I woke up early today. The best way, naturally, without effort meaning, when I woke, there was little drawing me back to sleep. I suspect I was only able to accomplish this by having napped during the daytime yesterday, although during covid there is very little day time at all. Thinking back to those few moments in bed, an interesting mental dance occurred. The first thing I noticed was that the content of my right ear had be jostling in my head. Deeper than the socket, close to the jaw. It's a sign I need to get a cleaning. Playing with the sensation led be to thinking about when an appointment might be possible. Even now, sitting up on the couch typing this, I imagine that some much more pressing medical procedures are not occurring on account of the virus. The best thing to do is ask, I know that.
I find myself thinking about how different mornings are during the pandemic. Previously, at 7:00 AM many early birds would have already long sprung from their holes and would be readying the day. The city, like some 15th century noble has attendants across the land moving around and being productive before it even gets up to shit. The first thing I did before truly getting out of bed was roll onto my right shoulder to kiss Rebecca, slip my left hand around her to squeeze her tit over her shirt and tell her I love her. She always, without fail, responds to me when she's sleeping. This time it's just a murmer to the cadence of 'I love you'.
Getting up, there are few sleep cobwebs in my eyes as I pull on the same sweat pants I wore yesterday off the top of the laundry basket. My dog wakes as I open the bedroom door and watches me intensely from his crate as I close it behind me. I do this because I know his very first instinct, after stretching and yawning, will be to storm our bedroom to accost whoever's still resting - usually me. He won't say it but I know deep down he's probably happier when Rebecca's face is the first one he sees in the morning. As I write this he's curled up sleeping on the couch opposite me.
Like the congregation that stands to the tune of Here Comes The Sun, blue light starts to fill the sky. Engines rev and the flag that waves outside my window flows gently in the frigid winter air. Of the hundreds of compartmentalized downtown spaces I see from where I sit, there are less than ten with lights on. The cold is starting to seep into the space between my toes as think, mornings have always been so good to me. A time when I can let myself be open to writing, to thinking quielty, being with myself in silence. It's a reminder that I need to take solving the puzzle of sleep more seriously.
I'm going to go wake Rebecca now. Moby will jump up as soon as he hears me dislodge the bedroom door.
I don't know if it's because we're in lockdown, where days seem to be exact copies of one another, or because I'm getting older, but I'm starting to notice the depth to which my life is programmed. For example, there are many questions which pop up in typical conversation that I have pre-scripted responses to. There was undoubtedly a time when I didn't have an answer for any of them, when I'd have to think and reflect then craft some type of answer. Or perhaps I simply gave one and never changed it.
It is a dangerous and frightening phenomena that humans tend to this type of existence. Where the paths of our lives have risen so high up out of the waters of chaos that they dry and dust in a white-hot sun of knowledge. I suppose it speaks to our proclivity to set things in order, to make more efficient, to know and subdue. How much of our lives are lived taming ourselves, forcing the soul to see only that it is a body. This is something new for me to think on. To find the balance between order and chaos.
I want to avoid life on auto pilot. This also means not spending time in the land of random for the sake of equilibrium. There is no such thing as a balancing action. I cannot steal, then give charitably and call that a life well-lived. It would seem that to live rightly means to do so in the present action. To start I think one must be open to challenging their current programmed behaviour. Is the answer good, useful and true? And yet I consider these reflections as mere attempts to grasp this new challenge.
How does one start building a morning ritual? If we begin by defining our expectations then we'll have an understanding of our general direction and won't be so surprised by what we might encounter. For example, whereas I might've experienced disappointment in myself for not using my time more wisely, perhaps my knowledge of myself will spare me. For now I understand that sometimes, one must wrestle with themselves before they act. And while we have often called this indecisiveness, this struggle is perhaps one of the most important of human characteristics.
Firstly, a morning ritual should begin in the morning. This is the hardest part of it in my opinion. Sleep is, to too many, a great puzzle whose cost in time and energy (or lack of) may go unsolved throughout their lives. I remember growing up, learning that science understands very little about sleep. We understand the effects of sleep and even the brains processes during sleep, but it's not something we've learned to harness. Ultimately, as of now, it goes without saying that good sleep is essential to a good life.
So the first part of our morning ritual should be that we wake up feeling rested. Consequently this means waking at the right hour and, assuming we're waking up early, that we fall asleep early enough the previous night. Therefore ones morning ritual is inevitably tied to a resting ritual. Which sounds like I've come a long way to say the obvious; that to wake up early one must sleep early. But as I've stated, there's something to be got in wrestling with ones self. --- END, 7:58 AM.
I watched The Sound of Music today, and it induced such a strong nostalgia that led to my thinking of you. It’s no surprise that this species of feeling is so tightly connected to you. I accept that it is and likely will be for some time.
Yet if you were here now, sitting across from me in bed, I don’t know what I’d have to say. Nothing out of the ordinary perhaps, I’d ask how you’ve been, if you feel your life is better or worse than when we were together.
Like a runaway fume rising from the dying carcass of an angel, you’ll say ‘better’, I think. Then, cold and hungry I’ll say, “I’m happy for you”. I’d pause, wearing two long sleeves thinking of what to say next and eventually get to it…
You fought so hard at the end believing we still had a chance, but I think if you knew everything I’d think and do, just to get by you, you wouldn’t have said what you did. You could only admit to a fracture of how bad things had gotten.
We committed unforgivable acts by enduring the intolerable. And while there’s a part of me that considers ‘what if’. What if we laid everything bare, could we have still made it? I don’t think, now or then, that it was worth figuring out.
I’ve learned that there’s no ‘best life’ simply the life chosen or the unchosen life-lived. The best chance, a chance taken. So while I have been so deep in thought of you, I remind myself that we, thankfully, never really put chips down.
Though we took authorship of our individual lives, when the pages were filled and lay on the bed, the story hadn’t come out the way we planned. Not only that, but we had pushed the narrative to a precipice. An ellipsis that held a question.
What next?
Looking back at our story I found that it was filled with an obvious conservatism in how much we committed to one another. Like I knew that these chapters were a preamble for something better to come. An old testament promise.
So imagining you sitting in that swivel seat in the corner. Hair naturally curled, half in a pony tail. Your S&S jacket, blue tight jeans and pointed, cheap, fake-leather boots. Annoyed as shit, half there, eyes stuck half rolled. Hand to head.
I say ‘goodnight’ to that ghost of you.
I suppose somewhere along the line, for better or worse, you take a second, drag the comb across your head, look up into the mirror, wipe away the condensation and notice, not entirely surprised, that you've changed. It's not always charcoal and weeds, sometimes just the sight of your still-warm face is the best morning news you've gotten in a while. I can't say that's a worthy baseline, just that, you could wake up dead, you know?
When the cancer returned my father didn't want to go back to the hospital. He said the feeling that he might leave this world on a bed that didn't belong to him was worse than death itself. I think we all knew it was his way of making his peace with the end. We all get there I suppose, and not everyone gets to decide the route they'll take. And yet for a while it didn't seem like he was ill at all. He still gardened most of the day, scratched at his sun burns and slapped his still-thick thigh every time he had to take an injection. Until one day I returned from school and as I placed my key into the front lock a dark miasma seemed to creep out of the still closed door frame.
I heard my father working at the dining table, the sun through the window behind him cast a pure light on the right side of his face as he turned and smiled at me. In that moment I understood, there was was something else in our house. Something had come to establish itself, to do its job, and this was my fathers way of saying goodbye.
I used to write about what excited me and so I would write a lot. I write my best when I want to be a part of something. Maybe it's just a problem of framing. Somehow the regularity of life was still complicated enough to keep me interested. I guess I write about what has been or what will be. It's hardly ever in-the-moment. Yet waking today and being unable to get back to bed, I feel an emptiness like something has been drained out of me. Evaporated like a dream exposed to the morning light. Something passed into forgetfulness while I slept. Fully absorbed into the abyss of subconscious, not like falling but a kind of digestion. I already feel so many things rise up to claim that vacant reservoir. Like the mind can't abide tasteless air. Yet there is a certain calm, like I know what I have to do. A clarity as if the whirlpool of my thoughts have suddenly settled and I can see straight to the bottom of the waterbed. These times are rare but have become more common as of late. I want to go out for a run. I think I'll do that.
There is nothing outside of yourself that can ever enable you to get better, stronger, richer, quicker, or smarter. Everything is within. Everything exists. Seek nothing outside of yourself. - Miyamoto Musashi
On initial contemplation of this quote I couldn't help but feel like he's wrong. Being sick at the moment, it's hard to believe that medicine won't cure my cough. If I could internally will my cells to health I would do so - is Musashi claiming that's possible? Surely, no. However on closer inspection I believe he's referring to the idea that motivation should be self-interested. That is, if we want to get better, stronger, richer, quicker or smarter, we should do so because there exists within us a deep desire to attain those things. A truly selfish desire. He's asserting that we are (or should be) the sole deciding factor in choosing what (and how) we want to improve in our lives. Or perhaps he's claiming that the human spirit itself naturally seeks to excel, to do better, for itself. He definitely isn't promoting hermitage or cutting social integration. Which I think brings up a great insight into how we as humans interact with society. There is an aspect of our existence that calls to community to gathering for survival. These exist within group-accepted boundaries. But there is also a force in us, ever seeking expression, that pushes us to break boundaries (not laws, per se). Perhaps it is natural to want to group-up, to be together, just as it's natural to seek aloneness. However, in either case, and according to Musashi, the cause should come from within.
On initial contemplation of this quote I couldn't help but feel like he's wrong. Being sick at the moment, it's hard to believe that medicine won't cure my cough. If I could internally will my cells to health I would do so - is Musashi claiming that's possible? Surely, no. However on closer inspection I believe he's referring to the idea that motivation should be self-interested. That is, if we want to get better, stronger, richer, quicker or smarter, we should do so because there exists within us a deep desire to attain those things. A truly selfish desire. He's asserting that we are (or should be) the sole deciding factor in choosing what (and how) we want to improve in our lives. Or perhaps he's claiming that the human spirit itself naturally seeks to excel, to do better, for itself. He definitely isn't promoting hermitage or cutting social integration. Which I think brings up a great insight into how we as humans interact with society. There is an aspect of our existence that calls to community to gathering for survival. These exist within group-accepted boundaries. But there is also a force in us, ever seeking expression, that pushes us to break boundaries (not laws, per se). Perhaps it is natural to want to group-up, to be together, just as it's natural to seek aloneness. However, in either case, and according to Musashi, the cause should come from within.
AGainst the Wind
These substances (alcohol, caffeine, anti-depressants) are valued because of the way they alter consciousness. But what all these altered states of consciousness have in common is that none of them contradict or conflict with the basic state of consciousness valued by our society, which I would call the alert, problem-solving state of consciousness, which is good for mundane aspects of science. It's good for the prosecution of warfare, it's good for commerce, it's good for politics, but I think everybody realizes that the promise of a society over-monopolistically based on this state of consciousness has proved hollow. And that this model is no longer working - that it's broken in every possible sense that a model can be broken. And urgently we need to find something which can replace it.
You know I'm sitting in the passenger seat right now, listening to some Xavier Rudd, the sun is shining down hard on me and I'm made warmer by the coffee held between my knees. We've already past three ditched cars contemplating mortality along the highway. They never stood a chance. Yuri drives slow enough as I keep him bespelled with the help of Sixto Rodriguez. He asks for the names of the songs as they come on. He's a good friend. But all I can do is think of you and your fear of bugs. A little bee. It makes me wish we were folded into each other and tucked away like a couple of warm blankets. There's two hours to go on this ride when you say one of the worst things to me. Something like, in another life this could have been a relationship. And I'm utterly gutted; a cruel crimson line running backwards from nape to navel. I'm just spilling out of it. But then you ask me what I'm doing tonight and I'm back to being full of you.
The room was far too moisture-hostile for what we came to do. That much was clear, even if the location of the thermostat wasn't. I cranked it to lo (not low) and turned the dial to where the red and blue half-swirls meet. Your legs look skinnier in those tights, I think to myself, as before you've even taken off your boots, I'm carrying you into a kiss. Two days of stealing them without feeling them have these feelings set in stone. Food isn't the first thing on my mind, but somewhere close by half a slice of pizza has your name on it. You'll ask me later if I like crust. And though this is our second time, I still can't believe you're here. I don't ever want to get used to it. I let you take off your boots, there's a small struggle, but eventually you're barefoot and lying on the bed. Your sweater making itself useless somewhere as I bury my face in your stomach.
I press my index and middle finger into you. They're a couple of explorers trying to carve out a road that starts at the soft centre of your neck. They travel down between your breasts, across your sternum and halt just above your belly button. We've got the same patterns, I say, as I kiss the spot where they set down for camp. A site of warm be-speckled skin. You blame drinks like you've done, but we haven't had any and I angle my back towards you to show you mine. I remember last week, you next to me at the bar, I couldn't finish my chicken wings, and for some reason you're showing me you can make three loops with your tongue. I mirror it back to you and, just as I was at that moment is as I am laying next to you - unsurprised by the congruity of our bodies. It makes me believe this whole thing isn't entirely up to us, that all we can really do is our best.
We're getting ready to make the most of our moisture as I hand you the hair tie. You don't want to but ask if the girl who gave it to me had it in for me. I tell you the truth. You're wearing my shirt and you look way better in it than I do. I tell you you can keep it, but of course you say, no. It was just another shirt until then. I pull you off your back and slide in under you. Three pillows make a greater seat than that of any king. I'm still wearing my jeans, but they're all packed up and ready to find your sweater on the ground. You pull the hair tie from your wrist. Your knees are together as you sit on your legs, your back slightly arched. And when you raise your arms to tie up your hair the curves of your body form the most beautiful geometry imaginable. I'm all yours. You could tell me to destroy the One Ring in that moment and I'd be off without Sam and a prayer. When you're ready, you come down slowly and kiss me gently. I let you run your race over me and try hard to forget who we aren't.
I give you everything. Everything I've been holding down and drowning out. You're giving it up too when you bite your lip and I know that in those moments we're living in that other time line. Breaking down the walls between this world and that with every kiss, push, sigh and new rhythm we put in motion. The truth can't be any clearer than here in the dark with you breathing heavy while I pull on your hair. You scratch gently across my ribs and bite at my skin. It's the softest skin, you say, but I want you to bite it. I never want to leave you and especially then. I put your fluid to use and make the most of it. You always have some waiting for me and I lap it up or press it into you. Its got to be one of my most favourite things. After the longest bust ever we're tangled back up again to play our final game of the night.
We fix the board, set the timer, stretch our fingers and begin with our opening moves. Pieces are won and lost, new maneuvers are tried, angles revisited. And we always wind up contemplating the end. We're somewhat committed to at least thinking about it, and for all my talk I'm terrified. You're at a eight out of ten and I'm about the same when we agree it's not yet time. Our briar maze silently grew one foot higher amongst the moisture. I carry you in my arms, your legs wrapped around me. Your face hidden in the crook of my neck as you play an invisible harp on the strings of my back. Our timeline is slowly shifting into place around us like floating masses of ice and I'm already half a pumpkin as I kiss you good night, in the car, freezing at a closed road.
Happy 24-Hour Anniversary.
I now live in interesting times
It is my belief that some time from now I will look back upon these days and find them to be the most beautiful. But while I'm in them I'll let go a single simple prayer, as any young boy does, with heart in hand looking up at that ultimate authority; do unto me as you will and if you may, let me be good. I release any claim, my name and any right to glory or fame. I will bare it. Because my steps have been ordered and I shall not be infidelious.
Miguel Sketches
I imagine you like a drum takes a beating. So pick up the phone and show me you're real. Cause I'm not trying to put pressure on you. Since our last undressing session, I don't mean to burden you. Last thing I wanna do is get you gems. I need every single single in this town. I've been counting down the days. Where you at, left unread, unsaid and never sent. Hello stranger, it's been a minute since we last kicked it and by the way, I just got back in town. It's all here in the vibe. Usually I, don't do this often, but since we're cool then is it an option? Due to unusual pain and thunder, baby I wonder why I want ya'. Would you just pull your sweat out for me, pull that late night on me. Don't hesitate, no, don't you. Just say you will - come through and chill, chill.
Say you will. Cause there's no one here in the dark except a space for you that smells like ten years. I'm tryna to fuck all night. So hello, I've been waiting, just as I recalled that ass is still amazing. I'm saying baby, go ahead and pull the drink up since I'm so glad we got to link up. Take it off, take it all off for me. Talking late night for you, don't make me wait, just say your yeses. Come through and drill, trill, fill cause it's all that we got, all that we fill and we can get something happening here in the cemetery. Dead for lack of reply. You've been on my mind like a cop killin'. Like ignorance of the figment. Just say you will come through, and chill, just like you will. It's hard here without you, breaking myself down, trying to find you here in the dark. Not wanting you and being afraid of the dark at the same time but knowing that I have to to be able to find you. So OKay, here we go. Waiting for the next cock to crow. Pick it up and show me you're real and I'll heal. So break me down.
Take a shot, make a friend and just enjoy the moment. Celebrate like it's your birthday and don't wait to jump in too long. Don't sleep, you gotta stay up. I'm just standing here in grey like Tom Cruise playin' for keeps and I don't lose. So lose your poison cause I got what you need. Good things to the girls that wait up, so stay up, babe. The morning is our enemy and it has too much vinegar for us to destroy without coffee in the morning. I've been popping these for days and they're feeling me more than you are but I can't do this without you. No plans, no sleep, no waiting, taking shots.
I'm your pimp, I'm your pope, confess your sins to me. I wanna fuck like we're filming in the valley. I've got a red idea to expedite the ride, push them over and pull it over to the side. I'll be your heaven and hell and heater, babe. Lay your skin on me and I'll paint your hills and valleys. I wish I could paint our lives like they're vibrant in clubs. But that pillow talk is nothing but coffee in the morning. We talk shit and sarcasm, lowlifes dressed in high fashion. The gold flame a star in the sky. These moments are nothing but distant hills. I don't want to wake you, I just want to break you. Cause the smell of your hair is all I feel.
Say you will. Cause there's no one here in the dark except a space for you that smells like ten years. I'm tryna to fuck all night. So hello, I've been waiting, just as I recalled that ass is still amazing. I'm saying baby, go ahead and pull the drink up since I'm so glad we got to link up. Take it off, take it all off for me. Talking late night for you, don't make me wait, just say your yeses. Come through and drill, trill, fill cause it's all that we got, all that we fill and we can get something happening here in the cemetery. Dead for lack of reply. You've been on my mind like a cop killin'. Like ignorance of the figment. Just say you will come through, and chill, just like you will. It's hard here without you, breaking myself down, trying to find you here in the dark. Not wanting you and being afraid of the dark at the same time but knowing that I have to to be able to find you. So OKay, here we go. Waiting for the next cock to crow. Pick it up and show me you're real and I'll heal. So break me down.
Take a shot, make a friend and just enjoy the moment. Celebrate like it's your birthday and don't wait to jump in too long. Don't sleep, you gotta stay up. I'm just standing here in grey like Tom Cruise playin' for keeps and I don't lose. So lose your poison cause I got what you need. Good things to the girls that wait up, so stay up, babe. The morning is our enemy and it has too much vinegar for us to destroy without coffee in the morning. I've been popping these for days and they're feeling me more than you are but I can't do this without you. No plans, no sleep, no waiting, taking shots.
I'm your pimp, I'm your pope, confess your sins to me. I wanna fuck like we're filming in the valley. I've got a red idea to expedite the ride, push them over and pull it over to the side. I'll be your heaven and hell and heater, babe. Lay your skin on me and I'll paint your hills and valleys. I wish I could paint our lives like they're vibrant in clubs. But that pillow talk is nothing but coffee in the morning. We talk shit and sarcasm, lowlifes dressed in high fashion. The gold flame a star in the sky. These moments are nothing but distant hills. I don't want to wake you, I just want to break you. Cause the smell of your hair is all I feel.
Nick of Time
Here in the dark, in these final hours, before the morning light fills the space between us, as the cracking air presses on your lips, when the fridge ends its ravenous rumbling, through puzzled out limbs, hands outstretched, my thumb and index finger encircle your wrist. I tell you, these are tiny, and you don't think so. And no matter how hard I try your breathing is softer than mine. My heart against your back like a lost drum finding its rhythm. I've dreamed about you for the past two nights and now you're lying in the clutch of my arm. My tongue tastes like copper from the tap water I've been downing. It feels swollen and dry but finds yours and is redeemed for a moment. You kiss hard. I tell you not to fall asleep, but your eyes weigh tons and you won't stop checking your phone. I ask if we can still go to dinner, you say, yes, and I hope you can feel good about it. Despite my gratefulness, I still reach into you. You let me onto it, but before I can take off my shoes you've got me back out, laces in hand, bunny-eared things too slow for thievery. I don't mind. Because I asked you to come over, and you did, and that's all that matters here in the dark.
Today, while walking to the train station, the smell of wet pavement and grass hung heavy in the air. The rain had stopped at some earlier point in the morning and the sun light was only an echo from the east. She told me it reminded her of university. In boots too big in socks too thick I walked and thought of then. I recalled a night while crossing campus and a feeling of particular weight - at that time thinking, the world had changed around me. Embrace turned to vice, a soil of despair made fertile within me. And by a turn in the wind a seed of paranoia came to sit herein.
What I write about when I write about writing - 24-08-2018
I have always dreamed of writing a novel. Fiction - no doubt. Ideally something that makes a little money… that was my first answer this morning. But after admitting that I think, really? Is that the reason? Money? You can make money selling dried meat. A passionless pursuit in pursuit of the dollar. I don’t think it’s the only reason, it would be nice. Thinking a bit further perhaps it might actually be about capturing something. Like a Pokemon. Kind of. I mean, if you think about it, this body has captured consciousness. Ripped it out of the void by shaping a container for the lightness of being. Consciousness itself doesn’t really care about that. Likely, in its purest form, it’s just here. Not happy or sad to be so. Likely all those things which seem like suffering are habituates. The filters through which consciousness has been conditioned to react to stimuli strengthened here or there resulting in product: suffering and bliss. Greatness, glory, destitution and devastation, all constructs, some collective some not, but all common. There is self there as well, though. Who I am, who we are. Although inherently empty, we have still taken on a shape, a vehicle with which to explore the universe.
Circling back to the topic of writing, I don’t think, like the Buddhists, that the point of existence is to return to that middle state. Instead, writing gives me the chance to tell the under story. But I ask you, James, “what the fuck is the Understory?”. To which I’d reply, it is the latent interaction of subconscious forces beneath every narrative which constitute the push and pull of human signatures. The form of humanity, as I understand it, is variable, I don’t think any of us possess the malleability to express it all. But in every story these forces are at play. They are what makes stories intelligible to us. I as a writer seek to express such. And yet, sitting here - I don’t think it’s the only reason, it would be nice.
On another account, perhaps I write simply because I like myself. I want to hold a conversation with him that has come to sit here with me. Though I don’t know where he’s from or where he’s going, I’d like to have a good time as I sit here. Or maybe, just not a bad time. I suppose writing is a way to connect and converse with that boy. He judges me from the bottom of the river, I know that. And I can’t say he doesn’t have any power or reason to do so. It hurts, badly. Like getting punched in the heart. Walking around blue and black. It resonated yesterday, when I found him finally. I sort of knew where he went, thought I shut myself away when they took him from me. No, when they took him away. I do feel like, aside from all the obvious things that he represents, he is also necessary to my survival. An undeniable structural component of my self. Unkillable, apparently, but not invincible.
And as I sit here it dawns on me - the reason I write, is because it’s good for me. For me, not humanity. I can’t say what’s good for all of us in our varying shapes, I won’t go so far as to comment on such. But at least for this guy, however it might work, whether it be to express the understory, for coin or for a good conversation, I am completely convinced that writing is healthy for me. I think I stopped because I got into the habit of thinking that writing had to be inspired all the time. Like capturing fireflies or the song of the muse. That somehow they would cook in cerebral corners of my consciousness, to the write temperature, walk themselves onto a plate, and present themselves to me. I realize now how preposterous that was to think.
I’m not mad at myself, I am, in fact, trying to get into a habit of tenderness. But all these crashing waves of good intentions has, in addition to breaking my expectations, brought me back to basics, so to speak. I can’t unwrite the story thus far, I can’t rip out the pages and pick up where I want to. But we’re still here. That boy can still be found - be brought up from the depths. Life still beats in his heart and eagles still live in his eyes. So I come with fire to the shore today. A small flame in a land hostile to all species of warmth. Somewhere on these shores of woe I will sit and wait, like I know I should.
Circling back to the topic of writing, I don’t think, like the Buddhists, that the point of existence is to return to that middle state. Instead, writing gives me the chance to tell the under story. But I ask you, James, “what the fuck is the Understory?”. To which I’d reply, it is the latent interaction of subconscious forces beneath every narrative which constitute the push and pull of human signatures. The form of humanity, as I understand it, is variable, I don’t think any of us possess the malleability to express it all. But in every story these forces are at play. They are what makes stories intelligible to us. I as a writer seek to express such. And yet, sitting here - I don’t think it’s the only reason, it would be nice.
On another account, perhaps I write simply because I like myself. I want to hold a conversation with him that has come to sit here with me. Though I don’t know where he’s from or where he’s going, I’d like to have a good time as I sit here. Or maybe, just not a bad time. I suppose writing is a way to connect and converse with that boy. He judges me from the bottom of the river, I know that. And I can’t say he doesn’t have any power or reason to do so. It hurts, badly. Like getting punched in the heart. Walking around blue and black. It resonated yesterday, when I found him finally. I sort of knew where he went, thought I shut myself away when they took him from me. No, when they took him away. I do feel like, aside from all the obvious things that he represents, he is also necessary to my survival. An undeniable structural component of my self. Unkillable, apparently, but not invincible.
And as I sit here it dawns on me - the reason I write, is because it’s good for me. For me, not humanity. I can’t say what’s good for all of us in our varying shapes, I won’t go so far as to comment on such. But at least for this guy, however it might work, whether it be to express the understory, for coin or for a good conversation, I am completely convinced that writing is healthy for me. I think I stopped because I got into the habit of thinking that writing had to be inspired all the time. Like capturing fireflies or the song of the muse. That somehow they would cook in cerebral corners of my consciousness, to the write temperature, walk themselves onto a plate, and present themselves to me. I realize now how preposterous that was to think.
I’m not mad at myself, I am, in fact, trying to get into a habit of tenderness. But all these crashing waves of good intentions has, in addition to breaking my expectations, brought me back to basics, so to speak. I can’t unwrite the story thus far, I can’t rip out the pages and pick up where I want to. But we’re still here. That boy can still be found - be brought up from the depths. Life still beats in his heart and eagles still live in his eyes. So I come with fire to the shore today. A small flame in a land hostile to all species of warmth. Somewhere on these shores of woe I will sit and wait, like I know I should.
Drowning Little J - 23-08-2018
The writing itself is not without hope. It never is. That's how it works. That's how I work. Bringing myself back to the page, to the white ocean of what could be. Free falling. Unknown, unbroken, unhinged? I can't say. I only know that there is something here I don't want to lose. But not only that. Something I want to reawaken. From beneath the pink ground in the land of black. There in the container. Somewhere. It's all pent up. These emotions, dammed, but neglected so not growing, just sitting, tepid, unwrought. Such and such. I can't speak for them I feel, not now, not now that I don't know them. Not now that life has gone out of my eyes... has it? Has the eagle left me as it did Alexander? There isn't much to say, I can't say it, I can't be helped to say it.
There is something in knowing that the words don't belong to me anymore. But they don't belong to him either. They belong to... a place? space? spawn? Who cares? We just want to bring back the words. We want to bring back beauty. I think that's what it comes down to now that I think about it. We want to remember what it was like to create. To write, to draw, to sing. All of that - it was magical. But magic doesn't pay the rent. It doesn't buy a shot - the good or bad kind. No, no it does not. But it's what all of that is for. It's the top of the pyramid.
So what can we say in regards to our current state? Well, there was a time when we didn't have to worry about maintaining the bottom of that pyramid - it was done for us. We were children, we simply had to express what was within, that was all - to shine, to be shown, to show and be shone. That's called childhood. That stopped, obviously. Perhaps because we didn't have what we wanted - we changed what we wanted. No one forced us to. No one forced us too. That was all us. We held trial, council, parliament. And some fuckface got up and started delivering this new plan. The New Deal. Our internal contract laid out nosus decipio. And we fucking bought it, we bit it, hook line and sphincter. Dragged down, not up, to purgatory.
Our bodily wisdom knew and screamed. It screamed over and over for months in its all black cell. Like a ragged mother beggar forced to trade dignity for desperation hoping to save her son from slaughter. But there was no coin for the boatman. No angel in offering a lamb. Abraham had his day. When that small boy with crooked knees, masses of glasses and whistling teeth came to the shore of Acheron, Charon lifted him up with one boney arm and threw him into the water.
---
Unconsciously he was thankful the water didn't burn his eyes, if that's what it was. He ran in liquid and didn't feel the bottom but the shore wasn't so far away. The souls behind still lined the coast back to the black forest. That line was finite but didn't end here. The water knew little rhythm other than the useless beating of the boatman's oar and hardly noticed the thrashings of this little filipino boy. He kicked his legs and flailed his arms trying to keep his head above the surface but only seemed to sink slowly into the infidelious fluid. It swallowed him and his silent scream. And he lies there now, at the bottom of the river, mouth agape while souls of fidelity are ferried above him.
---
That's who we're looking for. Hope against horror. Us wizened indrunkarded and baffled boys standing stupid on the shore at the waters of woe. Us who condemned him for the whiteness of his spirit. Put him there whose thought to rot. We've heard the cries of his mother in furious song and whispers of ash. She haunts us now. Her ethereal fingers work to splay the thread of sanity and plant seeds of cessation. Those are diamonds spelled like salt. So here we go wading into the waveless, neck deep blind in the dark feeling for feeling.
There is something in knowing that the words don't belong to me anymore. But they don't belong to him either. They belong to... a place? space? spawn? Who cares? We just want to bring back the words. We want to bring back beauty. I think that's what it comes down to now that I think about it. We want to remember what it was like to create. To write, to draw, to sing. All of that - it was magical. But magic doesn't pay the rent. It doesn't buy a shot - the good or bad kind. No, no it does not. But it's what all of that is for. It's the top of the pyramid.
So what can we say in regards to our current state? Well, there was a time when we didn't have to worry about maintaining the bottom of that pyramid - it was done for us. We were children, we simply had to express what was within, that was all - to shine, to be shown, to show and be shone. That's called childhood. That stopped, obviously. Perhaps because we didn't have what we wanted - we changed what we wanted. No one forced us to. No one forced us too. That was all us. We held trial, council, parliament. And some fuckface got up and started delivering this new plan. The New Deal. Our internal contract laid out nosus decipio. And we fucking bought it, we bit it, hook line and sphincter. Dragged down, not up, to purgatory.
Our bodily wisdom knew and screamed. It screamed over and over for months in its all black cell. Like a ragged mother beggar forced to trade dignity for desperation hoping to save her son from slaughter. But there was no coin for the boatman. No angel in offering a lamb. Abraham had his day. When that small boy with crooked knees, masses of glasses and whistling teeth came to the shore of Acheron, Charon lifted him up with one boney arm and threw him into the water.
---
Unconsciously he was thankful the water didn't burn his eyes, if that's what it was. He ran in liquid and didn't feel the bottom but the shore wasn't so far away. The souls behind still lined the coast back to the black forest. That line was finite but didn't end here. The water knew little rhythm other than the useless beating of the boatman's oar and hardly noticed the thrashings of this little filipino boy. He kicked his legs and flailed his arms trying to keep his head above the surface but only seemed to sink slowly into the infidelious fluid. It swallowed him and his silent scream. And he lies there now, at the bottom of the river, mouth agape while souls of fidelity are ferried above him.
---
That's who we're looking for. Hope against horror. Us wizened indrunkarded and baffled boys standing stupid on the shore at the waters of woe. Us who condemned him for the whiteness of his spirit. Put him there whose thought to rot. We've heard the cries of his mother in furious song and whispers of ash. She haunts us now. Her ethereal fingers work to splay the thread of sanity and plant seeds of cessation. Those are diamonds spelled like salt. So here we go wading into the waveless, neck deep blind in the dark feeling for feeling.
Costa Rica
The sun fills the sky with white light that the clouds make grey between fat veins of blue.
Coffee steams under cover of hard plastic casing.
I remember what it felt like to write, briefly.
It's always hard to sleep before a vacation - at least for me. Likely because I don't travel very much so there's always a good mixture of excitement and anxiety that take over the centre of my consciousness and dig in for the night. They give out pamphlets about plane crashes and terrorists but they're mostly ignored. I do my best to sleep but usually only succeed in getting the terrible tip. That's usually okay, I tell myself I'll sleep on the plane - but fuck that, I won't sleep without a strong sleep inducing pharmaceutical and (if I'm lucky) a bit of alcohol. And so it goes.
I'm sitting on the movator pretending I'm rowing a boat - there's a video of it somewhere. Just me and the soon-to-be covfefiance. But neither of us know that yet. It'll be a couple months until - 3ish. So the airport has these tablets you can pay to play games on, they're mostly shit. The food too is mostly crap - all in-transit business fare. Nothing you actually want to sit and eat but it's 3ish in the AM and no one's counting calories.
So we partake in the miracle of human flight - plane didn't get lost, we didn't crash. Touchdown in an airport in Panama and it's relatively like the Malvern Mall of airports on my list of airports I've ever stopped over in. But like, they got decent fried chicken and I start reading this book about what seems to be a sentient house. I have since lost that book, but I do actually want to finish it - wherever it is. Just that, since I haven't read it in a while would I continue from where I left off or would I start from the beginning? Likely I won't find it and I'll never end up finishing it. And yet having said that I'm more likely to want to find it... but I still don't know if I'll start from the beginning or where I left off at.
We arrive in San José - it's surprisingly less-tropic than expected. I left Toronto in a sweater and as I make my way to our private shuttle bus I'm glad I did and sad I didn't bring anything heavier. Within 24 hours I'll regret it even more when I'm like, a thousand feet above the ground flying through the mountains with a big Costa Rican man and a harness tied around my squishy middle parts.
The coach - an intruder bringing light through a rocky dirt road between howling mountain passages pressing on to the homes in the air. Destination: Monteverde - one word, not two. The two-word-one is in Chile. We retrace the cruel blade strokes, now scars, in the proud rocky face. Cuts that brought ice and fire and silent sex further into the territory of jaguars and sleeping birds. It's a long road and we only stop once. In that episode, at the gas station, I find it's my first time interacting with locals. Our guide doesn't really count - he's aight and probably more used to dealing with foreigners.
I think of that table in the corner of an open patio that looked out onto the Pacific. Deep blue walls against white.
The bohemians. The drunk and drugged living out of trucks moving across the southern continent. Her face - hair held back, bare bum on my lap, and the most beautiful night sky behind her. Racing across the green freckled black water with gravol in my belly.
Coffee beans drying in the sun open to the air beneath nets that hold out the sloths. Churning the peeler that sinewy tequila-sweating arms rolled in years past. All in-scorched. The air as it flexes and releases its thoughts through the mountain. Between the confident new forms of earth that now bring forth.
A pig - big. Stinking of shit and earth. Hair like mine but whiter, nose in mud, gaseous.
A pigs head, separated. Its body skinned and halved hanging above. Clean muscles, the sweet scent of blood.
I see the waterfall towering above a small black head darker than the deep water around it. I imagine someone falling from above, breaking bones, shattering, dripping bones. The turning off of lights. A divorce of consciousness and matter. An eviction of the soul on account of an unaccommodating structural edit.
Coffee steams under cover of hard plastic casing.
I remember what it felt like to write, briefly.
It's always hard to sleep before a vacation - at least for me. Likely because I don't travel very much so there's always a good mixture of excitement and anxiety that take over the centre of my consciousness and dig in for the night. They give out pamphlets about plane crashes and terrorists but they're mostly ignored. I do my best to sleep but usually only succeed in getting the terrible tip. That's usually okay, I tell myself I'll sleep on the plane - but fuck that, I won't sleep without a strong sleep inducing pharmaceutical and (if I'm lucky) a bit of alcohol. And so it goes.
I'm sitting on the movator pretending I'm rowing a boat - there's a video of it somewhere. Just me and the soon-to-be covfefiance. But neither of us know that yet. It'll be a couple months until - 3ish. So the airport has these tablets you can pay to play games on, they're mostly shit. The food too is mostly crap - all in-transit business fare. Nothing you actually want to sit and eat but it's 3ish in the AM and no one's counting calories.
So we partake in the miracle of human flight - plane didn't get lost, we didn't crash. Touchdown in an airport in Panama and it's relatively like the Malvern Mall of airports on my list of airports I've ever stopped over in. But like, they got decent fried chicken and I start reading this book about what seems to be a sentient house. I have since lost that book, but I do actually want to finish it - wherever it is. Just that, since I haven't read it in a while would I continue from where I left off or would I start from the beginning? Likely I won't find it and I'll never end up finishing it. And yet having said that I'm more likely to want to find it... but I still don't know if I'll start from the beginning or where I left off at.
We arrive in San José - it's surprisingly less-tropic than expected. I left Toronto in a sweater and as I make my way to our private shuttle bus I'm glad I did and sad I didn't bring anything heavier. Within 24 hours I'll regret it even more when I'm like, a thousand feet above the ground flying through the mountains with a big Costa Rican man and a harness tied around my squishy middle parts.
The coach - an intruder bringing light through a rocky dirt road between howling mountain passages pressing on to the homes in the air. Destination: Monteverde - one word, not two. The two-word-one is in Chile. We retrace the cruel blade strokes, now scars, in the proud rocky face. Cuts that brought ice and fire and silent sex further into the territory of jaguars and sleeping birds. It's a long road and we only stop once. In that episode, at the gas station, I find it's my first time interacting with locals. Our guide doesn't really count - he's aight and probably more used to dealing with foreigners.
I think of that table in the corner of an open patio that looked out onto the Pacific. Deep blue walls against white.
The bohemians. The drunk and drugged living out of trucks moving across the southern continent. Her face - hair held back, bare bum on my lap, and the most beautiful night sky behind her. Racing across the green freckled black water with gravol in my belly.
Coffee beans drying in the sun open to the air beneath nets that hold out the sloths. Churning the peeler that sinewy tequila-sweating arms rolled in years past. All in-scorched. The air as it flexes and releases its thoughts through the mountain. Between the confident new forms of earth that now bring forth.
A pig - big. Stinking of shit and earth. Hair like mine but whiter, nose in mud, gaseous.
A pigs head, separated. Its body skinned and halved hanging above. Clean muscles, the sweet scent of blood.
I see the waterfall towering above a small black head darker than the deep water around it. I imagine someone falling from above, breaking bones, shattering, dripping bones. The turning off of lights. A divorce of consciousness and matter. An eviction of the soul on account of an unaccommodating structural edit.
The demons are returning. Or perhaps it's only one - maybe it's my ego that wants to believe it would take more than one to overthrow me. And yet I see them - him - her - it, its(?) approaching from afar. Whereas before I froze when the door to sanity was thrown from its hinges, this time it's like I, from a watchtower, see them gathering forces in the forest beyond my fortress. In many ways what's coming together out there are all the lost bits of my soul I have had to crush to build these walls. There is a part of me that understands they aren't inherently evil, just like the pressure created by choked up water and its potential for destruction is not evil. But I understand the danger. I understand what's at stake if I let the enemies take the wall. Perhaps this is why we are so fascinated by the concept of siege and defence.
How to enrhythm the body unaccustomed to movement. Further still, how to enrhythm the mind left silent.
Beneath the bare limbs the bones are weak. The home of memory unkept, decrepit.
A story of decay, moldering ash, life capped, enshelled; but churning within, the liquid of life.
Pregnant flame in light is born but does not wake.
Beneath the bare limbs the bones are weak. The home of memory unkept, decrepit.
A story of decay, moldering ash, life capped, enshelled; but churning within, the liquid of life.
Pregnant flame in light is born but does not wake.
I'm afraid - I admit. Afraid that I will travel all the way back there, tracing my steps and such, to find a place where the energy that was me once played. I'm afraid that back there I will not only feel but know that the line was broken. That I had been deceived into thinking that time apart could rekindle passion. That in truth I had allowed a coldness to seep into my heart and a laziness into my bones. I have noticed flies about me. They are reminder that decay has found its way to me.
What can I say, father? I understand - but I don't, how could I? Since I'm not you and haven't walked in those shoes. Truthfully I don't, I'm not empathizing when I say I understand, I'm acknowledging the logic. The logic of indifference - behind the why you let me go so far and didn't wait for me to come back. It was me.
It was me that pulled me through and did the work. Surely with help - I don't state the contrary, but that is to say, without you - I have come this far, me without you. And I think, that's why you stayed away, or rather, why you focused elsewhere. I didn't need you to get here. I am fine, I turned out well. Like a recipe tried for the first time you didn't manage to fuck up; but knowing that there was a strong possibility you could.
You see, I get that. I understand. I'm glad I saved you from that guilt. Of having a son you couldn't have a hand in raising that grew up to be an embarrassing mess. That would have been on you, whether or not you tried. I get that. I understand. But what does that leave us, Pops? I'm close to being called a man and you're close to being called a dad. Where does that leave us? Now so accustomed to doing without each other.
Truthfully I'm saddened by it. By knowing that that time has passed. That it will never be the relationship between a boy and his father I had imagined. That I will never get to look up to you imaginably, with wonder, as super man. But that's not to say I'm ungrateful. You gave me life and you didn't put yourself in my way. Yet, that's the reason I'm writing this. Because you weren't in my way cept in the way I wanted you to stay.
What can I say, father? I understand - but I don't, how could I? Since I'm not you and haven't walked in those shoes. Truthfully I don't, I'm not empathizing when I say I understand, I'm acknowledging the logic. The logic of indifference - behind the why you let me go so far and didn't wait for me to come back. It was me.
It was me that pulled me through and did the work. Surely with help - I don't state the contrary, but that is to say, without you - I have come this far, me without you. And I think, that's why you stayed away, or rather, why you focused elsewhere. I didn't need you to get here. I am fine, I turned out well. Like a recipe tried for the first time you didn't manage to fuck up; but knowing that there was a strong possibility you could.
You see, I get that. I understand. I'm glad I saved you from that guilt. Of having a son you couldn't have a hand in raising that grew up to be an embarrassing mess. That would have been on you, whether or not you tried. I get that. I understand. But what does that leave us, Pops? I'm close to being called a man and you're close to being called a dad. Where does that leave us? Now so accustomed to doing without each other.
Truthfully I'm saddened by it. By knowing that that time has passed. That it will never be the relationship between a boy and his father I had imagined. That I will never get to look up to you imaginably, with wonder, as super man. But that's not to say I'm ungrateful. You gave me life and you didn't put yourself in my way. Yet, that's the reason I'm writing this. Because you weren't in my way cept in the way I wanted you to stay.
I don’t write for myself. I don’t know anyone who does. Perhaps I have read the work of people who have, but I don’t know them. Even as I write this it’s with the expectation that someone will read this. The feeling is double layered. On top is the knowing that no one will likely read this; I don’t direct people to my work and I don’t want to. But underneath that is the hope that someone, somewhere, sometime, might come across it. As to what is communicated to that person, I don’t know and I’m not really trying to convey or control a message here. Perhaps it’s simply the possibility that someone will have read this thought. Perhaps it’s the thought that wants recognition; to be realized, as something more than fumes. Perhaps there is a hidden potential it believes it has; a spark or inherent combustibility that it could ignite in someone. Maybe it’s that it knows how short a life span it has, and in knowing so, it attempts to make as big a mark it can. Even then, it won’t last forever. Forever is a long, long time. But I guess that doesn't matter to the thought. Perhaps the thought is much like an egg with the potential to hatch, to live for a brief moment, until it can birth a new thing; perhaps that’s its goal, its reasoning. I don’t know, I just know that it felt good to write this.
Apparently, most people only care about the products of success and neglect the hard work, dedication and perseverance it took to attain that success, perhaps because it’s easy to write off the achievements of others as luck or chance.
I don’t think so. I think that most people know how hard it is to succeed. I think that this is one thing that we all understand to some degree as, (for anyone living) we have all made and continue take steps to improve our lives. To live is to survive, and to survive is to thrive (so to speak).
And so instead, I believe that we focus on success so as to blind ourselves from the cold truth; that we know the cost, but we aren't willing to pay it. That’s okay, truthfully, success is not for everyone. And don’t get me wrong, there are definitely losers out there. Those who have bet and lost; but I think if you take all the winners and losers in this world, they would be terribly outnumbered by the body of people who simply never chose to play at all.
I don’t think so. I think that most people know how hard it is to succeed. I think that this is one thing that we all understand to some degree as, (for anyone living) we have all made and continue take steps to improve our lives. To live is to survive, and to survive is to thrive (so to speak).
And so instead, I believe that we focus on success so as to blind ourselves from the cold truth; that we know the cost, but we aren't willing to pay it. That’s okay, truthfully, success is not for everyone. And don’t get me wrong, there are definitely losers out there. Those who have bet and lost; but I think if you take all the winners and losers in this world, they would be terribly outnumbered by the body of people who simply never chose to play at all.
Fire Fever
The smell of wood by our fireplace has been with me since I was very young. It's the closest thing to feeling outside while staying indoors. And today, for some reason beyond me, my grand mother has chosen to light the logs that lay in a metal cradle by the door to the backyard.
My cousin and I watch rapt in a silent solemnity as most children do when experiencing something new. There's nothing but smoke that curls and grips the logs for a while as my grandmother uses a twice folded over newspaper to fan the wood. We lay on the couch, bellies down, propping our chest up onto the chair arm.
Flames appear at both edges of the log like weak flagella. Their tendrils swell slowly, sprout and spread. For the first time that I can remember, there's a fire in the fireplace.
We all huddle on the chair arm - small butts fitting nicely. I hold my knees to my chest and I find myself focusing into the fire. I start to imagine that I can somehow draw on the flame, to make it grow or weaken, to move it. My vision blurs as I seem to no longer be focusing on the fire anymore but the heat itself.
The heat presents itself to me like a stranger I've bothered. It looks back at me as if to say, no one else should be here, how can you see me? And I shake my head because I don't know. I blink and feel water has built up at edges of my pupils.
Somehow I find myself going deeper into the flame. The heat is now genuinely interested me and I can feel it taking advantage of my openness. It's starting to trade places with me and I feel a pressure building in my head.
But I can't stop looking. Something is happening here that isn't routine. It isn't within the general experience of those I know. Of my cousin or my parents. Somehow I know this. I have to keep up my exchange, it's the only way.
Sweat pools in my pores and I feel cold and burning. I say, mama, I feel sick, and my grandmother looks at me while holding a hand to my head. I break my connection with the flame and whatever was in it. I roll my body to rest my head on the chair arm and I can still hear the fire beyond.
EDIT: I'll finish later. Need to go home for the day.
My cousin and I watch rapt in a silent solemnity as most children do when experiencing something new. There's nothing but smoke that curls and grips the logs for a while as my grandmother uses a twice folded over newspaper to fan the wood. We lay on the couch, bellies down, propping our chest up onto the chair arm.
Flames appear at both edges of the log like weak flagella. Their tendrils swell slowly, sprout and spread. For the first time that I can remember, there's a fire in the fireplace.
We all huddle on the chair arm - small butts fitting nicely. I hold my knees to my chest and I find myself focusing into the fire. I start to imagine that I can somehow draw on the flame, to make it grow or weaken, to move it. My vision blurs as I seem to no longer be focusing on the fire anymore but the heat itself.
The heat presents itself to me like a stranger I've bothered. It looks back at me as if to say, no one else should be here, how can you see me? And I shake my head because I don't know. I blink and feel water has built up at edges of my pupils.
Somehow I find myself going deeper into the flame. The heat is now genuinely interested me and I can feel it taking advantage of my openness. It's starting to trade places with me and I feel a pressure building in my head.
But I can't stop looking. Something is happening here that isn't routine. It isn't within the general experience of those I know. Of my cousin or my parents. Somehow I know this. I have to keep up my exchange, it's the only way.
Sweat pools in my pores and I feel cold and burning. I say, mama, I feel sick, and my grandmother looks at me while holding a hand to my head. I break my connection with the flame and whatever was in it. I roll my body to rest my head on the chair arm and I can still hear the fire beyond.
EDIT: I'll finish later. Need to go home for the day.
The way we met, was wonderful. Two strangers in similar silence in the same time and space. Our conversation began as most abruptly do, on the topic of something seemingly random, and yet not entirely unfamiliar. Openers we had both used countlessly.
"Hello there!"
"What are you here waiting for?"
And presto. A new couple pages filled in the story of my life.
To me, to whom all people are adventures, how much can I expect of this one?
Until recently I had assumed a lot. But then, that optimism is carried with every possibility of a new adventure, a new something. Newness is a most attractive thing. Even more so, in some cases, than outward beauty. Although not usually, and never totally.
So here, again, a new topic of thought on long subway rides, cardio workouts, and writing. A new face, which, I have not entirely taken to memory. I can't fantasize about her until I have her face firmly in my memory. And yet, I didn't take note of her face.
Why didn't I? Maybe because, I know that she's leaving soon.
To pursue a career, a dream, a goal. And she's doing so well. Do I want to stop her? Hell no. Why? Maybe because, I know how hard it can be to set a goal and then to achieve it.
Most people are goal makers and fakers, hardly are they ever actually achievers. I am attracted to achievers, it's so unfortunate. Because they're always the ones that will end up leaving this shit hole that is local, that is small, that is what you talk about in a cafe somewhere in Europe.
I don't know. She's an eater, she can eat her weight, ha!. But she's sweet, and she's kind. She's a good speaker, she is organized, and she's smart. She is, everything I want.
And don't take my meaning of "everything" all too literally. She's not some idealistic Helen of Troy and she doesn't come near to approaching what I might consider the Platonic form of the Femme. But at least for me, a being who is entirely human, she is enough.
Well, as far as I know her she's enough. She can make me happy, and I could do the same for her.
But, I don't know if I want to be made happy by her. She's only going to leave. And we already know how that's going to feel. How that will make you act, and what it will eventually make you do.
That isn't a place we want to revisit.
And so, I've chosen to close the door on her. Before she even really takes a step into my world. I'm saving her and I the trouble of getting to know each other, get attached, and then feeling the way we do when we finally have to part.
Is that sad?
A part of me says yes. There's that liberal, that is, French, part of me that says, live now and die later. Like, I should be able to talk to her, I should be able to let myself get closer to her, to get to know her, because, those are experiences that I could never have again. There are things I could exchange with her that I might never experience otherwise. She is still an adventure.
But what keeps me form it then?
Well, wouldn't it simply be that I feel as if it will be a waste? If after all the time, all the effort, all the money, she still leaves? We know that, we aren't ready to accept that. Because, we don't know what we can really expect from her, we can't even really say whether or not we know her yet. So, we're ready to risk not getting to know her.
Does that make me a coward?
What does that make me otherwise? Smart?
I don't think smart is the word for it. We aren't really finding solutions, we're finding ways out. So I mean. In the end... she was great, I can say that truely. She was wonderful. But, she'll be gone soon. I'd just rather she left my life on my terms. So, whether I am smart or a coward or simply a variation of both, I am, clearly, selfish.
"Hello there!"
"What are you here waiting for?"
And presto. A new couple pages filled in the story of my life.
To me, to whom all people are adventures, how much can I expect of this one?
Until recently I had assumed a lot. But then, that optimism is carried with every possibility of a new adventure, a new something. Newness is a most attractive thing. Even more so, in some cases, than outward beauty. Although not usually, and never totally.
So here, again, a new topic of thought on long subway rides, cardio workouts, and writing. A new face, which, I have not entirely taken to memory. I can't fantasize about her until I have her face firmly in my memory. And yet, I didn't take note of her face.
Why didn't I? Maybe because, I know that she's leaving soon.
To pursue a career, a dream, a goal. And she's doing so well. Do I want to stop her? Hell no. Why? Maybe because, I know how hard it can be to set a goal and then to achieve it.
Most people are goal makers and fakers, hardly are they ever actually achievers. I am attracted to achievers, it's so unfortunate. Because they're always the ones that will end up leaving this shit hole that is local, that is small, that is what you talk about in a cafe somewhere in Europe.
I don't know. She's an eater, she can eat her weight, ha!. But she's sweet, and she's kind. She's a good speaker, she is organized, and she's smart. She is, everything I want.
And don't take my meaning of "everything" all too literally. She's not some idealistic Helen of Troy and she doesn't come near to approaching what I might consider the Platonic form of the Femme. But at least for me, a being who is entirely human, she is enough.
Well, as far as I know her she's enough. She can make me happy, and I could do the same for her.
But, I don't know if I want to be made happy by her. She's only going to leave. And we already know how that's going to feel. How that will make you act, and what it will eventually make you do.
That isn't a place we want to revisit.
And so, I've chosen to close the door on her. Before she even really takes a step into my world. I'm saving her and I the trouble of getting to know each other, get attached, and then feeling the way we do when we finally have to part.
Is that sad?
A part of me says yes. There's that liberal, that is, French, part of me that says, live now and die later. Like, I should be able to talk to her, I should be able to let myself get closer to her, to get to know her, because, those are experiences that I could never have again. There are things I could exchange with her that I might never experience otherwise. She is still an adventure.
But what keeps me form it then?
Well, wouldn't it simply be that I feel as if it will be a waste? If after all the time, all the effort, all the money, she still leaves? We know that, we aren't ready to accept that. Because, we don't know what we can really expect from her, we can't even really say whether or not we know her yet. So, we're ready to risk not getting to know her.
Does that make me a coward?
What does that make me otherwise? Smart?
I don't think smart is the word for it. We aren't really finding solutions, we're finding ways out. So I mean. In the end... she was great, I can say that truely. She was wonderful. But, she'll be gone soon. I'd just rather she left my life on my terms. So, whether I am smart or a coward or simply a variation of both, I am, clearly, selfish.
I can remember her sitting on the bed fully clothed. That was sobering and saddening. I paid for this hotel room, the food that now sat mulling messily on the cupboard with the TV that faced away from the bed. The roses I bought her lay on the dressing table - only two, the rest were probably freezing and dying in the car.
We spent a good night together. I picked her up on time, she was ready, dressed nicely, she bought dance shoes that day, I drove slowly, didn’t rush, spoke softly, smiled without looking at her, parked, paid, danced, held her at the bar, bought wine, drank with her, fed her, fucked her. But I couldn’t sleep next to her. I knew that no matter how well that night went I had come there, done all of that, to figure out answers to some questions I still hadn’t asked.
Or rather, I had asked them, but under very different circumstances - from afar, over the phone, through email, never face to face, and always with anger or a flurry of distracting thoughts. That’s why I spent so much money on that night. Clarity is priceless, or rather, it spares no expense.
I massaged her body after we had sex the second time, except her feet, I just didn’t think of it, and she would’ve been ticklish, I think. I kissed parts of her body that I had spent a lot of time with, cared for, tended. I began with her back, she has and perhaps will always love the feeling of someone massaging her back, but she has sensitive sides - very prone to tickling.
I turned her over, massaged her shoulders and arms, every finger and both thumbs, kissed her palms, sucked on her nipples a bit and then kissed down her sternum towards her navel. I stopped where her uterus is, I remembered, years ago, being in that same position, with my face in her stomach, in her basement, on her couch.
The lights weren’t on, white sunlight came through the windows. It was the first time (and not the last) that she was pregnant. We talked about how we wanted to have a baby, we were young, she was scared - in her voice, I could hear it. In the darkness there on the couch I spoke to her stomach.
I said, “you know, we love you, and we really want you, but we’re not ready for you to come, yet”. I remember she cried while I spoke to her belly, and I cried a bit too. We lay there together for a while, talked about how we’d go about dealing with it, she said it made her feel better when I spoke to her belly.
I thought of that in the hotel room as I stopped just below her naval. I pressed my face into her stomach, my forehead and eyes, and I kissed it, over and over, then sort of massaged those kisses into that spot.
I moved down to her legs, to her inner thighs, I kissed them both, massaged them, clutched them. I thought of Steinbeck and East of Eden. I thought of how she had read East of Eden after I lent it to her, how she had read Of Mice and Men after and how I never had but owned it and was the one who lent it to her. I lent her a lot of my things, I remember.
As I got to the space behind her knees I looked for the scars I knew were there from the dog leash I couldn’t control, that she hated. It made me remember the time we spent sitting her bosses house and dogs, and how I didn’t help her clean. Our last caring arguments, before I missed her birthday. I kissed both scars, they’ll be there for a while, I think. I moved down to her calves, her shins, but never got to her feet.
When I had finished I sat there, sitting on my legs, and just felt exhausted. She looked at me, she felt good, she said, “is there anything you want?”. I knew she meant physically. I didn’t. I got under the covers next to her, she asked again, I said, “I don’t”.
After a few moments I told her, “I just wanted to say goodbye to your body”. I was looking up at the ceiling of the room lit by the orange side lamp. “Your body used to be mine, but it isn’t anymore, and you want to give it to someone else”. She didn’t reply, she just lay there and looked up at the ceiling.
During the last time we had sex, the third that night, I asked her, while fucking her, if she wanted to see other people, she said, “yes”. I asked, while fucking her, if she wanted to sleep with other people, she said, “yes”. I finished, sat up, and said, “that’s our last fuck”.
That was the end and that was the answer I needed. I needed to treat her nicely, I needed her to be happy, to be comfortable, to not be angry, to be as clear as possible when she said it - that there was no hope. And that was enough for me.
I can remember her sitting on the bed fully clothed. That was sobering and saddening. I sat on a chair facing the bed, fully clothed and ready to go. I stared at her for a few minutes. Here’s the picture:
She’s sitting on the left side of the bed not looking at me, angry as fuck. I had told her I wasn’t going to be driving her home - let’s be real, it would be a terrible idea for us to get into a car together. The lamp that had been on since we arrived was still on. The bed was simply a bed. I hope to never forget that image.
We spent a good night together. I picked her up on time, she was ready, dressed nicely, she bought dance shoes that day, I drove slowly, didn’t rush, spoke softly, smiled without looking at her, parked, paid, danced, held her at the bar, bought wine, drank with her, fed her, fucked her. But I couldn’t sleep next to her. I knew that no matter how well that night went I had come there, done all of that, to figure out answers to some questions I still hadn’t asked.
Or rather, I had asked them, but under very different circumstances - from afar, over the phone, through email, never face to face, and always with anger or a flurry of distracting thoughts. That’s why I spent so much money on that night. Clarity is priceless, or rather, it spares no expense.
I massaged her body after we had sex the second time, except her feet, I just didn’t think of it, and she would’ve been ticklish, I think. I kissed parts of her body that I had spent a lot of time with, cared for, tended. I began with her back, she has and perhaps will always love the feeling of someone massaging her back, but she has sensitive sides - very prone to tickling.
I turned her over, massaged her shoulders and arms, every finger and both thumbs, kissed her palms, sucked on her nipples a bit and then kissed down her sternum towards her navel. I stopped where her uterus is, I remembered, years ago, being in that same position, with my face in her stomach, in her basement, on her couch.
The lights weren’t on, white sunlight came through the windows. It was the first time (and not the last) that she was pregnant. We talked about how we wanted to have a baby, we were young, she was scared - in her voice, I could hear it. In the darkness there on the couch I spoke to her stomach.
I said, “you know, we love you, and we really want you, but we’re not ready for you to come, yet”. I remember she cried while I spoke to her belly, and I cried a bit too. We lay there together for a while, talked about how we’d go about dealing with it, she said it made her feel better when I spoke to her belly.
I thought of that in the hotel room as I stopped just below her naval. I pressed my face into her stomach, my forehead and eyes, and I kissed it, over and over, then sort of massaged those kisses into that spot.
I moved down to her legs, to her inner thighs, I kissed them both, massaged them, clutched them. I thought of Steinbeck and East of Eden. I thought of how she had read East of Eden after I lent it to her, how she had read Of Mice and Men after and how I never had but owned it and was the one who lent it to her. I lent her a lot of my things, I remember.
As I got to the space behind her knees I looked for the scars I knew were there from the dog leash I couldn’t control, that she hated. It made me remember the time we spent sitting her bosses house and dogs, and how I didn’t help her clean. Our last caring arguments, before I missed her birthday. I kissed both scars, they’ll be there for a while, I think. I moved down to her calves, her shins, but never got to her feet.
When I had finished I sat there, sitting on my legs, and just felt exhausted. She looked at me, she felt good, she said, “is there anything you want?”. I knew she meant physically. I didn’t. I got under the covers next to her, she asked again, I said, “I don’t”.
After a few moments I told her, “I just wanted to say goodbye to your body”. I was looking up at the ceiling of the room lit by the orange side lamp. “Your body used to be mine, but it isn’t anymore, and you want to give it to someone else”. She didn’t reply, she just lay there and looked up at the ceiling.
During the last time we had sex, the third that night, I asked her, while fucking her, if she wanted to see other people, she said, “yes”. I asked, while fucking her, if she wanted to sleep with other people, she said, “yes”. I finished, sat up, and said, “that’s our last fuck”.
That was the end and that was the answer I needed. I needed to treat her nicely, I needed her to be happy, to be comfortable, to not be angry, to be as clear as possible when she said it - that there was no hope. And that was enough for me.
I can remember her sitting on the bed fully clothed. That was sobering and saddening. I sat on a chair facing the bed, fully clothed and ready to go. I stared at her for a few minutes. Here’s the picture:
She’s sitting on the left side of the bed not looking at me, angry as fuck. I had told her I wasn’t going to be driving her home - let’s be real, it would be a terrible idea for us to get into a car together. The lamp that had been on since we arrived was still on. The bed was simply a bed. I hope to never forget that image.
Running around the same spots where we used to spend time isn't so bad because I'm running. The motion, the rhythm, the feeling of running makes it easier to deal with. I begin to feel like I want to run from these places to new places, and not have to see them again even though they're there and immovable, placed specifically in the material. I just don't want to bring myself around them right now. Maybe if I'm in a car or bus driving by - well that's okay, but it'll still massage my heart with rough heavy hands. The fact is, I am moving to new spaces, without memories or meaning. Tablua Rasa lies just a few blocks to the West and the streets will probably smell the same, but hey, maybe they won't. All the streets share a smell now, dead leaves. Wet ones, dry ones, all dying or dead. I know you'll smell them too, that they intrigue you as much as they do me and spark thoughts. I don't even know what I wrote before this, very, line. I've been trying hard not to look back and read what's written. It's kind of like a story is here, waiting for me to look just an inch up the page and after I finish writing, it will be there. Look at me, running and telling myself stories. It doesn't sound so different from reality (I remind myself), except that I'm actually running, and actually telling myself stories. Sort of like kids in a car with their parents on a long drive. Stories cover distances through space. It's impossible to think that from point 'here' and point 'there' that we aren't story-telling. And we're all characters in this story, for ourselves and others. And we're all moving the story a long. All running. So I guess, being out there, running in the leave-smelling air, across the streets, between the houses, under a cloudless sky with an empty stomach and a hurting heart, is still very much like life. And I suppose, I shouldn't forget that. That story-telling-running is exactly what I should be doing. Still - I just miss you.
FADE IN:
EXT. SCHOOL PLAYGROUND - MORNING
BURGESS BUNDLE sits at the bottom of a twisting slide, boots twisting swirls in a puddle with a stick that he holds between his feet. He HUMS discordant and disconnect notes that slow in unison with the strokes of the twig. His cheeks are red from the cold and his breath huffs condensation. He stops playing with the puddle and leans forward to catch the twig out of the water. He gets up and walks over to the sandbox where JOHN ANDREW sits forming thin lines of mud on the dark grey pavement with a scrap piece of cardboard.
BURGESS
Hey, look!
Burgess lifts the still-wet twig to his mouth using the thumb and index finger of his right hand, takes it into his mouth and between his teeth, then closes his lips around the stick that drips water onto his boots. He inhales through his closed mouth, his neck tenses, his lips make a SMACKING SOUND. He draws the twig away, arms flexed at his sides, and slowly exhales a hyperbolic breath of condensation.
JOHN
Yea? Well watch this!
John reaches into his pocket and takes out a large straw. Burgess blinks, watching him. John looks at the straw then down at the small messy lines of wet sand. He brings the straw to his nose, pauses, looks sideways, then brings the straw to his left nostril then up into the nasal cavity. Burgess bursts into laughter and throws the twig against the yard fence.
John uses one hand to support his weight as he crouches over the lines of sand and maneuvers the open end of the straw towards the line closest to his right knee. He sniffs hard and simultaneously moves the straw up the line that disappears. After a few moments John sits up, mud and blood run from his nose to his chin. He smiles stupidly at Burgess, coughs, gags, and begins to wretch. Burgess rolls on the pavement kicking and howling with laughter.
EXT. SCHOOL PLAYGROUND - MORNING
BURGESS BUNDLE sits at the bottom of a twisting slide, boots twisting swirls in a puddle with a stick that he holds between his feet. He HUMS discordant and disconnect notes that slow in unison with the strokes of the twig. His cheeks are red from the cold and his breath huffs condensation. He stops playing with the puddle and leans forward to catch the twig out of the water. He gets up and walks over to the sandbox where JOHN ANDREW sits forming thin lines of mud on the dark grey pavement with a scrap piece of cardboard.
BURGESS
Hey, look!
Burgess lifts the still-wet twig to his mouth using the thumb and index finger of his right hand, takes it into his mouth and between his teeth, then closes his lips around the stick that drips water onto his boots. He inhales through his closed mouth, his neck tenses, his lips make a SMACKING SOUND. He draws the twig away, arms flexed at his sides, and slowly exhales a hyperbolic breath of condensation.
JOHN
Yea? Well watch this!
John reaches into his pocket and takes out a large straw. Burgess blinks, watching him. John looks at the straw then down at the small messy lines of wet sand. He brings the straw to his nose, pauses, looks sideways, then brings the straw to his left nostril then up into the nasal cavity. Burgess bursts into laughter and throws the twig against the yard fence.
John uses one hand to support his weight as he crouches over the lines of sand and maneuvers the open end of the straw towards the line closest to his right knee. He sniffs hard and simultaneously moves the straw up the line that disappears. After a few moments John sits up, mud and blood run from his nose to his chin. He smiles stupidly at Burgess, coughs, gags, and begins to wretch. Burgess rolls on the pavement kicking and howling with laughter.
The camera pans from left to right across the city from a height-equivalent to 10 stories.
The camera is pointed West almost parallel to Bloor and takes in the entire Annex onward.
It's morning, the light of the scene is mainly sunlight reflecting off the city and sky.
A crane sits next to a building under construction. It's jib points skyward and to the south.
Several old stone Gothic rooftops can be seen among the forest of trees and buildings.
It's fall-winter rather than summer-fall so the leaves on the trees are already gone.
They gather in dark fleshy masses around several sewage grates.
The sky is made of three separate tones from top to bottom: blue, purple and yellowy-white
The camera takes all of this in in a wide shot and continues to move from left to right.
An apartment building enters the shot from the right - the camera continues to pan.
Most of the balconies are empty except for a few lawn chairs, clothing racks, and garbage.
The camera stops and centers on a balcony with curtains drawn to the side of a sliding door.
The reflection of the Annex makes it difficult to see what's on the other end clearly.
The form of someone sitting clothed in sweat pants and a hooded top can be made out.
Their face is unrecognizable, as is their skin tone and gender.
The camera slowly moves toward the figure and the sliding door.
Something becomes audible through the door - a repetitive methodical sound.
The chant continues as the volume rises in relation to the camera moving in.
Moving the shot through the sliding door, the figure is revealed to be a male.
His black hair is messy and drying but there's a sign that an attempt was made to fix it.
He wears glasses, sits on top of a couch arm facing the sliding door, and isn't wearing socks.
In little more than a whisper and with the meanest requirement of breath he repeats,
"I love her... But she's happy... And I'm okay"
His breathing is relaxed and deep, but almost too lazy, as if he doesn't care to.
"I love her... But she's happy... And I'm okay"
His posture is tired and bent, his legs are loosely crossed at the ankle.
He repeats the words again, pauses, and seems to be thinking.
His eyes are heavy through his glasses as he waits and says,
"I love her... A lot... But she's happy... And I'm okay"
His tones carries with it a release of emotional tension and he pauses before he says,
"I love her... A lot... But she's happy... And I'm okay"
Another pause, followed by,
"I love her... A lot... But she's happy... And I'm happy... And we'll be okay"
"I love her... A lot... But she's happy... And I'm happy... And we'll be okay"
He's gazing out across the city, along Bloor.
The intersection of The Madison, the lights of Honest Ed's that backs Victory Cafe.
Further out across to Liberty Village and Roncesville.
"I love her... A lot... But she's happy... And I'm happy... And we'll be okay... It just takes time"
Repeating,
"It just takes time..."
His gaze centers on the apartment buildings to the West out around Christie and further.
Out where only the shape of buildings in shadow can be seen.
His breathing is deep and relaxed but a note of determination seems enters the rhythm.
"I love her... A lot... But she's happy... And I'm happy... And we'll be okay... It just takes time"
Repeating,
"It just takes time..."
He stands slowly, straightens the couch leg and walks quietly through the room and down the hall.
The camera watches him get up then follows him from behind.
The apartment is well kept but relatively grimy in neglected areas.
He makes his way into the room on the right with the door open and a light on.
The door to the left is mostly closed, but slightly open and there's wind moving through from an open window.
In the room, lit by a desk lamp and the morning light of the city he sits at a desk with a computer already on.
He writes.
The camera is pointed West almost parallel to Bloor and takes in the entire Annex onward.
It's morning, the light of the scene is mainly sunlight reflecting off the city and sky.
A crane sits next to a building under construction. It's jib points skyward and to the south.
Several old stone Gothic rooftops can be seen among the forest of trees and buildings.
It's fall-winter rather than summer-fall so the leaves on the trees are already gone.
They gather in dark fleshy masses around several sewage grates.
The sky is made of three separate tones from top to bottom: blue, purple and yellowy-white
The camera takes all of this in in a wide shot and continues to move from left to right.
An apartment building enters the shot from the right - the camera continues to pan.
Most of the balconies are empty except for a few lawn chairs, clothing racks, and garbage.
The camera stops and centers on a balcony with curtains drawn to the side of a sliding door.
The reflection of the Annex makes it difficult to see what's on the other end clearly.
The form of someone sitting clothed in sweat pants and a hooded top can be made out.
Their face is unrecognizable, as is their skin tone and gender.
The camera slowly moves toward the figure and the sliding door.
Something becomes audible through the door - a repetitive methodical sound.
The chant continues as the volume rises in relation to the camera moving in.
Moving the shot through the sliding door, the figure is revealed to be a male.
His black hair is messy and drying but there's a sign that an attempt was made to fix it.
He wears glasses, sits on top of a couch arm facing the sliding door, and isn't wearing socks.
In little more than a whisper and with the meanest requirement of breath he repeats,
"I love her... But she's happy... And I'm okay"
His breathing is relaxed and deep, but almost too lazy, as if he doesn't care to.
"I love her... But she's happy... And I'm okay"
His posture is tired and bent, his legs are loosely crossed at the ankle.
He repeats the words again, pauses, and seems to be thinking.
His eyes are heavy through his glasses as he waits and says,
"I love her... A lot... But she's happy... And I'm okay"
His tones carries with it a release of emotional tension and he pauses before he says,
"I love her... A lot... But she's happy... And I'm okay"
Another pause, followed by,
"I love her... A lot... But she's happy... And I'm happy... And we'll be okay"
"I love her... A lot... But she's happy... And I'm happy... And we'll be okay"
He's gazing out across the city, along Bloor.
The intersection of The Madison, the lights of Honest Ed's that backs Victory Cafe.
Further out across to Liberty Village and Roncesville.
"I love her... A lot... But she's happy... And I'm happy... And we'll be okay... It just takes time"
Repeating,
"It just takes time..."
His gaze centers on the apartment buildings to the West out around Christie and further.
Out where only the shape of buildings in shadow can be seen.
His breathing is deep and relaxed but a note of determination seems enters the rhythm.
"I love her... A lot... But she's happy... And I'm happy... And we'll be okay... It just takes time"
Repeating,
"It just takes time..."
He stands slowly, straightens the couch leg and walks quietly through the room and down the hall.
The camera watches him get up then follows him from behind.
The apartment is well kept but relatively grimy in neglected areas.
He makes his way into the room on the right with the door open and a light on.
The door to the left is mostly closed, but slightly open and there's wind moving through from an open window.
In the room, lit by a desk lamp and the morning light of the city he sits at a desk with a computer already on.
He writes.
His back elbow shot up like a wing propelling his neck and shoulders down. His shoulders rotated so that his head slowly revolved upwards and he balanced on his right leg as his left knee came up. At the same time his right arm shot out in a blur of a blur. The orientation of the strike and the movement of his body allowed him to slip past the punch of his opponent and land a single decisive blow to the throat of his attacker.
I strike where you are going to be whereas you attack where I am. You aim for my shadow, I aim for your
I strike where you are going to be whereas you attack where I am. You aim for my shadow, I aim for your
We try our best
It's very easy to judge effort
That of others and that of your own
But judgement is never between us
Only effects
Effects and causes
We try our best
Even when neither are known to us
Imperfect beings can only
Produce imperfection
We try our best
We have what we believe, imperfectly
What we feel, imperfectly
And in all things
We try our best, imperfectly
It's very easy to judge effort
That of others and that of your own
But judgement is never between us
Only effects
Effects and causes
We try our best
Even when neither are known to us
Imperfect beings can only
Produce imperfection
We try our best
We have what we believe, imperfectly
What we feel, imperfectly
And in all things
We try our best, imperfectly
I see the field and trees and the summer air pierced by heavy sunlight through the rising dew that cooked the clouds so that they shriveled and sunk on top the hills in rings like tired halos. I see him be-feathered, sinews sweating slacking swinging against the rare winds that move through the grass up here. I see his feet and the dirt caught in the wrinkles of his soles as he kicks at the air and rakes his strong fingers against the space at his sides. He stops. His eyes are shadow-less and primal and I know they've never thought to look on me. His gaze is trained on something I cannot see way out there in the green sea. I know I have to go out there soon. That I'll have to pack my bag with bones and blood and birth myself into that forest. I know what he's looking at is a place for me he'll go to prepare out there in the deep green sea. He'll light a fire for me to follow when the night air turns blue and great-jawed things bite up at the moon.
And now that fire has been lit for hundreds of years, still burning. And I'm here sitting; writing with my bag of blood and bones.
And now that fire has been lit for hundreds of years, still burning. And I'm here sitting; writing with my bag of blood and bones.
Would you like...
This means a few things
But only how much we want it to mean
For now
Well, things will get into your head and heart
And mine as well
And we'll both build small secrets
In the shadows of our head and heart
Which will soon, after a while
Whether we know or not
Gather and feed off our emotions
Today I was late for dinner
You thought nothing of it
You're still happy just to see me
And probably wouldn't even care
If I dragged you across the city
Even though you're tired
And it's hot outside
And the wind kicks up dirt here on Yonge
And gets into your hair and eyes
You're still happy I'm here
And you're not mad at all
But what I mean by what I said
Was that, right now, we agree that
Being late for lunch isn't a big deal
That's what we think in our heads and hearts
But as time passes, you or I may
Slowly but surely, let ourselves get away
So that one day my being late for dinner
Becomes a reason to fight
Or a series of unfortunate
And brutal events
But only how much we want it to mean
For now
Well, things will get into your head and heart
And mine as well
And we'll both build small secrets
In the shadows of our head and heart
Which will soon, after a while
Whether we know or not
Gather and feed off our emotions
Today I was late for dinner
You thought nothing of it
You're still happy just to see me
And probably wouldn't even care
If I dragged you across the city
Even though you're tired
And it's hot outside
And the wind kicks up dirt here on Yonge
And gets into your hair and eyes
You're still happy I'm here
And you're not mad at all
But what I mean by what I said
Was that, right now, we agree that
Being late for lunch isn't a big deal
That's what we think in our heads and hearts
But as time passes, you or I may
Slowly but surely, let ourselves get away
So that one day my being late for dinner
Becomes a reason to fight
Or a series of unfortunate
And brutal events
That new-car smell
Breathe deeply the next time you get into a new car. It doesn’t have to be your own and the car doesn’t have to be a specific model. Just take a long slow nose-only breath. Keeping your eyes open is optional (unless you’re currently operating the vehicle). Distinguish (if you can) the scent of polyester, of leather, of plastic, of metal, of gas, of glass, of rubber. And smell (if you can) the manifestation of an idea, of thought made real by the transfer and application of form onto matter. Smell the human ability to create and change both itself and its surroundings. Breathe in that optimism! Imagine (if you can) every atom of the vehicle as it was one thousand years ago deep in the ground as raw material. Imagine their journey through time, their encounters, their stories. Imagine the factories they were produced in, the people working on them, the warehouses they were stored in, the road across which they were hauled. All of these things and more are there in the car with you. Breathe them in. The smell of a new car is perhaps one of greatest stories imaginable.
My relationship with Burgess Bundle
I don’t remember the day I met cold eyed Burgess Bundle. He has persisted in my memory as far back as I can remember, but that is not to say that he’s old. In fact, Burgess is never older than twenty one and will never be older - which is to say that Burgess always dies at the age of twenty one. I have tried to save him, when I finally realized what was killing him - but despite all my efforts, when I wake, he’s dead, cold eyed. I cried the first few times I saw him, I was still young when I did. But now that I have seen those cold eyes so often, the same bloodless pallor, I now only accept it. Burgess will never see the fireworks that light the sky on the night of his death. Nor will he be able to meet me at the beach like we had planned. But I will always, always, be thankful for Burgess and his dying. For if it wasn’t for his absence, I would of never met her – the first time.
The rain didn’t make the sand into mud; instead it became coarse and easy to form, like warm brown snow. Burgess sat at the bottom of a twisting slide, boots twisting swirls in a puddle with a twig. As he played he hummed discordant and disconnected notes of an unknown origin, slowing in unison with the strokes of the twig through the swill. His white cheeks were red from the cold, and his breath huffed condensation. Leaning forward he caught the twig out of the water and made his way to the sandbox where ***** sat making thin lines of mud on the dark grey pavement.
“Hey, look!”
Burgess lifted the still wet twig to his mouth using his thumb and index finger tips, took it between his teeth, then closed his lips around one end while the other dripped water onto his boots. He proceeded to inhale through his mouth, but because there was no space for air to pass through, his neck tensed, and his lips made a smacking sound. Heedless he drew the twig away, still held between thumb and index finger, and slowly exhaled a hyperbolic breath of steam.
Laughter filled the small school yard.
“Yea, well watch this!”
***** reached into his pocket and produced a large straw. Burgess blinked, still standing. Their yard monitor, a girl in the eighth grade, was standing idly by the gate awaiting the rest of the kindergarteners. The boy on the ground looked at the straw, then at the small thin lines of wet sand. He brought the straw to his nose, to his left nostril, then up into the nasal cavity. Burgess began to laugh and threw his twig against the yard fence.
***** used one hand to support his weight as he crouched over the thin lines of sand and carefully maneuvred the open end of the straw to the line closest to his right knee. He sniffed hard and simultaneously moved the straw up the wet brown line. After a few moments ***** sat up, mud and blood running from nose to chin. He smiled stupidly at Burgess for a moment, coughed, gagged, and began to wretch. Burgess rolled on the pavement kicking and laughing.
The rain didn’t make the sand into mud; instead it became coarse and easy to form, like warm brown snow. Burgess sat at the bottom of a twisting slide, boots twisting swirls in a puddle with a twig. As he played he hummed discordant and disconnected notes of an unknown origin, slowing in unison with the strokes of the twig through the swill. His white cheeks were red from the cold, and his breath huffed condensation. Leaning forward he caught the twig out of the water and made his way to the sandbox where ***** sat making thin lines of mud on the dark grey pavement.
“Hey, look!”
Burgess lifted the still wet twig to his mouth using his thumb and index finger tips, took it between his teeth, then closed his lips around one end while the other dripped water onto his boots. He proceeded to inhale through his mouth, but because there was no space for air to pass through, his neck tensed, and his lips made a smacking sound. Heedless he drew the twig away, still held between thumb and index finger, and slowly exhaled a hyperbolic breath of steam.
Laughter filled the small school yard.
“Yea, well watch this!”
***** reached into his pocket and produced a large straw. Burgess blinked, still standing. Their yard monitor, a girl in the eighth grade, was standing idly by the gate awaiting the rest of the kindergarteners. The boy on the ground looked at the straw, then at the small thin lines of wet sand. He brought the straw to his nose, to his left nostril, then up into the nasal cavity. Burgess began to laugh and threw his twig against the yard fence.
***** used one hand to support his weight as he crouched over the thin lines of sand and carefully maneuvred the open end of the straw to the line closest to his right knee. He sniffed hard and simultaneously moved the straw up the wet brown line. After a few moments ***** sat up, mud and blood running from nose to chin. He smiled stupidly at Burgess for a moment, coughed, gagged, and began to wretch. Burgess rolled on the pavement kicking and laughing.
All trees long to tell the story of their lives. Though this is an opportunity which rarely presents itself and which is more rarely ever taken.
Trees are naturally introverted for the greater part of the year and prefer instead to speak to winds. It's common knowledge that the trees and the winds have always produced enduring relationships. However, even within these relationships trees seldom share the story of their lives. They tend to speak on current affairs between rivers and birds, or gossip
How they were once young rambunctious seeds that rode the wind carelessly thinking themselves invincible.
Trees are naturally introverted for the greater part of the year and prefer instead to speak to winds. It's common knowledge that the trees and the winds have always produced enduring relationships. However, even within these relationships trees seldom share the story of their lives. They tend to speak on current affairs between rivers and birds, or gossip
How they were once young rambunctious seeds that rode the wind carelessly thinking themselves invincible.
I was told, yesterday, that my ability to take criticism is second to none. Let me begin by saying that I don't think this is true. But then I am reminded that this is one persons opinion. Thoughts arose this morning (it's 8:38 am) and I found myself wondering how anyone could possibly perceive in me the aforementioned. I suppose, before I begin, that presently I recognize a somewhat indistinguishable feeling which bids me to agree, so let the following be taken carefully. At the end of the game, the King and the Pawn are placed in the same box. We are all travelers carrying heavy loads bound for the same destination. To judge me and mine is in many ways, to judge the universe and the motive power which drives it. What I mean to say is, the standards of reality, morality, necessity, and belief by which you judge and criticize me must also be recognized by me. The standards by which I am judged are not my own and in many ways belong to an objective (yet unessential) entity which ambles around various customs and institutions of society. Because I know that, that this is a game wherein we are both the King and the Pawn (and Queen, Bishop, Knight and Rook), I know that the only thing which truly dictates the relationship between critic and criticized is context. A context which is governed by a universe whose choices we cannot possibly fathom nor hope to take credit for.
As I sit there on the third floor of the train looking out at the lake I can't help but feel that this action - of staring out into an incalculable vastness, expresses the entire process of our existence. To see, from one perspective or another, a great body of multitudinous mass made more or less out of no one thing other than it self. And to know that we the watching are not part of the audience off stage and aside but part of that vastness. The concept of that division is the most brightest form of ignorance. There is no human action which is unnatural to him or to nature. To say, at any time, that our actions, our thoughts and emotions occur separately and independently of that vastness is the most violent form of thought. For the division of self and other - of self and thing, are now and have always been illusion. Sitting here on the third floor of the train looking out at the lake, that division dims down.
This subway leads anywhere and everywhere. It travels through earth, flesh and aether. You're on it. You may be waiting between two points, or hurtling to another. But you're on it. The trains move inspite of your stillness and will move you inspite of you. They run on tracks and schedules of infinite variety, but they are bound to one final destination. We are all on our way and doing the best we can with the time in between. Be reminded by that, in the eyes of those passing by - we are all commuters.
To be remebered
Cleverness has never been associated with long delays
Supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting
Knowing the enemy enables you to take the offensive, knowing yourself enables you to stand on the defensive. Attack is the secret of defense; defense is the planning of an attack.
To secure ourselves against defeat lies in our own hands, but the opportunity of defeating the enemy is provided by the enemy himself
If you wish to feign confusion in order to lure the enemy on, you must first have perfect discipline; if you wish to display timidity in order to entrap the enemy, you must have extreme courage; if you wish to parade your weakness in order to make the enemy over-confident, you must have exceeding-strength
He does not demand perfection from the untalented
One mark of a great soldier is that he fight on his own terms or fights not at all
Hence that general is skillful in attack whose opponent does not know what to defend; and he is skillful in defense whose opponent does not know what to attack
Therefore, just as water retains no constant shape, so in warfare there are no constant conditions
Supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting
Knowing the enemy enables you to take the offensive, knowing yourself enables you to stand on the defensive. Attack is the secret of defense; defense is the planning of an attack.
To secure ourselves against defeat lies in our own hands, but the opportunity of defeating the enemy is provided by the enemy himself
If you wish to feign confusion in order to lure the enemy on, you must first have perfect discipline; if you wish to display timidity in order to entrap the enemy, you must have extreme courage; if you wish to parade your weakness in order to make the enemy over-confident, you must have exceeding-strength
He does not demand perfection from the untalented
One mark of a great soldier is that he fight on his own terms or fights not at all
Hence that general is skillful in attack whose opponent does not know what to defend; and he is skillful in defense whose opponent does not know what to attack
Therefore, just as water retains no constant shape, so in warfare there are no constant conditions
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