happened

unfinished

2009-03-01T21:38:00.000-08:00

choirs unseen, but deep within
the curling, foaming currents,
swirling
half-formed thoughts,
ripening desire,
friends and fates, juxtaposed,
conspire while i wander lone,
begin doubt,
chorus voices beset, begin
and regret the ways you've grown.
lost or loyal, my platitudes push,
and empty, i recoil from the voices
i was, now the volumes
i am, unread
and conventionally obscure,
can we object, can we
abjure who we became,
with little effort, we will be
who we were
in that abstract ending,
future, descending into reverie,
the swelling seas of conjecture
and memory
collecting, compelled and coming
back to me.

stewart park

2008-12-20T17:26:00.000-08:00

Early we stir in j stewart park
away from the banks of lava rock
away from the bloom of auspicuous june
here hemlocks strewn with birch tree bark.
sysiphus in the tent i like to say
to myself, rebellious in the algerian's way;
who would know the tragedy of his fate?
the cat's head? i would be shocked,
(though we all will know)
but we must talk, i said,
(he climbs back down on his web).
we will talk under the walnut boughs,
under feet, the drying amber leaves;
they crunch, but float down so assiduously,
"we will talk" you say, "under the deciduous tree,
among our hammock and tents,"
the rogue flowing underground,
the space we found at summer's expense.
as autumn grows, where it smoked it now snows,
and we must must pack, cold and slow, i believe
you will some distant september see
through the smoke and ash of past
the walnut, and you'll remember me.

Der Zauberberg

2008-10-01T11:04:00.001-07:00

I stare out my trailer door, daily, at a girl folding clothes on a platform. She is neither beautiful nor impressive, but I still find myself peering to see her reassuring figure, her slender arms deftly and thoughtlessly folding someone else's shirts and pants. I am reminded of Sommerset's 'of human bondage' and his beguiling waitress; tall and pale with short dark hair, curiously cut and pulled back. She has almost timid features; a small mouth and closely set eyes that stare indifferently out onto her world of foreign garments. Tonight the walnut branches create a pleasing silhouette against the sky, illuminated by the distant flood lights. The yellowing leafs tremble with anticipation. I can see a single star through the boughs and I wonder how far away it is; a billion light years? Perhaps it's an entire galaxy whose light takes a billion years to reach my eyes. It has probably burnt away or exploded, I just don't know it yet. Perhaps, somewhere someone is watching us in a galaxy far away. Am I the ancient light in the eyes of some distant system, am I living out the projected reflections of a planet that died unfulfilled? Maybe somewhere far away a telescope watches me under the tree at night, maybe I am already dead; our planet has faded away and these are the words of my reflected projections traveling at the speed of light in to an infinite abyss. If they had a more powerful telescope they could see into my future, since I am already past, but all i can see is a girl on a platform, standing at my screen door at the speed of light. I seem to always be looking at what has already passed, the distance that separates is always stretched with time and reflections, silhouettes above my evening eyes casting strange shadows on the astral story of my life. Will they see me at the lake standing on the peek, sitting on the deck at the lodge sipping gin and tonic from a collins glass? will they see the turkish waiter? Do they know Thomas Mann, or what a sanitarium is? Did I die a billion years ago? I'm glad I don't know it yet. Maybe this is how i can live forever, as long as somebody out there can see me; the reflection of my life traveling at incredible speeds through the nothingness.

Quincy

2008-08-01T07:58:00.001-07:00

the better realities
of the tragic mind,
with fidelity to the past
sew the ephemeral twine
of sleepers thoughts,
my morning dreams to unwind.
lingering like false memories
or hopes which fell behind,
she walks the halls of my closed eyes
where i,
in waking cannot find.
and what am i in waking
that a dream cannot rewind?

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

the day has ended,
the sun travelled, burned
and descended.
we now to compose our dreams
out of stories and hopes
which time has suspended.
good night darren,
say a prayer for all those
on whom you've depended,
and farewell we'll say
to this world which god has pretended.

Diaspora

2008-04-18T00:37:00.000-07:00

Go beyond the stream, Brahmin, go with all your soul: leave desire behind. When you have crossed the stream of Samsara, you will reach the land of Nirvana. When beyond meditation and contemplation a Brahmin has reached the other shore, then he attains the supreme vision and all his fetters are broken. He for whom there is neither this nor the further shore, nor both, who, beyond all fear, is free - him I call brahmin.

Descartes believed man's unhappiness was due to his being a child first. There is a certain disappointment in the slow realization that you will not always be protected, that with age comes insecurity, comes unwanted responsibility; the burden of hidden fears you never knew your parents bore. It may have been children Sartre had in mind when he said man is a useless passion. As to what or whom they care about, it is irrelevant, but to feel so strongly in youth's fleeting three-day weekend any available passion, this is the heart's learning how to anticipate the philosopher's pain. They send their hearts into the future, they place them on their youthful lovers so they can look back at themselves and feel feel valued, feel the excitement of the new, the expanding consciousness of a world they do not fear. Mental notes i write on the back of my brain as i ride home on the school bus. "Coach," she says to me, "that guy probably thought you were our dad." Children are heartless i think, but perhaps not in the way Barrie meant. Nostalgia, it is often the longing for a tangible past that never really existed, a homesickness for the idea of home more than the place itself. A place you felt protected and carefree, so certain in a world that was only as big as we could see. With age the rhythms of life accelerate at speeds not known to previous generations, the myth of progress is a centuries' neurosis that drives us to hold onto the past in photographs and souvenirs of the mundane. In missing the stability of our youth we develop a subtle fear of change, and ironically that which scares us the most is the idea of a life with no surprises left, such a life would allow us clear view to the end. In an existential angst we would be counting down the days till our death. I sometimes try to collect as many memories as possible to counteract the feeling of the future's gravity, an attempt to capture the present by swallowing it; by mentally absorbing as much of my surroundings as i can. But here too one cannot escape either past nor future as Annie Dillard relates about her youth "noticing and remembering everything would trap bright scenes to light and fill the blank and darkening past which was already pilling up behind me. The growing size of that blank and ever-darkening past frightened me; it loomed beside me like a hole in the air and battened on scraps of my life i failed to claim. If one day i forgot to notice my life, and be damned grateful for it, the great cave would suck me up entire." In response to a fading past we miss and impending future we are not ready to make past, we become too self aware, too conscious of our present. It is as if we are so consumed with extracting value out of each moment we fail to enjoy them as much as our recollections about them. Sometimes it's difficult to enjoy the places i love to be the most because i feel as though i am constantly bracing myself for the disappointment of leaving; time only haunts those who are aware of it. The only way to enjoy the bus ride home is to ignore it, to close my eyes to the shifting bodies and darkening skyline, to breath deep and exist in the space between my rumbling seat and the voices around my ears. In her book on the subject of nostalgia, Svetlana Boym concludes with simple paradox that as survivors of the twentieth century, "we are all nostalgic for a time when we were not nostalgic. But there seems to be no way back."

the milky way

2007-11-04T01:30:00.000-07:00

blind men seek a savior they cannot see,
faith is easy to have when you haven't sight.
spit in their eyes and with dirty hands
faith is exercised, now you see!
'go forth and tell no one what you've seen until i've died'
-you say to keep quiet, i want you to live
and you call me satan, continually
you deliberately confuse your own audience.
'i have not come to bring peace,
but to set those who love each other againt one another,
surely you not will love anyone more than me'

september [fragments]

2007-09-25T17:47:00.000-07:00

ukiah's only street sleeps in its fading dream,
here a stillborn town,
the occasional water tender skulks to the corner and up the hill, while
the service station sours with it's incendiary signs
rivaling bakunin's greatest dreams.
inside, kids play pool while the owner's dad peddles his chair across the lot with a dog in tow.
the bartender knows by name, we know, they have all been the same
smoke and clouded skies, breeding thunder claps, and flash
to warn, to prolong, to rain ash again.

the grey-water girl steps out of the post office
with a tilted head, slender limbs and infinitly indifferent moods,
her small, upturned nose is my favorite place,
its marble perfection worthy of grecian hands (and keats urn)
of cousre, she's pale complected
and smokes her ciggerettes with juvinal fascination, in the style of a forties actress,
both charmed and bored with her fingers,
the smoke floats, i linger.
again the plains crossed, stalks and stems with heads of grain, lost in horizons, every road is the same.
what last words will make worthy impressions on those we'll forget?
-------------------------------

are we not all children, thirty-year-old kids with inebriated dreams,
who will deliver us from ourselves?
i think it was fizgerald who said that no one wants their youth back,
they only want another chance to lose their innocence.
how apropos, i think, as smoke fills the living room,
the dirtiest couch, the cushion springs freed,
our prediliction to waste an afternoon.

i used to know what i wanted, or i used to want something,
but now, now i forget that i am alive. i forget that there is anything
beyond being- we dream when we do not sleep!
we sleep and do not understand. we understand but we do not how
to make it important.
reader pretend they know! because surely they do not.

what is it we supress, the purity we long for
that never existed except in our ideals?
in the rain i am alright, seasons i have reconciled myslef to,
i have reconciled too.
i only dream when i sleep, but i am not certain if
i can live in a world deconstructed, no pretence of what is natural
no ghosts or second lives to brighten possible futures.
how much of men's actions, i wonder, are driven by bordem?

the figments of my past are overcome by the lives of those around me,
we are all chasing someone else's illusion,
making them the realities of our own,
but where is the autheticity in me?
making my place from the better words of other men.
--------------------------------------

here in the early morning of the end, i cast into the fog
a spinner, a river with ocean tides
while lightning chides the not-too-distant coast,
hoping for a little less percipitation.
i believe that i have become ungrounded,
i am but tethered to a few familiar feelings
and nothing but, perhaps habit,
leads me back home

juxtaposed drowning!?

2007-06-30T15:09:00.000-07:00

i have no ores for the hours
but this black inner tube to navigate the
umatilla- both unimpressive and unassuming,
impassive? no, but nearly impassable
in places, in spaces with depth and dimention,
and depths too where i can't see the rocks.
did god make these waves, or did they make him?
it is another question for another day.

i dreamt last night that i was on the beach,
the ocean was there too
and i lay between them, the two,
mediating the ebb and flow of their
conversations when a girl
washed upon the shore, a friend of mine
from some time ago;
someone had died, and she arrived
just in time for my ocean dream,
neither of us could awake so they took her
away, and then the scenes, they died, or changed

and today i'm floating on river
that will eventually reach the swelling sea.
there are islands, or unsuccessful forks
and deer cross ahead and climb the steep banks.
the rocks are conspiring, they are growing
life now passes by quicker.

through the window on the door i see her
lying in a hospital bed, but her face is blurred,
or obscurred like dreams always do,
talk to me, wake up before i do
her voice lingures still when no words are said.

i am holding onto a branch, pulled by the current,
matt is approaching and we meet, touch, fall
and i am floating under water, dragged along the rocks
i cannot stand, i hold on until i can regain my tube.
matt's tube passess me, matt still clinging to the tree
i chases it into the swell and sucken limbs
the current is now pressing and i am pinned.

she is awake but she is a child,
throught the door i see a little girl
getting ready for bed as i drift away,
but she always was a child to me,
and i believe she always will.
these thoughts will monopolize the coming day
and make everything feel unreal.

i cannot touch, cannot move and being pushed
under i hold onto the dead branch.
my body is soar, weary
i know i have to stay above, to fight
the current, through the pain,
but first i must let go

every afternoon

2007-06-11T22:32:00.000-07:00

and how does the other half live?
a caramel swirl, some foam,
a pearl-skinned girl with hypothetical concern,
she doesn't know
but she does have a way of
shifting my thoughts, or concerns,
her name is, it's on the tip of my whatever,
even i still have much to learn.

we shift in chairs sometimes
and sometimes strangers
walk past with steps,
measured or heavy, amiable and thoughtlessly
shuffling their soles on hardwood,
stepping easily, lazily through life;
nudging tables and touching stools, or chairs,
who do they belong to?
the desire to touch that which is in the way;
brushing the walls, chairs, bricks and mortar grooves,
sometimes slides along my finger tips.
she delivers my drink, nimble fingers and parted lips,
i search my pockets for words to say,
coins, a thank you, a thimble,
a kiss!
there is an always of things to touch,
and of things in your way.

main street creeps with cars
circling the block for my amusement,
life is outside, but not within these
parochial means, or seats,
and despite my best efforts of thought
and theory, we are all sentient beings,
i think.
where is my concern? where did she,
o these diminishing returns.
make room for another drink of whatever,
make room for all that i have to unlearn.

why am i here again?

2007-06-02T20:36:00.000-07:00

8/29/2006...

Each day here presents itself with its own problems and tendencies; people fail in work and relationships; bonds are formed and perceptions, good and ill, mesh so the the lines become more distinct as to who here is wanted and who is wanting. Backbiting, disingenuous, melodramatic, fallible; people. I am no longer amazed at the dysfunction and social atrophy of our little community, only slightly amused at the juxtaposition of intention and absurdity. Jeremiah is heart-broken, Solomon speaks of vanity, Sartre of nothingness, while J- and B- can only console each other for their senseless pains. They sympathize with each other and discuss the useless qualities of sympathy; one must be strong and stay positive. More persons arrive and tenitive plans are laid for the next season, so much better than this, our current blunder, but no one really knows, one can only romanticize this occupation so much; more talk concerning the nobility of optimism and avoiding the 'self perpetuating web of depression and feeling sorry for ones self.' No, that's not it, one must stare absurdity in the face, name it, and then move on, feel your pain and realize that everyone feels the same way. Smiles and weary souls breed retarded children, we are going to condescend, mess-up, miss the point and do it all over again, one might as well be honest with themself. This is certainly a comedy of errors and I am without a fellow spectator; I too have become a player. I hate writing about work, about how it goes and how that affects me, but my mind is so stultified by the lack of intellectual breath, like all this smoke in my lungs I am consumed with too many social issues that reek of humanity and infect my spirit, I feel rot inside. It would be a lie, however, to say that I have not learned anything from my peers, for certainly I have, I suppose something about them, about us, will appear in a poorly constructed short story I will write in the abstract future, but I am too weary right now. I think I just need someone else to make myself feel better; another person I can project myself onto in order to feel my own reflection and reassure myself of my own existence...

nullity and retention

2007-04-05T02:19:00.000-07:00

possession; to retain the person, the object, the image that elicits your happiness. not wanting to have happiness but to be happy; to identify with that which is possessed. the violence of emotion, their seeming tenderness and safety, they are self-sustaining, self-perpetuating, creating vacuums for other emotive states to push you around. seeking favorable situations and personalities that might raise the corners of your mouth, the peptides in your head; create favorable memories whose future absence will soon haunt you. it is never enough to know, one must possess meaning, purpose, or fulfillment; awareness-of only permits you to believe that it is other than that which you are, if somehow possession equated absorption, assimilation; a fulfilment of being; you would be what you seek. this is the cupidity of identity.

one is not smart, one acts as if he possesses smartness; one is not humorous but exhibits characteristics of humor. striving to be the descriptions you seek to accumulate, empty vessels who pantomime the reality they have constructed in order to reaffirm its image. you want to be something, to be someone, which only serves to prove that you aren't anything; you're a non-thing, the absence of what you seek to be; the only thing you are is continually trying to construct a representation of your desire to be noticed, to be recognized and validated; there is nothing there but your desire and misguided effort; an emptines;, a nothingness. your identity exists as an abstract, an illusion; you simply exist.

desultory

2007-01-09T03:13:00.000-08:00

you think of the year as you climb down the stairs
all your saccharine dreams and unanswered prayers
'maybe this is the taste of failure' you hear someone say
as you slide through the door and silently slip away

it seems as if something is missing, you are forgetting...
you shiver as the details fade, the wind-chill besetting
the walk to your car, when you notice across the lot
the face of a stranger who brings a wandering thought

she looks like so many girls that you used to know
in her face and her gait, but her prints in the snow
prove that she is real where the others cease to exist
you reach for your keys and some ineffable wish

sunday night

2006-11-27T00:17:00.000-08:00

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.

bitter pill manifesto

2006-11-13T00:31:00.000-08:00

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...

goodbyes

2006-11-02T01:52:00.000-08:00

"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."

the death of wendy

2006-09-10T22:16:00.000-07:00

what an awfully big adventure t'would be
to die so young, so magnanimously

there broods a girl who lies in Kensington;
the child-mother who turned twenty-one,
she stares at the stars while she lays supine
and dangles her feet in the Serpentine.

'oh to be a child, to be a bird
to sing and dance and fly, oh to be cured
of life, and hearts that break and hopes that try
not to give up, oh not to want to die'

how childish love hath wrought so mature a grief
that must she make her bed for his memory,
for his heartless youth and the feeling still
she thought was love...and now her love to kill

so she bends down to kiss the cheek of death
with hero's lips pressed to immortal flesh
and wins her sleep beneath the soft still rill
where mermaids keep and heavens weep their fill

soon a child alights with hands on hips
disheveled hair and the smell of pirate ships...

his breath is short; the child's heart breaks
he sinks to his knees, his head his hands take
bitter tears flow warm as the orphan cries
and curls into a ball as his Wendy dies

What an awfully big adventure t'would be
to die so young, so magnanimously,
to quit this life and grasp the evil hand,
to reach the stars and to never land

four day fragments

2006-05-10T23:06:00.000-07:00

she cried, i just stood there
it's hot under these lights--
you get drunk, i'll be our ride
dancing with wine bottles in their hands
pouring rain outside on us
eventually say your last goodbyes
we'll stay here, or go bowling
i think i'll miss you guys
mushroom john just bowled a strike.

he passed the sobriety test
officer i wasn't impressed.
we went to climb the statue
i'll just piss on this wall
the ground won't sway as much
down here there isn't the fall.
we went back to the apartment
i don't remember much after that
except that i threw up before bed.
went down town for coffee next morning
before practice at three--
you guys take shots, we'll get the bucket of balls
annie sliced and then chased after the club--
rehearsal dinner tacos and unfinished ice cream
sneak outside and go sit on the swings
and watch the sun set behind the silo
again and again.

i spent the rest of saturday
looking for a table to belong to,
but everyone was a stranger to me,
so i wandered around pretending i had something to do
wishing i had somewhere to be.
most days i would rather be on my own,
than feeling alone in a crowded place,
you're not really my family, my friends
only empty shirts with a familiar face.

i felt nothing then, but peace and the breeze
feet pumping, sun behind the trees.
i swing and sing the rowing song,
i keep this moment even though it's gone.
time to go back down the hill
you guys drink and we'll play games with brides maids,
al pacino takes three hours to kill deniro
fifteen minutes left an hour ago,
i just want to be coherent tomorrow.

he's not really the one getting married in a half hour
but we'll play along for his free drink
bartender this is the biggest mistake of his life,
our tuxedos make us liars--
2 a.m. stranger, we will give you a ride
so you won't have to stumble down these city streets
don't forget your knives.
she's probably nicer in the daylight

weddings are alright
receptions are depressing
everyone finds tears and wine
but i avoid expressing
anything inside of me
that one might find impressing.
my lack of words, wont to wander
and conclusions drawn about my life
are perhaps the most distressing,
and what i fear i'll never feel
won't always be a blessing

no you didn't slur your speech
i remebered saying the day before
as jim answered the door
still wearing his tuxedo,
he slept on the apartment floor,
on the couch still lay my brother
and we laughed at the parody
of our lives against each other
on a sunday afternoon.
no i can't turn down the sun
idiot

What we do with it

2006-04-08T22:00:00.000-07:00

I am an island I cannot escape
So I wade out in the waves
And watch as lives sail by
Hoping that my memory saves
The stories I would have told you.
Slowly I begin to waste away
Losing all that I believe in
You should be here, be part of me
In my mind wandering day dream.
We could pretend everything is alright
We would play castaways
Or some other foolish children’s game
So that we wouldn’t feel alone
And we’ll forget that we’re afraid.
We would play it so beautifully
I would drown you then I'd sink myself
Ten times until we washed ashore
Then lay there pushing sand between our toes
Until we made new hearts to explore.
Oh perfect day of our lonesome lives
Only our childish minds to be our guides
But youth is fleeting and the child dies
On a lonely beach with dirty feet
And this stupid smile I keep inside.
I feel a bit absurd most days, but it’s ok
I just can’t connect the stories of my life
I can only lay them side-by-side
And say they’re fragments and memories
That still hold some meaning to me
The pieces I use to explain
The tidal waves that bring me back here again.

You say that we’ll be rescued some day
And we’ll live better lives in a better place
That sounds quite nice, yes, nice
Tell it to me again tomorrow, or the day after that
Because today it doesn’t mean much to me
I’m still here on this island in this sea
This is what’s real, me, and this place
And the future’s not a boat, it’s only hope
To divert your mind from the life you face.
You're so damn scared of being alone
You refuse to live the only life you've known
And so you've left, and we can no longer connect
This island all to me
And you smiling at the bottom of the sea.

who indeed

2006-03-13T23:17:00.000-08:00

Can I blame you for disappointing me? You failed to meet my standard, perhaps the fault is in my standard. Perhaps I should not project my desires onto you and then sulk when you fail to fulfill. I often wonder if I can even know you. I know you are here in the world, but you are to me not what you are to yourself, you are my perception, my interpretation. I objectify you, classify you, I ascribe traits and tendencies, aversions and affinities, so many concepts to define you. But are you more than my categories, can you transcend my adjectives? If you can, then how might you describe yourself? What are you that I cannot reduce to a concept or tendency? Some days I am afraid you might not be anything more than the sum of your actions and proclivities, perhaps nothing more than a collection of memories. I like to think thatÂs not true. But all you can ever be is a memory to me; you are never present without me projecting memories mixed with expectations onto you. I am going to pretend there is an essential you and an essential me, but who are we essentially? Can you have a personality without me? Are you only nice because I am mean and only funny because I laugh, only artistic because I am not? Maybe our only relation is relativity. Arbitrary? Sartre and Heidegger have ruined me. I will pretend anyway, because I like you, or the you you are to me. This is only foolishness anyway because what happens when one considers such ideas? If I subtract your humor from you, are you still you? what if I take away yourintelligencee? or your happy disposition? Are you still you? Where do we end and our unessential qualities begin? Tell me you are an individual and I will tell you 'so what'. You are only an individual because you are somehow different from everybody else, your individuality is dependent on everyone else, it's only relative. What is worse than not knowing who you are? Not knowing if you are.

let me down

2006-02-22T22:51:00.000-08:00

love without a kiss and we live alone
you feel it more as you drift from home
but what's to feel in your fading words
when my guiding lines are becoming blurred
what i thought was true was thinking true was real
and real was the same for both of us to feel
but i feel lost and you feel regret
you don't care and i am cold and i wish we never met
i wish i could hate you and hate your memory
love him more than you love forgetting me

this too

you pause to think of the past
none of this life...no it won't last
these thoughts are only evanescent
only ever here and then passing present
you wish some days the pain could last
but what we feel is felt so fast
if it lingered some, it might be pleasant
but you can't know what will not stay
and time you learn is wont to stray
so how can we feel at home
when home is but to feel alone
tell me now the words i must pray
this too shall pass some better day
you pause...

musings

2006-01-28T00:01:00.000-08:00

from the library:
why are there potted plants all over the library? am i going to forget i'm inside, this isn't a foliage zoo. why don't they just put the plants outside and let them freeze, they aren't fooling me.

from the coffee shop:
feeling levity in moments of despair, sad songs that make you smile and you are at peace because you know everyone else is also a heartbroken failure, worse still are those who aren't, those who realize their dreams meant more when they were unfulfilled, now they know the let-down of a dream realized. i smile at despair because i feel most alive when i am the lowest, and smiling in such circumstances makes me feel absurd, and most days absurdity is the only genuine feeling left and the only word that still means what you think it does.

how do you deal with disappointment; when those you don't even know, but would like to, seem to let you down, your idols turn into blocks of wood and the world is a lesser place when you find out they are flawed, when you realize they are just like you.

maybe we feel like saving people sometimes because we want to be saved ourselves, and we think there is some personal redemptive quality in saving someone else, long since given up on being saved ourselves, whether we admit it to ourself or not, maybe if we're someone's savior then they'll get to feel that which we wish we could.

the girl across from me is staring out the window like she is waiting for someone, but she is slowly realizing that she will be alone tonite, so she looks with an empty gaze at the cars in the drive through and imagines that someone, anyone is coming to meet her. she has nowhere to be so she'll look out the window a while longer until she's finally tired of feeling stood up and leaves, her embarrassment and hurt will turn bitter.

poems about no one and danny

2006-01-18T00:28:00.000-08:00

October 11
lovers kiss where lips don't touch
eyes wide open staring clutch
her attention and her guile
in the shape of her faint smile
and we're not looking away
when the games that we'll play
died in this, moment of bliss
these seconds when our eyes kiss
i know you'll remember this

September 4
sunday afternoon early september
i'm missing the days that i remember
sitting on a red pew in this wedding tomb
friends and some flowers and an ill-lit room
celebrate the triumph of her gender
and ceremony of his blissful doom
a funeral for his youth's surrender

November

2005-11-20T16:39:00.000-08:00

My November Guest
My sorrow, when she's here with me
Thinks these dark days of autumn rain
Are beautiful as days can be;
She loves the bare, the withered tree;
She walks the sodden pasture lane.

Her pleasure will not let me stay.
She talks and I am fain to list:
She's glad the birds are gone away,
She's glad her simple worsted gray
Is silver now with clinging mist.

The desolates, deserted tress,
The faded earth, the heavy sky,
The beauty she so truly sees,
She thinks I have no eye for these,
And vexes me for reasons why.

Not yesterday I learned to know
The love of Bare November days
Before the coming of the snow,
But it were vain to tell her so,
And they are better for her praise.

Frost.

Revulsion
Though I waste watches framing words to fetter
Some unkown spirit to mine in clasp and kiss,
Out of the night there looms a sense 'twere better
To fail obtaining whom one fails to miss.

For winning love we win the risk of losing,
And losing love is as one's life were riven;
It cuts like contumely and keen ill-using
to cede what was superfluously given.

Let me then never feel the fateful thrilling
That devestates the love-worn wooer's frame,
The hot ado of fevered hopes, the chilling
That agonizes disappointed aim!
So may I live no junctive law fulfilling,
And my heart's table bear no woman's name.

Hardy.

Ode to a Nightengale
...Darkling I listen; and, for many a time
I have been half in love with easeful Death,
Call'd him soft names in many a mused rhyme,
To take into the air my quiet breath;
Now more than ever seems it rich to die,
To cease upon the midnight with no pain,
While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad
In such an ecstasy!
Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain--
To thy high requiem become a sod.

Keats

R. Frost

2005-10-16T22:36:00.000-07:00

A Late Walk

when i go up through the mowing field,
the headless aftermath,
smooth-laid like thatch with the heavy dew,
half closed the garden path.

and when i come to the garden ground,
the whir of sober birds
up from the tangle of whithered weeds
is sadder than any words.

a tree beside the wall stands bare,
but a leaf that lingured brown,
disturbed, i doubt not, by my thought,
comes softly rattling down.

i end not far from my going forth,
by picking the faded blue
of the last remaining aster flower
to carry again to you.

Reluctance

out through the fields and the woods
and over the walls i have wended;
i have climbed the hills of view
and looked at the world, and descended;
i have come by the highway home,
and lo, it is ended.

the leaves are all dead on the ground,
save those the oak is keeping
to ravel them one by one
and let them go scraping and creeping
out over the crusted snow,
when others are sleeping.

and the dead leaves lie huddled and still,
no longer blown hither and thither;
the last lone aster is gone;
the flowers of with hazel wither;
the heart is still aching to seek,
but the feet question "whither?"

ah, when to the heart of man
was it ever less than treason
to go with the drift of things,
to yield with grace to reason,
and bow and accept the end
of love or a season?

Candles

2005-09-21T23:08:00.000-07:00

it's my birthday tomorrow,
no one here could know,
i was born this thursday
twenty-two years ago.
and i feel stuck watching history repeat me
well am i just a kid who knows he's needy

Something's stirring in the trees
a stale air does move the leaves
it holds me here, this ill-birthed breeze
float you grey-hued feather
from the tangled heather
the sober song of a bird then cried
you were born the day that summer died

early august

2005-09-20T00:35:00.000-07:00

i walk the mowing fields
uniform golden stalks cut down
combed, pathed and thatched
revealing furrowed ground
to the edge of the field
fir limbs and pine boughs
reach from the dark wood hollows
to the new and uncut fields
where the stalks and stems stand tall
full with no machine-line shadows
their heavy whiskered heads
lean sideways as if to hear
songs of birds
thoughts of bees
and rabbits words
the sun lurking in the west
on the glowing jagged crest
crowned with golden praise
and outstretched rays
to burn the mountain breast
now the valleys fade
into dark-hued hilltop shade
turn the corner to where the hay is laid
in soft feathered rows
combed smooth in lines
and sleep in repose
to the southwest corner
where the elm and birch trees
stand round tina's old house
and ill-kept yard
freckled with dead leaves
like some memories discard
turn left
behind; the salmon colored sky
where there was sun
and polar pink-hued purple
where there is none
and this old tar road
no lines or curbs
nor signs but those
that farmers and grandparents chose
for foreigners to mind
a single cricket finds my ear
finds it well
and plays as if to praise
or soon cast a spell
on the pale sliver in the sky
to bring it low, or take him high
one last turn around hopper and peck
on this road that seldom winds
all bare save the poles
and the their two power lines
come to the parsonage
and the old church van
the yellow ped-sign
with the black stick man
walking with a floating head
and appendagless hand
the road we used to walk
sometimes i still do

alice

2005-09-18T17:10:00.000-07:00

Upon this bench my thoughts collect and compose
Memories of one I met a year ago
The withered leaves from naked trees
Blow peacefully on bye
I in repose and dark-hued clothes under September sky

We had been through so much together
My dear sweet Alice and I
In our short time of dark damp weather
And we had some good times but
-The best I can’t make rhyme
Only in the end when like faded friends
-You left without saying goodbye
You just left me alone with my pen and
-Paper
See you later then

I did dream one night that I had wed
A lonely girl with chestnut hair
Whose coffee eyes in pensive stare
Could move my dreams outside my head
But dreams are best when left unsaid
For often they will bring despair
When born to life we soon find them
-Lying dead

Slowly as the seasons changed for reasons of the dying sun
-She had become
Unstable and undone
To whom could she run
When the memories fade
And shes holding a gun
In heroic grey shades

So she sits on the edge of her bed
Without tears left to shed
And shes picturing me
When I find her there dead
And shes finally free
And I’m holding my head
Saying how can this be
You could have killed me instead

Then she touches the note
That she sprayed with perfume
And the words that she wrote
Like the scent of the room
Linger in empty evening dress like a rose
-That could not bloom

In the dark a decision is made
And a shell hits the floor
Shes no longer afraid
And she leans on the door (what the hell was it for)
It’s been years since she prayed
But she needs them no more
All is quiet in my life like it was before

My secret dead wife whose short invented life
-Is not just what I remember
The haunting pictures on my wall
Her hair ties I wear on my wrist
The wedding rings
We made from string
The shirt I wore when we first kissed
And the vows we made but could not bring
-Ourselves to keep like we had wished
She will be missed

emails

2005-09-04T00:41:00.000-07:00

she types out her heart with thoughtless care
or so i guessed in my best despair
don't send to me so carelessly
all your cavalier memories
that make me wish i could be there
with you and your sister
summer night coming back from the fair
jump out of the car and dance all night
dip spin twirl you close in, briefly tight
and let you go to dance alone
come back to me under the street lamp light
this feels right
i read this and think of you, you do too
think of me so carelessly
to remind me you remember

Buddha says

2005-07-29T21:41:00.000-07:00

Imagine a man who has been pierced by an arrow well soaked in poison, and his friends and relatives go at once to fetch a physician or a surgeon. Imagine now that this man says:
“I will not have this arrow pulled out until I know the name of the man who shot it, and the name of his family, and whether he is tall or short or of medium height; until I know whether he is black or dark or yellow; until I know his village or town. I will not have this arrow pulled out until I know about the bow that shot it, whether it was a long bow or a cross bow.
“I will not have this arrow pulled out until I know about the bow-string, and the arrow, and the feathers on the arrow, whether they are feathers of vulture, kite or peacock.
“I will not have this arrow pulled out until I know whether the tendon which binds it is of an ox, deer, or monkey.
“I will not have this arrow pulled out until I know whether it is an arrow, or the edge of a knife, or a splinter, of the tooth of a calf, or the head of a javelin.”
Well that man would die, but he would die without having found out any of these things. In the same way, anyone who says: “I will not follow the holy life of Buddha until he tells me whether the world is eternal or not; whether the life and the body are two things, or one thing; whether the one who has reached the Goal is beyond death or not; whether he is both beyond death and not beyond death; whether he is neither beyond death nor is not beyond death.”
Well that man would die, but he would die without Buddha having told these things.
Because I am one who says: whether the world is eternal or not, there is birth, and death, and suffering, and woe, and lamentation, and despair. And what I do teach is the means that lead to the destruction of these things.
Remember therefore that what I have said, I have said; and what I have not said, I have not said. And why have I not given and answer to these things? Because these questions are not profitable, they are not a principle of the holy life, they lead not peace, to supreme wisdom, to Nirvana.

Majjhima Nikaya 1. 63

drifting

2005-07-28T20:49:00.000-07:00

the three of us on upturned raft
floating in the cove
two lazy ores and lazy draft
our sailor stories make us laugh
peacefully we rove

my feet dangling over side
sun rays paint our skin
through the water toes magnified
i kick a bit to aid the ride
and once i jumped in

slowly rowing i and ethan
back from docks we came
paddle turn and talk to nathan
of this peace and hope my faith in
next year stays the same

alice

2005-07-17T14:32:00.000-07:00

she read a book that changed her life
and then she put away
all her thoughts and memories
that let her sadness stay

the book was real but she was not
she'd lost her subtle charm
the blinding light of life too bright
an optimistic harm

no longer pensively content
with life, and love repressed,
now like the others, not herself
naturally depressed

this made her worse than that before
so she old her sister
how she felt and what she would do
sometimes i still miss her

werther

2005-07-09T21:04:00.000-07:00

A little over a year ago I started writing what is probably a character sketch, similar to Goethe’s Young Werther, only in the third person (and sometimes first) of a nameless individual. The majority of words I write are for myself, but I thought I would post some of the entries about this individual because in many ways we share the same perspective.

8/26/04

At most points in his day life does not strike him as a cohesive experience, not all his actions and not the collected existence of everyone around him. Most individuals seem to be more or less exclusive with their time and not inclusive. They don’t want to know others and they don’t want others to know them. In his more lucid moments he has a strong sense that what separates people is exactly that which binds them together; the personal struggles everyone has to cope with, the celebrations and the tragedies that have marked our paths and the presence they keep in our daily effort to survive and succeed, to make progress while providing safe travel for those who come after us. Never truly understood by anyone else and barely understanding ourselves, we corner our truest impressions of life and save them for ourselves, afraid of the ridicule and judgment that will come from those who might see our lives as we see them. All our parents soon die and so many friendships fade into the distance like ships to the other side of the world, and we never understand the full impact and importance of those friends until we understand that we shall never see them again. No one is content with the world they are given, some surrender to the inevitable while others work to obtain that which they know doesn’t exist in this world, peace and happiness, but their effort is their delusion, finding new ways to cope with bitterness of all our crumbled expectations and the disappointment of dreams fulfilled and their ephemeral gratification. Looking for ways to savor the sweetness of our best moments and then hang them on our walls as memories, reminders of happier days, their memory making us sad, making us remember why we continue to exist. We may develop affection for disappointment and an affinity for pain caused by our loved ones; it is the truest type of feeling and the deepest sense of our existence, because it’s what binds us all together, our unifying theme, the unsung anthem of humanity. And while everyone lonely, seeking companionship and belonging yet never satisfied, we are all lonesome together. It is the inevitable position of our species, seldom talked about but always alluded to. We desperately want to be satisfied and enjoy all that there is to find joy in, yet we also want others to feel what we are reaching for, the intangible happiness of our childhood and its lingering presence in our dreams. So many people so far removed from our piece of the world are in so much pain and suffer to degrees we can only read about. We the wealthy cannot make this life into an enjoyable existence, much less of a chance the poor and forgotten have. There are some who are disillusioned and idealistic, having become numb to their own existence, to the existence of everyone else. They fail to see the rain because they are too busy imaging a sun beyond the clouds, too simple to know the profundity of despair in existence, too self absorbed to recognize the chords that bind men together. He thinks these thoughts and feels their gravity, he thinks of life, he thinks it’s cumbersome.

introverts

2005-07-09T14:22:00.000-07:00

“One of the most important forms of the child libido (energy of life that drives one to fulfill desires) occupation is fantasy making. The child’s world is one of imaginary and make-believe where he can create for himself satisfaction and enjoyment which the world of reality so often denies. As a child grows and the real demands of life are made upon him it becomes increasingly necessary that his libido be taken away from his fantastic world and used for the required adaptation to reality needed by his age and condition, until finally the adult freedom of the whole libido is necessary to meet the biological and cultural demands of life.
Instead of thus employing the libido in the real world, however, certain people never relinquish the seeking for satisfaction in the shadowy world of fantasy and even though they make certain attempts at adaptation they are halted and discouraged by every difficulty and obstacle in the path of life and are easily pulled back into their inner psychic world. This condition is called a state of introversion. It is concerned with the past and reminiscence which belong thereto. Situations and experiences which should have been completed and finished long ago are still dwelt upon and lived with. Images and matters which were once important but which normally have no significance for their later age are still actively influencing their present lives. The nature and character of these fantasy products are legion, and are easily recognized in the emotional attitudes and pretensions, the childish illusions and exaggerations, the prejudices and inconsistencies which people express in manifold forms. The actual situation is inadequately faced; small matters are reacted towards I an exaggerated manner; or else a frivolous attitude is maintained where real seriousness is demanded. In other words there is clearly manifest an inadequate psychic adaptation towards reality which is quite to be expected from the child, but which is very discordant in the adult.
The introvert…reacts to stimuli thinking and tends to withdraw from the object to think it over and weigh matters. For him action is difficult, uncertain and delayed. He cannot make an immediate and direct contact with the object because between his feelings and the object is his ego. An extreme example of this is in Hamlet ‘all sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,’ he broods, meditates and is often moody. If the introvert has had intellectual training and development he substitutes for his difficulty in activity and quick adjustment to the changing conditions of life, the creation of theories, philosophies and logical reasoning about things and seek to adapt himself mentally-his trouble comes in putting these ideas into practical application. This does not mean he is without feelings-one class of introvert is often called the emotional type-but his feeling is undifferentiated, and he reveals and inadequate emotional reaction and valuation. His emotions when aroused frequently show underdeveloped character so that it is not surprising to find highly cultivated introverts acting in a childish and infantile manner with deep moods of depression.”

Dr. Beatrice M. Hinkle, An Outline of Psychoanalysis.

not completly accurate but close enough

Nietzsche

2005-06-29T20:34:00.000-07:00

"man is finished when he becomes altruistic- instead of saying simply 'i am no longer worth anything,' the moral lie in the mouth of the decadant says: 'nothing is worth anything' [next to God]- 'life is not worth anything' Such a judgement represents, after all, a grave danger, it is contagious- on the uterly morbid soil of society it soon grows up luxeriously, now in the form of religion, Christianity..."

Are christians the real nihilists? A group who humbles themself infinitly smaller than their God, rejecting all natural instincts of selfish ambition and self-protection, and they say 'to die is gain.' Perhaps our syphilitic atheist friend is onto something here.

the quiet ones

2005-06-13T22:13:00.000-07:00

standing in a crowd, people passing one another in all different directions. everything is moving voices and shuffled footsteps, laughter and city noises all funnel into one indistinguishable cloud of vibration that passes through you. face after face passes by you and you try to discern the lives of each as they brush by, lives you'll never see again, and you wonder why they even exist. how can so many individuals exist and never truly be aware of anyone other than themselves? how did we all come to this unspoken agreement that we shouldn't speak to each other? that everyone else doesn't really matter? a friendly smile and turn of the head as we cease to exist to each other.
standing still, unnoticed, observing but not participating. after a while you get used to it, the need to be seen, to be worth something is replaced by the desire to understand. musing about life and the lives of others, reading mannerisms and words, hidden smiles and hidden tears. you are no longer part of the crowd, separate from the experiment, an observer of some laboratory test, life in a vacuum. outside of life and soon outside of lives, separate yourself from those around you and soon your feelings are all your own. Inconsequential details, that is all you are.
others notice your position but it doesn't affect them, a fly on the wall is not to be bothered with, usually not cared about, and soon nobody remembers it still exists. it becomes a hypothetical life, to others you are no more than a passing thought, a stranger in the crowd. these, they are the ones who are able to divine more about those around them then most, they posses the ability to read people seeing deeper and further than most. to some it is an admirable quality, but never much more than a passing consideration.
that's how it feels, to sit in silence and exist only to myself, i have made a stranger out of everyone around me, they pass me in a crowd and do not recognize me. you forget how to feel, or least people forget you have feelings, that you too have emotions. cold and stoic, like a statue in a city square, when in reality there is so much on the inside, too many feelings and thoughts held onto for so long, fighting for air, that to start to express them now would appear too unnatural, too much like everyone else, their true depth, my feelings, would not be done justice.
the noises have long since died, all you can hear now is the piercing silence of being alone. the mind wanders without restraint and those incongruent pieces of life are magnified and analyzed, put on trial, the jury is hung, finding no meaning and all your mind does is wander still. question everything you know, find all your faults, all your failures and the ways you have wronged those you loved, ghosts from the past, they haunt you day and night because no one is there to scare them away, no one is there to comfort you. how hard it is to realize you are not the person you once were, not the same, things always change.
sanity is something to cling to, not your natural disposition. loneliness and independence are too confused and mingled to be separated, your fate is sealed and the once incredible is becoming the inevitable. the most subtle kind of panic reveals itself and you send out warning signals to anyone who might notice, like flares in the night, you ask for someone to save you form and revive your hardening heart. but no one seems to see you drowning, they smile and pass you by, like a stranger in the crowd. shoulders brush and a heartless smile, keep on walking. how have i arrived here?
scared, you want to scream but the words do not form, the voice does not rise up, you have realized your identity apart from the masses, and in so doing you are completely separated from them. is this what you wanted? to know yourself, it seems, is to know you are alone, and to know that no one else has any idea. self actualization or self condemnation?

introductions

2005-06-08T21:59:00.000-07:00

i believe in a god, but freud says it's not because there is a god, or because i have any valid reason to hold such a belief, but it is actually my personal projection of my father, due to the fact that i secretly want to kill my father and be my father, this going back to darwin's theory that a group of brothers killed their horde leader, father, in order to end his dominance over their lives and that they might procure for themselves a piece of that action. of course they felt guilty and, through a long process of mourning and ritualizing, they deified their dad, which eventually evolved into the religions of today. so we, freud and myself, differ as to the origins and underlying causes for my belief, but i did not get on here to talk about god, but i am, because the actual reason as to why i am here escapes me at present.

from the limited amount of other blogs i have read, the theme seems to be the individuality of each person and how they express themselves through words; their thoughts, this is the medium which allows them to reflect on their own individuality and share parts of their person that are not naturally or easily manifested in everyday life. is that what i am doing? maybe. hardly do i ever know exactly what it is i am doing, i only know afterwards that it has been done, and so, here is, or has the potential to become, my outlet. i like my secrets and i covet my own thoughts and experiences, my feelings are my own, they seem less than genuine if they are shared and analyzed or understood by others, but explosions are the alternative. so what is next, i hardly ever know.