January 7, 2014:\u202f
We think differently<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re different.\u201d
\u201cI know.\u201d
\u201cIt keeps you back.\u201d
\u201cBack from what?\u201d
\u201cBack from life.\u201d
\u201cI\u2019m alive.\u201d
\u201cYou could have been so much more.\u201d
\u201cLike what?\u201d
\u201cHouse. Car. Family. What everyone wants.\u201d
\u201cI\u2019m not interested in that.\u201d<\/p>\n
January 25, 2014:\u202f
#nofilter<\/p>\n
I feel like, honestly, I have thirty years left to traipse this mortal coil. To right the wrongs I\u2019ve done, to love as hard as I can, and to eke every word out that my brain seeks to fill a space with. Love to me is a filter. Love to me says, \u201cBaby, just shut your mouth.\u201d You and I have come to separate visions of the same truth. You are trying to find peace. I am trying to provoke her.<\/p>\n
I was your lifeline out, and you were mine, and that was okay. And now it\u2019s not. It\u2019s about as far away from okay as you can stand.<\/p>\n
:\u202f
Voices<\/p>\n
This child is Christ the king. I can feel the saliva furrow in the edges around my tongue. And I can see you shudder. Perhaps it\u2019s because the words come in Hawaiian that they are tolerable to me. Kristo no keiki ali\u2019i. It sounds so pretty coming from the man\u2019s voice.<\/p>\n
Voice has come to mean so much to me. Passive. Active and the differences in between. Nobody gives a fuck except people like me. And, I guess, people like you. We\u2019re a different breed you and me. Smartest motherfucker in the room still, invariably, makes you a motherfucker. I\u2019m not quite sure that this is a bad thing.<\/p>\n
January 31, 2014:\u202f
Brrr<\/p>\n
Thunder is an emotion. I remember crying when I heard it. I never felt tough. I was never that guy. I was the one that had thoughts in my head. I was beat up by guys like you. I wasn\u2019t fond of taking a slap.<\/p>\n
But I guess you had to endure the pains life gave you. Gives you. Keeps giving. You may have asked for this. I didn\u2019t ask for this. It just sort of happened.<\/p>\n
I keep attention maybe two seconds at a time. It\u2019s a blessing and a curse. Most likely a curse if you don\u2019t like what I have to say. That doesn\u2019t make me wrong.<\/p>\n
Life is a mystery inside a riddle inside an absurdity. And we all know it. And we ignore it. You are a mess. I am a mess. And it\u2019s such a mess when we push our mess together.<\/p>\n
If you\u2019d have asked me ten years ago, I would say I hate myself and want to die. Now people like that frustrate me. They make me sad in a way that I don\u2019t like to be sad.<\/p>\n
Words come easily. Words come like water. They flow. Sometimes they overwhelm me. They\u2019re like a wave. They feel bigger than me. They are larger than life. But they\u2019re just syllables. Just harmless vowels and consonants.<\/p>\n
They push together to make ideas. Ideas are what\u2019s truly fucked. They make you think things. I\u2019d prefer to have ice cream.<\/p>\n
:\u202f
How here?<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not like it was a single decision. In retrospect it was more like a million shitty ones.<\/p>\n
February 5, 2014:\u202f
The folding chair<\/p>\n
The folding chair in the corner is so simple but so important.
It is the best means, at this moment,
at my affection and its communication.<\/p>\n
It sits simply against the wall most of the time.
It never complains. I never call it a bitch.<\/p>\n
It just folds and unfolds when necessary.<\/p>\n
It brings value to my life in a way that few people do.
So I say this, even though it may be ridiculous.<\/p>\n
You are so much bigger than a folding chair.<\/p>\n
February 28, 2014:\u202f
Baby, again<\/p>\n
She says to me, \u201cSoon, baby,\u201d and in so doing changes the world. My world, at least. I believe she might not remember saying it. I know it doesn\u2019t matter.<\/p>\n
For months now I\u2019ve walked like\u202fThe Boy in the Plastic Bubble.\u202fLike John Travolta in that movie but older. Watching couples as if I were an alien. Clinical. He says, \u201cX,\u201d she says, \u201cY,\u201d they laugh, maybe kiss, finish their drinks, then catch the red-eye movie before returning home. Rote sex and replayed roles are clich\u00e9, so I don\u2019t even have to go there for it to be depressing.<\/p>\n
The contact is what kills. The emptiness of wrapping an arm around yourself. As much as I may regret my regrets, it was nice to have an arm at my waist, a body within reach, and, ostensibly, an advocate.<\/p>\n
That pieced-together puzzle of want and need has seemed so elusive to the point of not caring. I\u2019ve always been a skeptic, but never considered the fact that I might be a nihilist.<\/p>\n
And then with one sentence she outs me as a heart on a sleeve. With one casual aside I am who I am again.<\/p>\n
March 2, 2014:\u202f
Salty<\/p>\n
Taste. Tang. Sweat. Lust you can\u2019t hide. Salt. Everything you might be scared about. Open. Your legs wide open I might think about. But it\u2019s your mind wide open that I wish upon a star.
\u201cK, you\u2019re not allowed to say that shit.\u201d
\u201cTry me.\u201d<\/p>\n
March 5, 2014:\u202f
You told me once<\/p>\n
You said, \u201cNow everything ends.\u201d
I thought you were ridiculous.
You know, I don\u2019t feel small. I don\u2019t feel less than anything. You could bring a dragon to my face, and I would breathe back. I would blow as hard as I could. You on the other hand. You vex me. The word, \u201cvex\u201d was invented for you. You scare me. I don\u2019t like to be scared.<\/p>\n
March 9, 2014:\u202f
I get to speak again<\/p>\n
This is the only place I\u2019m good. Right now, I only have words left. I scare my friends. I have a death wish but don\u2019t want to be dead. A child came and put his hand on my face the other day. \u201cIs he dead?\u201d \u201cNo. That\u2019s just the way he is.\u201d<\/p>\n
:\u202f
Dying is hard<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t think I can be killed. I\u2019ve tried so many ways without actually trying.<\/p>\n
:\u202f
My two greatest fears<\/p>\n
The first is being shot. The second is dying in a car accident. Actually I envision the car hitting me. There\u2019s an irony here. Everything that\u2019s supposed to kill me hasn\u2019t. I\u2019ve sliced my wrist and had my face smashed in. I\u2019ve been found unconscious more times that I\u2019d like to admit. It leaves me with an incredibly arrogant sense of invincibility.<\/p>\n
Clearly we die. I don\u2019t get to fight that rule. That motherfucker just doesn\u2019t seem to work, because I should be dead six times. Something wants me to try. I\u2019m trying. Failing, a lot. But trying.<\/p>\n
March 11, 2014:\u202f
Judges<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t get to be alive in most lives. Who am I to judge? I\u2019ve failed in spectacular ways. I fucking set the standard in failure. A woman that adored me and birthed two children that mean more than life itself. I fucked her over. For reasons I don\u2019t even understand. The next that loved me I fucked in a different way. I\u2019m talking about, beautiful wonderful, once-in-a-lifetime women. You get a shot a one at these. And I got a shot at several and I fucked them all away. Me. Not them me. They had their shit. Nobody\u2019s perfect. But it was me. I was to blame. I was the bad guy. I couldn\u2019t make things right in my head. So I chose the easy way out. The bottom of a bottle. And in so doing fucked my life. Fucked my wife\u2019s life. Maybe fucked my kid\u2019s life. And that\u2019s the worst. I could tell you stories that I couldn\u2019t possibly wish on my worst enemy. You couldn\u2019t see the shit I\u2019ve seen and still be alive. I\u2019m telling you. Shit get\u2019s worse than it sounds. I\u2019ve seen it. I smelled it. I only live because God foolishly loves me. My very good friend rubbed my face and said you are so lucky. And I didn\u2019t know what she meant. The love I feel in her hands right is an accident of the universe. For some reason God doesn\u2019t want me dead.<\/p>\n
:\u202f
It\u2019s not doing what comes first<\/p>\n
Am I evil? Maybe. Am I wrong? Maybe not. Things happen. By that I might know differently. We choose everything we do. I know the word culpability. I\u2019ve learned not to hate myself. But I know I\u2019m not clean. We move. We take a step. What can you do but take a step. So I take a step. Then I take another step. Then if I don\u2019t fall down I take one more.<\/p>\n
March 12, 2014:\u202f
Trouble<\/p>\n
Google it. Go there and my mind goes to the place that one place that you will not let me. And you never get lost. You are of the other hand I am I am you. I am the fucked up version of you. I am you if could shut my mouth. I have never shut my mouth.<\/p>\n
March 20, 2014:\u202f
Try<\/p>\n
\u201cI promise you don\u2019t believe in what you believe.\u201d
\u201cSure I do.
\u201cNo. No you don\u2019t. You haven\u2019t read it.\u201d
\u201cHave you?\u201d
\u201cEvery page.\u201d<\/p>\n
March 23, 2014:\u202f
Sons<\/p>\n
I realized that in my downward spiral of hopelessness, I was actually falling into the huge hole created by my absence of basic human graces. The most obvious was forgiveness. When relationships become a ledger of profit and loss, you have no friends. Just plusses and minuses. You are absolutely alone.<\/p>\n
:\u202f
Crash this train<\/p>\n
:\u202f
I actually know the answer to this<\/p>\n
Why, if you\u2019re pissed, and especially if your anger somehow gets into \u201cthe system,\u201d is the knee-jerk requirement for arrest, or worse yet, anger management counseling? Do situations not exist where anger is the appropriate response? Loud voices and slammed doors. Why does that require intervention? If someone lies, can you not point a finger? If someone flails, can you not subdue them? Why is the physically weaker person always assumed to be the victim? Tweety Bird is a cunt, everyone knows that. So is the Road Runner. I would love to see both of those birds swallowed whole sometimes with their casual manipulation of the cartoon system. I digress.<\/p>\n
The answer to the question posited in the title is this: risk mitigation. Everyone is so scared to take a stand. To be wrong. To look foolish. They choose the path of least resistance, and when they\u2019re in power, force the path that provides the least amount of risk. Right? Doesn\u2019t matter. Wrong? Matters less. Not my fault? Is the godhead of our modern-day legal and medical symptoms. No one wants blame. So they choose the middle path, when going left was the better choice. Just in case right was wrong.<\/p>\n
March 27, 2014:\u202f
F_{n} = F_{n-1} + F_{n-2}<\/p>\n
Tell me how connected the numbers three and five are. Closer than you and I ever were. On so many levels, by so many definitions. I dabble in these things. The truth in numbers. The truth in big and small. Quantum theory makes more sense to me than any catechism ever did. Fibonacci sequences seem to predict much more than mere numbers. This is beyond a set of fun puzzles to solve, but rather seem to be the key to something more real than the first ridiculous miracle at Canaa. With the exceptions of 1, 8 and 144 (\u202f=\u202f,\u202f\u202fand\u202f) every Fibonacci number has a prime factor that is not a factor of any smaller Fibonacci number. I find this to be far more miraculous than alleged water into wine. That seems like a myth told in the parlance of the times in which it was written.<\/p>\n
But the sequence has always been the same; it exists independent of time or even consciousness. The numbers keep getting bigger and never repeat, and you, like the Earth as I blast into space, keep getting smaller and smaller and smaller.<\/p>\n
:\u202f
I can count the times I\u2019ve been happy on one hand<\/p>\n
Not forever. But in the past three years. I\u2019ve smiled. I\u2019ve been not unhappy. But as any sentient adult will tell you there is a difference. The absence of pain does not equal pleasure. I might get what I deserve after the fact, I\u2019m not quite sure I do before the fact. I\u2019m not certain why there is a fact, why things go down the way they do. But they do. And they do. And continue to do so.<\/p>\n
Surely I have my share of complicity in the way things play out. And after they start playing, I\u2019m more likely to make things worse than better.<\/p>\n
And so it is. And so we are.<\/p>\n
March 29, 2014:\u202f
Be here to love me<\/p>\n
Otherwise everything is speculation. I\u2019m not here to be angry, though given the right circumstance I can usually be counted on to be so. Old behavior is extrapolated into guesses about what will happen. Vague memories have a way of becoming hard truth. Everyone\u202fknows\u202fwhat happened, but everyone knows differently, passionately. There are no witnesses that have actually seen anything except what they\u2019ve heard. Credibility is a measure more valuable than a credit score. It means more than the truth.<\/p>\n
Nothing happens without an equal and opposite reaction. Lies beget lies. Sorrow makes thing sad. Revenge makes retaliation inevitable. I\u2019m not interested in propagating any of that. I realize my choices might put me in the background for now. I\u2019ve never stayed there before. Why would I?<\/p>\n
This is not an ever after. Things will get worse before they get better. But things will change.<\/p>\n
It always has a way of coming around.<\/p>\n
:\u202f
I am trying to break your heart<\/p>\n
Meaning is so hard to discern. I admit to provoking extremes of behavior in the attempt to extract proof of feeling. Childish. A baby cries to be comforted. Not much different. I\u2019m not sure it was a choice. That seems like the search for a scapegoat. Especially this deep into the game. Stay with me for a second.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not unconvinced that my tool chest wasn\u2019t shunted at a certain point. I have a limited quiver.<\/p>\n
:\u202f
Stitches<\/p>\n
You asked me why we always end up together. Darling, I know 15 versions of you. If I believed in the supernatural, I\u2019d think you were a shapeshifter. You\u2019re twentysomething, but I\u2019ve known you for at least 50 years. I\u2019ll be 44 a week from Wednesday, but you\u2019ve been in my life for 1000 years as far as I can tell by feeling.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s only so many of us at the table. Seven, or less, by my count. And the transient nature of our day-to-day existence can\u2019t hide this. It won\u2019t be ignored.<\/p>\n
You and I are woven into the same fabric; we are threads in the same tapestry. I don\u2019t know what your role is. I know my role even less. But there\u2019s something at play here. And I\u2019ll let the weaver decide what happens next.<\/p>\n
March 30, 2014:\u202f
Quite contrary<\/p>\n
That girl ignores me now. I got too close to the source of her pain. She\u2019s mercenary that one. \u201cIt\u2019s just sex.\u201d No. No, it\u2019s not. Not for me. And it\u2019s taken me this long to realize. Not for you. I\u2019m sorry. I thought it was a game for you. Games, winners and losers, and, Baby, I don\u2019t lose. Maybe in the short-term my words are redacted. But that black mark goes away. My voice, one letter at a time, will never be silent. At least not until I\u2019m dead. So kill me or expect me to shout everything. Everything. Everything. Everything. Everything. Nothing is safe if I\u2019m not safe. Everything.<\/p>\n
:\u202f
Nothing is real<\/p>\n
Hurt yourself. I have no intention of hurting you. You have always been your own worst enemy, your own worst memory. Live the life that feels good. And ignore the trace of dead bodies in your wake. You are evil as I\u2019ve come to understand it. Everything is you.<\/p>\n
:\u202f
Highway kind<\/p>\n
Something is watching me. Something is watching over me. I\u2019ve come thisclose to making some fucking serious mistakes. Not less than ones you asked me to make. I did them with a whole heart. We can discuss specifics when everyone is friends again.<\/p>\n
Right now you\u2019re a threat. I\u2019m a threat. With no bite. I represent for you things that were necessary for you to get through. I understand. I hate you for all the unnecessary bullshit, but I understand.<\/p>\n
This is a short-term game. You win right now. I haven\u2019t done anything wrong. Not really wrong. So you lose eventually. It\u2019s just going to take time. I wish I didn\u2019t need that. But I\u2019ve learned to take what comes. High. Low. In-between.<\/p>\n
My only advantage? You don\u2019t know the low. I\u2019ve basked in it now for a minute. You\u2019ll panic when it reaches you. You\u2019ve only seen low from the happy side of the fence. The fence always falls.<\/p>\n
:\u202f
Everybody else was dirty<\/p>\n
Mutually assured destruction relies on the principle that either party prefers not to be destroyed. That goes into flux when one party stops giving a fuck. Bring it down, bring it all down. Burn it down to a stump, and then piss on the ashes. It\u2019s hard to negotiate at that point.<\/p>\n
I could give a fuck or I could give a fuck less means the same thing. There is nothing left to lose. I cannot lose anything more than I have already lost. So nothing that happens has any impact. You can test this, I suppose. The result will be the same. Mutually assured destruction.<\/p>\n
:\u202f
Listen<\/p>\n
There are lessons to be found here. Mostly I write so that you\u2019ll know me. Once it\u2019s out here, there\u2019s no taking it back. And when you\u2019re old enough, most likely sooner, you\u2019ll find my words. There are no lies here. You have heard distorted versions of the truth since you were a child. She can keep you from me, but she can\u2019t keep you from this.<\/p>\n
I love you. I have always loved you. I will always love you. Contrary to what you may have heard, you and your brother mean more to me than anything. I can\u2019t be current. But I can leave you a legacy of words. And no matter what others might want, these words are outside of their control and will be here forever.<\/p>\n
March 31, 2014:\u202f
It\u2019s a shame that it\u2019s a shame<\/p>\n
Everything you thought made a difference, doesn\u2019t mean shit. I take my coffee black. All these crazy dances we do, to be liked or loved, are transparent in more ways than we want to believe. I can see you dancing, so it shouldn\u2019t be surprising that you recognize me.<\/p>\n
I hate dancing. I\u2019m bad at it. I hate the alternative more. Stillness. Where are you? I prefer stillness inside you.<\/p>\n
I take my coffee black.<\/p>\n
April 4, 2014:\u202f
I didn\u2019t do anything wrong<\/p>\n
I waited. I need to just learn to shut up. I romanticize things in a way that can be far removed from reality. And I guess trusting my predictive abilities so many years later was probably not prudent. I need a plan. I can\u2019t see a pain-free way for me to extricate myself from this situation. But this time there is really nothing left to lose for me. Except a certain comfort zone I\u2019d found these last few years.<\/p>\n
April 6, 2014:\u202f
They<\/p>\n
They never care if it\u2019s true, as long as there\u2019s something to prove. And there\u2019s always something to prove.<\/p>\n
April 8, 2014:\u202f
You<\/p>\n
You are evil in ways I can\u2019t even count. And you\u2019ve destroyed lives needlessly. Have you looked at yourself? Do you see what your casual indiscretions have started? I guess I don\u2019t understand what motivates you. I\u2019m lost. I thought I knew you, but clearly I don\u2019t have the slightest what motivates you.<\/p>\n
April 12, 2014:\u202f
The room is empty<\/p>\n
No one is ever going to love me again. I mean not like the way you think about when you masturbate. I missed my window. You know how we idolize female virginity? We do it in the opposite way for men and in that sense, I\u2019m a fucking slut.<\/p>\n
I made a couple of mistakes in judgement.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m good at what I do, but I\u2019m the best at what I\u2019m bad at. Like at the cellular level. I am bad everywhere you can possibly be bad. Exponential mistakes. I won\u2019t punch you in the face, but I will piss on your floor (not on purpose).<\/p>\n
I have several good people wash their hands and say no more.<\/p>\n
My mother called me repulsive and disgusting today. And she loves me. So you might imagine what someone who was a bit less fond might come up with. None of it was on my list of things that I like to hear.<\/p>\n
Who still loves me. The list gets shorter every moment. The irony is my behavior was much worse five years ago. But the rope gets shorter. Until it only fits around your neck.<\/p>\n
Last night I looked into the ocean, and I was three seconds away from jumping in. See how far I could swim. A shark would probably get me before the water would. This might be hard to believe, but I\u2019m not interested in being dead.<\/p>\n
Where I\u2019m standing at sucks. But I fucking walked here.<\/p>\n
:\u202f
China<\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t used to be good looking. I\u2019m not saying that I am now. No one wanted to fuck me before, and now some do. So I guess things change. Everything changed at that point.<\/p>\n
I was sad then, but not like now.<\/p>\n
Then it was situational. And now it\u2019s profound. I can\u2019t feel anything else. I can laugh at a joke. Sad movies make me cry harder. But I feel numb.<\/p>\n
Everything is different.<\/p>\n
The weird part is that it\u2019s not the pain. The pain comes from being not able to feel. I used to feel everything. And now I hurt myself to feel something. To prove that it hasn\u2019t ended.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s fascinating how I\u2019m not trying to hasten the end of things. But every decision seems to be a will to power in that direction.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t know how to live in this world right now. Everyone seems foreign, different. I understand people, ostensibly, but they\u2019re speaking different words than I would choose.<\/p>\n
Am I so different?<\/p>\n
I can hear you, but it\u2019s so far removed from what I might choose to say or hear, that we\u2019re like different species. Chinese makes more sense to me and I know very little Chinese.<\/p>\n
April 14, 2014:\u202f
Everything that rises must, you know, what she said<\/p>\n
I woke up in a tool shed. Not on purpose. And I was lucky to be there. That\u2019s a hard story to explain. Give me a couple of hours and things will seem obvious.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s strange how things come around. Choices. Every second is a choice. I\u2019ve made some bad ones.<\/p>\n
Shallow and hollow.<\/p>\n
I spoke to a priest today. And I tried to believe for two hours. Need is not quite belief.<\/p>\n
He said some things that might be compelling on a good day. I asked him if Eve fucked Seth or how else would the world be 7 billion and counting. I asked him if Noah dropped the kangaroos off in Australia, and the eastern diamondback rattlesnakes in New Mexico. I asked him if Jesus walked on water, and made fish out of air. I asked him why god was a man, and that provoked his best answer. \u201cThe way humans are, no one would have listened to a woman.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fuck. That\u2019s remarkably honest. It made me want to believe him.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t believe in anything, remember?<\/p>\n
I have some really close friends. And I\u2019ve done my best to tear those relationships to shreds. The dialogue is silent. Hands reaching out, most of them, have pulled back from the flame.<\/p>\n
When it was happening, the civil war that was my marriage, seemed like I was the victim. I hurt that woman, those women, every woman that crosses my path. Some of them might have a little more complicity with sharing my terribility. F was a good woman. She was someone I didn\u2019t know how to love.<\/p>\n
She loved me first, hard, and I punished her for it because I lacked a chase. I remember the first time she said she loved me. A gray Mitsubishi Eclipse. The song\u202fAmazed\u202fby Lonestar was playing. She cried. I asked her \u201cIsn\u2019t love a good thing?\u201d But I resented being tearless. I came around when it was too late.<\/p>\n
Hindsight can kiss my ass.<\/p>\n
The next one was damaged but came when I needed a place to put parts of me in other things. I was crazy about her, but mostly I was crazy.<\/p>\n
And now the litany of little girls, whores and broken ones don\u2019t shine a bad light on them. It\u2019s more like a mirror of what I\u2019ve become. I can only love what\u2019s broken because I\u2019m more broken.<\/p>\n
I walked so far today, that I thought I was going to throw up because I was in so much pain. My feet were throbbing because the blisters were turning bloody and growing. But I kept walking. I used the bathroom and my underwear was also covered in blood. And then the pain stopped. It always stops.<\/p>\n
I used to be surprised by the capacity for pain. And in the history of the world, I haven\u2019t felt that much. Beatings stop hurting after a few hits. Feet go dead. I\u2019ve never been burned at the stake, so I can\u2019t speak to that, but I\u2019m pretty sure it gets less worse with time. I once sliced my wrist so badly I couldn\u2019t move it, but my memory isn\u2019t pain. It was fascination with the amount of blood and how deep the wound was. I didn\u2019t even call an ambulance. I would have bled out if my neighbor didn\u2019t notice the puddles of blood I left behind.<\/p>\n
Pain is weird that way. Survival kicks in I guess so you don\u2019t have to experience the worst of things. Feelings are not quite as efficient with that. They reveal a weakness far more profound than an inability to lift something heavy off the ground.<\/p>\n
When I rise, and I will rise, I hope feeling comes back.<\/p>\n
:\u202f
Impulse, selfish<\/p>\n
So this is the place I start. Blind and in rage. Or perhaps this is where it ends. So many other things have ended. So many more important things. A daughter\u2019s love is muted. A son in a vacuum. There was a time of loving embrace.<\/p>\n
Vindication may be correct, but there are victims. Two of them are innocent. For now. The rest of us have blood on our hands. And there is blood in the water. Chum. I don\u2019t think ends well for anyone. There are some longer lasting effects I guess, but only because they live longer.<\/p>\n
I never wanted this. I never wanted any of this. I made the mistake. It was my mistake. I blamed it on so many things for so long. It actually feels good to say it\u2019s mine. I chose. I said yes when I should have said no. In so doing I changed six lives instantly, and dozens more peripherally. My fault. Me. I could have went right, but I went left. And then I kept going left.<\/p>\n
I wish I could explain, but it\u2019s encapsulated in two words.<\/p>\n
:\u202f
The healing power of being confessed<\/p>\n
It\u2019s lost. I have this dysfunction, this compulsion, to throw everything away when I feel like I\u2019m losing. It\u2019s self destructive in the most curious way. It turns what can be saved into nothing, just ashes of a burned situation. Sometimes less than nothing, depending on your vantage point.<\/p>\n
I did it as a child. I did it during my divorce. I don\u2019t remember when I didn\u2019t do it. You can make the argument that I\u2019m doing it right now.<\/p>\n
Much like a toddler, I am ruled by impulse. I read once that children are naturally polyamorous. They sexualize things, not just people. Their needs are immediate and quite often all-consuming. The world revolves around a need for self.<\/p>\n
I am a toddler.<\/p>\n
I am a toddler with a large vocabulary and an IQ that is higher than you might think given the things I\u2019ve done. But like a toddler, most of it is innocence. That\u2019s half true. Like a toddler I lie and I\u2019m bad at it.<\/p>\n
When hurt, I speak to hurt. And I do it well. Better than most. I\u2019ve said things you can\u2019t take back more than is probably conducive to a good life. It\u2019s strange because I used to be so happy. And now I can\u2019t even feel badly correctly.<\/p>\n
I have learned one thing in the last few years. Not taking a swing is not better than shutting your mouth. Welts, bruises, that shit heals. Words, once spoken, live forever.<\/p>\n
:\u202f
You are the worst writer I know<\/p>\n
No one likes what you write out loud.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s not true. And that is one of the fundamental differences in our understanding of life.<\/p>\n
You don\u2019t like things hard, and I don\u2019t do things easily.<\/p>\n
You said what I write is disgusting. And not coincidentally that\u2019s not the first time I\u2019ve been described that way. I\u2019m going to own that. I am disgusting. I\u2019m a pervert. I go places in my mind that most people shy away from. Or at least they don\u2019t admit to thinking. I have terrible thoughts. And I write the ones that sound good in my head. Or funny. Or frightening. I\u2019m just trying to not be bored.<\/p>\n
I remember when I turned ten thinking it was so cool to be a decade. A neighbor\u2019s father told me, \u201cIt\u2019s ten today. Tomorrow it\u2019s twenty, thirty, forty.\u201d He was right. We shuffle off this mortal coil with blinding speed, especially in the larger scheme of things.<\/p>\n
Boredom\u2019s not a burden anyone should bear.<\/p>\n
April 17, 2014:\u202f
The Pajama Game and the 23rd Step<\/p>\n
The sheets were tight and cool. She was wet, but there was nothing on the bed when we stood. We ate. I had a meatball sandwich. She had a manapua. In Hawaiian, mana means power and pua means flower. But \u201cflower power\u201d is just a good example of how translations are almost never literal. The Hawaiian word is thought to be an intra-linguistic creole of mana\u2019o (thought), ono (delicious), and pua\u2019a (pig). No one knows for sure. When I told her I was writing this she asked me to use three words to see if I could pull it off in a love story. There is no other purpose. Unless you can recognize a metaphor.<\/p>\n
That night I walked home happy. Our fingers interlocked after nightswimming in the lagoon. That seems like a common thing to say, happy. But I hadn\u2019t been that way in a while.<\/p>\n
She is beautiful, and not just in her pretty face. And not just in her body which is pretty too. She had me from the moment I put my ears on her. She had me from, \u201cHello,\u201d though I don\u2019t remember who said, \u201cYes,\u201d first. I\u2019m sure I probably thought it first, but given her chosen entanglements, it was always on her to make that call.<\/p>\n
She had a boyfriend and a girlfriend, and at one point a husband. Even then, like now, she let me inside of her on occasion. It was never just the physical sensation, which of course was always pleasant. It was more like rubbing souls. At different paces like a Pixies song: fast, slow, fast.<\/p>\n
I loved her before all of that. I still do. But you know how it goes. Being inside someone physically, or even metaphorically, changes things. It hurt when circumstances made her have to go. Though I suppose that\u2019s better than it being my fault, like it usually is.<\/p>\n
Outside of this body, it might seem like a joke, to feel so deeply so soon. But there was nothing funny about this to me. I know I never laughed about it.<\/p>\n
She taught me there are things that you don\u2019t know about yourself until they happen. Many times these things are less than comfortable. Still, we live.<\/p>\n
April 18, 2014:\u202f
I hope this whole thing didn\u2019t frighten you<\/p>\n
That phrase sort of loses it\u2019s ironic slither, if I have to tell you its intent. It means neither what it says nor the opposite. Everyone seems so literal these days. \u201cWhat became of subtlety?\u201d I\u2019ve often wondered the same thing. Straightforward, non-ambiguous ambition is seen as strength of character, but is really just another kind of blindness. And seeking discretion, in both meanings of the word, is considered a form of weakness. At least in the straight world. Not in my group of one, where blurred lines are nothing more than a subtle, \u201cFuck you.\u201d Zealots to the left of me, zealots to the right. This isn\u2019t a political statement.<\/p>\n
It frightens me that expressed passion has become so frightening. I had a friend tell me recently, \u201cThat sort of beautiful madness should find its way to being published,\u201d after reading the first 50 pages or so of my manuscript. Variations of that sentiment are rather common, though I like that choice of words best. It\u2019s strange to me that reactions by some family and friends to the same source material have ranged from casual concern to unspoken disgust. Less strange is the vitriol from estranged lovers and acquaintances, especially those that recognize their trespasses, with suggestions that I might find solace in arrest (whether cardiac or legal never clearly defined).<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve had my fiction\u2013words!\u2013taken out of context and read in open court as an indictment (literally) of my character. But I suppose it\u2019s better than nothing. \u201cMeh.\u201d Now that would bother me. I write to be symbolically hated as much as I write to be realistically loved. It\u2019s my own private Idaho, where the only intolerable reality is being ignored.<\/p>\n
Having said that, I\u2019ve changed my mind about martyrdom. It seems to be counter-productive and, by definition, self-destructive. And I\u2019m tired of being the only one in my circle who\u2019ll admit out loud that there are monsters in the windmills.<\/p>\n
April 21, 2014:\u202f
Mr. Lovett<\/p>\n
I wanted you after buying\u202fStep Into This House. The nuances of the\u202fBosque County Romance\u202ftrilogy resonated so strongly that I thought there must be some cosmic force at work behind the scenes, reminding me that some things you do are just bigger than yourself. The whirlwind move from the decay of Los Angeles to the different decay of Dallas, finally landed in a small town with no cell phone coverage or stop lights. The gentle friendliness reminded me of home, and if I couldn\u2019t (or wouldn\u2019t) be there, then this seemed like a comfortable alternative. Compared to the volatility of the Left Coast this apparent calm was all a comfortable alternative.<\/p>\n
Ten years down the line and comfort is not quite so comfortable. Nastiness might happen at a slower pace in the country, but it still happens. Everything that exists in the core of the beast also happens at its extremities. And by this, I don\u2019t mean to externalize the reasons for things happening the way they did. I am just as much a part of the beast as anyone else. I was lulled into a sense of apology, into a feeling that I was always the one to blame, but I know you by the trail of dead. Clearly I was not of you. And no identifying marks were necessary to show me as an outsider.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not a coincidence that the same melancholy songwriter also brought the words to me that made me know I wanted out. Three songs lasting ten minutes and thirty-four seconds played on repeat for three hours and eleven minutes south on I-35 and I knew it was over. I suggest anyone on the fence about a relationship might avoid these three songs unless they are looking for a push toward a particular side and away from vacillation. I\u2019m embarrassed at the way I couldn\u2019t follow through with these feelings and instead tried to have it all.<\/p>\n
:\u202f
It\u2019s falling from the sky and calling from the graves, open your eyes, boy, I think we are saved<\/p>\n
You defended me as the bad things were happening, and I was oblivious. I was more interested in opening the steam valve to my decades-long build-up of hostility. The obvious outcome to this reckless ignorance was, of course, how things are today. But instead of dissipating into the atmosphere like a harmless steam, this rage has fallen back on everything as poisonous fallout and made waste to the land for as long as I can see into the future, maybe forever. It\u2019s impossible to calculate the half-life of this kind of hatred.<\/p>\n
The irony is that now I defend you to others, even those outside my inner circle. And I can feel your body bristle as you read those words, incredulous at the fact that you might need forgiveness. But no one walks away from this clean. Surely in moments of stillness you can see that. You might be stubborn, but you\u2019re not unfair. You can justify lies, overreaction, manipulation, emotional abuse, and the whole litany of other weapons at your casual disposal that you\u2019ve deployed. And I\u2019m sure you feel justified in their use. I did. Like the death penalty: he got what was coming to him.<\/p>\n
The difference is: I never supported that outcome. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s a deterrent, it\u2019s applied unfairly, and is ultimately, no matter the circumstance, cruel in a way that can\u2019t be taken back.<\/p>\n
Mine was a hair-trigger, not a planned operation. And I\u2019m sure you know exactly what I mean by that.<\/p>\n
April 26, 2014:\u202f
This must be the perfect place<\/p>\n
I can show you at least three times the opposite. I\u2019m not interested in sharing right now. Trust me. Perfect is dead.<\/p>\n
There are workarounds. And I suppose it\u2019s my charge to find them. All the things you think you need to be happy are actually unnecessary. It\u2019s a clich\u00e9. All the things I was worried about losing? I\u2019ve lost. And here I stand. Here I type. Stripped down to the essentials of what is, having previously been defined as what should never be.<\/p>\n
In a weird way I have the advantage now. Having lost everything that you equate with happiness, I remain still; you can only lose happiness from this point. Having been where I had feared the most, I\u2019m no longer afraid of what might happen. This is as bad as it\u2019s going to get and, really, it\u2019s not that bad.<\/p>\n
April 27, 2014:\u202f
You\u2019re such an inspiration for the way I would never, ever choose to be<\/p>\n
Our paths crossed because we were beautiful when we were twenty-something. It was and is fun to think, especially at the time, about concepts like love. But the reality is you wanted to fuck me. And that desire was reciprocated. Watch NatGeo videos of monkeys and they are more like us than not.<\/p>\n
You grew on me, and I on you. Mostly because we had offspring. And the same instinct inspires me to kill or die for them. Your fighting this instinct puts you in that path. Not a proclamation. Just one of those, \u201cIt is what it is.\u201d<\/p>\n
April 29, 2014:\u202f
I was a 45 percenter then; I was a lot of things<\/p>\n
I brush my teeth without toothpaste. The flavor is there as an incentive. Flouride is for babies. I\u2019m almost positive we don\u2019t need it. I like the taste of blood in my mouth. It reminds me that I\u2019m mortal. The rust-tinged iron tang of crimson spittle when you spit. It makes me human. Because I\u2019m so far removed from you, you might as well be a planet or bacteria or a thought. You are a ghost. And I am nothing.<\/p>\n
:\u202f
Don\u2019t listen when I scream<\/p>\n
It\u2019s funny how transient things appear in hindsight. We don\u2019t always have the insight, foresight, sight to look into the sterile past. Sometimes it\u2019s dirty and it\u2019s now and it spills on everything. I take it as a blessing that I saw it this time coming.<\/p>\n
You are dangerous to delicacy. You are dirty, but wear white and look so clean. If you\u2019re afraid, it\u2019s only because you\u2019ve looked inside yourself and have seen how bad things can get. It all comes from the inside.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve sort of learned to play the game now. I don\u2019t like it. But I like to lose even less. I didn\u2019t think we were keeping score.<\/p>\n
:\u202f
Ways and means<\/p>\n
The way things are. The way things have always been. The way things will be. I don\u2019t believe there is something called fate. Fate is an excuse for bad choices. Fate is a lie. Free-will versus determinism is just a ridiculous mind fuck mind game. You can\u2019t have it both ways. Everyone tries. It\u2019s an embarrassment of obvious clash. I hate it. I hate everything about everything stupid. Which is probably why I hate myself.<\/p>\n
:\u202f
I never want to hear you say you\u2019re better off, or you like it that way<\/p>\n
So many things I used to carry around in sadness. Now open wounds are numb to the touch. What seems to matter almost never matters. The idea of what will hurt to lose, invariably, is far worse than the actual loss. We make things up as we go along. There are excuses and workarounds and reasons for everything. Even the biggest things are just an explanation away. Everything is a sentence, is words, is a this way or that way.<\/p>\n
I can only see because I bother to look. Eyes wide, mouth open, and the audacity that\u2019s required to open wide and let the hard rock in. I\u2019m not afraid of anything, silly. Especially not you.<\/p>\n
May 2, 2014:\u202f
The way<\/p>\n
You won\u2019t like what I\u2019ve written. I just need to have something I don\u2019t have. I put it on you and that isn\u2019t fair. But I know me. I honestly cannot see me by myself. I hurt alone. I hurt myself . Enough so that I hurt others who watch. And then I do it again. I\u2019m not dangerous with anyone specific, or alone sort of. I\u2019m dangerous to myself by myself, not physically. I kick my ass in my head. And I absolutely will not put that on you. It just is what it is. You should know to expect things if things are the way things are.<\/p>\n
:\u202f
It comes to me in my head<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t know how I know it. It just is. 11,700 divided by 12 is 975. It\u2019s not a difficult problem by any means. I\u2019m not Rainman. But I see the answer as it\u2019s being typed. And I swear I wish I didn\u2019t. It\u2019s hard to explain if it\u2019s not real to you. It\u2019s not that I get to remember everything, but rather I cannot forget anything. I don\u2019t always get to know the context of the answer. The answer is just there. And sometimes the obvious answer hurts. It doesn\u2019t hurt to other people. And I\u2019m pretty sure they don\u2019t see what I see. What seems obvious to me. It imposes itself on me. It\u2019s not a comfort, it\u2019s more like a burden. One from which I can\u2019t close my eyes or cover my ears. One that won\u2019t shut up. It\u2019s always. It\u2019s everything all the time. And if you think that might make things easier, then you don\u2019t understand. I\u2019m two words ahead in every sentence. I type and I notice syntactical errors because my brain goes faster than the voice in my head or my fingers. It\u2019s too fast and it\u2019s not pleasant and it pushes people away and it sucks more often than it doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
This is going to sound like an excuse, it sounds like one to me, but alcohol shuts the whole system down. When I say I\u2019m better after a few drinks, I may be mis-speaking. I may not be better to you, but I\u2019m definitely better to me.<\/p>\n
:\u202f
I can\u2019t wait to meet you<\/p>\n
Examples of stupidity and lack of discretion abound. They\u2019re less than a dime a dozen. Did you want to fuck her? Is that why you\u2019re judgment was so impaired? I\u2019m just saying. I fucked her, and it wasn\u2019t like it was life changing. She\u2019s your basic, damaged, beautiful idiot. It\u2019s on you. We\u2019ll fix that. It\u2019ll cost a few dollars, maybe some time. I\u2019ve already paid for something I didn\u2019t do. Never again. Not without a fight. Make sure you\u2019re clean, because I am really good at finding dirty.<\/p>\n
May 3, 2014:\u202f
It\u2019s a long road to wisdom, but it\u2019s a short one to being ignored<\/p>\n
It\u2019s been the same way since I was 12 years old. Not sort of the same. The exact fucking same way. I\u2019ve made half-assed attempts at change, but if I couldn\u2019t do it in four decades how can you possibly think that you might compel me to do anything more than scoff? I might love you, I might like you, I might hate you. All of those feelings: good, bad, or indifferent, I promise you, I feel exponentially about myself. You are powerless. You\u2019re a piss in the ocean.<\/p>\n
They used to make me go to therapy when I was seven, which is ridiculous. Then I went back on purpose when I was 25. And I told them the same thing. I feel exactly the same way I did twenty years ago. I\u2019m in an adult body, but I\u2019m the same boy I\u2019ve always been.<\/p>\n
I have absolutely no ugliness toward you. Everything bad about me faces inward. It only gets on you if you get too close.<\/p>\n
:\u202f
The end of the rainbow is always a long ride<\/p>\n
So, here comes that feeling. I\u2019ve seen it. I don\u2019t like it. I don\u2019t know if I can do it. I know I don\u2019t like to. I slam alcohol and blast the music to drown it all out. It hurts.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve almost cut my right hand off with broken glass, I\u2019ve had someone peel my forehead, I\u2019ve bit my tongue in two while seizing, I\u2019ve had five concussions that I know about. All \u201caccidents.\u201d I mean, none of it was consciously on purpose, but objectively I probably put myself in situations where danger might be considered imminent. None of that do I associate with pain; ambulances and emergency room questions have become second nature. This? It\u2019s only a broken heart.<\/p>\n
Your name and pain are synonyms in my lexicon. I\u2019m not afraid anymore. This is a moment. I used to be so scared of so many things. What would I give to start all over again? To clean up my mistakes? That\u2019s what scares me. The what ifs and the never wases. Those thoughts haunt me. They haunt me now.<\/p>\n
:\u202f
Stella<\/p>\n
\u201cJameson. Stella back.\u201d
\u201cYou don\u2019t drink brown liquor.\u201d
\u201cI hate it.\u201d
\u201cThen why?\u201d
\u201cIt\u2019s your berfday. I\u2019m having what you would.\u201d
\u201cA gift?\u201d
\u201cA gesture.\u201d
\u201cWhat did you get me? Anything?\u201d
\u201cYou get what you get. You\u2019re not supposed to get to choose.\u201d
\u201cWhat if I choose you?\u201d
\u201cYou\u2019ve had me for a little bit.\u201d
\u201cKiss me.\u201d
\u201cYou\u2019re at work.\u201d
\u201cKiss me, motherfucker.\u201d
\u201cI bet you say that to all the boys.\u201d<\/p>\n
:\u202f
Savage and sexual and violent<\/p>\n
What did it take to get where you are? I think mine might have been an easier path to navigate. It was never\u202fso\u202fhard. I\u2019ve never broken a bone. (Actually, I think I broke two fingers on my right had punching a light post, but I never went to the doctor for it. The recess is somewhat pronounced, and my fist is less functional. My ankle clicks from landing in a hole so many years ago. Probably something there. But on my permanent record? Nothing.) I didn\u2019t get stitches until I was 41, but when I got them they were staples. I remember the doctor putting the gun to my forearm and pulling the trigger. I had always feared the sewing, but I didn\u2019t feel it. The worst part was the infection. I thought I might skip the amoxicillin but was woken by the putrid rot. It turns out that medicine saves lives. Even when you\u2019re not trying.<\/p>\n
May 4, 2014:\u202f
3 or so a.m.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s still Sunday. I open my eyes and see that today is today and not a softer version of tomorrow.<\/p>\n
Everything I have to say, I have to say right now. I have to say it yesterday. The word imperative was invented for my compulsion to speak. The time here is short, even if it seems long. The words come at me, dizzying and spinning and aloft in light. The words push back the dark.<\/p>\n
It troubles me when you can\u2019t see it. So many don\u2019t. Things are different the way things are. I promise you. Everything seems different then the way it actually is. Try to hurt me. In any way that matters it\u2019s not going to work. I love you but I like to take small promises and break them. I can take what anyone can give. This has evolved into an interesting relationship with pain. Things only hurt in their absence. The presence of trauma, physical or otherwise is almost a relief. It sounds weird to say out loud. I\u2019m pretty sure I walk alone.<\/p>\n
This morning my heart was arrythmiatic. Lub-lub-lub-dub. It\u2019s almost certainly not life threatening. But it feels as weird as shit. It makes you call your father and say,\u201dI don\u2019t like you but I love you.\u201d<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t care about being dead. I stress about the dying. Fuck you. Fuck all of you. Fuck everything. I get to say fuck. I am what I am. I am who I am. I say fuck a lot, and it\u2019s almost never in directed anger. Fuck you for trying to change any of that.<\/p>\n
It goes and it goes. Then it goes one more time. Then it goes again. And it goes. And then it goes. If you think you might stop it? You\u2019re crazier or stupider than I thought I was.<\/p>\n
May 6, 2014:\u202f
Strange<\/p>\n
\u201cYou despise conformity. It\u2019s your c-word.\u201d
\u201cMaybe I can just be Van Gogh and cut off my ear.\u201d
\u201cPlease don\u2019t turn into Mango Man.\u201d<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t understand why anyone doesn\u2019t understand, because I think I\u2019ve been pretty consistent. To a fault sometimes, and, of course, to my detriment. No one will ever control me. No god, no vagina, no dollar, no jail cell will compel me to do anything. The effort will provoke the opposite.<\/p>\n
New Hampshire has always been my favorite state since I was old enough to know what New Hampshire was, even though I haven\u2019t been there. It\u2019s one of the six left on my list. Their motto and their license plate. Live free or die. It rings in my ears, and louder in my soul. I wonder sometimes how Old Hampshire is.<\/p>\n
May 7, 2014:\u202f
Vindictive and nasty and sometimes cruel<\/p>\n
I try to stay calm. In my mind there is an ocean of tumult. Mostly I eat it. Sometimes I spit it. The churning is harder than it used to be. There are many things that I would prefer to ignore. I\u2019m not the best example, but I\u2019m hardly the worst.<\/p>\n
:\u202f
All I want is quiet<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not interested in compulsion or noise. Everybody wants to make me do something. I just want still. I want to lie under a blanket. I want to think my thoughts. I want to be who I am. Read what I have to say. The words are soft.<\/p>\n
May 8, 2014:\u202f
Peace is not an option<\/p>\n
Peace seems like a silly word. Which is weird because I\u2019m a pacifist. My rage looks in the mirror and hates what it sees. The milieu is safe.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m pretty sure I\u2019ve never hit someone in anger on purpose. Your rage baffles me. Which is weird because there is a storm in the center of me that will never quiet. It\u2019s the sun and the moon and the stars, all at once, burning a fire that never stops.<\/p>\n
People look at me. They see calm. I am myself amazed at the juxtaposition of still, when everything inside me throbs and flails and moans and cries and punches out at what? Nothing. I\u2019m afraid it\u2019s all nothing.<\/p>\n
:\u202f
Holy shit i have to redact names<\/p>\n
I was thinking about things. The six loves of my life. C was married and I was a bully to make her love me. I met A in rehab. I met M in a hot tub. D was a hooker. In my defense I never paid and I got her out of hooking. She was my neighbor. E was my wife. L was anyone had a shot at that? I dare you not to try.<\/p>\n
:\u202f
You\u2019re made up of cheese<\/p>\n
I love you and i want to eat you whole. You\u2019re toast and eggs with jelly. There is a guy within ten feet of me using a weedeater and for no good reason I want nothing more than to punch him in the face. Like repeatedly. The noise. There\u2019s a fucking rooster 20 feet away and his goddamned days are like in the single digits. I am going to personally strangle that chicken and baste him in teriyaki.<\/p>\n
:\u202f
This is the kind of shit that is actually innocent but three months later I\u2019m in jail<\/p>\n
I saw a stripper do a line on stage two months ago. What do you think you\u2019re going to show me? Are we going to talk about Chekov and rub privates? Girls, its so frustrating that you don\u2019t get it. I\u2019m listening to your bullshit story about your feelings about an event I didn\u2019t go to. I\u2019m acting like I care because\u2026do I really need to say why?<\/p>\n
I like you. You have a pretty face. We do shit together. I get it. But I\u2019m not going to be the one that says, \u201cSay more.\u201d<\/p>\n
:\u202f
Punk rock is not for you little stupid shithead<\/p>\n
I scare the people that love me because they think there is no way I can make it. I\u2019m a punk. I listened to Circle Jerks when I was 10 and tried to tell my mom. Can\u2019t you hear? The Carpenters are awesome, yes I love them. Everybody loves to be fed with a spoon. But can you hear that scream? Have you not wanted to make that noise with your own throat? Mom I love you more than anything. But that scream is inside me. Kurt Cobain. Sam Kinison. Do you need it quiet? Amy. Janis. Anne. Sylvia. Ian. Jimi. Ernest. It\u2019s all the same fucking song.<\/p>\n
May 9, 2014:\u202f
I try not to fall for make believe, but what is reality?<\/p>\n
God moves in me right now. And by God I don\u2019t mean that old guy with a beard. I can feel the universe. Atheists just hate the stupid awkwardness of the myth not the source.<\/p>\n
I surfed a perfect wave. I felt the joys of holding my daughter and son as they opened their eyes for the first time. I was the one holding them. I know what it means to know that something is bigger than me.<\/p>\n
I guess its funny how far we can fall when we do. I\u2019m going to say it and you\u2019ll say I\u2019m misguided. You won\u2019t believe it.<\/p>\n
So much of this life is compromise. I hate myself for those moments of weakness when I do something irritating like lie. Lying disgusts me. Lying is weakness encapsulated. I lie because I want you to feel better and that\u2019s selfish in a way that most people will never understand.<\/p>\n
I am bigger than the answer. And I\u2019m working on something here that I believe in.<\/p>\n
May 11, 2014:\u202f
Feelings are a lie<\/p>\n
This whole thing is a crazy train crash. Say stop and I guess it stops for a second. Walk home. Cry your way toward the beach. It\u2019s all sort of the same. I make words in my mouth like you make love in your heart. It doesn\u2019t necessarily happen on purpose. I hiccup and pause. You move with stealth beauty. It all walks toward the same end. Your way just feels better.<\/p>\n
May 18, 2014:\u202f
Why am I afraid<\/p>\n
Everything has to be disclosed or nothing means anything. Hurt is never my intent, though it may be my result. I would sooner put a screwdriver in my ear than hurt you on purpose. I know I\u2019ve hurt you. I walk this road alone, my love. And alone makes you crazy sometimes. Not by choice, always. The silence. The silence. The silence is deafening in its tyranny.<\/p>\n
June 2, 2014:\u202f
Blocks<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t hear anything. Literally my left ear is blocked. What day is it? What time is it? I know this. Me.<\/p>\n
The mind is powerful and weak. It is in charge of the mechanisms of life and ideology. But even the idea of a belief system makes us weak. By definition it puts us in a cell. One of our choosing so we are culpable in the imprisonment.<\/p>\n
:\u202f
Myths<\/p>\n
The myths of our lives are not just the stories we tell other people. More powerfully they are the stories we tell ourselves. The nature of our lives is mostly passivity. There are moments of terror and pain and joy. But mostly it\u2019s nothing.<\/p>\n
How do we find meaning there? In ourselves? In the stars? Where do I look?<\/p>\n
June 7, 2014:\u202f
Please stop fighting me<\/p>\n
I made a mistake.<\/p>\n
My life is sad and small and a burden to the ones I love.<\/p>\n
:\u202f
Sarcophagus<\/p>\n
\u201cGo sit in your sarcophagus and die.\u201d
\u201cYou don\u2019t mean sarcophagus. Those are for people who are already dead.\u201d
\u201cI\u2019m literally going to kill you.\u201d
\u201cYou said the wrong word not me.\u201d<\/p>\n
June 8, 2014:\u202f
The look<\/p>\n
You can give that look. I act upon that look. I know that look. I feed upon that look. I ask for that look. I miss that look. But don\u2019t you dare say I don\u2019t know that look. I invented that look. That stare. That gaze is mine. That whisper. That shhh. Is. Mine.<\/p>\n
:\u202f
Tutu<\/p>\n
I miss my Tutu. She would have been 97. Her name was June after the month she was born. She took care of me and taught me how to read, quite early actually. She wasn\u2019t perfect, but who the fuck is? You damn me before you damn her. She died when I was 16 and I haven\u2019t slept a whole night since.<\/p>\n
I remember when Honouliuli wasn\u2019t like it is now. We\u2019d walk down the gravel roads with sugar cane as far as you could see. Tutu lives on a golf course now if everything were the same.<\/p>\n
Everything is different.<\/p>\n
:\u202f
I never got them until i was 41<\/p>\n
And when I got them it was staples not stitches. It was 22 degrees. An anomaly for Austin. I wrapped my hand in my sweater and put it through the glass. Then I pulled back.<\/p>\n
My neighbor saved my life. I would have bled out. When the cops came I thought I was in trouble. Bang, bang, bang bang.
\u201cOpen the door.\u201d
\u201cI didn\u2019t do anything.\u201d
\u201cYou need an ambulance.\u201d
\u201cNo I\u2019m, um, fine.\u201d
\u201cOh Jesus fuck you need an ambulance.\u201d
And I did.<\/p>\n
The moral of the story is I made it. And I wasn\u2019t even trying.<\/p>\n
June 10, 2014:\u202f
Equality<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not sad about the nothingness before I was born. Why would I be sad about the nothingness after I die? Death is the great equalizer. Civil rights, equality? No. No matter the situation. We all die.<\/p>\n
:\u202f
Life<\/p>\n
Life is a short period. It seems long when you\u2019re living it. But it\u2019s accidental and crazy and painful sometimes. We\u2019ve all had that right? Rhetorical. The key is to be as passionate about your passions while you still have time. Don\u2019t worry about the little bullshit because it\u2019s exactly that. You are so much bigger.<\/p>\n
June 20, 2014:\u202f
Power<\/p>\n
Power is fragile and, more often than not, transient. The paradox is that in most interpersonal relationships the power is held by the one who cares the least, not who cares the most. This is true even with the conflicting parts of the self. The idea of power is an almost comical mind fuck of the mind. It\u2019s almost impossible to control oneself, let alone anything else.<\/p>\n
And those of us that prove capable of temporary control of our surroundings through fastidiousness, timeliness, attention to detail, work ethic? Invariably we become impossible to live with. The very strengths that define outward success, promote fraction in our houses.<\/p>\n
The compromises that actual relationships require: tolerance, acceptance, open hearts and minds, are shuttered by our own needs for a level of whatever. The ones we love bear the brunt of this intolerance with their, by definition, inability to live life exactly as we might.<\/p>\n
I let go. Seriously, I let go. Be who you are. Love what you want. Do what you know is right. Try to die having done things correctly.<\/p>\n
I discovered late in the game that control is an illusion. Anything you have comes from far beyond understanding and you have practically no say at any given moment except for how you respond. If you set up in your mind the way things should be, you are just pre-defining failure and disappointment.<\/p>\n
The past and the future are the same: not here. The moment is all we have.<\/p>\n
Everything I was ever afraid of manifest because of me. I am to blame. I made the bad choices. I am the one that caused so much harm to so many lives, not the least of which was my own. Now these pieces of a puzzle sit before me. My grandmother used to give me these impossible puzzles. 5,000 pieces at the start of a marathon of 20,000 heads; 2,500 pieces of worms where every piece fit every other, but you had to make it work so it came out like the picture on the box. This puzzle is infinitely harder. But I solved all the other ones. Why should I doubt that I can\u2019t solve this one too?<\/p>\n
June 21, 2014:\u202f
My brother<\/p>\n
Three decades ago, when I was a shitty older brother (perhaps I still am), influenced by the abusive power complexities I learned from my grandfathers and father, I tortured my younger brother in an attempt to make him acquiesce to my way of thinking.<\/p>\n
I remember one incident where I bent his fingers back, and he was wincing, and I said just say, \u201cStop.\u201d And instead he said, \u201cBreak them.\u201d He was ten. I had just turned 14.<\/p>\n
And this is how I know we are brothers. I would have said the exact same thing. In some ways I have, metaphorically, said the exact same thing, mostly to my detriment however. Not necessarily the easiest way to navigate this mortal coil, but \u201cFuck you I won\u2019t do what you tell me,\u201d seems to be a sort of genetic family mantra.<\/p>\n
When I left for college, he didn\u2019t come to the airport. And when I came home for some summer break or other I found an essay by him that explained why. He hated me. Perhaps rightfully so. Reading those words changed me.<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t get me wrong, I\u2019m still super self-absorbed. But if you knew me at 16 you would see the difference. Back then there were no consequences, none that I cared about at least, except not getting what I wanted. Reading the way that my behavior might have impacted him. He was a child. I was a child plus four, and I let my world make me into a tyrant.<\/p>\n
That hasn\u2019t been the truth for a while now. I still bristle. I still have to be talked off the ledge of\u202fI Am Always Right.<\/p>\n
It may not seem like it if I rage, but I am gentle. And the rage is never physical. But it is self-righteous and I can understand how it might be annoying, especially to someone with no emotional investment. You know that judgmental feeling? I get it all the time. Besides living our lives I think the next great past time might be judging.<\/p>\n
My brother taught me a lesson that day. At 10(!) One that I clearly haven\u2019t forgotten.<\/p>\n
:\u202f
Unicorn<\/p>\n
You ripped the horn off the unicorn because you wanted it to be a regular horse. It will always be a unicorn. This is a metaphor.<\/p>\n
June 25, 2014:\u202f
I listened to this song when I was nine years old<\/p>\n
Your time is going to come. Fuck, right? Lying, cheating, hurting that\u2019s all you seem to do. Always the same, playing the game, troubles going to come to you. One of these days, and it won\u2019t be long, you look for me and, baby, I\u2019ll be gone.<\/p>\n
:\u202f
Pools of blood<\/p>\n
I wake up in pools of my own blood far too often. It\u2019s not like I\u2019m choosing it. It just sort of happens. I must have more than some culpability, but I promise you, for the most part, I try not to bleed out of my head. Things fail. I didn\u2019t try to be this way. By most definitions I have failed at this life it. So be it. I am what I am.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve seen a lot of shit that most people don\u2019t see. And for the first time in my life I don\u2019t feel better than you. But I don\u2019t feel worse.<\/p>\n
June 26, 2014:\u202f
Spirit<\/p>\n
The rational. The righteous. The holy. It all has to end somewhere. Why not here? Why not now? I\u2019m tired. I want to be in New York. I\u2019m here, but I belong somewhere else. New York sounds nice.<\/p>\n
The best night of my life I spent up the street from CBGB with a J\u00e4germeister girl named Wendy. She gave me the keys to her car and I drove to the Village behind her. And then I followed her into the bathroom. Things happened. She wanted to be on the news. She was supposed to come visit and we were going to see REM, but I took my ex-wife instead. (For the record, I still love my beloved wife, but not in a way that harbors any kind of hope, at least not this decade.)<\/p>\n
July 10, 2014:\u202f
Wetsuit<\/p>\n
Sex feels good but sometimes it\u2019s like drugs. A wetsuit because the world is cold. Sooner or later that has to come off.<\/p>\n
July 30, 2014:\u202f
Southern Writers<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve always had an affinity for southern writers. The great Flannery O\u2019Connor once said in a title of a story,\u202fEverything That Rises Must Converge\u202fand I never understood the connection between the story of and older lady and a savage killer. Now I do. Hemingway wrote\u202fHills Like White Elephants\u202fand I swear it took me two years before I figured out they were at a train station so she could leave Spain to get an abortion. I am also a user of cryptic titles. But I promise you, just like life, everything has a meaning, even if it\u2019s unintentional.<\/p>\n
August 30, 2014:\u202f
Words fill up the page, pages fill up the days between you and me<\/p>\n
I notice the shadows first. The dew casts rotund weaknesses about the thin blades of grass reaching up toward the light. Condescending condensation. I laugh at my joke even though it\u2019s not funny. No, I guffaw. I like the play on words.<\/p>\n
September 3, 2014:\u202f
Isolation<\/p>\n
I know you love me and I love you very much. Isolation makes change happen. Solitude brings voices. Not all of them are pleasant. And the most urgent ones can be convincing. So I was immersed in these voices and I became convinced. You know how you\u2019re positive that 2+2=4? Some of these voices scream 5 incessantly. No one else can hear it, but stay alone long enough and 5 starts to become 4, and begins to seem correct.<\/p>\n
September 4, 2014:\u202f
It\u2019s easy until it\u2019s hard<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the thing that\u2019s so hard to explain to people who don\u2019t vacillate between the two, or whose natural personalities might automatically plane the hills and fill the valleys. The disconnect happens because easy looks neutral and doesn\u2019t usually provoke concern or attention. Hard is frightening from the outside; others notice. The paradox is that on the inside hard feels easier, because hard is usually assuaged with some coping mechanism or other. Depending which one, hard becomes even harder, or floats back slowly to neutral, i.e. getting to even (yes, that is the philosophical etymology of this website and story\u2014for the record, it doesn\u2019t mean getting revenge).<\/p>\n
Right now it\u2019s easy, and it\u2019s hard to wrap my head around things being difficult. But success requires the effort. I can\u2019t go back, but I can always remember. Things aren\u2019t quite yet fine, in fact they\u2019re about as far away from fine as can be. Having recently been there, I can tell you it can get worse, much worse. So easy, or even neutral, feels a lot better than Hell.<\/p>\n
:\u202f
Close, closer<\/p>\n
Say it in your best voice, \u201cMy love, baby, go to bed.\u201d But then kinda say it like you mean it. I didn\u2019t mean shit. Or did I? On the losing end I like to pump up the bravado and act like I don\u2019t care. Random lies make it sometimes hard to remember the truth. You seemed to have a sixth sense for that, didn\u2019t you?<\/p>\n
In thisclose to me is meaning, and everything I ever said is everything I\u2019d ever meant to say, true or false, right or wrong. (For the record I never stopped caring.)<\/p>\n
:\u202f
When I say, \u201cyou,\u201d I mean all of you<\/p>\n
Which in a perverse and paradoxical way means, specifically, none of you.<\/p>\n
But every one that has at one time been \u201cyou\u201d (and that number is so low that it would most likely surprise you), please assume that my expressed feelings here recently apply to you wholeheartedly.<\/p>\n
The specifics of the myths\u2014some imagined, most real\u2014always fluctuate, but the ideas and feelings behind them almost never do. By definition they have a greater influence in shaping our belief systems. Fluctuations in reality always make better stories, and can be modified for different audiences, sometimes consciously, but usually not.<\/p>\n
Most people\u2019s memories are a complex amalgam of what actually happened, our recollection of what happened, the stories we tell about our ourselves, and the filters of time and bias. The result is never true in the strictest sense of the word, eidetics and savants included. (Even photographs and videos, capturing everything, still get it wrong, but I\u2019m talking about the human capacity for the willful suspension of reality, whatever that is.) No judgement there. Everyone suffers with this phenomenon. So universally, in fact, that \u201csuffers\u201d is more than likely the wrong word. All people\u202fare\u202fthis. That\u2019s better.<\/p>\n
September 6, 2014:\u202f
How it feels to be reconstructed<\/p>\n
Sherman\u2019s\u202fMarch to the Sea\u202fbegan in Atlanta on November 15, 1864. Sparing only churches and hospitals his army burned down the city and laid waste to the infrastructure on its way to Savannah, over 300 miles away.<\/p>\n
You might be wondering what this has to do with me, since the consistent narcissistic tone of this site generally precludes the actions of others that have not directly impacted me. This is a metaphor, of course. Though I have no affinity with the city, save a lifelong devotion to it\u2019s major league baseball team, I am Atlanta. And, of course, you (as individual and society in general) are Sherman.<\/p>\n
Atlanta is in many ways atypical of the South. In my experience it is more tolerant of groups generally ostracized by the Red State Mafia. Like Austin serves Texas, it is an oasis in a redneck desert. \u201cToo Busy To Hate\u201d was an unofficial theme of the city as it grew exponentially after the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Having been destroyed relatively recently in historical terms, the city seems newer than say, New Orleans, Savannah, Charleston, or any of the bedroom communities that run south of the Mason-Dixon Line along the Mississippi River (Natchez, Vicksburg, or Tunica). Those places still retain the ghosts of the pre-Civil War era. Atlanta seems to be made out of glass and concrete. The bulldozers of time and modernist design have covered most of the ghosts since reconstruction, though even before its destruction it was unlike most southern towns of the time. This paragraph\u2019s intent was not to educate you on matters historical, but to extend the bounds of the metaphor because architecture is the least of the ways that we are similar.<\/p>\n
It is the very reconstruction itself that I find appealing. You, like Sherman, came with promises of liberation, and I suppose our country eventually got around to that, but first there was the scorched-earth policies that indiscriminately laid waste to anything of value. (This, by the way, should sound familiar to you, though I doubt you yet lack the insight to recognize yourself in that assessment.) I am sympathetic to this course of action, not because I think it is correct, but because I have also, many times, been the perpetrator of an all-or-nothing policy regarding my life, and especially my relationships. \u201cIf I can\u2019t have it the way I want it, then I\u2019ll tear the whole thing down.\u201d Bad mantra. Trust me, I speak from experience.<\/p>\n
Now I find myself torn down with complicity, but also with outside agents (you, systemic entities, etc.) also acting to destroy. Either way (and does it really matter?), I recently lay smoldering in ruins, much like Atlanta on November 16, 1864.<\/p>\n
My goal, then, is to use Atlanta as a model, not because I think the city is all that great (New York! San Francisco! New Orleans!), but because down on its ass, it stood back up, and told everyone that tried to stop it to fuck off. And now, love it or hate it, it is a player. It is the 6th largest metro area in the country, has the 15th largest economy of any city in the world, and the country\u2019s busiest airport. A success by almost any standard. Gone are the ghosts of the past, replaced with glass and concrete and hope.<\/p>\n
I can only hope to do the same with skin, bone, and purpose rather than dollars, buildings and planes.<\/p>\n
September 8, 2014:\u202f
All this angst has served me well, but now I\u2019m sad and bored<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not sure how to deal with this beyond remembering to breathe.<\/p>\n
Lately I\u2019ve been asking the people I\u2019m closest to, \u201cWhat\u2019s the next thing you are looking forward to?\u201d Most are puzzled by my reasons for asking, but everyone has an immediate answer. I don\u2019t. There is no source of external outlet of which I can conceive. This is a relatively new reality for me. It\u2019s not a pity-party request for sympathy, it just is what it is.<\/p>\n
But I\u2019m at a loss. I used to drink this feeling away, but we all know where that ends up, so now I don\u2019t. It\u2019s hard to understand why this way is so much more painful, but is also the right thing to do.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not sure if I\u2019ve ever been so alone. But I am sure I don\u2019t much like it.<\/p>\n
:\u202f
The perversity of ideology<\/p>\n
This woman I was seeing opened her eyes when I told her I\u2019m a writer.
\u201cYou\u2019re a writer? I want to be a writer.\u201d
\u201cSo write.\u201d
\u201cWrite something for me.\u201d
\u201cHow is that supposed to help?\u201d
\u201cYou ask too many questions.\u201d<\/p>\n
So I wrote. It\u2019s the glut of form that makes the knowledge of its absence anything special. What is missing makes what\u2019s there. Take away. Remove. Believe in your vision. And then you have art.<\/p>\n
\u201cDeep.\u201d<\/p>\n
But you never know how deep the depth is. The reality of any frame is never as neutral as it appears. This is how ideology works. It has to be an empty container. Open to all possible meanings. Metaphysical presence allows transcendence. But it is negative space\u2014the absent, invisible quality of things\u2014that paradoxically defines what\u2019s there.<\/p>\n
:\u202f
Fast, slow, fast<\/p>\n
We experience history not in the moment but only once a thing has happened. Only then is it even possible to have an intuition of what history might mean. Maybe without a moment of authentic passivity, nothing new can emerge. Maybe.<\/p>\n
Symbolic destitution: stepping out of the body of the moment and accepting complete destruction. It\u2019s the only way to be born again. Canceling or suspending the system of authority breaks it down, even the authority of the self, or it can\u2019t happen. Of course we cannot know what god wants from us because there is no god. It\u2019s wrong to think the second coming will be an actual man. The return is already here when there is an emancipatory collective.<\/p>\n
My fascination borderlines on the absurd; why you cannot see the rage I have. There is a torrent of drums and percussive cacophony constantly playing in my head. I\u2019m just supposed to put it out because it would make you feel more comfortable? I can\u2019t stop it for me, how could I possibly stop it for you?<\/p>\n
September 10, 2014:\u202f
The path of most reisistance<\/p>\n
There are struggles for gain, and struggles against loss. These you might forgive, at least, for ostensibly having a purpose. My struggles are harder to forgive, even if the only person I\u2019m saying sorry to is myself, because they often seem to be meaningless. Feelings and reactions to them often seem as pointless as they are painful. Does everything have a point? Should it?<\/p>\n
I find myself in the realm of the imaginary reliving actions and having never-real conversations with people I\u2019ve lost easy access to. The explanations are moot. The sorries are ignored, and deservedly so. But when I can steer the interaction within myself it gives me hope that versions of these might one day make their ways back to reality.<\/p>\n
I love everybody.<\/p>\n
September 12, 2014:\u202f
First-world (bullshit) problems<\/p>\n
Reader: \u201cDriving a car with no I.D. gets ya a trip to jail. Cant even buy a beer without an I.D. I guess this disenfranchisement has been going on since the beginning of time, but being required to show your I.D. can only apply to certain situations outside of voting says the socialist. Thats Hypocrisy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Me: Voter fraud has not really been a big problem with modern registration techniques. It\u2019s another invented problem that takes away focus from real ones. It\u2019s mostly just a way to keep \u201cundesirables\u201d from voting. This includes people, that for whatever reason, find themselves without a government ID (almost always poor and non-white). I myself went over two years without one so I speak from experience. If you lose an ID in the correct circumstances it can become a comedy of catch-22 errors in trying to get it replaced. Most states require birth certificates, social security cards, and \u201cproof of legal presence (e.g., mortgage, lease, or a year of utility bills),\u201d for any type of government-issued ID. All three of these require some form of the other two, and if all go missing simultaneously (e.g., your house is robbed and all your important paperwork and wallet are stolen) it is extremely time consuming and difficult to rectify. Especially (like I was) if you were born in another state (for me, Hawaii) or country and need to be present to request a birth certificate to your new state (in my case, Texas). (That\u2019s an $800 roundtrip ticket and 3800 miles each way for those of you keeping score at home.)<\/p>\n
Now addressing your supposed \u201chypocrises\u201d: I have bought many beers without an ID. Contrary to popular belief it is even possible to fly without a picture ID (imagine a stranded tourist who is robbed at his destination\u2026how does s\/he get home?) So there are workarounds to the situations you describe. As there should be for voting. We\u2019re not a true democracy anyway, and I think voting is merely a symbolic kangaroo choice between purchased puppets surviving on the corporate teat. I voted against George W. and for Obama, but has my life changed in any real way? Of course not. The office is mainly there to espouse certain belief systems. It\u2019s not even required for the President to live the beliefs he espouses. None of them do with 100% consistency. Kerry got slammed for being a flip-flopper (which he was). Newsflash: THEY ALL ARE. Congress is locked, and the President\u2019s power is limited to influence, i.e., except in rare circumstances (executive orders, pardons, etc.) the President doesn\u2019t make much law.<\/p>\n
In my experience, the impetus to prevent voting is usually an unspoken (yet very realized) racism. I\u2019m not saying that you personally are racist, I\u2019m just saying usually. It seems to exist to keep Hispanic groups from voting en masse (they tend to vote Democratic, and the staunchest voter ID supporters tend to be Republican), and it also seems to target black voters in swing states controlled by Republican majorities (Florida, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, etc.), who also tend to vote Democratic. The truth is that Democrats and Republicans are so alike that I don\u2019t think it matters anyway which talking head has been purchased for his or her token, partisan vote.<\/p>\n
Corporate donations go to both parties equally (in fact, donations almost always presciently favor the projected winner). Like anything else in a capitalist society, you need only follow the money. Corporate America has a vested interest in an impotent, unpopular Congress. That is not an accident. And Clinton taught everyone (again) that you campaign to the middle. Left (progressive) and right (tea party) might energize their faithful but fall on the deaf ears of the hoi polloi, and are vilified by the status quo to the point of ostracism.<\/p>\n
For the record, then, I don\u2019t think voting does much, but I hate the idea of one group trying to take away the little that voting does do from other groups of people because their pigment may be darker or their voting habits don\u2019t align with their own.<\/p>\n
September 13, 2014:\u202f
I tread a troubled track, my odds are stacked, and I\u2019ll go back to black<\/p>\n
By coincidence I\u2019m wearing all black today and Spotify chooses that song and I think to myself, \u201cI can\u2019t believe that Amy Winehouse has been dead for more than three years now.\u201d And I know I\u2019m lucky that I didn\u2019t die the same way, in fact, in that same timeframe. I got out.<\/p>\n
But life, as it most certainly is prone to do, keeps happening. The pressure of similitude never ends and I\u2019ve come to know that it never will. That perhaps this is the very definition of life. Pleasure is fleeting, and for the most part so is pain. The difficulty arises, especially to someone with my mentality, because every day is essentially the same day. (And this is the perfect, perhaps only, time I am to quote Janis, \u201cIt\u2019s all the same fucking day, man.\u201d)<\/p>\n
That seems to be one common thread in the trail of dead. Boredom. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. Leads to belief in the mantra that \u201cIt\u2019s better to burn out, than fade away.\u201d Is it? I\u2019m not looking to burn out. I\u2019m not exactly fond of the notion of fading away either, but if that\u2019s all we have, then why waste it?<\/p>\n
:\u202f
You went back to what you knew, so far removed from all that we went through<\/p>\n
I can barely understand my motivations or my moment-to-moment reactions to stimuli. Why do I do the things that I do? And if I can\u2019t answer this about myself, how can I possibly even begin to try to answer it for you? Your motivations and responses are as foreign to me as they are fascinating. Why do you do the things that you do? Vindictiveness doesn\u2019t quite explain the depth of your commitment. When is it finished? Is it ever going to be enough? Or is the nature of your action a dystopian world view in a never-ending war?<\/p>\n
I think about you and certain phrases resonate, none more than, \u201c(S)he loved Big Brother.\u201d<\/p>\n
:\u202f
If not profound, at least prolific<\/p>\n
I\u2019ll fill the emptiness with words. There is a hole, of sorts, that seems to me to be currently un-fillable. I have poured enough venti dark roasts (two Splendas and space for cream) in it to burst any three existentialist bladders, but to no avail. I joke now, but the emptiness is palpable and real. I don\u2019t know how to fill it. I don\u2019t know where to look. I don\u2019t like the idea of staying empty\u2014it seems beyond selfish to do so\u2014but I don\u2019t have a plan; I don\u2019t even have an idea for a plan. My default mode is normally proactive and this waiting-around-to-die shit is far too Townes Van Zandt for my liking.<\/p>\n
September 14, 2014:\u202f
I\u2019ve loved all, I\u2019ve needed love; sordid details following<\/p>\n
I am an unreliable narrator.<\/p>\n
I make no pretense to disinterest. Everything I use to fill the vacuum of this life is done by choice. Consciously or subconsciously I am neck deep in my interests and biases. So are we all. The difference is my memory. It is eidetic. I can often remember things exactly as they happened. The trick to being unreliable is the interpretation of these events to suit the argument I am making, which may or may not remain consistent. It really depends on the moment. It depends on the audience.<\/p>\n
Now for the hard part. Sometimes I am the sole member of this audience. And the cognitive dissonance that occurs during the process of packaging a situation is far more dissonant, when the package is for self-consumption. It\u2019s not impossible, clearly. And by what I\u2019ve witnessed I\u2019m not the only person doing it. You see it in a color-by-numbers, kindergarten-simplicity when the law becomes involved. Statements are taken, snap judgements are made, then all evidence that fits a hypothesis is hoarded, while anything that subverts the accepted idea of \u201cwhat happened\u201d is summarily dismissed as coincidence or superfluous. In our personal lives we do this shit on a whole other level. Why? Because we are fighting for our perceived actualization and the definition of our capital-s Self. That is a constant battle waged from cradle to grave, and everything is sacrificed in its effort.<\/p>\n
The few individuals that can subvert this compulsion, or rise above it, are pointed to as heroes and anomalies of selfless wonder. Again, I don\u2019t include myself, even remotely, among these beautiful freaks of human nature.<\/p>\n
:\u202f
One flash of light, but no smoking pistol<\/p>\n
I can\u2019t explain the color blue without being self-referential, though I know it\u2019s located between violet and green on the optical spectrum. Or the power of the blues except with uninspired definitions of rhymed, simple narratives played flattened or gradually bent in relation to the pitch of the major scale. Both descriptions are sterilized to the point of meaninglessness. These two examples are as real as any \u201cproven\u201d entities that I know, yet remain beyond the grasp of non-experiential understanding.<\/p>\n
We bask in the glory of the senses but as a path to true knowing they are clearly quite limited and limiting.<\/p>\n
September 15, 2014:\u202f
Spring only sighed, summer had to be satisfied, and fall is a feeling I just can\u2019t lose<\/p>\n
The sky\u2019s coming down again. The pain is gone, and that makes me worry because in its place is nothing. I\u2019m always skeptical of stillness. It\u2019s stupid and quasi-romantic and the well-covered material of melancholy songs of loves lost, unrequited, or unrealized. It seems better as a respite but, in fact, is often the portent of a much more profound absence than most feelings can feel their way out of.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m trying not to be negative. I am choosing to not be complicit in the release of that energy into my world. And so I won\u2019t be, though I assume it\u2019s too late to redact these observations from the universe\u2019s notice.<\/p>\n
I watched videos of the kids yesterday. It was lovely and simultaneously soul smashing. Strange how those intertwine and overlap; equally provocative, but pulling at the seams of self in opposite straits. I had to turn them off. The kids are young in the pictures. They get older every day.<\/p>\n
And melancholy, is the temporary triumphant.<\/p>\n
September 17, 2014:\u202f
Notes from a meeting<\/p>\n
I find this circle jerk to be something less than helpful. I\u2019ve been here for three Tuesdays now, and I recognize the tone that will provoke my cringes. The current speaker is repeating the exact same things (verbatim) that he said last week. I think I\u2019d prefer a mild physical pain to listening to him ramble (and by some amazing cosmic coincidence he used the word ramble at the exact time I wrote the word in reference to his rambling). I am trying so hard not to be skeptical\u2014the conclusion almost chooses itself. This is an excuse to talk. It\u2019s all filler. It means nothing. It has no effect. It\u2019s all affect.<\/p>\n
Please shut up. Please shut up. Please shut up. Please shut up.<\/p>\n
The over-the-top subject of victimhood aligns nicely with the not-so-subtle subtext of religiosity (here specifically it\u2019s Christianity, though I\u2019m sure it\u2019s Judaism in Tel Aviv, and Islam in Jakarta). The mindset required to turn everything over to a higher power is foreign to me; these people could be speaking in tongues of gibberish and it would have just as much influence (none) that this does. It\u2019s a weird dichotomy between the professed humility and the unbridled narcissism it requires to talk about yourself for 35 minutes without saying anything that matters.<\/p>\n
He just doesn\u2019t stop.<\/p>\n
September 19, 2014:\u202f
Miranda, or how I learned to stop talking and love the fifth<\/p>\n
They tell you, \u201cAnything you say can and will be used against you,\u201d when you\u2019re detained. (Heed this. Especially if you don\u2019t have the money or time to defend yourself.) And though this warning might be a helpful start, like most legal minimums, Miranda is a cover-your-ass, lowest common denominator (not for you but for the one reading to you) that omits important corollaries which are more true than the rule itself. For starters it\u2019s not just what you say. Anything you say, do, write, post, or imply will most certainly be taken out of context and used in the most damaging way possible against you. Any insights or truth that conflict with this agenda will be summarily ignored. Your behavior and willingness to acquiesce will do nothing at all to prevent this; the only possible impact will be on how you are treated, and how you are charged. These are both completely at the discretion of the arresting entity initially. And no matter what has happened, unless you have the good fortune of being recorded on video, it will come down to your word against theirs (which means you won\u2019t have a word).<\/p>\n
If you remember nothing else, remember this: the person asking the questions is not your friend. He doesn\u2019t care about you, and cares even less about your extenuating circumstances. He\u2019s trying to make you say something incriminating to justify your detention. You tell your side of the story best when you say nothing at all.<\/p>\n
If you are unfortunate enough to find yourself in this kind of situation, trust me and shut the fuck up.<\/p>\n
:\u202f
I hope it\u2019s still funny when you\u2019re in hell<\/p>\n
I\u2019m getting out of the emotional revenge game. For every sweet moment there\u2019s been at least one bitter blow-up. For every action there has sometimes been a wholly unequal and opposite reaction. \u00bfEs la joda? I\u2019ve come to the realization that I am fundamentally, atom-level different from the amalgam of people known as society. The more conservative the part of this (e.g., Texas, Florida), the more out of place I am. I cannot tell you (though not from lack of trying) how many times I have done something that I thought (and think) was reasonable, only to have a uniform (cheap suits and ties count as such) question my (usually incorrectly) perceived intent.<\/p>\n
I like to think that it\u2019s because I don\u2019t flinch at painful truths, and though that may be a part of it, the near-unanimous revulsion I have sometimes provoked makes me inclined to believe that there is something larger at play. I wear being different like a badge of honor and have paid for this hubris, a higher price than I ever would have believed before paying it.<\/p>\n
After the \u201cinformal declaration\u201d debacle of 2009, I made a vow to be totally transparent here. Because the truth was being so obviously obfuscated, and false advocates and stories were commanding the attention of anything that mattered, I decided to speak truth to power. To tell everything as I was experiencing it, no matter what it was. Dirty words, dirty thoughts, reflections, projections, trespasses committed for or against. Everything.<\/p>\n
Count on these like you count on your fingers.<\/p>\n
:\u202f
The lunatic, the lover, and the poet have such seething brains<\/p>\n
A Type I error is a false positive. It is believing something is real that isn\u2019t, based on a misunderstanding or misapplication of data. As a pathology it is known as apophenia and was first used to describe the acute stages of schizophrenia when unrelated details appear to be connected and meaningful. Beyond the pathological, this phenomenon seems to be a part of the common human experience, though usually to a lesser degree. It seems this tendency to see order in random configurations and coincidences happens to us all.<\/p>\n
Apophany\u2014the polar opposite of epiphany\u2014is most likely an evolutionary holdover. Danger and it\u2019s avoidance, when confronted with a set of circumstances that seem, however briefly, to be an ordered, pre-ordained series of events, probably saved our prehistoric ancestors from a slashing saber tooth, or the truncheons of a rival tribe. Usually, after time, these feelings of revelation went away. But not always. This is how myths are born.<\/p>\n
And now we deal with this anomaly of evolution, like a psycho-emotional appendix, and it manifests in conspiracy theories and psychic readings and \u201cproofs\u201d of purpose and non-random patterns. Is it a seething brain that intuits divine revelation and the less-than-divine emotions that savage the psyche like self-professed love or hate? Or is there something else, something outside of the self? I would like to believe the latter, but assume the former. And fret over the myths that slouch toward us waiting to be born.<\/p>\n
September 20, 2014:\u202f
A way to talk around the problem<\/p>\n
The roosters don\u2019t know it\u2019s Saturday. They crow in the pre-dawn darkness, and fill their hovels with shit just like they do on Friday or Wednesday. The smell reaches me only seconds after the sound. I still haven\u2019t figured out how they know it\u2019s 4:45am, but they know better than any clock I\u2019ve ever owned. I can tell what time it is by the pitch of the crow; apparently they work in shifts, each speaking a slightly different cacophonous tongue. By the third cockerel, I know it\u2019s time to leave home.<\/p>\n
I hate birds in general, but I especially hate roosters. I hate the loud-mouthed incessantness and labial wattles, the beady-eyed nervousness and aggressive feather ruffles. A Mesozoic hangover whose only redemptive quality is being delicious when basted and deep fried. (In immediate retrospect, that seems a bit harsh. I suppose a rooster has never done me harm beyond shaving a few minutes of sleep from my life. I don\u2019t think I hate anything, not even you.)<\/p>\n
I used to tell people that a person who hates everything actually hates themselves. There\u2019s a way around that I\u2019ve discovered, but it requires careful planning. I don\u2019t have a plan. I do have an idea that seems to hold promise. (An idea for a five-year plan that starts five days ago.) And promise\u202fis\u202fthe enemy of hatred.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve come to believe that anything can happen. Anything happens all the time.<\/p>\n
September 24, 2014:\u202f
The soundtrack of our lives<\/p>\n
Watching the landscape, or cityscape, pass by in the windows as music is playing too loudly in the background, and I sometimes feel like I\u2019ve warped into a music-video world. It helps if the music is fast enough to keep time with the view, is catchy, but more obscure than pop (this isn\u2019t about a sing-a-long), and bonus points for esoteric lyrics that require some level of reflection.<\/p>\n
Today\u2019s candidate for perfect music-video song came on just after noon when Spotify carefully selected the Cure\u2019s\u202fCharlotte Sometimes. And Robert Smith\u2019s repeated cries of \u201cSometimes I dream!\u201d seemed to fit the ride, and the day, perfectly.<\/p>\n
These songs, so full of memories for such different reasons, suggest the silent soundtrack of our lives played out without music but in our thoughts and memories, both conscious and subconscious.<\/p>\n
Events of the day, had otherwise triggered thoughts of the past, my past. And, of course, as we all do when triggered, I drifted back to the recent and more distant history and contemplated life and the decisions that I\u2019ve made. There are some things I\u2019ve done that look really bad on paper, but given identical situations, I\u2019m quite sure I would repeat most of my actions, even the one\u2019s with difficult ramifications, even knowing what I know now. Ouspensky\u2019s wheel once again revisited.<\/p>\n
The inconvenience comes from the judgments of those removed from the situation. \u201cIf only I could explain.\u201d I\u2019ve learned it\u2019s best not to try. Explanations are often interpreted as excuses. And I don\u2019t have any good ones. I just have to trust that I\u2019m trying to do the right thing and for the most part succeeding. Then let people fall into place where they will. Because they will anyway.<\/p>\n
None of us are so different as we like to believe we are, myself included. The human condition does not produce many truly unique situations. More than one person\u2019s walked on the moon. And whatever you\u2019re feeling, a million other people are feeling at the exact same time. I try to remember that when I get too much in my head. Especially about regrets, if onlys and what ifs.<\/p>\n
Some of us are just not as good at hiding our true selves. Growing up Catholic I was trained at an early age to be confessional. I blurt. But, I\u2019ve learned that not everyone wants to hear your true confessions. Some don\u2019t care. Some can\u2019t empathize. Some understand, but keep it to themselves. Some just don\u2019t like the act of blurting.<\/p>\n
I am what I am, and I\u2019ve done what I\u2019ve done. And there\u2019s no changing any of that. There\u2019s just moving forward.<\/p>\n
But, sometimes I dream.<\/p>\n
September 25, 2014:\u202f
Rise over run<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a slippery slope from intellectual integrity to ethical cynicism and its inevitable conclusion, dispassionate nihilism. I sometimes wonder about my refusal to even consider the supernatural as any kind of primary cause. Religion or its contemporary pseudo-counterparts like\u202fThe Secret, Scientology or even Mormonism, just seem so obviously wrong. They seem mired in the desperation of wishful thinking.<\/p>\n
The phrase I keep hearing in my head is one I learned in college, \u201cthe efficacy of reason.\u201d Human enlightenment coincided with the embrace of reason and the rejection, slow as it may be in coming, of magic. (Think of all the people that reject evolution because they don\u2019t understand the word \u201ctheory.\u201d) How then are certain intellectuals, many of whom I admire in their realms of expertise, able to come to a completely opposite conclusion? How does a radical feminist medical doctor also obtain a master\u2019s degree in theology, and a Ph.D. in Public Health (all from Harvard) then become a Catholic nun? How can a physicist teach quantum mechanics at the doctoral level and be a biblical literalist, simultaneously holding mutually exclusive rational and irrational beliefs? How does a socially radical theologian and poet become the 104th Archbishop of Canterbury? These people exist. And I am sometimes moved from my high horse by these apparent contradictions.<\/p>\n
A quote from the Right Reverend Williams (the aforementioned Archbishop), is an example of an insight that provokes this metaphysical tickle. \u201cReason is a good tool for criticism, and its power as a critical force habitually leads us to mistake it for a straightforward guide in constructing positive social goals.\u202fReason is a very good solvent of nonsense but is not necessarily a very good constructor of sense.<\/p>\n
I feel guilty for thinking to myself, how can someone who is capable of such abstract yet rational thought also be subject to a world inhabited at times by resurrections from the dead, angels, demons, untouchable gardens, and impossible floods? Surely he must see the absurdity of the myths he\u2019s presumably built his life around? How does he reconcile the glaring inconsistencies?<\/p>\n
It seems to me to be a guilty pleasure rooted in sheer egotism. Having said that, can I still make a few wishes?<\/p>\n
:\u202f
Ghosts that we once knew will flicker from view and we\u2019ll live a long life<\/p>\n
A tie that used to bind about this situation, this life, was the dreaded judgment of \u201cwhat will people think?\u201d This fear that would so often cause the pre-dawn cringing of adrenaline-fueled fluttering in my chest. And now I just don\u2019t give a shit. But in a good way. It\u2019s hard enough to figure out how I feel about what happened without being consumed by a world full of judges making judgments.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s embarrassing how much time I\u2019ve spent having conversations with ghosts, real and imagined, explicating circumstances and pointing out my points of view. Exhausting. And a waste. You\u2019re (the royal you) going to feel what you\u2019re going to feel. Didactic dialogue rarely achieves; it usually just delineates the differences. You and me, here and there, us and other. Do you want to be right or do you want to be happy? Unfortunately, that question\u2013and the insight required to ask it\u2013seems to come too often after the choice has already been made.<\/p>\n
Let us go back, then, and reflect upon that choice offered and ignored. The worst-case scenario begins that day, not so long ago. Via instant messages, tens of thousands of characters made words that burst staccato like rubber bullets fired at each other to hurt, if not to kill. Frustrations piled on impotent tools and tactics. Of course, the levee wouldn\u2019t hold.<\/p>\n
And we argued eight hours until abruptly re-exchanging vows of recompense and we hadn\u2019t slept in days and, and, and, and, and\u2026I was out of breath surprised and always ready to duck for cover as the inevitable explosion finally exploded. Believing that was my mistake, of course. We had actually earlier imploded individually, dying on the inside hidden. And in just three and one half weeks, we, us, you and me, would be dead forever.<\/p>\n
September 27, 2014:\u202f
I came out of the woods by choice<\/p>\n
All these mistakes I\u2019ve made don\u2019t exist, except in my memory. It\u2019s past and just as fake as whatever I can imagine comes next. Only now exists. The rest is a mind-game-mind-fuck. I have tortured myself beyond any pedestrian water board. I\u2019m tired of living in the shade. \u201cLet there be light,\u201d is a metaphor. It didn\u2019t happen like the book says. It happens every second. This might be hard to wrap your head around, but seconds are too long. Every moment represents a comprehensible difference from the last. Nano-nanoseconds. Every single one of these whatever you want to call them, is a chance to let there be light. God exists in minutiae. The smaller everything gets, the greater is the change in our rules of understanding.<\/p>\n
:\u202f
Grapes of wrath<\/p>\n
A package came today and the return address was in Grapevine, Texas. My son was born in Grapevine. There was a piercing in my heart when I noticed the address. An actual physical hurt. I miss my son. I miss my daughter. I may have done a lot of shitty things in my life, but I know I did at least two things right.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not sure how to fix the situation yet, or how to broker peace in a war that I mostly declared. But I know it has to happen. There\u2019s too much love for this to continue indefinitely.<\/p>\n
September 28, 2014:\u202f
Circles they grow and they swallow people whole, half our lives we say goodnight to wives we\u2019ll never know<\/p>\n
I knew my wife pretty well. Perhaps better than she allows herself to know herself. And the fake wife that came later. I guess I knew her pretty well, too. These are the reasons I still root for Texas A&M, and hate Beaumont even though I\u2019ve only ever passed through. The former represents innocence and integrity, the latter a cesspool of power, corruption, and lies.<\/p>\n
The old (and not so old) me craved the drama. It made me feel like I was alive, whatever that means. I recall finding myself in peculiar situations and watching the scene(s) unfold outside my actual experience, like watching a documentary but simultaneously living in it, often thinking to myself what my \u201cnormal\u201d friends or wife or family might think if they stood where I was actually standing. How incredibly fucking interesting it seemed to be to be alive like that. But the periods following alive were at best soporific, and at worst, less than dead, and the return to normalcy was terrifyingly sedentary and dull. In retrospect I see the calm inside the storm, the eye, where against my flailing attempts to flee, was safety and comfort.<\/p>\n
Whipping in the outskirts for years now I can only wait for the storm to pass, and hope another doesn\u2019t arrive before I can rebuild the levees.<\/p>\n
:\u202f
Two ships passing at the mall<\/p>\n
Isn\u2019t it weird the kind of changes that occur between two parties in an intimate relationship? I find it interesting sometimes to reflect on the fact that though I\u2019ve had countless lovers, there are four or five people walking around planet Earth who know, up close and personal, about my predilections for certain styles of fantasy, dress, or action. That is a very intimate knowledge. And running into these people when access to their relief of these desires is no longer appropriate nor attainable sometimes borders on the surreal. You speak about the shallow end, talk about the weather, the new job, maybe even the kids, knowing all the time she knows something about you that the world passing around you doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
Part of the reason that my site is so transparent is an attempt to take away some of the power of that knowledge. But the main reason, related but far deeper, was to be so honest, sometimes embarrassingly so, that people had no choice but to know I must be telling the truth about everything.<\/p>\n
:\u202f
Memories of him<\/p>\n
Walking from the pool with my girlfriend and the kids. My daughter ran ahead and in chasing her I almost tumbled over my son who had abruptly stopped and kneeled down on the sidewalk. I was just about to hurry him along because my daughter was now almost out of sight when my girlfriend said, \u201cWait. He has literally stopped to smell the flowers. This is an iconic moment. I think we can wait until he\u2019s four to discourage him and crush his spirit.\u201d So we waited. And after a few long draws from the petals he got up and continued toward the house, singing to himself, \u201cThey smell good. They smell good.\u201d<\/p>\n
They do, son, they really do.<\/p>\n
:\u202f
Your name here<\/p>\n
I saw you and I couldn\u2019t take a breath. Every horrible, terrible everything of my life was made whole by the calm of you. Every mistake accentuated made darker in the shadow of your absence. It\u2019s true I ran away before. I wish I could be small. I\u2019ll never be. You\u2019ll never be. In my memory you are bigger than life. You are a myth. You are nameless. It might not be pretty, but let\u2019s see what happens.<\/p>\n
:\u202f
Mele<\/p>\n
Mele means song in Hawaiian. The reduplication, melemele, means yellow. And to me, sometimes, it means everything. There is a picture in my memory, where my daughter, in a yellow dress, has her hands up, reaching to grab an unseen something, more likely someone, with a barely-toothed smile bursting at the limits of her tiny face. I used the image for the invitations to her first birthday lu\u2019au. Every time I see it, I smile.<\/p>\n
After she was born I remember rushing home to watch her sleeping in her crib, next to our bed, always in reach. I remember waiting to wake her in the morning, unwrapping her from her blanket burrito, and watching her eyes open to the strange world around her, recognizing the moment of recognition that would cross her expression as she remembered she was alive.<\/p>\n
Times weren\u2019t perfect than. But every minute with her was.<\/p>\n
The smiles would come later. And when they did there was nothing more special that ever was until that moment, each smile unique and more precious than the last. So quickly did smiles become giggles, then coos and syllables. Then words. Now she is a person. Sentient and sensitive. She is wise, but thankfully retains an innocence I don\u2019t ever recall.<\/p>\n
I was born 40 years old (I have old journal entries to prove it), so I\u2019m happy she gets to be 11. There are people responsible for that. I did notice and I am thankful.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
January 7, 2014:\u202f We think differently \u201cYou\u2019re different.\u201d \u201cI know.\u201d \u201cIt keeps you back.\u201d \u201cBack from what?\u201d \u201cBack from life.\u201d \u201cI\u2019m alive.\u201d \u201cYou could have been so much more.\u201d \u201cLike what?\u201d \u201cHouse. Car. Family. What everyone wants.\u201d \u201cI\u2019m not interested in that.\u201d January 25, 2014:\u202f #nofilter I feel like, honestly, I have thirty years left … <\/p>\n