Monday, November 27, 2006

sunday night

silent mantle,
dusted picture frames,
rust-colored wall paper
above crusted window panes,
hardwood fades into muted browns and grays,
unlit candles grace the living room
above the forgotten fire place.
outside new snow proceeds,
falls, and collects on old objects,
slowly a new winter bleeds
over places we used to live,
we have forgotten, and gone,
we have moved, and moving on,
this to prove
everything we must make true,
but at what cost, once
we've forgotten our bedrooms.

summer is only slightly missed, in moments of weakness
overcome by memories
of a december tryst.
even so, i see the familiar cove,
the bulrush and the heather stalks,
sun-kissed, the tiger lily spots,
and the fir boughs shadows
stretching across the vacant docks.
i am here. but i hear
face-down, the spectral sound, pleading
of listless waters begging,
entreating, but for what,
for snow? no, for meaning,
for something more than the cycle-seasons
lack of real death, lack of reason,
the water wants out
and all i want is to stay,
but for us, nature provides no such treason.

i remember everything that is,
that was, for all that is, to me
only exists as a memory,
and i cannot fathom how elusive
this thought is, and the profundity
that no one seems to believe.
i can see the snow, and i,
i can feel the ghosts
but i am not afraid,
i just don't want to run away.

Monday, November 13, 2006

bitter pill manifesto

romantic- so do you miss her?

stoic- who?

r- your girlfriend.

s- she wasn't my girlfriend.

r- i thought you two were dating.

s- no, we were together for a month or so but it was never very serious.

r- ah, well, whatever she was, do you think about her much?

s- i don't know. i try not to think about much of anything really. i mean, i guess i do sometimes, i can't forget her or anything, but i'm not losing sleep if that's what your asking.

r- so she wasn't that important to you? i thought you two were pretty close and all.

s- we were, but not so much anymore, so it's like, why worry about it. i mean, it's not worth thinking about, because she's gone. i've moved on, i mean, what's the big deal? i'm not one of those people who invests a lot of meaning into relationships and then feels crushed when it fails, i just don't see the point in it?

r- what good is a relationship if you don't invest yourself in it? it would be meaningless. the point is to be in love, to feel something, to be alive. don't you want to feel alive, or are you just trying to protect yourself?

s- perhaps, i dunno, it just seems like people take themselves too seriously, you know, like their life was some epic drama where they live and die by every relationship. that seems ridiculous to me, like they have an inability to separate fiction from reality. everyone is trying to write their own biography while they're living their lives, dissecting every inane social instability and recording it all on paper or posting it on the internet so that others acknowledge the unique existence that is their life; countless records of an inconsequential life, same details in a different order. people are so insecure, you can talk about individuality and everyone being unique, oh you are an original, but everyone just wants to be recognized, so they'll create any artificial distinction in order to feel like an original, but really they just want someone to acknowledge them.

r- you can't fault people for being emotional, it's only natural. besides who doesn't want friends and to be recognized as an individual? i realize that you don't have a lot of friends and your used to do things on your own, but relationships are important to everyone else. yet you speak of them as if they're all fake or for the weak minded. have you considered the possibility that, perhaps, you were just born without a heart?

s- i've explored that possibility yes, but it seems unlikely. no, i think people create these bloated versions of their lives and the relationships they have to make life feel important, because deep down everyone is insecure and scared that life really is pointless. so they create an arbitrary social matrix in which they can play the role of hero or victim or tragic figure, whatever it is that makes them feel better about themselves. they just distract themselves with their own invented dramas.

r- that's quite impressive, you have reduced everyone's problems to insecurity and an inability to cope with the world, is that about right?

s- close enough, yeah.

r- it must be nice living in that black-and-white tower of yours, not having to come down here with the rest of humanity and worry about things like loneliness or acceptance. it's the human condition my friend, you can act like you're above it, that's cool, but i'd rather live a life of meaning and feeling than live in your passionless, cerebral existence, you say everyone feels alone, well what about you. you're ignoring everything that is human in order to convince yourself that maybe there is no such thing as loneliness.

s- that's not quite how i live actually, i'm just as much of an existentialist as the next guy, probably more so. i realize that life doesn't fit inside a box and life cannot be systematized, i know exactly how you feel, but the difference between you and i is that you romanticize life and try and make it both beautiful and tragic, you wear your heart on your sleeve because the depth of your emotions gives you a sense of purpose and reality. but me, i'm not afraid to embrace the absurdity of life. there's nothing out there, no one can make any sense of things because eventually you grow up to find out the world is not like your parents said it would be, it's been painted with a grey brush and nobody knows what hell we're supposed to be doing anymore. and instead of playing tragic lover like everyone else, i'm trying to cope with the world as best as i can. so you can play drama games if that helps you, but just realize that it's only pretence.

r- pretence? who are you to invalidate my life and everyone else's just because i don't have the same cynical view of the world as you do? i think you're just afraid to put yourself out there because you don't want to feel pain or humiliation or loneliness. how is it, in your mind, that everyone is living only in the semblance of a real life?

s- because somewhere along the line of human history people decided that it wasn't enough to be a person, they had to recognized as such by others around them. it's socialization; you move everyone into bigger cities and tell them they have to compete for their jobs, become rich by selling people crap they don't need, exist among countless strangers, perpetuate a consumer based life-style, and do it all while maintaining a unique personality and without feeling lost. it's universal angst; the postmodern condition, why do you think everyone has thought about suicide at some point in their life, everyone tries to define themself by the clothes they wear or the possessions they acquire; everybody looks like their wearing damn costumes but we call it fashion, people are hopelessly insecure because they feel like the world is swallowing them up and no one is noticing. so you become neurotic, you invert your personality and write out your life like a narrative; relate it to those around so that your story proves that you still exist, you are an individual with real experiences and real feelings. it is the custom to conform your life to whatever art you find to be beautiful and profound; life imitating an art that never had any foundation in reality, so what specter of genuine humanity are we chasing? people are messed up man, and i get that people use their social network to find some corner of the world to call their own, but you gotta remember now and then that it's just your distraction, it's not real.

r- so then what is real? if i'm just inventing all these problems and magnifying all my emotions, if i'm just overly imaginative because i don't want to admit that i feel lost, even though i do anyway, then where is the real, what am i supposed to do? because even if things are as you claim, i'd still live in my 'delusions' because there is nothing else but the cold stale reality in which people have made themselves sick with their own existence, but you can't fix life. so maybe we will buy a new car every few years and wear nice clothes and eat fancy meals while the africans on the t.v. starve and kill each other and the third world is exploited by big business and the different religions kill each other in the name of a good god, but if that's the world than i want nothing to do with it, i'd rather live in my own version.

s- but that's just the problem, everyone is so concerned with their own shit that nobody realizes life has become a figment of our collective imagination, there is no substance, only countless images because it doesn't matter what actually is, only what people believe; as long as people think you're doing fine, as long as you don't let her know how much she hurt you, you just have to be strong and confident because everyone is forming opinions about you, and they are going to judge you whether they realize it or not. there's never enough time to get to know everyone, so we make assumptions and judgments to fill in the blanks, and it doesn't matter if they're right or wrong, because everyone is just acting anyway. so fuck it, why even try.

r- because what's the alternative? you have to find meaning where you can, and once it's gone you just have to make it up for yourself. nobody's going to save the world, so don't sit here and wait to be rescued, alright, you've gotta save your own piece of reality and make it your own, otherwise you're just going to go on living as if nothing mattered, loathing everyone and everything because, to you, a bitter reality is better than a subjective one. i gotta say, that doesn't sound like the ideal situation. besides, look at your parents, look at my parents, it seems like you're only describing young people, older generations don't seem so lonely and uncertain of themselves.

s- no i suppose they don't, but whose to say what different people repress, or even always fail to realize; that life is only in their head. eventually people get married and have kids or become absorbed in some occupation and that's what life becomes about, work and kids and after school sports and weddings and grandkids and anything else to divert your attention from your unnecessary life as it spirals towards nonexistence.

r- huh, well for not being a girlfriend she sure as hell messed you up. your such a downer, kid. you should call her up and get back together so you won't depress your friends so much, hell, i'll call her if you want.

s- well it has nothing to do with her, and we're not getting back together, we never really broke up technically.

r- how's that.

s- because she's dead. she' d been depressed for a long time and finally decided she didn't want to deal with it any more...so there that is...

Thursday, November 02, 2006

goodbyes

"Airports are depressing, don't you think?"

"yeah. i have a picture of jesse, heather and i lying in the middle of the phoenix airport. we've got this mexican blanket heather bought the day before, we're covered up and we have this pillow that we're sharing; we're taking a nap or something. i had my new indiana jones hat pulled over my eyes and we all have sunglasses on. all three of us have this hollow expression on our faces; like a mixture of exhaustion and peace. it was right next to the ticket counter, everyone was standing around using up the last of their film, trying not to think about going home; we just laid there on the carpet after we checked our bags because we had nothing to do."

"Do i know jesse and heather?"

"no. you know aaron though, remember him. well anyway he was there. i have a picture of he and i later that morning hugging these stupid, abstract egg-shaped sculptures in the terminal. these giant white things with blue dots."

"I remember aaron, he moved right?"

"yeah."

"Do you still talk to the other two in the picture?"

"no."

"I couldn't imagine working in an airport, you know, like being a ticket-taker or something. everyone there seems so vulnerable and out of place. people try to act like flying doesn't bother them, but they're always apprehensive about going somewhere new or having to say goodbye to all the new people they just met. there is something so temporary, so ephemeral about an airport, it's like a small city where nobody lives but everyone visits for an hour."

"i like to guess which people are leaving and which are going home just by looking at them. sitting in the terminal looking at all these people and giving them homes and lives, guessing which ones are waiting for the same flight as i am, hoping i get to sit next to the girl across from me, until her boyfriend or husband comes over and i pretend to start reading my book again. but maybe he's her brother, probably not though. and when we land some place strange it's home to some of the passengers and some are just catching another flight, or just visiting, but you can't tell. it's weird because you almost expect to see them on your flight home but you never see them again. nobody knows you don't live there, and then you go home and people think might think you're a visitor."

"Whenever i'm at the airport, even if i'm just picking someone up or something, all i can think about are goodbyes. like those movie cliches where someone is left crying in the terminal."

"we tried to have one of those dramatic scenes at an airport once. it was that same day, when we landed jacob and i decided to fake one of those meetings and so he got off the plane first while i waited, i was probably the last one to get off the plane and i ran out of the gate just as jake yelled my name. we ran towards each other and i jumped into his arms like we hadn't seen each other in a year."

"Nice. was everyone staring at you guys?"

"no, not really. there was this asian guy staring at us i remember. it was pretty crowded."