

I'm just staring too hard.
I'm feeling blurry and tired.
I'm losing that sight we had.

And that's because our eyes,
they just hold lies.
You won't feel right again,
they're just like flowers.

So I'm trading everything I can,
finding something that I can hold.
These pursuits are exhausting,
so our bodies just fall in the river,
we can float right home, in this dream.

So our sky is exploding in light,
it's been going on for so many days.
It seems like everything is unravelling,
the shards from the broken stars fall,
science seems to be a lie, they were solid.

I'm watching myself float up.
I'm grabbing hold of the bodies.
I'm riding through those seas.

And that's because our eyes,
they just hold lies.
You won't feel right again,
they're just like flowers.

(so there's a global sale there.
we can buy it all.
i can buy the entire sky.
it's got a price at discount.

nothing.)

2006-03-07T02:24:00.000-06:00

20060307
02:35

And the light outside is mostly
from those windows across the
cold-black-hard pavement street,
filled with those invisible ghosts
of all the people who walk through.

And the wind just comes in through
the room's left half-way open window,
it's cold and biting and we just bear it:
because there's no standing the heat we feel,
when we try to leave it all alone
we just jump up to scream after a bit.

And the cursor is blinking now,
the work is left behind,
those letters that would be huge and long:
they're left to dwell in the typist's fingers.
They just spin and spin and spin
that's what it's all about, in the end.

And we're sitting out on the grass,
just screaming at the moon,
asking why it won't come down for
the night and play a game of cards.
It just keeps staring down at us
the smile condescending and warming.

And we shift and move about,
we aren't able to hold still next
to this table that holds all our
dreams, we can't wait that long for
them, let's just do it next time.

We're good people, we really are;
we swear it to you, we don't lie.

2006-03-05T05:43:00.000-06:00

20060305
05:42

And I have another 6 am
wide awake night:
I lay here smiling,
thinking of those figments,
they're all you left behind.

And I'm sinking in it again,
waiting for a call to come ringing
through this gelatin-thick night.
The dark fools me.

I was a foolish amateur;
I kept that same red
blushing face as you.
Spinning down from our peaks,
we chased the stars from the sky,
fleeing from the creeping day.

I talk to you in these nights,
and imagine that you speak
in a returning voice so abrupt,
so sweet, so poisonous.

You were right again.
I just can't realize it,
you really did leave.

2006-03-03T02:19:00.000-06:00

20060303
02:19

SECOND EDIT - cleaned up a bit....this is post workshop and getting ready for a contest....

I woke again that night. The noise outside of my room had grown since the last time I had been awake. Noise was streaking into the closed room with fervor and fury now. It drilled its way through the space between my door and the floor, driven on by the alcohol that was running through the halls like a river.

Many nights were like this, here. A night of restful sleep was rare; I could barely remember the last time an eight hour period passed with my eyes closed. When there wasn’t noise keeping me awake – there was always noise, sometimes it just didn’t bug me – I was kept awake by dreams. Haunting visions of the future and past, the real and unreal, the sacred and profane kept me awake.

Dreams drove me to the paranoia and delusions. I ranted and raved like a madman in the confines of my own mind, I stomped and screeched at the tranquil sky directly above my roof, I stumbled and fell over implications which could quite possibly mean life or death. I saw figures in the dark, specters in the light. Lines blurred, edges melted, and definitions disappeared. Paranoia and delusions drove me to the dreams.

It was a vicious cycle.

Sometimes, I broke from these demented apparitions. Finally I could sink down to unfettered rest. Often, I would beam convincingly at the darkened walls in my small haven in this dorm. I found sleep. A few hours would pass. Then, noise would blast into my eardrums, obliterating my peace. The noise that seemed miniscule in the face of my nightmares halted me at every junction of sleep. People in the halls and down below would not grasp my situation: their revelry was so thorough; they felt and heard only good spirits.

I thought this was too much. I was caught in too many cycles.

After waking up on that night, I stumbled out of bed. This was normally more of a falling motion, sped on by the extra height of my bed. The bed sat precariously upon wooden stilts, propping my body just a precious foot or so from the ceiling. The bed stood at the height of my mouth, an irrational height for sleeping, in my mind. It was like living in a tree, I could not stand it.

After I regained my footing, I slipped towards the door. My room was reasonably tidy; I abhorred superfluous clutter. As such, I had no trouble (beyond my fatigue) negotiating my way towards the door. My television always sat across from my bed, facing a black-blue spotted futon under my bed.

I didn’t like the colors, but my tastes didn’t matter.

My walls were adorned by glorious amateur-art gained from a trip to Europe in high school, posters claimed gleefully at concerts depicting my favorite music groups, and random stories clipped from assorted newspapers. My computer sat below the edge of my bed, across from the door. There was never anything on the floor, I kept everything tidy and in its place.

That was the thing about the hall I was in. It was always dirty. No one else took notice. I did.

Rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I reached the door. Pushing close, my eye was against the eyehole of the door. The music of the revelries still pounded into my ears, and my sight now confirmed what I had believed. What seemed like half of the floor was congregated across the hall, their mouths engaged in various activities, all causing noise. The hour meant little to them. The looming day of lessons failed to faze them, as well.

Slumping against the wall, I mused for a bit. I wondered about the nature of all things, floating around answers that I could never quite grasp. They were too obscured here.

Time passed quickly.

I asked myself (over and over) how could they make so much noise?

I found no answer, and, in frustration, tapped my knuckles against the wall for some time. Growing weary of this, I stood up, walked back to my bed, and climbed in. Anticipation washed over me – perhaps now was the time for sleep.
---
The next day, I trudged to my first class, trying to remember whether or not I had forgotten to complete any tasks for the upcoming class period. My conclusion was that I hadn’t. It was too late, anyways.

I entered the building my class was in, a towering and lackluster building (surrounded by other similarly tall buildings,) and sulked towards my lecture hall. Entering, I took a seat near the middle of the room. This made blending in very easy.

People watching was easy from there, as well. I was able to feed my voyeuristic side from this perch in the middle of the classroom. All I caught were glances of others; I never bothered to pursue a full picture or conversation.

The professor entered the room and began his lecture. Consumed by my habits, I was hard pressed to hear anything the professor attempted to convey to the class. From the constant observation of my classmates I found that I was the only one facing this challenge.

My memory did not retain the actual length of the lectures and the classes and the dilemmas in those days. It could not; my mind never found it important.
***
As I returned to my dorm, my eyes took in the city I walked through every day. There were streetlights reaching to the sky, buildings yearning for the stars, and trees withering to the ground. The smog blanketing the streets allowed little light to reach the pavement. I marveled that those trees attempted growth any longer. The smog kept oxygen from living organisms, I thought. I could hardly breath there.
***
That night, after studying mindlessly for a few hours, I ate dinner. Dinner, during those days, consisted of orange juice and random food purchased from the dining hall. The orange juice was the only true source of sustenance; I rarely kept the other fare down.

I loved orange juice. If I became wealthy an orange orchard would be mine.
***
After further hours of studying, I found the night wasted.

I always found that.

I went to sleep.
***
She sat at the table crying. She held an old phone headset in the air, allowing its crinkled paper noise to fill the air. I walked in, struggling with a vain attempt to organize my thoughts resulting from the maelstrom of events that had become that week. I saw her, the chaos residing in my head buzzing louder and louder. I walked up to her, reaching out. She fell onto me, tears filling her vision everywhere.

I asked, "Did you..?" My voice wasn't steady. The buzzing was louder.

She looked at me, replied, "Yes. We can't. Everything...we can't go back together."

I would remember the brittle feel of her voice at that moment, through all the buzzing. It all got louder. I stood up, thrashing my vision around the room.

"Why...who has any right..." I uttered. My head was filled now, the room seemed to shake and falter constantly. I fell next to her, wrapping arms around a shivering body.

She shook her head and pressed her face to mine. I hesitated, mumbling, "No...I'm...I'm not good at this. Not cut out for this."

The buzzing had overtaken everything now, the things I had seen were taking their toll on me. I could feel my grip on everything slipping. My hand was shaking harder than normal.

She whispered, "No. Shut up. You're just...just stop." She grasped my hand and we pressed together.

The buzzing slowed; colors – brilliant reds, yellows, and oranges – accompanied it now. This lasted for a few seconds, minutes, hours, days. I never had been very good with time. I pulled back and looked at her. She smiled weakly. The door opened and the buzzing crashed into me, making everything go white. I fell through the floor and felt my grip of her hand slip. I knew she was crying again.
***
My blurred vision came back to focus on my brick white ceiling. I saw my own hand grasping for the air above me. I hated this dream.

Even though we were miles apart, she couldn’t leave my mind. We had impaled ourselves upon each other’s spirits; too many connections were made. Her fragments would haunt me for the time until I filled the void her disappearance caused.

Cursing her, her parents, the world, and myself: I tumbled in bed for hours.
Wasting time on her did nothing.

I would never learn.

I slept again.
---
The next day I walked towards the center of the city. More oranges were needed.

Since coming to college, I had realized something. This realization tainted me.

Every day, every single day, I walked past the same people. Those same people walked past me. We walked past each other. These strangers, these people I had never met, became people I felt familiar with. I recognized everyone, every day.

We knew each other, yet were strangers. We walked the same routes every day, yet never gained any knowledge of those people we knew on the routes. We never found out each other’s names, never found out or interests, our dreams, our likes, and our dislikes. We knew each other, but knew nothing about each other. It was absurd.

Was that human interaction? Did it consist of a series of passer-bys that burrowed themselves deeper and deeper into your mind with ever day?

It was mad, absurd.

I wanted to scream out, I wanted to announce the madness of it. How could we do this? How could we disregard these people we knew so thoroughly? It was insanity, the basest type. It was vile, it was wrong.

I just wanted to scream out.

What would it do?

I lowered my head and kept it all to myself. I entered the market holding my treasures.
***
My friends always wanted to do things. I blew them off.

“Do you want to go to a movie?”

“No.”

“Do you want to go to a party?”

“No.”

“Do you want to go find some ladies?”

“No.”

“Do you want to go to a club?”

“No.”

“Do you want to go drinking?”

“No.”

“Do you want to meet drunk girls at parties?”

“No.”

The debauchery of it all disgusted me.
***
With a bag of oranges, I walked home.

As I neared the top of the city’s hill, I saw a girl I had fallen in love with earlier in the semester. We had dated for a month and I was horribly smitten. She wasn’t.

She still talked to me. I didn’t listen.

She was walking straight towards me; I hastened to a side road. I wandered the city for hours afterwards. I struggled.

While wandering, I thought about many things. That girl, the other girl, and the world I lived in. I ruminated upon myself.

Decadence was found to be the root of every subject I passed over.

There was only one positive thought that entire time. I was not having dreams about the girl I had avoided that day.

It counted for nothing.

I realized then – after many hours - that I needed to see a therapist soon.

Instead, I returned home.
***
I did more hours of homework. I drank more orange juice.

I went to sleep.
***
At the beginning of a day, I walked towards a building for class. This took me up the hill. I observed the world in the dreary morning light, filtered by the smog to simple static. My perception was drab.

I reached the top of the hill. I took another step, moving onto the downslide. I felt myself float up for a moment.

The smog lifted slightly.

A wave of confusion hit me. I hopped, dashing all cares. Climbing several feet, I slipped to the air for a few seconds. When I fell back, I braced my knees and launched myself off the ground.

This time I flew.

The smog had almost gone, allowing a clear view of the city for miles. I looked down upon the inhabitants and felt their sorrows and dreams and hopes and fears, and realized that they were the same as mine. I took them in, then, with a spin in the air, faced the sun. Experience raged through me.

The acerbic thoughts were burned, lifting the final remnants of the smog from my senses. I could see what happened. The knowledge beat the walls within my mind to mere pulp. Frightened, I closed my eyes.

Spinning. I was spinning.

After years, my body stopped. I knew I was facing the west. My body was a compass.

I needed to see it. I squinted. It exploded into orange. I felt myself pulled there. The light formed a path. A world of eyes darted to it, attached. The mouths shouted garbled revelations in unison, disturbing their tranquil smog. They marched into the orange, the west.

The voices turned to screams.

I opened my eyes entirely. My eyes, my mind. It all went orange. I floated away.
***
Waking, I leapt out of bed. I could see everything, well defined and articulated, in that dark.

I pulled on clothing. Shaking with anticipation, I ran for the door. Realizing my recklessness, I turned around and grabbed my bag of oranges.

Nearly flying, I shot through the door, dashed down the hall, and burst into the stairwell. I cleared five flights in five bounds. Suffocating, I reached through the threshold to the open world.

For the first time in memory, I was outside, in the open. I gasped at the air like it was a commodity. It seemed the cleanest air that ever touched my lungs.

I allowed myself a moment to look around. Seeing the light all around me, I was overwhelmed by possibility.

I glanced at the bag of oranges.

Everything seemed so light then, now, forever and ever.

Collected, my path was clear. I dashed to the west.

2006-02-12T04:02:00.000-06:00

20060212
04:00

I woke again that night. The noise outside of my room had grown since the last time I had been awake. Noise was streaking through the closed-in air with fervor and fury now. It bored its way through the space between my door and the floor, driven on by the alcohol that was running through the halls like a river.

Many nights were like this, here. A night of restful sleep was rare; I could barely remember the last time an eight hour period passed with my eyes closed. When there wasn’t noise keeping me awake – there was always noise, sometimes it just didn’t bug me – I was kept awake by dreams. Haunting visions of the future and past, the real and unreal, the sacred and profane kept me awake.

Dreams drove me to the paranoia and delusions. I ranted and raved like a madman in the confines of my own mind, I stomped and screeched at the tranquil sky directly above my roof, I stumbled and fell over implications which could quite possibly mean life or death. I saw figures in the dark, specters in the light. Lines blurred, edges melted, and definitions disappeared. Paranoia and delusions drove me to the dreams.

It was a vicious cycle.

Sometimes, I would break from these demented apparitions. Finally, I would beam, I can sink down to unfettered rest. I found sleep. A few hours would pass. Then, noise would blast into my eardrums, obliterating my peace. The noise that seemed miniscule in the face of my nightmares humbled me at every opportunity. People in the halls and down below could not grasp at my situation, their revelry was made through and through of good spirit.

Too much, I often thought. I was caught in too many cycles.

After waking up on that night, I stumbled out of bed. This was normally more of a falling motion, sped on by the extra height of my bed. The bed sat precariously upon wooden stilts, propping my body just a precious foot or so from the ceiling. The bed stood at the height of my mouth, an irrational height for sleeping, in my mind. It was like living in a tree, I could not stand it.

After I regained my footing, I began a weary promenade towards the door. My room was reasonably tidy; I abhorred superfluous clutter. As such, I had no trouble (beyond my fatigue) negotiating my way towards the door. My television always sat across from my bed, facing a black-blue spotted futon under my bed.

I didn’t like the colors, but my tastes didn’t matter.

My walls were adorned by glorious amateur-art gained from a trip to Europe in high school, posters claimed gleefully at concerts depicting my favorite music groups, and random stories clipped from assorted newspapers. My computer sat below the edge of my bed, across from the door. There was never anything on the floor, I kept everything tidy and in its place.
Rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I reached the door. Pushing close, my eye was against the eyehole of the door. The music of the revelries still pounded into my ears, and my sight now confirmed what I had believed. What seemed like half of the floor was congregated across the hall, their mouths engaged in various activities, all causing noise. The hour meant little to them. The imminent hours of lessons failed to faze them, as well.

Slumping against the wall, I mused for a bit. I wondered about the nature of all things, floating around answers that I could never quite wrap my hands into. Time passed quickly. I asked myself, over and over, how can they make so much noise?

I found no answer, and, in frustration, tapped my knuckles against the wall for some time. Growing weary of this, I stood up, walked back to my bed, and climbed in. Anticipation washed over me – perhaps now was the time for sleep.
---
The next day, I trudged to my first class, trying to remember whether or not I had forgotten to complete any tasks for the upcoming class period. My conclusion was that I hadn’t. It was too late, anyways.

I entered the building my class was in, a towering and lackluster building (surrounded by other similarly tall building), and sulked towards my lecture hall. Entering, I took a seat near the middle of the room. This made blending into the room very easy.

People watching was easy from there, as well. I was able to feed my voyeuristic side from this perch in the middle of the classroom. All I caught were glances of others; I never bothered to pursue a full picture or conversation. I abhorred small talk.

The professor entered the room and began his lecture. Consumed by my abnormal habits, I was hard pressed to hear anything the professor attempted to convey to the class. From my constant observation, I found that I was not alone in this dilemma.

My memory did not retain the actual length of the lectures and the classes and the dilemmas in those days. It could not; my mind never found it important.
***
As I returned to my dorm, my eyes took in the city I walked through every day. There were streetlights reaching to the sky, buildings yearning for the stars, and trees withering to the ground. The smog blanketing the streets allowed little light to reach the pavement. I marveled that those trees attempted growth any longer. The smog kept oxygen from living organisms, I thought. I could hardly breath here.
***
That night, after studying mindlessly for a few hours, I ate dinner. Dinner, for many of those days, consisted of orange juice and random food purchased from the dining hall. The orange juice was the only true source of sustenance; I rarely kept the other fare down.

I loved orange juice. If I became wealthy, an orange orchard would be mine.
***
After further hours of studying, I found the night wasted (again).

I went to sleep.
***
She sat at the table crying. She held an old phone headset in the air, allowing its crinkled paper noise to fill the air. I walked in, clawing at a vain attempt to organize his thoughts in the maelstrom of events that had become that week. I saw her, the chaos residing in my head buzzing louder and louder. I walked up to her, reaching out. She fell onto me, tears filling her vision everywhere.

I asked, "Did you..?" My voice wasn't steady. The buzzing was louder.

She looked at me, replied, "Yes. We can't. Everything...we can't go back together."

I would remember the brittle feel of her voice at that moment, through all the buzzing. It all got louder. I stood up, thrashing my vision around the room.

"Why...who has any right..." I uttered. My head was filled now, the room seemed to shake and falter constantly. I fell next to her, wrapping arms around a shivering body.

She shook her head and pressed her face to mine. I hesitated, mumbling, "No...I'm...I'm not good at this. Not cut out for this."

The buzzing had overtaken everything now, the things I had seen were taking their toll on me. I could feel my grip on everything slipping. My hand was shaking harder than normal.

She whispered, "No. Shut up. You're just...just stop." She grasped my hand and we pressed together.

The buzzing slowed for a few seconds, minutes, hours, days. I never had been very good with time. I pulled back and looked at her. She smiled weakly. The door opened and the buzzing crashed into me, making everything go white. I fell through the floor and felt my grip of her hand slip. I knew she was crying again.
***
My white brick ceiling blurred and came into focus as my roommate opened the door the rest of the way, walked out, and slammed it behind him. I saw my own hand grasping for the air above me. I hated this dream.

Even though we were miles apart, she couldn’t leave my mind. We had impaled ourselves upon each other’s spirits; too many connections were made. The fragments of her would haunt me for as long as I didn’t fill the void her disappearance caused.

Cursing her, her parents, the world, and myself, I tumbled in bed for hours.
***
Wasting time on her did nothing.
I slept again.
---
The next day I walked towards the center of the city. More oranges were needed.

Since coming to college, I had realized something. This realization bugged me.

Every day, every single day, I walked past the same people. Those same people walked past me. We walked past each other. These strangers, these people I had never met, became people I felt familiar with. I recognized every one, every day.

We knew each other, yet were strangers. We walked the same routes every day, yet never gained any knowledge of those people we knew on the routes. We never found out each other’s names, never found out or interests, our dreams, our likes, and our dislikes. We knew each other, but knew nothing about each other. It was mad.

I wanted to scream out, I wanted to announce to them all the madness of it. How could we do this? How could we disregard these people we knew so thoroughly? It was insanity, the basest type. I just wanted to scream out that it was wrong.

What would it do?

I lowered my head and kept it all to myself. My building neared, so I entered.
***
My friends always wanted to do things. I blew them off.

“Do you want to go to a movie?”

“No.”

“Do you want to go drinking?”

“No.”

“Do you want to go to a club?”

“No.”

“Do you want to go to a party?”

“No.”

“Do you want to go find some ladies?”

“No.”

“Do you want to meet drunk girls at parties?”

“No.”

The debauchery of it all disgusted me.
***
With a bag of oranges, I walked home.

As I neared the top of the city’s hill, I saw a girl I had fallen in love with earlier in the semester. We had dated for a month and I was horribly smitten. She wasn’t.

She still talked to me. I didn’t listen.

She was walking straight towards me. I was afraid of a conversation, so I quickly turned onto a side road. I wandered the city for hours afterwards, fearing a confrontation,

While wandering, I thought about many things. The girl, the other girl, and the world I lived in. I also ruminated upon myself.

Decadence was found to be in every subject I thought upon.

The only positive I found was that I was not having dreams about the girl I had seen that day.

I realized then – after many hours - that I needed to see a therapist soon.

Instead, I returned home.
***
I did more hours of homework. I drank more beloved orange juice.

I went to sleep.
***
The next day, I walked towards my first class. This took me up the hill. I observed the world in the dreary morning light, filtered by the smog to nothing. Everything was drab and lackluster.

I reached the top of the hill. Taking my first step onto the downslide of the hill: I felt myself float up for a moment.

The smog lifted slightly.

Hoping that I was not just confused, I took a small hop. Climbing several feet, I went into the air for a few seconds. When I hit the ground, I bent my knees and launched myself off the ground.

This time I flew.

The smog had disappeared now (for the most part), allowing a clear view of the city for miles. I looked down upon the inhabitants and felt their sorrows and dreams and hopes and fears, and realized that they were the same as mine. I took them in, then, with a spin in the air, faced the sun. Knowledge flooded into my mentality.

The negative thoughts were burned, lifting the final remnants of the smog from my spirit. Sensing that the burn of understanding could overwhelm me easily, I closed my eyes. Spinning, I screamed out the knowledge I had been granted to everyone below.

I squinted, facing the west. It exploded into orange. Witnessing this, I felt myself pulled there. I screamed this out to the people below, and they turned to face that I saw. Their sight exploded with certainty. I opened my eyes completely, and knew I needed no therapy, any longer.

Then, for a moment, I turned away, allowing my old self to insinuate fear. I fell, and died.
***
Waking, I stumbled out of bed. Everything seemed brighter.

I pulled on clothing. Shaking with expectation and anticipation, I ran for the door. Realizing my folly, I turned around and grabbed my bag of orange.

Nearly flying, I glided through the door, dashed down the hall, and burst into the stairwell. I cleared five flights in five bounds. Suffocating, I burst through the doors.

For the first time, I was truly outside, in the real world. I gasped in the air like a diver returned to the surface after a deep-sea treasure hunt. It was the cleanest air that ever touched my lungs.

Bewildered by my new freedom, I allowed myself a moment to look around. Seeing the light all around me, I was overwhelmed by possibility.

Glancing at the bag of oranges, I clicked and stomped with excitement.

Everything was so light then, now, forever and ever.

Thoughts collected, the path was clear. I dashed to the west.

2006-02-04T04:04:00.000-06:00

20060204
04:05

In that diner I found answers
to the questions people asked
about whether or not any of this
was worth moving or changing.

Sitting down,
observing patrons:
they move on in their lives:
taking whatever happiness they can grasp,
living in a world of simple self-gratification.

If we can open our eyes,
the shine below -
blinding truth -
will soothe and ease
these ailments we face.
We can move forward.

Somehow we can learn
(even with all this ear blasting
skull-cracking noise surrounding us
-
if we can dig to the quiet verse
-
we can find some wisdom)
to make a better existence.

If I can carry this tune for a little longer,
languishing in our darkening establishment,
someone might be able to create a song.

And...on and on...
(the voices will rise).

2006-02-01T00:18:00.000-06:00

20060201
00:20

There's something in this time
that is slipping between the fingers that grasp,
it's all in vain
-
so they tell us
-
we just can't afford anything
that can stop up this gap
or catch the flow that falls through.

Indifference is a great tool:
just need to keep your senses closed,
a different person can pick up the slack.
The manual can be found in the trash.

Why do we put ourselves through all this?
We make a mockery of all that we have.
Asceticism is the only pious way of life
(chairs get a little uncomfortable at times.)

Sick of hearing all the big words,
sound so important and grand,
it's not for me.

Just too selfish,
the way it's carried.
Please, just hold on,
we'll turn it all around.

The yelling from below grows...

2006-01-27T01:07:00.000-06:00

20060127
01:03

I stare out the window,
over and over,
every night,
and see that those people still move about.
Mist forms around them,
silent and oozing,
covering their words with smog,
their hearts are blurred.

The night sky stares at me,
I can only stare back,
we no longer have anything to share,
our love died moments ago.
I wonder at the purpose,
why do they bustle about so late,
why do they continue on
even when the proof mounts -
it's a spot of a lie.

As meaningless questions and phases pass through my vision
I see that I may be the problem in all of this;
I might be the one throwing everything off balance
(but I already knew that).

I look out at these people,
and in empty words can finally say:
"We never meet the ones we should."
And "We all die alone."

They can't answer,
their haze too thick -
they only amble on;
they discount the soul,
and cheapen lives,
create new illusions,
and thrive on lies.

I stare at their bloody apparations,
I stare at the never ending sky,
I stare at this whole cursed world:
will I ever hear an answer?

2006-01-22T03:49:00.000-06:00

20060122
03:49
Convenience (20060122)
John sighed with relief as he took another glance through his rear-view mirror. What he saw confirmed that his mind was not playing another cruel trick on him. Things might finally be looking up, he thought; I will make it out of this. Spirit unscathed. Still in perfect standing.
He opened the door of his car and stepped out. He walked towards the building his car sat in front of, feeling inside his coat pocket. He glanced up at his well-known stars again, savoring their glow.
Everything would be perfect, in the end. The automatic doors slid open.

---

The alarm called out at 6:30 am, like every other morning. John sat up, and, with a glance at his wife’s motionless body, which sat curled up on the opposite side of the bed, stood up and got ready for work. He reflected over the growing list of “to-do” items coming up in his week. There were several dinners, a few church functions, and other random social functions he had arranged to attend with his wife. Proper social arrangements were very important. After showering, he put on one of his suits, walked out to his car, and drove to the office.
He arrived at his office, parking in his assigned spot, next to several cars very similar to his own. He got out of his car and walked in, greeting several of his coworkers along the way. He did this out of ritual, he had secretly grown to dislike, even hate, many of the people he worked with. He was a little ambitious, what good Christian wasn’t? There was no room for emotional attachment with his attachment. He especially disliked his boss. He desired his job.
John worked as a vice president for a large corporation. From this job he gained money and social prestige. He also was given the opportunity to fire many people in this job. Many people would say that this would be an undesirable thing, and John would have told them that he agreed. In his mind, however, he saw it as something that was necessary. Not everything in life was always pretty. He justified his clean conscience while performing this dirty part of his job with his record as a Christian. He attended church regularly, donated to charities, and prayed every night. This dissolved his guilt and allowed him to sleep. Besides this, the action of firing someone gave him some thrill. There was a sense of power in it.
Today was a particularly fun day for John. The company was in bad condition, whispers of embezzlement and mismanagement could be heard everywhere, and layoffs were widespread, in order to preserve substantial salaries for the upper-rank employees. John took guiltless pleasure in his day’s guiltless work of sending many floor workers to the growing rank of the unemployed. He was a good Christian.
As he left, a fellow partner fell in pace with him. “Heard there were more layoffs in your division today, John.”
“Yeah, it’s tough,” John lied.
“I don’t envy your job today,” his coworker claimed.
“Well, it pays the bills,” John laughed, flashing a soulless smile as they parted.
Driving home, John thought about his plans for the night. He hoped his wife had remembered that they were meeting several couples from the church for dinner that night. The couples were all members of the local country club. It was an important night.
On his way home he drove past a convenience store he and his friends had sat in front of when he was younger. Decades ago, it seemed. He remembered looking up at the stars all those nights with his friends and discussing dreams. That was long ago. He didn’t deal in stars or dreams any longer.
He parked in his driveway and walked into his house through the front door. It was unlocked; his wife must have been home. He couldn’t find her anywhere on the first floor, she must have been up in their room readying clothing for the nights activities, he guessed. He climbed the stairs toward their room, quietly, hoping to surprise her.
At the top of the stairs, he crossed the threshold to their room, and was surprised to see her bare back. She was in bed with another man.

---------------

John entered the convenience store; the doors slid shut behind him. He looked around, surveying all that was around him. Perfect.
“Alright,” John announced, pulling a revolver out of his coat pocket.
John smiled his final soulless smile; he pointed the gun at the man behind the cash register.
“This is a stick up.”
This is perfect, he thought. Just like a movie.

------

John woke that day around noon on a very strange bed in a place he did not remember coming to. He looked around. Random bottles and cans surrounded him; accompanied by those, he was cramped into a tiny, dirty motel room. He couldn’t remember what had happened.
Then he remembered what had happened.
He ran to what looked like the bathroom.
He vomited.
He looked in the mirror. It looked like it had been several days since he had attempted to clean himself.
He had lost several days in his memory, caused by a constant string of bars and many drinks, bought on his shiny credit card.
His life was a sham.
He stumbled outside, surprised to find his car there. Discovering that it was unlocked, he got in. The keys were still in the ignition.
He wandered aimlessly around the city he lived in, completely lost. He drove by his place of work, wondering whether or not he even had a job any more. He drove by his old church.
There were no answers for him there.
He drove by his own house many times. It seemed cold, alien, and empty. He never even entered the driveway.
Eventually, John wandered into a part of town he did not recognize. Driving down what seemed to be the main road, he saw several signs advertising cheap guns. He pulled into a reputable looking parking lot and acquired a small six-shot revolver, along with six rounds of ammunition for the gun.
Oddly, there was no waiting period at this establishment.
As John pondered that wonder, he drove again. He hardly noticed traffic any longer, hardly paid any mind to the road. His body knew where he was going.
It was night already; the stars commenced their act.

------------------------------------------------------

As John stared at the man behind the cash register, people in the convenience store fell to the ground and hid in a panic. The store’s doors opened again.
“Put your weapon down!” The officer coming through the door had her gun drawn and seemed to realize all that needed to be done.
John surveyed the store calmly, knowing that all would be fine very soon. He turned around.
John pointed his shiny new revolver at the area the policewoman stood and pulled the trigger.

--

John stared at the stars over the convenience store through the window of his car.
It was odd, to him, that after all this time, the stars would still have the same stories to tell, the same meaning for him, the same power as they used to hold on those old nights with his friends.
What had happened to the dreams?
There were no more dreams. It was all a lie. Sham. Fake.
He was all of the above.
Glancing up at the stars, John placed his new gun in his mouth, pulled back the hammer. Tried to pull the trigger.
He couldn’t.
John cried. He felt that he couldn’t burden what he thought was his soul with this.
Shoving the gun into his pocket, he frantically glanced around looking for some type of hope. There was none. He looked into the rear view mirror to try to see his true self.
He saw a police car pulling into the convenience store parking lot.
John saw a straight path.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

John’s aim was true.
The projectile flying from his revolver hit a beverage stand a few feet behind the policewoman.
The policewoman shot at John. He noticed a sharp pain in his arm.
“Drop your weapon!” The officer was now sounding frantic, but still felt authoritative and in control.
John wavered, sweat dripping down his disheveled face. He focused and brought his revolver up again.
Perfect. Almost done, John thought.
He began firing quickly, erratically.
The refrigerated cases behind the policewoman began exploding in fireworks of liquid and glass. Fearing the intent of this madman, the officer aimed.
John was calm.
The officer fired a shot into John’s chest.
The revolver clattered to the ground, all ammunition spent. John looked down at his chest and sighed. He slumped to the floor.
All onlookers were horrified.
John floated away - no longer burdened by his evil - floated away, down a river of blood.

-

2006-01-09T01:25:00.000-06:00

20060109
01:25

I'm always worried
that I might find this
wonder-filled time
and space and place
(memorize coordinates)
to be an empty shell,
all these smiles and
jeers and laughs and
conversations which
circle like vultures
'round our bodies -
stuck in a slow decay
- to be as fake as
all those cynics claimed.

There's a truth bound to this,
(coiled around all the lies)
it stabs us at the roots of our teeth,
driving the light of friendship
straight to the nerves of our brain.

These strings and collections
(of moments)
can cover, hide, and repair
those scars caused by the vicious wind;
maybe I can forget about you (here).

There's nothing lower than the thought of me
trying to forget the thought of you (long gone).

2006-01-01T04:44:00.000-06:00

20060101
04:44

A new morning is rising up,
reaching its hands towards the horizon,
all I see behind is dusty trails (long travelled),
all I see ahead is muddy water (don't drown).
The new year stumbles forward,
life continuing on the set track,
a year's time is far too short,
no changes seem to come.
Does anything ever move with these years
other than the digits on the calendar?

I can look out towards the sunrise,
see where my paths may lead -
I'm still not sure of this winding trail,
despite this: (strong-headed assertions)
I want to find the answers I desire.

I feel like I'm stuck sometimes,
shuffling papers and shambling aimlessly.
This news that this new year came
keeps me pushing for my goals -
(you will have to stop standing still)
things will change if you will it.

2005-12-14T10:55:00.000-06:00

20051214
10:56

The top 100 baby names from 2001 were just plain great. Whoever picked them was a genius. In particular!

2005-11-14T00:52:00.000-06:00

20051114
00:53

There's a gate in my mind
holding back a flood of
random letters and symbols,
they might have a meaning
but I can't see it from here.

The noise in my head is rising,
it's starting to crack and waver,
a static obscuring meanings.

This hazy feeling I get
when I can't decipher the
words that go on this sheet
floating on the screen here -
it feels like a block:
none of the words will escape,
their meaning won't ever be seen.

Fear wells up through my mind,
all the jumbled feelings and
thoughts will stand untouched,
the deeper meaning never distilled.

There is a joke residing in this,
writing about writer's block:
no progress is made,
I'm standing stiff and still.

The scratching at the gate in my mind
will just reinforce it, cause louder noise.

2005-10-27T23:22:00.000-05:00

20051027
23:22

I finally scribbled that last page
of this past we lived in -
too much time spent
on all those moments we can't erase.
Who would have thought -
I never imagined it -
a crinkled piece of paper
could hold so much meaning,
so full of harsh words
and meaningless rhetoric,
it declares any purpose we had.

Firmly take my hand:
we'll make a loud declaration,
and smile,
(we're always flailing -
stumbling towards resolution)
we can finally softly say
it held meaning to someone,
but now we can shout it down;
it was just a waste,
it means nothing to us.

The last few steps have
been lacking balance -
the path is cracking and
we will soon fall to bliss.
What more do you want?
What more do you need?

My answers have never been certain,
lately I speak in the indefinite,
everything has become past tense
(like I'm reading from a record -
a transcript - of this life).

And the high school kids,
in their unpolished style,
write for the meaning of it,
they capture it, fumble,
grasping at undertones -
the author wasn't very sure
of what he was talking about.

Our histories do tangle and twist,
touching at points we want to lose,
the specters haunt us as we move,
our surroundings feel colder than before.

And on the last page I found out how,
we can escape from all we were.
So I count to three,
blink,
run;
the sound of my feet against the pavement
can cover the sound of my screaming past.

2005-10-27T00:31:00.000-05:00

20051027
00:33

How does a man know his way?
We enter the world without guidance,
our compass never could point north,
we blindly fumble for a goal.

This path is weathered and worn,
yet it winds onward into a maze,
nobody knows where they're going -
the end is the only point that's sure.

Our success becomes quantitative:
we search for meaning in items,
riches and possessions obscure view
of what we knew was important.

A young boy marvels at the pages;
it is happiness and wonder he finds,
it is unfocused and unfettered joy:
to simply live, to breath, to exist.

An old man watches as all passes,
his idols surround him now-
he encased himself in a castle of gold,
yet he wonders back to the young boy.

Our wanderings through life are blunders,
we walk stumble through a maze -
often losing our way and true focus -
innocence is lost as experience is gained.

Our pursuits no longer hold nobility,
we puff out our chests and feign importance;
yet, we crash to the ground at failure,
we are blinded to the value in life.

We the lost souls of this earth
face a labyrinth of decision:
happiness or the great gilded spirals?
How did this ever become a choice?

2005-10-18T22:42:00.000-05:00

10.18.05
22:53

I've been over this path
(over
and over)
far too many times,
yet the songs are all right:
time and life is just a blur -
these details won't be seen.

I keep over this path,
(over
and over)
it has all that I know,
I cover myself in its dust,
it all stays on the outside -
I won't learn anything.

I'll come over this path
(over
and over)
in all these years ahead,
I think I'll rushing to the end,
my mad crazy mind won't see -
I'm just flying in circles.

2005-10-17T01:38:00.000-05:00

10.17.05

The scientist is dead, would like to be left as such.

Thank you, please play again.

2005-10-15T01:08:00.000-05:00

10.15.05
01:13

The stars are alive again,
shouting messages down to us,
their lights are all lost in translation,
no one can hear what they're seeing.

The sun is one great projector,
our lives played out in its beams,
we're just puppets on the rays,
seasons are just part of the play.

The moon is actually an anchor,
it holds us in our constant path,
we just spin round, round, round,
can't quite find our own way.

The sky holds all the dreams,
the clouds just show the way,
never shows the end of the path,
just a spiraling trail into the blue.

The night will hold our minds,
embrace us in silence and dark,
keep our thoughts to the calm,
soothe and rest our weathered souls.

The day sends us onward,
spiraling towards our eventual end,
propelling us towards what will come,
pushing the moments forward till the end.

The stars hold all our life,
they govern all that we think and feel,
watching as we fall like leaves,
in the frigid autumn night.

2005-10-13T14:02:00.000-05:00

10.13.05
14:15

She sat at the table crying. She held an old phone headset in the air, allowing its crinkled paper noise to fill the air. He walked in, clawing at a vain attempt to organize his thoughts in the maelstrom of events that had become that week. He saw her, the chaos residing in his head buzzing louder and louder. He walked up to her, reaching out. She fell onto him, tears filling her vision everywhere.

He asked, "Did you..?" His voice wasn't steady. The buzzing was louder.

She looked at him, replied, "Yes. We can't. Everything...we can't go back together."

He would remember the brittle feel of her voice at that moment, through all the buzzing. It all got louder. He stood up, thrashing his vision around the room.

"Why...who has any right..." he uttered. His head was filled now, the room seemed to shake and falter constantly. He fell next to her, wrapping arms around a shivering body.

She shook her head and pressed her face to his. He hesitated, mumbling, "No...I'm...I'm not good at this. Not cut out for this."

The buzzing had overtaken everything now, the things he had seen were starting to tear him apart. He could feel his grip on everything slipping. His hand was shaking harder than normal.

She whispered, "No. Shut up. You're just...just stop." She grasped his hand and they pressed together.

The buzzing slowed for a few seconds, minutes, hours, days. He never had been very good with time. He pulled back and looked at her. She smiled weakly. The door opened and the buzzing crashed into him making everything go white. He fell through the floor and felt himself lose hold of her hand. He knew she was crying again.

My white brick ceiling blurred and came into focus as my roommate opened the door the rest of the way, walked out, and slammed it behind him. I saw my own hand grasping for the air above me, burning images of clean and defined dreams into my mind.

2005-10-12T23:10:00.000-05:00

10.12.05
23:10

Monday mornings are always nice. In fact, Monday and Wednesday mornings are nice for me. I don't have class till noon on both of these days, so I'm able to sleep rather late. Normally I wake up at about 10 and slowly prepare for my day, poking around online before doing any of my normal getting up stuff. I wasn't sleeping well Monday this week, so I woke up around 9 or so. I wasn't exactly ecstatic about this, but in retrospect it was fine. I stumbled out of my lofted bed and tapped my iBook to wake it up, and checked my email. I saw that there was a message from my Data Structures professor, which is abnormal. He never uses email for class announcements - why, almost two months into the course, would he start? I saw that the subject said something about Bill Gates and was slightly intrigued. I am a constant critic of Microsoft, but Bill Gates has a vision and a certain power about him. Bill Gates was going to be speaking at the UW on, well, today. Before Monday, I had no knowledge of this at all. Better yet, the computer science department had a hundred tickets reserved for their undergrad students, and was giving them away for free. Being the geek I am, I immediately showered and dressed and went to the CS building and got a ticket (picture).
This week, especially today, is a good week to be a computer geek if you attend one of the schools Gates is speaking at over the course of his 2005 college tour. Today was especially a good day for Gates to be speaking here, as an Apple keynote, given by Steve Jobs, was held today. Not only did I get to watch the broadcast of Steve giving us some new "amazing" products, I got to hear about the opportunities waiting for us students of computer science from Gates. A great day to be a geek!
As I walked to Weeks Hall (I guess they hold geology classes in there, won't be in there ever again) I noticed a few black, official-looking cars parked on the sidewalk (picture). That isn't an extremely common sight, and of course, the cars were filled with men wearing the exact same suits. Something like security? I don't know, but it was interesting.
I entered the Hall and went downstairs to the door outside of the AB20 lecture hall. There were only about thirty people waiting outside, with about 20 minutes left till four, when the presentation was supposed to start. I waited outside, watching the photographers shuffle about the room taking pictures of the crowd that was forming. Pretty soon they opened the doors, took our tickets and let us in. I sat down in the center of the second row, very close to the stage. It was a good seat.
After sitting down, I noticed just how small this lecture hall was. The capacity couldn't have been more than 300, and that was quickly filled. I pondered this for a bit but was soon distracted. I looked to the front of the stage, and saw that there were two shiny Xbox-360s sitting next to an odd assortment of small cameras under a large camera attached to what looked like an Xbox (picture). This was drawing a lot of attention, and conversations immediately started popping up about this exciting new technology. You could feel the energy in the room, everyone there seemed excited to be there, excited about what we were going to hear about, excited about our opportunities. Soon some odd music started to play and everyone became quiet.
The side doors opened and in walked Professor Gurindar Sohi, the Computer Sciences department chair (picture). He opened the afternoon by expressing the excitement we were all feeling in words, and showed a video greeting from UW Alumni working at Microsoft. He then introduced Bill Gates, chairman and chief software architect of Microsoft, and in he came walking (picture).
The room basically erupted with applause, and for good reason. This is man who represents the computer industry, maybe all of the United States, in many people's minds. Gates has an interesting image. He looks a bit like a professor, with his sweater and glasses. After the first few moments, though, you see the businessman that he is. He walks with a confidence, has an air of being a man who has a huge base of knowledge that he can summon at an instant's notice, and looks generally respectable (picture). He reminded me of my father, actually, with his thinning hair, glasses, and the look of a man who has spent many hours working on things he truly believes in. All of these sentiments were proven to be true when he began speaking.
He started out by telling of the beginnings of his company, of how he and his friends had a dream that making software widely available to the public would bring greater availability of computing power to the general masses, so they dropped out of college to start Microsoft. Most of us in the room had probably heard this story a million times before from millions of different sources, but it had an inspirational feel hearing it from the man who had overseen the whole thing. All of what he said was tinged with an intense passion for making the world better through software. He stated that he felt the two most exciting fields to be part of, the two where you could make the most impact right now, were computer science and biological science. Computer science, he said, was far in the lead, though. He outlined the various ways in which computer science will better mankind in the coming years, and stated over and over that he was generally excited for each and every one of us choosing to enter the field, for we will truly affect something. Listening to him speak about this gave me an immense feeling of certainty - a feeling I haven't felt about, well, anything in a long time - about going into the field. This was only the first five or so minutes of his presentation.
Gates proceeded to talk a bit about the roles people in the software field play. He went through the structure of a few of the teams in his company, and noted over and over the sense of "doing something" for the world you feel in the industry. He went over some of the research that is going on in the software industry currently, and noted that a huge amount of research is done at the university level. He noted that that is how a lot of students get recruited for jobs. He then launched into the portion of the afternoon focusing on new technology.
He noted that everything was becoming digital. Photography is of course included in this. Apple has known this for a long time, hence iPhoto. Has Microsoft? They probably knew it, but they didn't have their own iPhoto. Well, in classic Microsoft style, they now have Microsoft Max, an iPhoto killer (picture). To me it looked like the interface was a little better than iPhoto's even, but we will have to wait till iPhoto '06 comes out. Microsoft (codename) Max is out in beta right now, if only I had pictures. Gates noted that as photography has become more digital, more people have done more of it, so a simple management system has become necessary for people to deal with all of their pictures. He hopes that software like this will encourage people to use computers for various things.
He next went over the fact that computers have been getting much smaller, and pretty soon we would see "wrist-watch" computing. On this note he showed off the very new Palm Treo 700w (currently going for 2400 dollars on EBay in prototype form) and a new Motorola phone (I think it was referred to as being of the Razr class), both of which utilize the Windows Mobile OS (picture). He talked about the new opportunities in mobile computing, and stated that it would be the people in the room who would see the creation of the next generation in these technologies. Many companies would be looking to recruit new grads in the coming years for jobs relating to mobile computing, Microsoft included. When he returned to the note of recruiting he left the stage saying that he had done some recruiting work recently and had made a movie about it he wanted to share with us (picture).
To say the least, the movie was a masterstroke. It featured Gates in a dream where he met Napoleon Dynamite (played masterfully, per usual, by Jon Heder) at Napoleon's school career day. Bill was sitting at his Microsoft table in the small western high school with no one even trying to talk to him. They were all at the FFA table. Napoleon approached him made many Napoleon-esque comments, to which Bill responded by shaking his head and saying something similar to "No, I don't think so" each time (one of the comments was about Microsoft Bob, which was on my first PC in some form. We languished in Bob for many months, till we found our way out to the actual Desktop). Napoleon ended up asking if the pens were free, taking one, then many, and running off. As the story goes, Bill somehow agreed to help Napoleon "fix his brother's company's computers." This happens, there are many Napoleon-isms, and it ends with Napoleon and Bill dancing. Gates and Microsoft hit their mark with this; this part of the afternoon was almost constant laughs throughout the entire room.
Gates walked back on stage, commenting nonchalantly, "Yeah, we had a lot of fun making that." Gates positioned himself on stage right, where the Xbox-360s were positioned (picture). He talked about how computing was reaching to every aspect of life, including the living room. He commented, though, that the living room is horribly cluttered right now, what with all those remotes and so on. Wouldn't it be nice if we could have one device that unified all of those devices we have sitting in the living room? Why, yes, Bill it would be, but where would we find a device like that? Why, from Microsoft's product line, of course. He launched into an overview of the features of the new system, which, as anyone who isn't under a rock knows by now, are robust. First, he noted that the robust amount of features present in this iteration of the system (picture). He then became specific, going into the media capabilities. He plugged his iRiver media player into the 360 to demonstrate its plug and play ability, and listened to something by the Dave Matthews Band (picture). As he plugged the player into the 360 he noted, "You can plug any player into this. I guess you could even plug in one of those iPod things, if you really needed to." That got the crowd laughing. He then went into the photo functionality, which also features plug and play, which is basically iPhoto once again (picture). At this point Gates made sure to note that the interface of all of these was seamlessly integrated with the controller as the control device, it did look very simple to navigate through.
Till this point Gates had not even noted that the 360 was a gaming device. Finally, in a very Steve Jobs style understatement, he said something to the effect of: "oh yeah, it plays games too." He said he had one of his favorites in there; it was the new Project Gotham Racing (picture). He started the game, choosing "easy" mode, stating, "I'm not very good at these, so I play them on easy." Everyone laughed, and as he played through the level, constantly crashing into walls and clearly losing he made comments about how you could notice all the details, the great attention paid to the environments, the fact that the race was being held in Las Vegas and all the buildings were buildings in Las Vegas. "And you can see this all as I continuously crash into those very buildings." More laughs.
Gates then went into the online capabilities of the system, and other features. He also went into the wide variety of games that would be coming out for the system. The main thing I heard out of all of this was that there would actually be role-playing games, which will be nice. That has been lacking.
After finishing with the Xbox, Gates went into something that, in his words, "Is exciting, but a long ways off." This involved the setup that I noticed when I first entered the room that looked a bit like an old Xbox with a bunch of cameras attached to it. Gates threw his cell phone under the camera. The projector was now showing what was seen by the largest of the cameras (picture). When he placed his cell phone in the view of the camera, a screen came up (it was being projected onto the table the cell phone was on (picture)) asking him to verify that he was the owner of the phone. This required a biometric authorization in this case a fingerprint. After Bill gave the authorization, he was able to access and basically control his cell phone's functions using the projection on his desk. He also showed us that when he put a business card in the view of the camera, this software would recognize it as a business card, analyze it, and turn the information on it into a vCard, which could be passed to the phone. This software will probably only work with Windows Mobile phones, but it seemed exciting nonetheless.
At this point, Gates was finished with new products, so the Q&A began. The questions were all good, and he fielded them with detail and in a way that made us feel like he was treating everyone in the room as his equal. The topics ranged from the computer industry to education in the US. Gates has a wise outlook on education in the US, stating that they do a good job of educating the top 10% of students, but more needs to be done to improve the success of all students. The insight he has beyond issues of the software industry says a lot about the character of the man. My favorite comment of the night of course was focused on the industry, though. On whether or not Microsoft has made any changes in their plans in relation to collaboration or competition with Google now that Google has become a critical success: "Google. Well, we'll definitely compete with them."
After several questions, Gates had to be on his way to begin traveling for his next speaking arrangement. Professor Sohi thanked him for coming, and noted that Gates had spoken that morning at Ann Arbor. The professor gave Gates a UW shirt stating, "We want you to have a memento from the school that won." Ah, college football. Gates left to thundering applause.
Afterwards, many of us crowded around the 360, taking pictures, holding the controller (it's a huge improvement (picture)), and talking to two of the Microsoft employees who had come along with Gates. One of them was explaining the cell phone technology that was demoed, and the other had a lot to say about the 360. After getting some pictures, I left. Overall, the afternoon inspired me and made me feel more confident about where I'm going in life than I ever have been. The passion that Gates spoke about computer science and software development with was hugely inspiring, and I can only hope to fulfill some of the hopes he has for my generation of computer scientists.
I came home and watched Steve Job's keynote at the Apple Event. Like I said, it was a great day to be a geek. The keynote was nice and everything, but after seeing Gates up that close, no amount of jazz could do anything. Only five TV series available for download on iTunes? Step in the right direction, but not quite enough for me...although...those new, thinner, shinier iPods are nice. And Front Row! The new iMac is quite the deal. It's amazing.

2005-10-11T15:10:00.000-05:00

10.11.05

Recently, I have felt a great deal of nostalgia towards the days where I had a weblog. In those days I could write down things, vent my feelings, rant about frustrations, and collect my thoughts. When I began it was at a time in my life where I was full of malformed/destructive ideas, both to myself and to my position as a member of society. Basically, I was a dumb teenager fascinated with himself who thought he knew everything there was to know about life. This wasn't all bad though. This gave me the feeling that I had the right to spout out whatever I was thinking at that moment no matter what it was, no matter what the effect was on other people. This was therapeutic and extremely beneficial to my development. Looking back, without my blog and my various other web misadventures from roughly 1999-2002 or so I would have lost my mind. At the time, I was simply doing it because I had the time and I thought it made me seem smarter than most people. While the latter is clearly not the case, which I realized shortly after entry into high school, I will not penalize myself for having those delusions of grandeur and I will write it off as teenaged headiness. The blogging helped me meet people, provided a strong common ground between my best friend and I that is rarely rivaled, and improved my skills as a writer (very marginally).
For some reason though, I stopped. It became cool for people to blog. At this time, I wanted nothing to do with something that was widely accepted by society, so my logging stopped. My sites died, and were deleted. I felt I had better things to do and for that point in my life, that might have been true. Pretty soon, I found myself working towards eliminating any impact on the www I had made (this was unsuccessful, as a quick search of my name on Google shows. None of my weblogs show up though). By senior year even my long lasting livejournal was deleted; the last record of any of my rants and ravings from and before high school was gone completely. Not only did I stop working on websites and blogging, I stopped any regular writing completely. This I attribute to a lack of confidence. When I was younger I wanted to be a writer when I grew up. I loved writing, I still do. However, as high school went on I became more serious about reality. I felt I would not ever be able to make it as a writer, in any format. I stuck myself to the idea that I would go off to college and become an engineer or scientist, make money, and be happy in that. It was cowardly, but it was reality. I drove creative ideas out of my mind and hid them in places where I would rarely see them. However, considering the events that occurred during this time period, this was not a wise action in the least. I went through many transitions with my groups of friends, met new people, lost people, and stayed in the endless loop in relation to females that I still find myself in. I had a lot I could have been writing about. I didn't. If things happened that would have before found their way into my ranting and ravings I simply took them. I generally ended up beating myself up about a lot of things and spent long periods of times dwelling on things that I would have otherwise resolved through organization and thorough thought. I probably should have started writing again in the beginning of this year, in February, but I didn't. I let a person I had cared a lot about drive me into a shell for the rest of the school year and most of the summer. I didn't do a lot. I simply spent a lot of time beating myself up and got angrier and angrier with myself. I didn't sleep well for a long time. I think I could have solved this by writing, but I didn't realize then. I let, as a sage told me not to many times, "someone else's actions control my decision making and thought process." When I should have returned to ranting, I was simply holding everything in, allowing all confidence I had in myself to be removed completely.
For the last month or so, I have been in Madison, attending class as an undergraduate at UW-Madison. Since February I looked forward to getting here. The possibility of change, of a chance to find a new place and expand myself, and the chance to get away from the situations I had fallen into in my senior year became an extremely positive point that I looked towards throughout the end of my high school career and the following summer. Everything was going to be different, I was going to be in control of every aspect of myself, I was going to find a way out of the women loop I have found myself in over and over, I was going to be happy. For the most part, this is the case; coming to Madison has been a great experience, one that was worth the wait.
A few weeks ago, I started listening to a lot of Death Cab for Cutie. I had downloaded their entire discography over the summer, but had never really given any of the music an adequate listen. I liked Plans a lot, but nothing else seemed too interesting. This changed, however, when I came back to the start of my endless loop in regards to women. I met a girl in chemistry, she listens to good music, and she enjoys Death Cab. Per my normal actions, I of course started listening to Death Cab almost endlessly. "Expo 86" became one of my most listened to songs within a week, which is indicative of where I am going here. I went on a few dates with this girl; per the hard, established, cold steel rail of the loop I follow in regards to them, I became attached quickly. As is normal in this loop, it didn't exaclty go the way I wanted, but that's life. I move on. I do a lot of introspection and examining of why I do this over and over. I lose sleep.
A search on Google no longer betrays the formerly huge list of my ranting in relation to my daily life. For other people, this is not the case. I woke today at 5 am from an extremely odd dream, one that betrayed a piece of information that I had absolutely no way of knowing. I searched what the dream told me to search, I found what it told me I would find. Google confirmed it for me. I felt like I was going insane, these dreams were transporting the truth to me, realities and paths I had no way of knowing about, and I couldn't sleep any longer. This dream also served to display the loop I have been falling through in the course of my relationships for the last few years. "Expo 86" started to repeat through my mind as I tried to get to bed. When things are going well, I'm always waiting for something to go wrong. Everything goes along the same path, I get caught too easily and I focus on my failures and find constant fault in my actions. I let the actions of other people control my thoughts, my decision-making, my opinion of myself. Listening to the song repeat over and over in my head during my sleepless morning I realized I had to find a way out of the loop. I can't let a minor failure affect me in the way it has the past few days. I realized one of the only ways to do this was by writing again.
My action of holding everything in, not letting it out to be examined and reorganized, has helped to keep me in this troublesome loop. I can't let this have such a strong case in my life. I have enough decisions to make soon, enough things I am unsure about, without my mind focusing on all the mistakes I have made with women constantly. Therefore this place will become an area for ranting, raving, and rambling about my daily life so as to provide a way of organizing the very complicated things going on right now. For sanity's sake I may even pursue the one, two, three, four stories that have been stumbling around in my head for a series of years now. There might even be poetry (ha-ha!), as it always seemed to be a good output for angst. I don't care if anyone reads it, I realize now that my logging and writing was never really to attract readers before. It was to keep myself sane as I went through the loops over and over as I lived.