Tirades for the Exhausted

The Beginning of All Things

2011-12-30T19:30:00.004-05:00

I would be lying if I said that some part of me
doesn't miss endless summer.
I would be lying if I said that some part of me
isn't always on the way out.
Mark my words
because
this is now a dangerous game that I play.

My interest in all general things
has waned
and what keeps me going
is and always has been
that unwavering need
to forever seek out new.
Stagnation is the period at the end
of every creative sentence.
The fin of all things.

It is here that I learn that
while I am not happy alone
I am more pressingly contented.
Yes, I have dreams and imaginative lies
to tell myself,
but I also have my coffee and my cigarettes
and deep in my lungs
a tomb to keep my mouth from telling the truth.
There are so many things
that I'm looking forward to taking
to an early grave.

When you ask me what I want to see,
guarantee you'll hear me say,
"The Zombie Apocalypse,"
and
"The Financial Collapse,"
just to see those bastards to be the first
with their backs against the wall
when the revolution comes.
Press hard and I'll let out that
I secretly do want to see
the heat death of the universe
(hit up Wikipedia if you need to. No shame).

And while all these things are completely true -
I dearly want to witness them all and
I'm pretty sure I could make it through the zombie apocalypse
(and not in that I'm-a-badass-sense,
but quite seriously) -
they are just my ever growing
misanthropic self talking.
That, however, does not mean
that I'm not completely for them.
I've grown quite sick of
humanity as a whole and
maybe I've just gotten sick of,
well,
everything.
I want to believe in world peace
like I want to believe in some god;
That'd be cool, but only a child thinks
they could be true.
I know who
I want
to save
in the zombie apocalypse.

And that - that right there -
is my to-the-grave.
My back against the wall.
My coup de grâce.
The one thing I do want.
But I've been there
and it is gone
and my heart has become
the stone and dust and ash
that it is made of.
These days beating
more out of habit
than necessity.

I think back to all those
end-of-society stories
and in all of them there is a common
glimmer of hope
that drives the characters.
Well, I've made it to the promised land
and I know it is nothing but a waste.
So, what now?

Whatever.
Loneliness is entirely underrated
anyway.

Bring on the rapture.
I'm looking forward to looting.

Dragging Chains

2010-07-25T10:25:00.003-04:00

The clock stuck ten hours into some Sunday this very instant.
I’m hiding out in a corner at SPoT – haunting it.
Brooding in it.
Gettin’ all angsty.

Running closer to 26 now,
I can’t shake the thought that my best years
are now well behind me
and the time I had to make those best years
the best years they’re supposed to be
were drained and robbed
by a certain southern state
and I will forever hold this –
among a great many other things –
against that state.

But at least now,
for now,
I can stare out the window
and in place of that terrible swamp
there now stand roads
and parks
and mailboxes.
Flags.
Shops.
People.
Buildings like fingers climbing forth from the earth to conquer the sky
like so many of us lost and wandering
who, to the quiet distain of any that it discomforts to believe,
actually own the world.

I dwell on the “great woman” stories,
driven by how mine has already come and gone
and been gone for longer than not
and how I know I will never be capable of
separating myself from her.
While I understand that she is long past,
never to return,
just like those best years
(and while it pains me, I accept that – though not quietly)
It fears me to let go of the feeling I had
when we once loved.
Its heavy weight filled from knowing she no longer does
and that if I do not,
It will be gone.
And lost.
And forgotten.
which feels like so much a crime
to destroy the most beautiful thing
I will ever have been a part of.

Someday,
someday I will conquer like those fingers
instead of being conquered by the memory
of her fingers’ light grip on mine.

But that day
is not now
and so I wander
and take solace in the knowledge that
we actually own the world.

I’ll take what good I can find
for now,
but
still forever
someday…

Origin: 14c. At a future date

2010-05-20T14:04:00.001-04:00

Could it possibly be?
No. I need to tell myself
because I understand well enough
that
every little thing
that I might construe as a hint
doesn’t necessarily make that hint
true enough.

There is a little more two-way-go,
but that just as easily could have been
because just before there was a long
two-way-go with that sort of
one-way-flow
and that I’m moving home
doesn’t mean things are moving along
or open a window for things to move in
and develop again.

And I’ve been telling myself that
I’m making it okay
and I’m going to eventually be fine
and that there is always somewhere else
and that I’ll stop using split infinitives
someday
and this will all be true
and this will all be yours,

the honest truth is
I’m not sure of anything
anymore.

And there were so few things
I ever was sure about before.
Someday I will return to
braving unknown terrors
and
do mighty deeds
and
it now seems
I’ll need to
hold on to
every bit I can take.

Someday.

Stomping Grounds

2010-04-20T13:29:00.002-04:00

It has been over three years, now.
I’m ready to go. I’m ready to get out
and every day, it seems,
I get closer and closer
to be willing to starve it out
and go for broke (because I’m already
pretty damn close).

This weekend was quite good
although it always seems that I get
no time off
When someone comes to visit
and I’m really quite ready
for some time off
although, it seems,
That I had guests is pretty regardless.
My sister and newfound brother
spent a little time (and entirely too much money)
here.

We ate out and traveled around, after dinner drinks
and the like and, it seems,
my sister is getting only more and more
beautiful
with every passing day
and I am incredibly proud of her
with what she has accomplished
and for all those things that she will accomplish
(and I know that she will).
I told her of my thoughts on
moving back home
and getting that masters in education
and to quit starving as a flight instructor
instead to starve as a high school teacher.
That she was excited
and supportive
and thinks it a great idea
means volumes to me
and may just be that final push I need
to get gone from here.
She has always been the smartest of us three,
by scores of miles.

It serves as a reminder,
the beer fermenting in the corner,
that there are people out there who
can still lay back and
go get a few drinks before
home for bed.

I know, however,
that I will just relax back into the
work-home-bottle of jack-sleep-work
repertoire I have as of late developed,
but once I get that car
I know I’ll be ready to put all my shit
into the trunk
and grab my last paycheck
and tell this place to sit on it
as I haul ass northbound on I-95
back to the real world
where I can at least lay that ground work,
it seems,
of being happy.

Truthfully, Merely a Whisper

2010-04-12T13:22:00.002-04:00

I feel like I’m stuck. Again. And we have all heard
all of this.
I wake in time to watch the sun crackle,
chasing the moon back,
burning through fog.
I rest in time to watch the stars drift,
bringing peace and silence
before they disappear behind closing eyes.

I feel, though, only as if I’m frozen
beneath the sun,
baked and scorched
and only getting only the inkling of Joshua
watching it stand there in heaven
until I have avenged myself upon
my enemies.
Somewhere just beyond that horizon
rages a battle
between armies of my demons
and what little reflection of a weary shade
that remains of me.

But after this timeless day
what shall bring the night?
When winter ends, what brings the spring?
I know of nowhere to go
and with naught to become
I stay here,
as it seems always,
in limbo.
Come forth,
I beckon,
I plead.
Come forth, the night.

I hope, in only weeks time,
I will get some long time alone.
Some time to think.
To smoke some smokes
and be one with the road
and let my mind just wash itself
of all these webs and all this dirt
and all this that shamefully rusts.
To see the simple truths in mountains
and turns.
In the overcast skies and the cool air
and knowledge that the lies I tell myself
that I can be happy
and that I’m doing fine
are only for others.
With no others, no fallacy.
Maybe then I will be able to find some answers.

Maybe afterwards
I will be capable of standing tall
upon my roof, thrusting eastward my fingers
and shouting,

“Ho! Comes the night!”

I Think You Understand

2010-01-12T15:19:00.003-05:00

These winter months tend to grow on me.
Holidays have come and gone and
I have
not entirely unlike those days
been home,
but
only come and gone.

I am looking into
several things.
I know I don’t dislike doing what it is I do,
but I do know that I have great distain
towards
who I do it for

and I do know that
I have my dreams of grandeur
about living alone in a house or apartment
back in those golden streets
and sitting near a window on a Saturday morning
having risen early,
but not to an alarm
drinking coffee (with a little whiskey in it)
with a little Regina Spektor or a little Alexi Murdoch on in the background
staring at the slow snow falling on the tree branches
and not having to worry
about where I will get my next meal
or pay that bill.
In my closet will hang all those dress shirts and ties,
the slacks they wear with,
and the occasional polo shirt (for those casual Fridays).

And there I will look down upon my hands
And I will see them doing work that I know they can do
And there I will be content
With who I am and who I am to become
And I will not wonder
how long it is until I die because I’m sick of waiting for it,
but how much good I can do before
that time comes.

Unfortunately,
while I may be a dreamer of those oh so sweet dreams
I am also
overly pragmatic
and therefore I know that this dream
will likely never be
and while having these dreams is making it
harder to stand who I am
and the work these hands can do,
but are bound not to
I must admit that
both in them
and in having them
I do feel
a bit more
hope.

It trickles like drops of water from leaves
after the rain passes
or from a leaky ceiling that I can
just almost reach through
to that bright
blue-black sky
covered in cliché spilled salt.
It pools and pauses
and breaks on my head, running into my eyes
blinding me from what I already know
and wrapping my soul as a blanket
warming
and warming, beginning to thaw
and slowly I am drifting

and insofar as I have always been told
all I really need to at least get it all started
is just to feel
a

bit
more

hope.

drop.

drop.

Ah Mea Culpa, This Culprit

2009-12-16T16:52:00.002-05:00

So Christmas is coming and with that,
I hope,
so will Jacob Marley.
Or that maybe more appropriately
that I will no longer be Jacob Marley
and with that shed these chains.
But a beggar’s dreams.
Ah, yes, but some beggars dream.

Alas, I know that there shall be no
secular conversion to societal redemption
and although I was always taught to be a man
of forgiveness
and although I would like to think that I wear that title
better than most (facts are of course, always debatable)
I think that this time
it will be a namesake I shall not live up to.
So I sit in the back room
whistling a bit and moaning loathsome tirades
like that hollow ghost that can be so easily mistaken as hallowed.

Tonight
like most every night
I will sit huddled next to an open window
with my cigarette cherry throwing the only light
and I will look at my
torn, broken, worthless and worn out hands
and I will think back to what they have crafted from mere dust
and what they can craft
with mud and clay and fire and that I have none
and I will hang my head ashamed
as always.

These worthless hands.
This waste of breath.

And tonight,
as always,
I will dream before I sleep
of somewhere else.

Always somewhere else.
Sometimes someone else,
but there is no one else
because there is

no one at all

anyway.

As always.

Oceanside Real Estate

2009-11-29T01:56:00.003-05:00

I don’t know what I’m doing anymore.
At work, I’m exhausted.
At home, I cannot sleep.
I’m simply drifting.

Its been some time since I’ve ordered a,
“Scotch. Cheap scotch. In fact,
make it a double.”
Brings me back to those Rochester days
where I, nonetheless, was drifting.
But at least there I could drift
and could simply wonder
where I would drift to
instead of how I can get back to
the mighty Genesee.

My parents, they don’t really get it.
They know I want it
and for them that is enough
and I love them desperately
for allowing me that kind of assertion,
but they don’t really understand why.

Only once, my mom, only once she asked me,
“Why, Christopher, why do you have such a need?
Why do you long so much for here?
Does it make you so happy?”
The only words I could materialize to help her see,
in her words, in her mind, in her justifications,
were that, no – being there alone does not make me happy.
But what makes it different is that
there
it’s okay for me to not be happy.

I suppose, in the interest of fairness,
that I should state that I write this
sitting on the edge of the Atlantic
at the end of November,
outside,
in Florida.

“There are much worse places to be,”
people, they say to me
and they are absolutely correct,
but it is not that city upon the hill.

But here it is.
I’m coughing.
I’m hurting.
I have to keep telling myself
to breathe.
to keep my heart beating.
I can’t wake in the morning
to face another day.
I merely float out of bed
like a lead weight
and somehow drag myself to work
with the sun coming up in my eyes
and stay there
until I drive home
with the sun going down in my eyes.
I’m losing that passion I once had so much of
that I could pass it to the masses.
When just that little shimmer,
that, “oh wow,” moment made it all worthwhile.

I haven’t seen one of those in so long.
You could pay me in those moments.
I’d find a way to eat.

But now, now it seems
that I have absolutely nothing left
but mere existence.
That my mortal coil has begun to breakdown on me.
That my body has opened up
the Rhineland campaign.

Would I rather be outside,
in Rochester,
on the edge of Ontario
at the end of November?
“That is one of those worse places to be,”
people, they say to me,
and they are absolutely correct,
but I’d rather be haunting
I-390
screaming at the top of my lungs
to whatever I’m playing through the stereo
or screaming down 490
haunting the culver exit
on the way to the east end.

I’ll take those moments over
most anything else.

Sad British Pop Music

2009-10-13T22:51:00.003-04:00

I'd like to point out that
it's a nice October night here in Buffalo.
The wind is light. The air is crisp.
I'm walking around outside kicking leaves around.
My family, both immediate and extended,
they're upstairs somewhere as I stand out of view
stealing cigarettes like breath and gold.

Inside, the DJ plays and people dance and flow along
with both the music and the open bar.
As I drift in, I sit down in an empty chair -
any chair, really -
and sift through some old thoughts.
Maybe just to clear my head.
Maybe just to wreck it more.

Today, the day my remaining unwed sister was wed,
has passed me by all too fast.
This entire vacation has, marked by alarm clocks
and itineraries.
Moe's, Boulder, SPoT Coffee, South Wedge and East Ave.
Fittings and rides in the back seat.
A late afternoon drive to Hamilton just for some closure.
An even later drive home with some answers.
Back to the stomping ground.
And all those fights that she'd made
and all those things that she'd say -
Well, I won't be fighting her today.
Only myself.

There is a significant level of uneasiness that I feel
standing last in line at the altar
watching so many people in tears and
feeling that alter self put up that face.
Matt, in front of me,
his legs are shaking because he's still
halfway drunk and
halfway crying and
has been standing for what feels like
halfway through the day.
Regina and Greg hold point
like infantrymen for
Scott and Nicole.

And he is in tears
and she is so beautiful
and I have never seen her so happy
and the two of them,
they give me hope for the rest of the world
which -
I'd like to think -
is a strong statement

(and I'd like to point out that
I will never get used to her being called Niki).

The homily continues and my mind floats
to mere minutes earlier.
Walking my mother down the aisle
as she grabs my arm so hard I swear
I was this close to bleeding.
Still minutes earlier - my grandmother.
She's getting frail. Her cane in my right hand,
she on my left, Grandma walks a lot slower than she did
only months ago.
While it hurts to watch her age in leaps and bounds
it does make me happy to see
how proud she is of us.

From where I'm standing I can't quite make out Kim or Kelly -
too many shoulders in the way.
Somewhere in the fray hides Amy and Devon and Charis

(and I'd like to point out that
spell check is demanding her name is actually "Chairs").

All of them, regardless of whether or not I can see them,
are radiant.
The light that guides us home

(and I'd like to point out that
while someone else probably wrote that
it doesn't make it any less true).
They light the church magnitudes beyond the sun.
It's enough to make me forget that wherever I have gone
the blues run the game

(and I'd like to point out
that nod to Mr. Frank).

But the ceremony is finished now,
and Charis and I head down the aisle last
and I'm fairly sure when she says rather loudly,
"Okay, let's party!"
she did not see my Uncle
standing five feet away
with a camcorder pointed directly at us.

So we're standing outside the church -
the entire wedding party -
and I'm really looking forward to when
my parents leave
so I can smoke a cigarette.
But in the mean time
We're slamming beers and waiting
for the newlyweds to come running out.
This is no different at the steps of the art gallery
or at the beer run stop.

And at last we arrive to the reception.
The food is great.
Everyone is smiling.
My parents' friends keep remarking about how
remarkable I apparently am
and I keep telling my parents
how I'm just good at putting on a face.

But as I sit in that empty chair -
any chair, really -
without really filling it and look through
some old thoughts on my phone.
Devon comes over to me and grabs my hand.
"Come on,"
she says,
"Quit talking to her."
She drags me forward to the dance floor.
"Forget about her,"
she says.

"Okay,"
I think to myself.

"I can't dance,"
I yell.
"Then just jump, like me," she yells back.

"Okay,"
I think to myself.

(and I'd like to point out that
it certainly made me smile a little more
than most would).

I Used To Be A Good (Enough) Person

2009-09-19T12:33:00.002-04:00

I never learned
that the rules have changed
in the past couple years.
I guess that's what my life will always be -
this infinite naive
or hope
or belief that things can be better
than they are.
Or that they will be.
Or that I can make them better.
All in due time
I can make all the mountains move
and all the plants grow
and all the deserts paradise.

She's callous.
She's resentful.
She's confused.

Construction cones and barrels
are standing static.
The shovels are silent today.
I am silent every day.

She doesn't know.
She doesn't care.
She says, "It's just easier this way."
And she's talking to him
and since that's begun
the "I miss yous" have ceased
and the phone calls have gotten shorter
and so has her temper
and there isn't that same sparkle
in her voice
that was there
not so long ago.
I hold none of it against her.
She's not at fault
and has done nothing wrong.
It just sucks.
I just wish I could make her see
what I see.
What we used to see.
I wish I knew how to show her.
What can I do
from a million miles away?

She needs to know
that she really is
the only thing
I care about.
More than the rest of this.
That while I've gotten good at what I do now,
everything else I used to do
has since suffered
and withered for years
and I want nothing more
than to get it all back
and that inside myself
I hate myself with a passion
because I can't do
what I need to do
and how badly I want to do it.

I'm not so blind
that I think things will be just like old.
I don't expect that.
I don't want that.

And in the back of my mind
all of these voices keep saying
everything I never want to hear.
Everything I never want to believe.
And it scares the shit out of me.
And she just yells
and I cringe every time I mess up
before she even calls me out on it
and try to learn from it
and there's so much pressure now
to be good and right and perfect
because I'm fighting with feelings
for someone who isn't me
and because if I'm not
then there is no point to me.

And I keep telling myself
that in only a couple months
I'll be back home.
And then things can improve
and we can be happy
together
and all I can imagine
is all those mile markers
calling out my name and saying,
"It'll be okay."

But if she just sticks it out until
those winter months
I will make those mountains move
and all those fires grow
and all those stories true
and all those promises fact.

But she still smiles
and
once
in a great while
she still talks about
moving in.

Today is Father's Day

2009-06-21T17:46:00.005-04:00

Today is Father's Day
and my father called me from Detroit.
He's hopping a connection to St. Louis,
but - lucky him - he'll back back in Rochester
in a week
instead of for a week.

Courtney and I have talked every day
for months now
and I've seen her as well.
I miss her so badly.

I keep making phone calls
and sending out résumés
and hunting through websites
in hopes that there will be one slot
just one opening
just one need
for me to be in Rochester
because I don't think you understand
how desperately I need
to be there.

I talked to my parents last night
and I guess it all spilled out in mom's ear
because as she handed my dad the phone
I heard her say,
"He sounds pretty depressed. Pretty bummed,"
she said,
"He really misses home."
She was right,
but
it wasn't just home I missed.

You see,
home means so many things.
So many
GOOD
things.

It means
garbage plates
somewhere to do at 2 AM
good coffee shops
(or hell, ANY coffee shops)
Moe's
expressways
windows open in the summer and fall
trees
leaves
grass (not weeds)
and most importantly
Courtney.

But it does not mean work.

My mind has been, as of late,
wandering over what I could do
if I wasn't flight instructing
because if it means I can be home
and happy
with Courtney (the two do really go hand-in-hand, though)
I would give up all this in an instant.
You can have my certificates
and my licenses
and all my stuff.
I don't care.

Unfortunately, even traveling despondently
is better than arriving anywhere without Courtney.

My mom asks me if I could teach high school
and I remind her that I'm only qualified to teach
one subject and it is, unfortunately,
not a subject many people want to learn.

But today is Father's Day
and my father is connecting through Detroit to St. Louis
and hopefully, even though he's on the road for work,
he's happy.

One New Message

2009-02-03T07:30:00.002-05:00

It’s 5:30 am.
“I’m sad :(“
she says
so I call her.

I shake through the drowsy haze
deep in my lungs
and we mutter
and she cries
and parts of me are dying all over the place.
Then silence.

I sit in the dark
letting her have her time
and in my mind it runs through
that we,
like this conversation,
are mostly empty space
and how so much can come to be
out of nearly nothing.

Her breathing’s calming down a little.
It’s been nearly two hours
and I really wish
I didn’t need to work today.
That we could sit around
and drink through phone lines
and while I feel no better about myself
that’s not what this is about.

There’s this piece of me that
can’t stop thinking,
“what will be different?”
and
“when will be different?”
Will I see her when I come home
for those few days in June
when my sister is wed?

But I shake off my demons
as she quietly cries
and remind myself that I’m here
to listen whenever she decides to talk.
Whenever she’s ready.

Stitching Up Old Wounds

2008-12-03T17:47:00.002-05:00

So I’ve come to realize
that when a lot of things feel wrong
we go out looking for
what’s wrong with everything else
regardless of how it effects us
and that there are two kinds of people;
those that blame the world
because they cannot control it,
yet think they should
and
those that blame themselves.

Back when I was a kid
after school they’d sent me to
the Father Kelly School of Religion
to learn why I was catholic
or what it meant to be catholic
or why I should be catholic.
I never really understood,
but they’d try to teach us to be
constant of the mind and
accepting of the bible and
abstinent of the body.

They told me that sex was like
giving a piece of yourself to someone
that you could never get back.
Well,
some years later
I remember our first time
and how I didn’t only do it
because of how sexy she is
(that’s not to say that wasn’t part of it),
but because of what they told me sex was.
There was nothing more that I wanted
than to have her hold in her hands
a part of me
that I never want to get back.
A part of me that I could watch her
mold and toss and carry
with such care or so carelessly
and
that makes me ache for her
and shake for her.

So I’m ducking under those covers again
and wondering what to do with my day
that doesn’t involve
responsibilities
and this pot of coffee is wearing thin.
The movies have all been seen.
She’s not picking up the phone and
it’s moments like this that
make you think nothing
will ever be different.

This candle makes the world
sound silent
save everything in her fist
that beats and thumps
like it matters to anyone
and I’m trying to let this headache pass.
And my legs hurt every time they stop moving
and my brain shatters whenever I stand still,
but I remember laying down next to her
trying to keep her from noticing
that my heart’s racing
because she’s so thrilling
to hold until we fall asleep
under that comforter
she got that one Christmas.

I do not
ever
want that to change
again.

Fourteen Months

2008-11-24T18:39:00.001-05:00

“Take a break, Chris,”
she says,
“Take a breath. Lay down.”
and I slowly realize that it still
somehow
feels wrong to.

How about I feel treacherous
about how tumultuous I am?
And in only twenty nine days
I'm going back where I come from.

But these days she skips up and down.
Sometimes saying vague stuff
that pretty much sucks
when I can see through what I wish it said
to what it really does.
And she says shooting stars
are nothing but eye candy for the camera happy
and that I should just stop thinking
that what I want to be
will ever be.
Then there are those
minivans, Christmas mornings,
flower crown black & white afternoon reception
conversations
that make me tired and weary and ramble on
until the next time I think I need to give up.
All the dishes rattle in my cupboard.

But every night she skips left and right
and I continue to ride my motorcycle
in brisk defiance
of state statute and criminal law.
So, “Take a break, Chris,”
that someone else says,
“Take a breath.”
Yet I cannot.
I don't want to spend my days
unable to lay down again.
This place is spiraling out of control.

The people at work,
they ask me questions.
They ask my input.
My interpretation.
It's like they think I know what I'm doing.
That I know what I'm talking about.
All I have are words off a page
and enough free will left
to say what I think they mean.
What they don't know is
all words are meaningless.
What they don't know is
when I go home each night
I back into a corner
and pull the sheets over my head.
Every second
I crumble a bit more
and sooner rather than later
it will all come crashing down.
And every second I spend thinking
I think about how badly
I want to make it back
to that corner
where at least my back is to the wall
by but my own hand.
Good thing I know enough
to know I’m not important enough
to be the only one like this.

So she whispers in my ear,
“Take a break, Christopher.”
All I can think is how she's not
who I want to be saying this.
“Take a breath. Lay down.
Tonight, you belong to me.”

I think, “It's not you,
I hope you know.”

Someone Ruined My Daydream

2008-11-16T16:04:00.001-05:00

I’m extending the morning as long as I can.
The oven says three in the afternoon
and I’m working down my second pot of coffee.
My phone hasn’t rung yet today
and the air is cool enough
that I can pretend the sun’s only just rose.

I have been sitting in pajamas
and meandering around the house
reading books
and looking for trifles
and trying to be generally unproductive
without being sloth.

I’m letting the computer filter through
morning playlists.
The ones for days like this
that can feel like 6 AM
for about nine hours.

And I fear changing clothes
or calling a friend
or taking a shower
or doing chores
or paying a bill
or thinking about what I have to do tomorrow
because the second I do,
I know,
this one long barely awake moment
will be instantly over
and that is
something I do not want to lose
because once that clock starts to walk downhill
it will be an eternity until
I can have this moment again,

but rest assured
that when it does reappear
I will stretch it
for as long as I can pretend
the air is still crisp and clear.
That infomercials still reign the channels.
That the sun is still struggling to get up above
the horizon.

I, Again, Have Nothing

2008-11-02T02:37:00.002-05:00

I was told that I needed to write something.
That the mature route is no longer drinking alone.
That responsibility matters
and that no matter the years I am here
I will never be looked at
as more than a day one entry.

I was told that by now we'd all be happy
and that every solitude has its solstice,
but it’s quarter after three am –
or is that 2 am now?
This damned daylight savings.

She’s asleep.
We talked an hour ago
According to the clock,
but she’s been dreaming
for two.
This damned daylight savings.

But not me.
I can’t sleep.
I never can anymore.
A year ago I was right here
So it’s nice to know that
At least I’m consistently alone.
Is there any way to enforce the Mason-Dixon?

But she’s in her bed
stealing dreams out of who knows where
and I’ll just die again tonight
with the box fan on
and the windows open
to try and get a taste of what it’s like
to feel cold again.
To feel something again.

But my god she’s beautiful
and god damn this daylight savings.

Op-Ed

2008-10-14T22:14:00.001-04:00

This is a retraction.
(read: Redemption)
This is me getting even
on every wrong
I’ve made on myself.
This is me getting back
for everyone who ever wanted to.

This is a retraction.
(read: Reflection)
This is me staring off
into that enormous void
which once held
whatever mattered to me.
That shattered mirror
stained by my knuckles blood.

This is a retraction.
(read: Retribution)
This is me getting all payback
that was ever promised.
finally being that person
that was supposed to show
so long ago.

This is a retraction.
(read: Reincarnation)
This is me becoming
someone entirely different
and trying to be
alright with that
because it is only the sunset
on recycled parts again.

This is a retraction.
(read: Retention)
This is me
never forgetting
what I did to come along these steps
while brushing them away
like sand
in the wind
to try and get past
what I used to be.

This is a retraction.
(read: Restitution)
This is me
finally
for once
trying to make things right.
Trying to polish up those blades tonight.
Make the world a better place
by supplying silence
and solstice
so long deserved.

This is a retraction.
(read: Retraction)
This is me taking back
everything I ever said.
Everything I ever did.
This is me falling further and further
from any semblance of
what I ever wanted to be.
What I ever thought I could have been.

This is a retraction.
Make it easy.
Pretend the article
was never written.

Here is what should have been:
.
.
.

First Dates

2008-10-07T06:57:00.000-04:00

What am i doing?
What am i thinking?
Is this really
really
what i want
or is it just
another shot at feeling
whole again?
Can this mouth even still move?
Can these feet still drive
around some back corners
and through the shortcuts?

Past of me is saying
YES! YES! OF COURSE!
But I know myself well enough to wonder
if it's the right part of me
or if there is
a right part of me
or a good part of me.

So I rush and run
and end up early -
like usual -
and I got a sort of plan
but here’s hoping I can be at least a bit
impressive.
I go to war with the keypad
that runs the gate
that guards her complex
like castle ramparts.
The door swings open and I drive through
nearly missing the only turn
I need to make.

I pull in and park and clean up
the truck a bit
open the door for her
and close the door for her.
We catch a movie
and hang out over a few beers
before calling it a night

and I can’t help
but feel like
I’ve committed treason
as the clock strikes midnight
and I make it as far as
twenty four.

Roll the Window Down

2008-09-10T19:35:00.001-04:00

I was often told as a kid
that those who speak to themselves
are the people to watch out for.
To keep an eye on.

Well,

that doesn’t seem to have stopped me
from having in depth conversations
with the newspaper
and the TV
and the air that surrounds me.
It’s comforting.
I can completely understand why
so many mutter so many words
under their breath.

I live by myself
a half a block away
from the last block in
a twenty block town.
It’s quiet here.
There is nothing for two hundred miles
just past this road.
This house is mine
and I’ve spread out in it
Although there is a room I don’t go into
because I have nothing at all in there
and I have no business having
any business in there.

I read a lot.
I write a lot.
I zone out to computer games
and shows
and a few movies
and when these things get old
and when I have nothing left
I make up stories and act out my part
like a playwright.

None of this is to say
that reality hasn’t set in.
I thoroughly understand what this means
to the rest of the world.
This means I need an eye kept on me.
I need to be watched out for.

Lately I have been taking out my motorcycle.
I’d be on it now if it didn’t throw
one of the cylinders
on the way to work yesterday,
but I’ll get on it and fill the tank
and open the throttle wide as I can.
I’ll grab the tank with my knees
tight as I can
and throw it between lanes
and think about where I am in the world.
Inevitably it ends
infinitesimally
worthless.

I grab the clutch hard
and slam it down a gear.
Push the little engine a little harder
and try to beat
that yellow light
somewhere on U.S. 1
that is such a metaphor for so much
in my entire life.

On the bike I’m comatose.
I am a machine.
my mind continues on rolling over things I’m better off
just ignoring
and just living
somewhere around 3rd gear.
On the bike it’s alright
to be by myself.
It’s okay to open the throttle all the way.
It’s not a problem to ride down an abandoned street.
It’s just expected of me.

And when I take off the helmet
wherever I happen to be
people only wonder where you came from.
not why you’re by yourself.

I know I am an intrinsic person.
I am okay with this.
Sometimes I just wish the rest of the world was.
We are not the enemy.

This house is bigger than my apartment
and is certainly big enough for me.
Once in a while
this girl I know comes by
and we make up stories
and act out our parts
and write long tales
and burn them in the backyard because we know
that nothing is right with us
and that we are not right for anyone,
but it all just makes me miss that perfect city
where I can ride every street
endlessly
for seven bucks every hundred fifty miles.
I used to do twice that in a normal night.

I look around and sometimes marvel at what I see.
I still have a lot of hope in mankind
and though I’ve lost all faith
I still want to believe that everyone
has the ability to be good
or at least a better person than I
(which isn’t even saying much).
I continuously persecute myself
for my crimes,
but that’s alright.
I’m the bad person here.

It has recently struck me
or at least slightly bumped into me
that I should wonder why I am so lonesome
yet so at home with it.
Is it that I am just used to it
or that I am told so often that it is bad?

Do you know what it’s like to be on your own
for twenty-three years straight?
Shit. I’ll be twenty-four in a month,
but that’s alright.
I’m the bad person, here.
Watch out for me.
Keep your eye on me.
You never know when I may leave this corner
for the door
and that scares the shit out of you.
That’s it. Persecute the realist.
It’s okay.
I am, apparently,
the enemy.

Shit.
My mouth has become dust.

Anytime at East Avenue

2008-08-30T14:46:00.002-04:00

I’m on the corner of East & doesn’t matter.
The wind is up and
it’s fast,
but light.
Not carrying the heat
or
the bugs
or
the weight of ten thousand pointless
or decrepit
in a big rush to nowhere
on flat roads
in straight lines.
The wind is up and
it’s fast,
but it holds only the cool August evening air
and it makes me thankful that right now
is when I chose to swing through town.

Moe’s has the normal crowd
of different faces
that everyone still knows through someone else
and while Boulder has grown in a way
I’m no longer completely comfortable with
and Java’s is a Mainstream Mecca of
“Let me breathe fire down on you” (and has been for years)
it’s nice to know that Spot –
while shunned by the little kids –
is still mature enough
to be the face of
the free of
the race to more original.

I’m thumbing through old music that
when out of town I never listen to,
but quickly befall the graces of
like those old home friends
and it strikes me;
these songs like those friends
fall silent when so many million miles south
because they so desperately remind me of this city.
My city.
And how much I am absolutely in love with it.
How it is a piece of me.
How when away
I may as well be
missing limbs.
Every few inches and with every few clicks
another beautiful woman comes in from the cool air.

Last night I sat alone at Moe’s –
just my city and I –
and met a girl working on her Ph. D.
and we talked and laughed for hours
making intelligent quips about
inane bullshit.
She could say all things worldly
yet bicker nearly religious
over the best name for
an infomercial product.
And in this I knew.
I knew what I missed so greatly.
I cleared my confusion to why
not here
is my deepest bane.
My heaviest cross.
So simple –
a pretty woman not above not speaking
to your wallet
and when she parted her thin lips
and as I watched her words and letters form
in the engulfing air
and placating smoke
over the spirits and around the bottles –
when she did speak and let those captives free –
it was incendiary.

Oh how greatly I miss this great city.
This one true city upon
the one true hill
while beneath every sidewalk
and every rotted building
lay bricks of hold.

I walked her home last night
and we kissed on her back deck
and after we dug up that gold
we knew to live only right now.

I fell asleep and floated off thinking,
“I have been home for twelve hours
and they have been the best I’ve had
in eight months,”
and closed my eyes into her pillows and sheets
with the windows wide open
and that light air flowing.

So I’m on the corner of East & doesn’t matter
and speaking with a new face
and we are both so happy in this moment.
In this city.
I love this city.
My city.

I am everyone
and everywhere
at once.

The Away From Home Tour '08

2008-08-19T10:34:00.002-04:00

How do I start this?
I'm driving down 109 and
a part of me apart from me
is absolutely screaming to
turn around.
Do I turn around?

“Pass out with me,” she'd said.
“I'm too self-conscious,” I told myself
and left as she fell asleep
as her brother and his friends
bounced on DDR pads in the basement
and her friends stood out back
just getting higher.

I should have kissed her and done
exactly what she asked me to.

Instead
I left
to my dorm where the TV
flickers ghosts on glass
that may as well walk across my face.
So.
And I know now what she was trying to say
and there was much more left unsaid
and it's too late
because I'm getting off 109
on to Broadhallow
and
that was nearly five years ago.

And the worst part is
that if I kissed her now
it'd only be
because I'm bored,
but five years ago
I should have kissed her.

“What happened?”
I'd asked her later.
“I lost interest,” she'd said, “That's all.”
“Oh.”

And I've never forgotten that.

And a part of me apart from me
will always be going west on 109
racing the train
to absolutely nowhere.

But six years ago I was packing my shit
and getting the fuck out of dodge
to prove to everyone that I was
at least worth something
and little did I know that
weeks later
I'd be holding her over a toilet
as she spilled her guts
and chasing the wind to no where
in a 10 o'clock town.
The sunrise was beautiful
had I chased enough streets
to see it enough times.

I sneaked into 18 and over clubs at 17
and sneaked beers out in long sleeves
too naive for my 15 bucks a week life.
Playing no-night-license and praying for a cool cop.
Scrounging change to pay for bread and
re-writing papers for Ramen noodles.
And I'd chace down a car
partly for laughs
and partly for fear.
The truck would get stuck on an ATV trail
and we'd be high
and I'd make movies.
I'd plead on the phone
to come home,
“Please, please, just for the weekend.
I'm freaking out over this term paper.”
The keggers at Hot Kelly's house.
Sneaking in 30 racks of Keystone Light.

Little did I know that in mere weeks
I'd be far on my own in a
10 o'clock city
in a way I wasn't anywhere near ready for.

And a part of me apart from me
is forever running top speed
after that car
just to stretch out
that one all-important goodbye.

But fourteen years ago
I was packing my stuff
and it was last time I'd be in that room
or in that garage
or in that school
and we climbed into my dad's station wagon.
I turned to look out the back
and stared at the house
as we pulled away
and it disappeared down the street.
It disappeared along with
the big wheel
and the climbing tree
and wooden playgrounds.
With crawl spaces
and bond fires.
Exploring the woods.
Backyard sledding hills.
Glen's.
Bhir's,

And a part of me apart from me
is forever staring out that back window
of that wagon
watching the last seconds of my childhood
vanish
and
the start of my nomadic life
take the stage.

But a year and a half ago
I was packing all my shit
and driving a thousand miles to here.
I watched the sunrise over I-390
and we tore straight into it
and I tried to sleep it off
so I wouldn't have to show off
how much I hate moving
and how badly I did not want to leave
after working so hard for four years
just to be back in that city,

but we just listened to the radio
and stared out the window
and my truck hummed
and rumbled
and kept spinning its wheels
barreling through state lines and toll booths
and I just kept trying to ignore
that I'll never have a home again.

And a part of me
apart from me
is forever watching that sun come up on I-390
and praying it's not the last time.

I'm here for good
and I do not want to be.

Wound Up Downtown

2008-07-22T15:23:00.000-04:00

Zeke's invited me down to West Palm.
“It's a VIP Party,” he says,
and I don't know.
“I don't like rich people,” I tell him,
“and I don't believe in exclusivity.”

“It's all you can drink,” he says.

“Let me get a pen,” I say.

I strong arm Jump into driving
because I know the truck won't make it
and because I'm not
going to be able to see
by the end of the night.
That assumes I know when the night ends
that it is ending.
We drive just over an hour
to spend twenty minutes looking for parking
and ten minutes walking.
Up ahead is a velvet rope with a guy in a tux
and he looks at me
and we both understand that
I don't belong in this place.
We nod as he opens the rope
if only to assure each other
of this simple fact.

He and I are now okay.
He knows I shouldn't be here
and he knows I could have told him that
years ago.
This means we'll be okay.
Up the stairs to Hotel Nightclub & Rock Lobby and there stands
Zeke and his friends waiting for us to arrive.
We get our bands and I go straight to the bar.
The bartender is, as I'd expect, overly attractive
and I wonder why she puts so much together.
How unsure need you be to not be happy with
who you are?

I am the answer to my own question.

So I get my scotch, straight and frown a bit at her
until she puts more in the glass.
I show her the wristband a thank you and she smiles and turns away.
I see in the mirror in front of her
that she mutters, “No tip,” as I leave ten on the bar and walk to a seat.

This drink disappears fast, being much too small
for all you can drink
or at least
for someone who drinks a lot.

The music is, of course, blowing out ear drums
and no where is found
that D.C. sound,
but merely that down mixed beat
for the uptown kids who want to believe
they're part of the beat down crowd.
At the bar again, I get a refill and this time
she doesn't turn so fast
and doesn't look for my wristband
and looks over her shoulder
as she walks away.
I could never enjoy her.
All it takes is nod and a ten spot
for her to go heels in a hot minute.

Sorry, but
where I'm from (of which I no longer am)
you need earn it because only then
is anything worth it.
This is just a city fresh out of heroes
and no villains to make a difference.
A girl bumps into me
as I walk away and
I excuse myself,
though she was the one not looking out.
She stops short and smiles at me.
She's attractive, but in the same way
the girl behind the bar is,
and she blinks at me, but in the
look at my eyes way,
even though I already have and am now
looking to my seat,
timing the crowd to time my movements
and she asks me
what I do for a living.

“I teach,” I speak to her ear
and press on.
She grabs me by the arm and yells over the music,
“You're the first person
who hasn't screamed in my ear
in a club,”
and I look at her and realize
that everyone yells because
they cannot hear themselves
and so long as I know what I'm saying
why need I hear it.
I don't take the time to explain this,
but excuse myself again
and move onward.
Zeke grabs my ear and makes motions
that the bar hop
is about to leapfrog to the next place.

Bar Louie is a brighter place
and an easier place to get through
and seems more like
an expensive Applebee's,
but I can't get over what's going on
with the name of the place
and a few beers
and sixty minutes later
we round the corner
to the Blue Martini.
Let's leave it at this:
$10 Maker's Mark
$8 Domestics
and I only venture away from the outdoor lounge
only deep enough
to hit the bathroom
where the toilets
might as well take bills
and somehow I leave the place
with some girl's phone number.

I guess by now it’s one
because we stumble back to
Rock Lobby
and sit in the VIP section
with comped bottles
and carafes
and some beautiful girl
dressed like a stripper,
but classier than one,
asks what mix we want.

“Just leave the bottle,” I say.
She looks me up and down
and shouts,
“Amanda told me to give you this,”
and gives me a napkin
and points to the bartender
whom is mixing something
while making eyes
and playing coy
and I can't deal with this false show time
and falsetto mood
and staccato buying and selling.
Girls in fishnets and fedoras wander the floors
and all of it bothers me.
Looking slutty only means
I don't want to talk to you.
Sure showing off can be nice,
but blatancy is desperate.
Self control is sexy.

I get home in time to see the sunrise in its entirety
and shake off the booze long enough
to keep watching.
It is, of course,
a new day and
it is, of course,
just like those girls -
exactly the same as the rest of them.
My head hits the pillow.

Here On Out They're All The Same.

2008-07-22T15:22:00.001-04:00

So today is the 4th
and it turns out that
you're allowed to blow shit up in this state.
Well,
that's good
because it's the 4th and
i got a mean drunk on
and i got a box full of
expensive sparklers
and I got a cooler full of Keystone
and I got a back road with a dead end
that no one lives on.

This one's called Ruby Red.
It looks just like Glittering Jewels
and the beer's going into my gut
and the blinky lights
are quiet and small and look
just like a chemical fire.

So this is how I spent the holiday.
Working six to six with no barbeque
and no city parade (not that they have one)
and the fireworks at 9
and they expect you to go home
to bed at 9:30
when it ends.

Well, today is the 5th
and Geoff and Zeke and I decide
to get more beer
and bigger explosives
and we do just that
and go out to the street patterns
and launch Power Plays
and Black Cats
and Goose Chasers
and Desert Lights
and all kinds of big ones
as a thunderstorm rages over Orlando.
We're shit ass drunk
going through 300 bottle rockets
and twenty M-5000s
getting progressively riskier
wrapping beer cans around quarter sticks of TNT
and having Roman Candle wars
with trashcan lids
just laying about in this abandoned maze.

Now, today is the 6th
and I can still count all ten fingers
and all ten toes
and my eyes open at 2 pm
having gotten back sometime around 4:30.
I think back to last night
and about why the three of us
got so shit ass drunk
and started shooting stuff at each other.
It makes so much sense.
We each miss home
and miss no responsibility
and miss those lazy summer nights
between semesters
where it didn't matter what time we came home
because nothing waited on Monday
to remind us
the true days
are now
long
gone.

Like every last firecracker
set off last night into
that deep back
and starlight
empty
sky.

Dawn at Work When You Work at the Airport

2008-06-26T19:35:00.000-04:00

I had such a vivid dream about you last night -
probably the most realistic dream
I've ever had -
and in it I got to hug you
and hold you
and then
I woke.

So it's 5:30 AM
and the sun is just starting
to break like the eggs above
the horizon.
I'm thinking back to that dream.

Soon the students will
begin to filter in.
“Good morning, Wahl,”
they'll each say.
By the fourth or fifth one
I'll just nod.

The day is about to begin,
but for now it's cool
and the winds are fast enough
to keep the heat away.
I sip my coffee and sit outside
enjoying the peace and quiet
of what will become just another
ruthless day at the airport
with heat
and noise
and sweat
and choice
once those engines start turning,

But right now

no one is talking on the frequency
and the tower guys
are just leaving their houses
and there are no pistons firing
or turbines whining
and a dense fog is starting to form.
I can't see the hangar anymore
and this patch of asphalt is blank
where only i stand
with the sound of morning birds singing.

Just above my eyes
the light is bouncing off the high clouds.

My cigarette is dwindling
like a dying flashlight
or a dying night.
That's okay.
Let's just freeze the clock.
Right here.
Right now.
Do it while I'm thinking back to that dream.
While I don't just remember it.
While I can still feel it.

Mark It

2008-06-22T22:18:00.000-04:00

So it's been as many months.
I don't want to keep counting,
but the calender keeps getting marked off
and my mind never stops running these numbers.

So it's been nine months
and all those sayings
and statements
and words
have fallen to little shattered shards of glass.
I'm tiptoeing around them
ever conscious and very wary.
I'm reading and re-reading
every sentence laying on the floor.
Once in a while I get careless and slip
and cut my heels on them.
Other times I do it intentionally
just to test
if this numbness is real
or merely defensive.
One of the major problems in being
a practical psychologist
is the self-analysis.
I mean, after all,
I get the gist
and look back upon my experience
and think about where I am
in the middle of all
this business.
Naught even a fly on the windshield.

So I've been writing letters.
Hundreds of them.
I finally sent one
and burned the rest
behind my apartment.
All that ink.
All those hours.
All for nothing.

“I got your letter today,”
she told me,
“And I read it.”
So that was that
and
these are the days.
Put another X on the calender.

Give Me Your Eyes.

2008-06-02T16:59:00.002-04:00

We Should Have Been Framed

2008-06-01T22:17:00.000-04:00

This light looks good on you
as we walk hand in hand.
I stand wrapped in a work coat
and a birthday scarf
(that you always made fun of me for)
and you’re wearing that pretty jacket
and those sexy jeans.

We’re walking around.
it’s crisp outside,
but certainly warm enough
in our prepped-like-we-should-be
set up.
So far
only one thing has gone wrong
and that wasn’t even a big deal.
The train nearly jumped off without us,
but a good hustle on my part
and some encouraging words
gave us an hour to stare out the window
and into each other’s eyes.

The morning sun
swung around over the skyline
as if to say
“hey, get ready for this”
and we’re both wandering grids
with a pocketbook map and a
sort of tourist flare.

We hit the spots
that mean something to us
instead of the spots
that mean something in a guidebook.
We’re holding hands the whole way.
It’s a different birthday gift
and it’s the best I ever got.

We want up.
we want to stand on top of the world,
but they say
the top of the world is closed
So we stand on the third floor
that seems more like two and a half
waiting for the elevator to the basement
staring into the gold
and into our eyes
and at ourselves.
We’re allowed to be pretentious, here.

This picture is perfect.
This light looks good on you.
All light radiates from you
because we’re perfect for each other
and in my arms
no matter where
you’re perfect for me.

Put It All Together

2008-06-01T15:30:00.001-04:00

May was an empty month.
Dad had a birthday.
Nicole had a birthday.
The dog would have
had she still been alive.

And now,
here on the first of June,
I’m thinking there’s a sliver of sun
trying to break the horizon.
I need this to happen.

I only have one interest.
That dating game has gone silent.
Phone numbers disappeared
and I never cared in the first place.
Clean breaks with no history to ignore.

The bills got quite big this month
and the paychecks stayed small,
but I need to find a way home.
I need to find a way to get there
and sustain myself there
And sustain us there,
but home is dry
and wheels can’t turn that far
for either of us.

Trust me. Take my hand because
I
will
find
a
way.

Make Haste

2008-05-19T18:32:00.001-04:00

We’re fighting a losing battle.
The guys at work. Lumberg. Six guns.
There’s a show going on and it’s a constant bitch
to keep the audience
on their feet
because that’s all they want
or they’re out the door and I’m out
of compassion.

So I’m sitting here in a golf cart
on the airport ramp
watching a kid on his second solo
timing the traffic pattern in my head
so I only need look up on his landings
because I’ve earned that privilege
by proving that skill
and the air is thick.
Too thick.
The wind takes the edge off,
but it’s not consistent enough.

I’m not feeling it today.
I need an escape.
A vacation
to the cold weather.
To ice balls and abandoned snow covered roads
in late nights.
To jackets and hoodies.
To pretty girls looking for warm hugs
and warm mugs of joe at Java’s and Spot and Boulder
until closing.
Stumbling on the sidewalks.
Road signs and love songs saying
“No. Wait. There are many more highways
and back roads
and side streets
and hills
and rivers to cross.
Don’t take that exit.
There’s an all night diner just around the corner.
Explore a little more.”

But here there is nothing left to explore.
Now, the only new experiences I have are just north
and in movies.
And there is no place to get lost.
There are no fun roads to find
with rolling hills and swerving turns
and deep tree cover unlit by store signs or streetlamps.

I’ve made so many wishes in so few months
and have since abandoned them
like the roads I once roamed
at hours where there are witnesses
the hand positions.
Put me downtown.
Believe me, I can make it.
Trust me, I know the way through
and I don’t want the way out.

Okeechobee’s on fire.
The preachers were right.
Holy Rollers rumble over farm fields and undergrowth and swamp
with the rapture on tongue tip.
They say there are eight-eight burning
and that this number
has gotten smaller.
The reverend’s claims are simple to refute;
Say it often enough and
The large number law comes into effect.
That doesn’t make you right.
Just a statistician.
Ash is throwing itself for miles on end
and
those of us in the know
do know
that it’s wreaking havoc on the weather.
This is not where I pictured being.
Not at twenty-three.

So I’m dating this girl just north of here
and she’s fun
and she’s beautiful
and she’s intelligent
and she tells me she has all that she wants
in me,
but I don’t believe her.
I do believe, however, that she believes herself.
That doesn’t make her right.
In fact, mostly by having beliefs alone
are what mostly make people wrong.

There’s no fire.
And while the rest of the state burns,
I remain.
She doesn’t give me that fire.
She gives me that smolder. That spark,
but no flame.

But she shows me new things
and her world isn’t mine
so I can get a different view.

She says she can’t figure me out.
and I say I can’t figure me out
and I know
That’s the only reason she’s still around
because when the cards are on the table
I’m holding Aces and Deuces.
But her, I got down to a science
and all the flame between us
is only but brush and tinder
and it’s all up in smoke
and it’s just that;
between us.
Not with us.
One of the eighty-eight.

The rest of the world is trying to put it out
and I’m not inclined to stop them
because sometimes they all just know better
and sometimes
that’s just the way
some things
have to be.

Well, at least it’s cloudy
because
this is a war.

Raindrops

2008-04-30T21:09:00.000-04:00

She stood in front of me in the shower
and just sort of looked at me.
I wanted out.
This is my time
and I don't want to see
anyone.

Be waiting for me outside that door
if you want,
but we just filled each other
for scores
and now I need to stare blank off
until the water gets cold.

And next door there is Chris and Ashley.
And the place across from me
holds John and Larrissa
and next to them
is Jen Dice.
My roommate is around here somewhere.

The sun is up or out or falling or trailing or leading.
I don't know.
I don't care.

I watch her.
This is not at all what I imagined this would be
and I am not at all in the right mindset
for this.

We went about it and how strange it was
that my total need to be right here
right now
on my own
was not because of what I did not want to see
but because of what I saw when looking at myself.
Like watching them by the billions running
down streets and in cars and moving through houses
from that attic window
and wanting to chase them and blend with them
but then still just sitting back
and accepting that I'm stuck
with myself
and he sure as hell
can't get out of this shell.

Today I got home from work
and there were no dew drops in the shower from her
and there was so much more responsibility
and stood in front of my apartment to look around
much like she looked at me
just blinking and thinking.

John and Larrrissa moved out sometime today
and Chris skipped down to Fort Pierce
when Ashley went home
and Jen Dice got evicted and disappeared behind,
I think,
a wedding band.

My roommate stays at his girlfriend's place
which leaves me
back in that attic
and the only person left
after a year ago
all we did was sit outside all night
and drink beers
and smoke cigarettes
and stumble inside until we sweat out the games
on each other.

She just looked at me blankly
like I was supposed to know what to do
and all I could think was,
“How odd people look
when they are being completely normal.”

Move On

2008-04-21T13:25:00.002-04:00

The sun blinked up
through the early A.M. window.
My head is hard
and I got
knives in my eyes.
Daggers.
I feel explosive.

Once in a while I think
all this was faked.
Simulacra.
That I've really woken up
in South Wedge
in some loft
I put together
just behind Alexander.
That I woke to the winter sunrise
on a Saturday
with a cup of good coffee
and that this hour
would stay forever frozen
like the blanketing snow
over the city daybreak.
Daylight steps into the room.

I'll never know how I
kept it together
around her
because these thoughts alone
nearly fail my heart.
And now it's not alone.
There's an ache
every time.
Lay low.

Sometimes it takes hours to do
and I'm useless the entire time.
Sometimes days.
All that for five minutes
of perfection.

A part of me
has never broken off.
This is that part.
Do not allow me too long
by myself.
I may not survive it.

The world has perished in ice
and will be reborn
under a new sun.

This is getting over you.

Red Letter Day

2008-04-06T20:05:00.000-04:00

This time last year
I was hauling down I-95 –
or up –
either way, going north
in an early ‘90s Mustang.
The 5.0. The ‘no-shit’ in a straight line
kind.
The kind I like.

North to Deland.
Autumn (whose car it was)
and Tiffany (who was 24)
as passengers.
This was all Autumn’s plan.
Apparently
she’d dome some college there
and wanted to go back
for a night out
in that college life.
We desperately hold on to those
memories.

Autumn had been earlier
described to me as
“The Turtle”
and with that jaw
and that neck
I saw quite well
why.

Tiffany was small
and attractive
and had hints of liking
me.
She was fun
enough,
but deeply religious
and that would become
in the coming weeks
an enormous rift
between us.

Then there was me.
My first week
in Florida.
My first week
in the apartment
and so much of me
still trying to prove
I’m the most nomadic
of the family
and part of me
resenting that fact
as if there was any question
anyway.

The sun was down
and we cruised at 80.
The girls –
mostly Tiffany
(whom would later
always be right) –
demanded road music
and decreed that it would be
Jason Mraz.
and Tiffany (whom would later
be later subject
of earlier works)
explained something about him
while all I heard was
“I’m smarter than you
when it comes to music
and the ideas that I think
make me mature
are actually the ones
that make me childish.”
Now,
I’m not that bright
when it comes to anything
but one thing I know was
I had her beat,
but silence,
like a hit record,
is golden.

Here we came to the exit.

Only days before I’d gotten on 95
here
after 2 days of rest
at Uncle Dave’s
after 2 days if driving
to get here.
We went the other way,
though.
West bound. To Deland.

Into town we ventured
and into a corner bar
we wandered
behind the Turtle (who I would soon realize
knew nothing of this town)
and
when we ordered
I stayed quiet
and modest
and skittish
and shy.

The Turtle disappeared
and I tried hard to
tie myself to
Tiffany
and even harder to stay interested in
what she had to say.

We met a nice group
of college kids
and split stories
and beers
and played games
and Autumn was
smashed
and Tiffany had a buzz
bigger than she was
and I stayed quiet
and sober
and reserved
and friendly.

“You’re too modest,”
Tiffany told me,
“Accept that you’re a nice person
and that you’re an
attractive
person.”
It’d been a long time since I heard –
or felt –
anything remotely close
to that.

The Turtle,
apparently,
had more trouble
and less reserved
sentiments
about me.

“Who are you?”
she kept slurring out,
“Where did you come from, man?
People like you,
they don’t exist!”
and all I could say is,
“I’m nothing more
than what stands in front of you,”
and stood unnerved until I realized
two true things;
she meant in a good way
and
she was drunk.

I drove back,
as promised,
and leaving at 2 am
I was fighting sleep
with no smokes
as sticks and stones.

Autumn passed out
and fast
and started snoring
in the front seat
and the two turns onto I-95
weren’t tough to figure out.
That,
and
I’m really good
with getting myself
anywhere.
A product of wandering
for so long.
Learn an area
fast. Get lost
in it if you must
and figure out
the mainlines.
Then the shortcuts.

Tiffany laid in the back
and I reached behind my seat
to hold her hand
in complete discomfort
the rest of the ride.
I kissed her that night
for the first time
when we got back
and ready for bed.
and she’d wandered in my room
on her own
as Autumn lay drunk
on the floor
by the TV
in the living room.
Snoring.

The reason I recant this
is because
I have now lived in Vero
and in this apartment
for one full year
and it is
the longest time
in the past five years
that I have
ever
been in
one place
and out of
one room.

How little it feels like home.
How long it’s been
since I’ve had one.

I Have A Job

2008-03-31T03:29:00.000-04:00

These guys I work with;
we all sit around and bitch
about this and that
and standards and applications
and how we’re all over worked
and underappreciated.

I sit there and I wonder;
are we just trying to be idealists
or have we just forgotten what it was like
when we were?

Back when there was a light
at tunnel’s end
and it only lead
straight to the top.

But now…

Now the tunnel’s pitch black
and it splits at odd ends –
some forward, most back –
and we must all feel our way through.
Once in a while a flick of the lighter
to get some self realization.

Here, in this land,
the man who smokes
is king.

The brightest days have the
darkest shadows.
We cannot make the sun rise
in the middle of the night
so I’m waiting for my own
dawn

because
there’s nothing gained from imagining
the worst.
I remember, but it’s like my memories
belong to someone else.

If I wish to be invisible
I can be
and if I wish to be forgotten

I will be.

There’s Usually an Answer to These Things

2008-03-20T17:01:00.001-04:00

Hunched on my bed
I shiver
and I shudder
and I sit
witness to this room
with its ambiguous white wall and mess frame.

Hours ago the last crackle of dice
like thunder
rippled its way through these walls
while Pete & the Jump
battle for keeps in world domination.
How we all like to play God
and how we all go to sleep alone every night.
I think Moscow was last to fall.

But the silent hush of
empty three AM radio
only describes what awaits us
and by us,
of course,
I mean me because
I am only what I think I am
in my own mind
which is only a torrent of
unanswered debts anyway.

Not long from now
the sun will bring forth some light
and it wears no watch
and keeps no calendar
and has no where important to be,
but I have to wear a watch
and watch the days
and have places to be.
None important.

And I think about how
good of an idea it is
that I’m in no large city
roaming lonesome subway cars
as far as my pocket change can go
with just enough
for a new pack
and a way home
all
alone.

At least I’m starving
these days
so at least that way
I can have my way
and
there’s something to feel.

Come October I’ll be
24
and
you’ll probably still be with
someone else.
Probably living with someone else
and I’ll still be living
and still love you.

Plans-
holiday in Greece
and floating buses.
Chilled February in London
Making collect calls home
Just to say we’re okay.
They’ll be just ideas and
I’ll be sore
and empty
like all those roads I chase
just to watch the lane lines blur
and an excuse to not sit here
and shake
and shiver.
Oh, how I’ve grown up.

Ha.

Hey there, kiddo,
misery’s nothing to come back to
when you never left in the first place.
Take this for peace of mind;
it wouldn’t be here
if you were.

Been awhile since I wasn’t straight ice.

Times happen when
I’ve trouble
remembering when I wasn’t cold,
lately.

Tank Half Empty, Tank Half Full

2008-03-02T01:23:00.001-05:00

“Hey,” she says.
“Hey,” I say.
I’m twenty miles north of the Tappan Zee
and pushing eighty
on I-87.
My fast-pack job in my truck
from the night before
rattles away.
She thinks I’m coming tomorrow,
but I won’t tell her yet.

“What are you doing,” she asks.
“Just got off work,” I say, “and packing for
tomorrow.”
It’s already getting dark
and there are four hours
to go.
She thinks I’m coming tomorrow.

A Benz roars past me
pushing ninety or so.
We’re all in a rush,
but I like the road. I’m used to the
long haul
and know when to hit the rest stops
to grab the last of the
cold day old coffee
so I can get it free
and shiver to stay awake.

And here comes the best sign of the whole trip,
Next Exit: Coxsackie.
Awesome.
But I have to laugh to myself
because
she thinks I’m coming tomorrow.

This road winds through the valley
with its biggest hills already
behind me,
but I-90 rolls around
past Canajoharie.
That’s pretty far away.
She’s looking forward to seeing me
tomorrow
and I miss her something fierce
and she doesn’t know yet
that every passing second
I’m 117 feet closer
to kissing her
and hugging her
and holding her.

Tick.
117 feet closer
to laying next to her
and wrapping my arms around her
and listing to her breathe
and feeling her warmth.

Tick.
117 feet closer
to trying to dance with her
in her empty living room
and it just being me dragging her around
while she plays limp and complains
and I keep on turning and humming.

Tick.
I have to tell her.
“I’m actually on my way to your house,”
I tell her.
“No you’re not,” she says with that joy
and fear in her voice.

Tick.
“I’m three hours away.”
She freaks. She needs to clean her room
and shower
and –
“Oh my god,” she’s saying
excitedly and angrily,
“i…I gotta go. I hate you,”
she laughs
and I do my best to keep her on the phone
just to poke fun
and make life more hectic.

“Okay. I’ll see you soon,” I let her go,
“I love you.”
“I love you, too,” she says.
She thought I was coming tomorrow.
Tick.
Tick.

Tick.

117 feet closer
to heaven.

December 2004

2008-03-01T15:03:00.002-05:00

I guess the idea caught me off guard
and that she assumed I was packing heat
anyway.

I mean,
we’d been no eyes for months
and while the way I felt was
no different
when those months began
she didn’t want to be that someone.

But now, here we lay
and she wants. And is sure.
And I want. And am sure,
but we are both
empty handed.

She laughs and groans.
I’m confused, but
I kiss her
to show here
I’m not confused about her.

So we walk downstairs
to beg for free tires.
“Chris wants to go by cigarettes, Mom,” she says,
“Can we borrow your car, Mom?”
We stand there holding
each other’s arms
already ready
to go for that
mid-winter cut air.

Fifteen minutes later we’re smiling at each other
only inches from faces
and she wants. And is sure.
And I’ve always wanted. And always been sure.
And we are no longer empty handed.
I’m careful and slow and young
and we are both
new at this
and there is nothing more I’ve ever wanted
and I can do nothing but
put my fingers in her fingers
and squeeze to never let go.

So there I sit, exhausted and overflowing
and she looks up at me
and smiles.

“Sucks, “
she says,
eyes darting around,
“Cause I love you.”
She collapses into my chest
and in that one moment,
not an instant before or after,
I want to live forever
because I love her, too.

Listen,
some of these are serious.
It can’t all be bars and booze.

Kerouac at Kelly's Irish Pub

2008-02-24T13:15:00.000-05:00

The bartender is cold
and looks at me hard,
like I'm overstepping some unspoken
boundary
between the haves
and
the you're-not-from-here's.

And she stays stony-faced
asking for ID
(I already have it out)
and we trade paper for beer.
I shell out 20 minutes of work
and let her keep the change
and she stays cold.

Most of the place has paired off
(they walked in like that)
and here and there
triplets emerge,
but the third wheel is
easy to spot
while me,
flyin' solo,
doesn't seem to be
desired company.
Turns out my money
isn't as good as theirs
even though
the only blood on my cash
is just that.
Mine.

And I sit alone with my bag of books
reading
and she -
the bartender -
looks at me
once in a while
like I should be on my way
and I think about how
she'll go home
and make the same eyes
to a spouse
or a kid
and how
someday
they
will
be.

It's Early & the Moon is Low

2008-02-24T13:12:00.000-05:00

So I get adventurous.
I drop the empty glass
and walk out with
as little eye contact
and
as much gusto
as I can muster
and this time
instead of going straight into motion
the sidewalks drag me sideways
if not just to stare at a posted menu
in a plaza restaurant.

Now, somewhere new
that used to be old
that I'd still never been to,
the band plays.

The bassist, his shirt says
9:30:25.
My watch must be about
ten minutes slow.
A little behind the rest of the pack.
The straggler of the heard.

And the bar name seems
a bit short on class,
but is short to the point.
Filthy McNasty's
lets me smoke inside
and smells like it
with ashtrays everywhere,
but I'm the only one
burning a stick.
Ten minutes behind.

But the girl serving drinks has
a nice smile
and a soft word
and a welcomed face for
us world worn and weary
and worse for the wear,
but
her shirt reads,
"Where you're more likely to be
thrown out for being boring
then being
drunk."
My seat is in serious jeopardy.
Better drink fast.
The tree bark in my pocket
isn't enough for me to
get sauced
so it's better to fake.
I never worked as an actor,
but that doesn't mean
it never worked.

They have it all set up
for somewhere that needs to be
much darker
and
much fuller.

I catch a bartender looking me down.
Standing right there
like I'm waiting to order.
my beer is near full.
First reaction - smile up, kid.
It might just save your life.
Man,
that was some weak sauce.

I run a quick scan of the room
when the test ends
and she walks on
just in case there's more
cover-your-ass-ing
to do.

I sit safe enough behind the
Jäger bomb machine
and
the tap.
Just enough.
Keep my face out of view.

The girl selling
battery powered flowers
is making rounds.
She comes to me
and I can't hear a word
over the music,
but I mouth,
"No, thank you."
Poor business practice,
I think,
to try selling to a man whose
sole mates
are a glass and some paper,
but then,
I always hated business
and never could care about
understanding it.
Even if I had a reason
and could afford it
I wouldn't.

Why go plastic when real ones
are so much more
beautiful
tangible
meaningful
and available free
in most front yards
without a fence?

I hate how they always wait
until my back's turned
to take the tip.
There's green left for a reason. I'd
much rather see you happy for it
or expectant
or mad.
Anything.
Just be human.
That's what I'm here for.
Fuck the beer.
I just need to see someone
do something
like smile quietly.

Nothing,
NOTHING
is greater than being witness
to true, unbridled
human reaction.
I'm sick of seeing the civility of it all.
The games we play.
The little white lies
we tell ourselves.
That I tell myself.

"I'm fine.
Everything will be alright."

Populous

2008-02-17T12:24:00.001-05:00

I think I come here
to sit on outskirts
of populous.
To be near
that random cloud.
The faceless crowd.
Laura says
I should write about flying
when I tell her
I have nothing to write about.
I could,
but then
I’d have to make it
Poetic
and this garbage
could never claim that name
(which is why
I never claim to be a poet).
At the very least
I can just blame all of it
on shamed introspection.

The concept of being
“just friends”
with the person you love is not
especially comprehensive.
Not…sensible.
Not…possible.
Waiting around is one thing.
Watching her life grow
with someone else
is a whole other monster.
There is a
constant pressure in my chest
and I can’t be sure
if there’s a knife
between my ribs
or
if there’s a hollow cavity
where my heart belongs
(while it sits
in some dusty corner
of a closet
she no longer lives out of).
Either way,
something’s tearing me to pieces
And
there’s nothing I can do about it.
We never get over our first love?
No.
I know plenty of people who have.
We never get over our only love.
And even now,
even when I haven’t seen her
in nearly two years,
I still feel
the same way
I did that first night
we first kissed
(it was a May 21st)
and that first time
I told her I love her
(that was a July 11th) -
so I feel exactly the same about her. That’s how
I know she’s the one.
Like
when I’m lying with her
the earth stops spinning
and waves don’t stop crashing
Whispers
and the moon
and the clear air
all just stand still.
And there isn’t any other world
out there somewhere.
My world was right there.

So Laura says
I have the ability
to write about other things,
but there are no other things.
This vacuum I stand in
is everything I have.
And when I go to sleep at night
I don’t really go to sleep.
More like stare at a TV screen
showing something I don’t care about
until my blank eyes close
and the alarm goes off.
Because if I let my mind work
it will only go to her.
And her not being here.
And her falling in love
with someone else.
And her making a life
with someone else.
And how I fucked up so bad
by running away to figure out
how to be a man.
And how all I think about
when I think about her
is minivans
and weddings
and holidays with the family
and kids
and mortgages
and waking up next to her
every morning
and all her little quirks
and going into cities for anniversaries
and paying bills
and growing old
And arguments about
the color of wallpaper
and taking care of her
for the rest of her life.
And how none of that scares me.

Then the true fear sets in.
And how she’s gone for good
and I’ll just be sleeping alone forever.
Now sleep can’t come fast enough
because I so badly
do not want to wake up.
But it will never come.
Not so long as
she’s not under these sheets
holding my arms.
So now I go to bars alone
with a pen and blank paper
and I drink
just to stay away from my apartment
where I do nothing
but sit
and wait
for that phone call
when she says,
“Hey, I’m at the airport.
Come pick me up,”
but instead
it never comes
so I go to bed
motionless and faceless
And
another blank day
passes through my life like air.
And we are
another day farther apart.
And I am
another day closer to an empty death.
And we are
another day closer
to never being together.

I am so sorry.

Midnight in pictures & playlists

2008-02-13T21:13:00.000-05:00

So it's been nearly a year
or nearly two -
depends when you started counting -
and as far as I'm concerned
being king of the dark clouds
isn't something desired
on any résumé
for any reason.

This truly is the unknown country
and with my back to the wall
I might tell you
there's more to it than that,
but no one would say
I'm not lying.
Then again,
there's no one else here.

I keep a light on in this attic
up third floor high.
Just a flickering flame -
no big deal.
That dark halloween house hunt
dressed up silent
to keep the takers & goers away.
If there's something to offer,
the door's never locked.
Only a little stuck in the framework.
Only the adventurous need apply.

So this little candlestick throws light,
creating and destroying.
Unlike me,
its self-destruction
comes up with something useful,
but that door's never locked
and only that one girl
knows the right way to kick it.

Just follow the sound
of typewriter keys.
In my better moments
they drown out
the beating rain
on the roof.

The Cynical Pragmatic In Me

2008-02-11T19:22:00.000-05:00

These past couple of weeks have been barren.
I checked.
Looked inside my chest.
Oh, this hollow cavity.
Why have I been so tired?
So uninspired?
So numb?
With my luck
Everything will again change
and I,
if not everything else
will remain and remain the same.
History has become a predicable broken record
of war and famine
and what separates us for our ancestors
is that we have
bigger guns.
I’m done living in theory.
All I do is watch.
Everyone has learned it.
Every day we repeat it.
Only the faces are different.
Not mine, though. I’ve been done before.
Somewhere, where ever you look,
everyone is unhappy.

So I’m sitting on another bench,
with my gas station coffee
and my gas station hair
and my gas station lungs
pontificating.
This one is a bit nicer.
It’s more surrounded and back alley.
The sleazy bar of the city rec department.
No one comes here. I love it.
It’s that safety in loneliness.
Maybe that’s what drained my soul.
Probably me draining the rest
and why is there safety in loneliness
when there are lonely people
everywhere?

This place has no plaque
declaring that right here
in that year
something important went down
because
nothing pertaining to anything
happened
anywhere near here
and everything pertaining to nothing
is everywhere else.

Even these nights,
when I stand ready for battle
and always lose,
I close my eyes
and they open only blank moments later.
The shoulder’s still sore
and my mouth is still dust
and the phone still has
no missed calls.
Yet I still will wait while waking
to catch her
(anybody make nets for this?).
Is that dedication to a cause
or a just cause
to be dedicated to?

Well,
at least this one
I already know the answer to –
this cause is important
and worth my life.

I am already dying, here.
Somebody, anybody, please.
I’d feel the same so matter where I was
so long as
we’re still in two different places
everywhere.

I have nothing to say

2008-02-03T20:18:00.000-05:00

And when I walk into a room
I cannot help but think
all eyes are strife through my soul and
my entire history has been read and re-read
by every person there,
then thrown to the floor
to be walked upon.

A man should not
carry his every past with him
in a satchel on display.
Tattooed upon his face.

Here I scribe to begin a revolution.

Forty Minutes to Complain to Myself

2008-01-20T17:08:00.000-05:00

The corpses are out in droves
in packs
and clogging up sidewalks
like street gangs in turf wars
claiming name from condo complex.
Like a zombie movie
meets West Side Story.
Fucking old rich people.
Southside Ocean Pearls
vs.
The Dunes Crew.
Deal out the canasta cards.
They're playing for keeps.

My fingertips burn as I dance them
along this ocean sized coffee mug
that I drove forty minutes to drink.
I shuffle them up and down.
As one hits,
one lifts.

The traffic is too heavy.
Not true.
Just slow.
Too many old people
with too much money
going much too slow
as I roll down the sauce
a caged tiger,
but only to 60.
The truck’s getting old.

This coffee house is nice
and reminds me of the ones at home
(which, FYI, is more than 40 minutes from here).
The girl at the register is quiet and
attractive in a reserved and normal way
and that, too, reminds me of the ones at home
(which, FYI, is more than 400 miles from here).
We share an awkward moment as I order a cup.
That quick eye meets eye second,
then both somewhere else.
I crawl back inside myself
(something I’ve been
doing a lot of
lately)
and walk away to sit,
wondering if a new bill of rights
need be wrought.

Freedom from the words money speaks.
The only trick
is figuring out
how to word it.
Law is naught but a set of letters
to take the place of someone smart
who makes choices.
My record disqualifies me,
but that’s okay.
I neither pretend to be intelligent
nor do I claim it.

The middle class is gone – bourgeoisie remain.
And the income gap widens like a fault line.

There should need not be a low
that requires humility.
I’d like to think society would reward that,
but while lip service is paid in dump trucks
it only ends up punished –
just like every good deed, indeed.

Her co-worker – equally attractive,
just more aware of it – keeps eyeing me.
They share stories and jokes and giggles
and laugh fully
and I’m thankful for it because
I forgot people like me existed
and can be surfactantly happy
at least.

There are things every person should not be denied;
Snow in the winter.
Sun in the summer.
Rain storms come spring
and trees losing trees every fall.

Monotony of never changing seasons
has taken its toll on me
and I haven’t ever seen all four yet.
I’m told spring is nice.
Two more months and it’s been a full year.
Yet another one gone
(and I’m not only talking
about calendar days,
which, FYI, are more than four lifetimes
from here).

And while I sit here
and my lips move
whilst nothing of any value
passes through them
I have realized

they are nothing like me

and

I will
never
die.

Sometimes I drink

2008-01-20T16:17:00.000-05:00

and scribble what I think.

Every Day of My Life

2008-01-11T21:34:00.000-05:00

I have this friend -
at least that's the easiest word -
and she smiles big daylight
At every deep shadow.
and she carefully eats her food
with a poke poke
and an mmmm.
Masticating, one might say.
Indeed, one might.

She sings and hums when driving
and has a different sound for
every situation.
And she reacts so fluidly
and humanly
and passionately
and beautifully
to everything.

She can stall a disaster day
with some little inside joke
that usually just started
as gibberish.
As meaningless dribble
that only we understand.
And as she teases me
I can't help but laugh
because - let's face it -
it's probably true.

I have this friend -
at least that's what
she's supposed to be -
and she has these rolling meadow eyes.
Piercing, but in a way I like
and an open mind
that's filled with amazing thoughts.
And she says wise things
in a way I wish I could.
And she's an amazing person
in a way I could only hope to be.

I have this friend
who knows me better than any other
and when she hugged me
she stood up on her tip toes
and I held on to her tightly
and just felt her breathing.
and when she looked up at me
and flashed a smile
when she caught me watching
I made no attempt to hide it.

And for all this
and those little things between
just the two of us
that I will not write here
because they are not for you,
for all this
I love her.
And need her like air.

We're on the phone again,
on & off when we can be.
It'd been over a year.

"I miss you,"
I tell her.
"I miss you,"
she says back
and I don't know if she
doesn't understand
or
just doesn't want to believe
that I don't mean it
as a friend.
I never have.
Not when we were together.
And not now.

I have this friend
who smiles like the rain
and laughs like a sunrise
and sleeps so beautifully.
And I miss her so terribly.
And I will never be able
to consider her
only
a friend.

Magic

2008-01-07T20:51:00.000-05:00

These magic lights shine down
and blind every living thing
while skinny jeans
on not so skinny girls
shake more than their fair share
in squalid attempts to hide
what they really are
and demand beauty.

And the locals think
I'm an out-of-towner
and the out-of-towners
think I'm a local
and no one understands
I'm neither.
In limbo.
It is possible
to have no home.
I prove it
with every static breath.

While the others run down the street
with transistor radios strapped
to their arms
yelling and begging
for something tangible.
While all sides of no constantly disturb
the working man
who works in places
no work should be done
because there is no rest
neither for the walking dead
nor we wicked
and because
there's too much to say
and not enough anything to do
and for some reason
people listen.
Does this look so inviting?
Is any of it worth the sticker gun price?

"That's a good beer," she says.
I look up and play polite
and I've done this
so many times before
and I never know
when to go back to this
pointless labor.
Thanks be to interruption.
But then we find ourselves at
round two
and the bell dings
and the gloves come off
while her skirt is short
and her phone goes off.
It's the fight doctor.
"Let him be," he says.
She takes my paper
and pens a rhyme
that I'm sure is from some song
I'd hate
(or already do)
and it starts with these things we hide
and I'll ends with her phone number.
I'm not going to use it
even though I should
if not just for something different
and sometimes lonely hearts
just get lonelier.

Sing, sing forth
oh swallowed souls
on shallow shoals.
Sing together
because that's the way
this ship of fools
is going to go down.
All at once
and
drowning already
in sanctimonious applause.

She shows off nice legs
if only to draw attention away from
the rest of the world
and that goddamned country song
on the karaoke speaker
and the screaming
and the yee-haws.

That freedom road is getting crowded
and all the bugs are whistling
like there's lamp light everywhere
drowning out spread salt skies.
They talk and swap stories
of the hive.
Suddenly I'm tired
and not so suddenly
or surprisingly
I'm disillusioned.
I'll die off as soon as this pen does
and who knows how long
that's going to last,
but the more it scribes,
like the more
my mind turns over,
the shorter its life span.

The virgin mary of vero walks in
in something slutty
and not playing the part so well
and
while all the boys are suddenly religious
like Madonna in the 90s
no one else wonders
who did the casting
or what the playbill will read.
At least I'm curious
or maybe,
just maybe,
I'm lost
and
cynical.
Yeah, that's more like it.

She comes back and
buys me a beer.
I've nothing to offer in return.
"Where are you from?"
she asks.
I've done this before.
"Far, far away from here,"
I tell her
and what she doesn't know
or understand
is that distance is growing
every minute.

The most interesting thing
happening here
is the weather report.
My god, how it all seems
I've done all this
so many times before.
I'm half past three weeks of no matter
and the entire town is just a
Norman Rockwell ghetto.

My mouth has turned to dust
and people are turning immortal
all over the place.
How many times can a man
attempt himself useful
if every instance
only ends
useless?

Home for the Holidays, Part 4

2007-12-27T22:33:00.000-05:00

I - whoa.
It's early.
At least I'm a bit more used to
5 AM.
I do it 5 days a week.

The cigarettes still taste strong
and I can smell my own breath.
And I know that last night ended,
but an hour ago
for my friends.
And I can't help but wonder
if those years away from home
made me love this town
or if I would've anyway.

Okay. Get up.
I've found that getting up
and waking up
are two entirely different things.
I usually get up on time,
but in the past 23 years
I was only awake
next to her.

I stuff the usual
in my suitcase.
I'm not comfortable living out of one
when in my own house,
but
beggers can't be choosers,
now can they?
Mom has a glass of OJ
and some leftover sausage
sitting on the table.
A sort of ceremonious
"last breakfast,"
I guess.
She's holding up well.
No tears yet,
but as soon as Dad's ready to go
she's not ready to let go.

"I'll see you soon,"
she sobs
and I know the review
of the coming year's plans
isn't for me to hear.
Just for her to say.
I need to be strong for her,
but I express my sorrow
with reserved depression.
Not tears.
And I'm used to this
so I stay stoic.

At least the girls are an hour away.
And she has the cats to look after.
So she lets go,
eyes soaked and
kisses her only son goodbye
and tells me how proud she is.
Dad and I get in the car
and Mom's at the garage door
waving.
I wave back,
even though she can't see me
over the headlights.

The ride is generally professional.
We talk about local radio stations
and construction
and architecture
and politics.
My father and I,
we are the same way.
Always avoiding
emotional confrontation.
We pull into the airport
and he stays until
I'm through security -
who always seems to like me,
but it's just because
I know what to do.

I'm gone and he's gone
and I'm on my own again
against the world.

The plane is packed
and the ride is the longest yet,
but I sleep most of it
away.
The old man next to me
doesn't talk
and I'm thankful.
we catch some mild chop
and babies cry
and people scream
and I just want to yell
for them all to shut up.

We’re on the ground, now,
and rushing for the exits
because
if you don’t get to them fast enough
the stairs will disappear.
The stop and go drive home
makes me think I’m stuck
on the Cross Bronx again,
but this time going no where.
At least, no where I want to be.

So I’m back in Florida, now,
and the tourists pour in for the winter
to make their claim
and stand and judge
instead of being judged
like the rest of us.
Come that one day
when the king will point his finger at me
and say,
“You. Everything you had
you lost.
And you did by your own hand.”
And I’ll be damned if he isn’t
wearing Mickey Mouse ears.

So at least I’m in the right place.
Florida’s where people come to die,
right?

Right.

Home for the Holidays, Part 3

2007-12-26T19:46:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow I'm forced back
with a push & a shove.
Back to that shitbox state
filled with that horrid constant sun
and those hot days
and leaved trees.

My bound tie to this dead town
has been severed.
Now when I enter
those places which sustained me
for eons
all I can think about is
if I'll ever be back again.

Or how badly I want her to call.
Just to hear her voice
with no asterisks
at the end of every sentence.
No more talking from a phrase bank
of safe things to say.
I want to pick up the phone
and hear,
"Oh how I miss you, oh sweet boy."

No longer wake up
to thick Florida morning smells
and cold sweat sheets.

Tomorrow morning
those engines are gonna roar
and those wheels are gonna spin
and I'll be again
left a nomad
with no home.
With no puzzle
to fit into
except that city
and that girl
and while our shapes likely mesh
our pictures no longer do.

"There, there, oh sweet boy.
Never you worry.
Everything with be alright
with you
here
with me."

Home for the Holidays, Part 2

2007-12-26T19:44:00.000-05:00

Back here behind security
my mind wanders about.
Will that cute girl behind me
be on my flight?
Maybe in the next seat?

No smoking from here on out
and that sucks
because it's the best way
to kill time
and I have a lot of time to kill.
All you need is a catwalk
and a cage.
Anyone who smokes
will stand in any weather
to ease the mind.
To get away from
the restless children
making noise and playing tag
underneath the toes of everything.

And we roar off.
And there is no cute girl next to me.
And the tires squeak down hard
in hard weather
on hard asphalt
in a hard town
on hard times.
And I walk outside
in to the ice dagger air
and I smile.

Home.
Where I belong.
For now.

Home for the Holidays

2007-12-23T17:29:00.000-05:00

I-95 is wet with morning dew
and doing 80 my wipers are useless,
but still
I click them on and off
fruitlessly.
Nothing's on the radio at 5:30 AM
in Florida
but
pastors pushing Jesus
and salvation.
They proclaim the rain
another biblical flood.
Last month's drought
aas the plague to end man.
God's wrath,
it seems,
changes with the weather.
You should read the book.
A top-seller, I hear.

The toll booths near and
this time I'm ready
with ready cash
because they don't take ready plastic
like the rest of the world.
Debit is,
it seems,
the tool of the devil.

I follow the signs for long term parking.
Blue lot. Gold lot. Red lot.
One fish. Two fish.
Funny how it seems they don't say
the first two are full
until it's too late to make the lane
to the last one.
And the signs all point
to points behind me
with no place to turn around.
and they say,
"Keep right. Follow South Exit signs,"
but the south exit is from
the left lane.
I say fuck it and tail an airport bus.

Tne lot's nearly full,
but I have a ticket.
Feels a bit like a pawn shop.
We pile in the transport
shouting out airlines.
After a few stops
only two of us remain.
His at the far end.
Mine in the middle.
The driver only stops at his.
I can use the exercise.

At last,
I make it to the check in
and all I'm hoping is that
these candle tarts for my mom
can go through security.
There's a problem.
the agent looks at me
and says,
"You were supposed to leave
yesterday."
Shit.
"What can I do?" I ask.

"$250, please."

"Do you take plastic?"

Responsibility

2007-12-22T17:46:00.001-05:00

So I have these two sisters
like night and day.
Both I love in different ways
and I stand the irresponsible
division of the two.

The older one,
she thinks
everyone needs think what
she thinks
and the little one,
she thinks
it matters not what
everyone thinks.

And I stand as
the division of the two.
A little brother who makes
poor choices
and a big brother
to guide and confide in
so I need play two parts
in a single act play.

I have these three cousins.
All I love in different ways.

One is the youngest
and at the age to do anything,
but he'll probably learn business
and, like them all,
be a crook.

One is the middle
and after some ups & downs
has started opening her eyes
to real life,
but
not really.

The oldest can go both ways.
He can either see the truth
and watch it pass by
or live blissful ignorance.
See, he's autistic.

I have these other two cousins
and I love them both like brothers
and friends,
but they make me mad because
they could both be kings
if only they didn't stop trying to be.
And their family
means so much to me.

And so I've been placed
at the table's end
because I can move freely
between the adults and the kids
and I don't judge
like my older sister does
and I think with my heart
the way my little sister does
and I keep an open mind
unlike my young cousin
and I can handle the stress
and manage the world
unlike his older brother
and my life is together
unlike their sister
and my family is important to me
like the two brothers
and the adults respect my opinion
and I learn from them
and I'm the unspoken leader
of the kids' table.

And I was the first to get my degree
even though age dictated
others were in line ahead of me
and all this happened after
I walked the stage
and moved 1,500 miles away.

And out of everyone
I'm the least ready
for life in this world
because the only place
I could be myself
was with her.

And, oh lord,
and she's moved on.

I'm the still ones

2007-12-09T21:21:00.000-05:00

I’m watching small raindrops
march across the windscreen.
Some faster.
Some slower.
Some not at all.
Not unlike me.

The clocks running.
I know
Because
the engine’s running
which means
I’m supposed to be working.

And her kindness falls like rain.
It falls all over me
here on the front steps.
And in my place
stands the person I used to be
with the life I used to have,
purged of the mistakes
I used to make.

The people in the stands clap.

My roommate is still asleep on the couch
when I lock the door
on my way to work.
I want to walk on the ocean
and not sink.
I want to softly sing
and never have a word heard.

And the little drops race each other
back further and further,
colliding and splitting,
leaving stragglers behind.

Little lights twinkle
and I can’t understand
how I ended up
in a place like this.
A December on the outside
with fast night
and another empty day.
I wish I could make
that new life sustain.

There is no worse feeling
than when you don’t think
she thinks
you’re meant for each other
anymore.

These are those
need to be somewhere else days
when I don’t know
where I can go.

I can still hear the waves crash
if I listen real hard.

I'm Sorry, Rapunzel

2007-11-18T15:53:00.000-05:00

"So, yes," I said, "Maybe that -"

Wait.
.
.
Let's start at the beginning...

This girl sat next to me
and eyed my scotch
as I eyed her mango-peach-punch
with rum and a cherry.

"What's the one thing you have
that you never want to lose?"
She asked me.
"I don't have much to lose,"
I told her.
"Well, out of that?"
She asked me,
"Car? Job? Apartment?"

There is entirely too much of my life
drunkenly scribbled
upon a bar napkin.
Maybe that's the secret
to it all;
Get it out. Throw it out.
Never look back.

I've been doing that
for so long,
though,
and all I’ve gained
is more questions.
This process ill repeated
millions of times the world over
is resurrecting stagnant memories
which played out,
Jesus,
over a year ago.
Has it really been that long?

Yeah.

She stirred her drink
and
sipped it while
looking up at me.

"I guess,"
I told her,
"I guess my
imagination."

At least I am but the unchanged
pillar of salt.
Both good and bad.
The duality we had to thesis
all those papers
long since expired
is
long since expired
in me
leaving only the fallibility and
worst sides remaining
in an arms down race
for no man's land.
The wounded retreat
to where I suppress them
poorly and ferociously.

So let's talk shop.

She got up
and walked away.

So, yes, I'm a dreamer
and yes
I'm probably holding out
for that
one perfect day
and probably will be
forever
but you just wait
because when I get there
no one will stop me.

So, yes,
I'm a dreamer
and maybe that is the only thing
I have
going for me,
but part of me thinks
that's the single best thing
I could have in my corner.

Time and deafening tones take every toll.
I've still one more to go
to justify this and the shakes
are sitting close playing for full hands
with full fists
and it's taking these bear trap butterflies
only a moment of low guard
to bring forth the slick combo.
Jab jab hook.
Count.

All the wrong things are speaking
through scarred and scared devils
on each shoulder
comfortable in the chips
both pushing with
some kind of memory on the lam.

So, yes, I'm a dreamer.
Take that for what it's worth
because
the rest of me
isn't worth much.

The flow is cold
in a way that makes me miss home.

So I'll still go to sleep every night
with the thoughts in my head
at war with my mind
just waiting for that
one perfect dream.
See if I don't.

The 3:30 to Naples

2007-11-11T10:06:00.000-05:00

The place is fast & busy.
Friendly, but in an efficient way -
like a computer saying, "Hello."
Old smells & sounds come back to me.
People are moving everywhere.
The kind of place that has
no down time.
The kind of place that makes me
miss the old job,
but
makes me glad I moved on.
And I'm not sure where to stand
or how to act.
And the guys are talking to me
like a pilot
(a professional one)
and I don't have a clue
what to do.
There's a cadence about the place.
A thumping drum somewhere
sight-unseen & silent
but
when I watch the people
careful enough
I can read the beat
and
I'm not sure
what eyes I'm looking through -
experienced or infantile -
but
As I settle in and take breaths
it seems like I could do this and
still maintain some kind of
peace
in my life.
That's the kid talking because
that road is long & rugged
and all the other cars' tires
are spinning out mud
everywhere.

Demons & Drinks

2007-11-01T07:18:00.000-04:00

See, off in the corner
is Blackbeard himself
and
Genie's holding down the dance floor,
but the years have been tough
on her
and
the only dreams she'll be in
are nightmares.

See, Ceaser's still around
and Cleopatra's all over him
while Muskrat Sam
and
the maid
explore each other in the corner.

The caped crusader's
going into philosophy
against the man of steel, see,
and Lois Lane's grabbing a fresh round.
The Hulk forgot his ID
so they've been sneaking him
shots all night.
I don't think the batmobile's
going to make it through
any checkpoints.

See, Dracula hands me a beer
and says,
"Today's the one day
we all get to be something
we're not."
He looks at me
in my t-shirt and jeans
and asks
what I'm supposed to be.

I take a minute to think about
my answer

and I tell him,
"Happy."

To-Do List

2007-10-28T10:45:00.000-04:00

There's a piece of twine
tied tight in a knot
around my finger
and I'm not too sure
what I'm supposed to remember.

Was it to pay the rent?
Seems like I just bled out a check.
Maybe to send that letter?
No, I tore that to shreds not long ago.

But there's a knot around my finger
and those are always there
for something.
And it keeps growing in length.

How about to close the windows?
The forecast says rain.
Put air in my tire?
It's been flat for so long.
To write that term paper?
But I graduated over a year ago.
To quit smoking?
I've only just lit one.

With each question not fitting place
this knot gets looser
and the string gets longer
yet my finger stays blue.

File a report?
On what? I've nothing to say.
Turn off the oven?
Like my stomach, it's empty.
Feed the dog?
I've no pets.
Buy those tickets?
I've no plans.
Tape that show?
But it's a rerun I've seen thrice.
Return that book?
I'm not a member of this library.
Clean up?
Get groceries?
Return a call?
Gas in the tank?
Pick up at the airport?
Mend a shirt?
Do the laundry?

What could it be?
So many questions
and
now it's a full rope
wrapped in circles all the way up
and with every question, now,
it's getting tighter
around my
neck.

This is modern life.
Modern responsibility.
Grow up?

Tuesday Night Stand-Up

2007-10-20T23:37:00.000-04:00

"New guy at the bar!" she yells,
"What's your name?"

I tell her.

"Wow, another Chris," she says,
getting progressively louder
with each sip of whatever's in that glass.

I turn to Elliott.
We shake hands.
"I need a beer,'' I tell him.
"What flavor?" he asks.
"Surprise me."
The New Castle isn't surprising,
but
it is a good call.

"Chris!" she yells,
"I'm Ashley," and
extends a hand.
Another Ashley, I think,
they're everywhere.
Her friend, Jennifer,
seems to be a bit more sober,
but
just a bit.

"You two should do stand up. You guys should go back and forth all night,"
says Jennifer.
Ashley and some
middle-aged-but-scared-to-accept-it guy
are trading blows across the bar.
He says something
about flying for a paycheck
and I can hear his lie.

"Ask him what he's rated in,"
I mutter towards Ashley.

"Christopher would like to know
what you're rated in," she bellows.
He says big jets.
I've seen him stocking
2x4s at home depot.
Not my war,
but don't drag my profession
through the mud.

A few seconds later...

"William,
you wanna get rich?
No, this is what I want
you to remember.
Some girl told you
to fuck...
the fuck..
off,"
she bellows.

"Christopher!" she's back at me
and off her stool -
both from the booze
and the command -
getting closer.
Her phone's out
like a loaded gun.
Cocked in camera mode
with
a magazine
of free memory.

"Christopher!" I look up with my eyes.
Head still pointed at my page.
"Take a picture with me!"
she bellows.
She kneels next to my chair
and trains the sight
and three triggers later
three pictures are taken.

"Christopher!"
She bellows,
"This is my kid."
Wonderful, I think,
are we there yet?
"It doesn't look like I've had one
does it?"
I wouldn't put it past her,
I think,
but that's just
my distain of Florida talking.
"Victoria's Secret, honey,"
she bellows,
kisses my cheek
and takes her stool again.

I sneak out the back.

Of poets & minor deities

2007-10-20T23:27:00.000-04:00

The rain is furious.
Open all the windows.
Aren't these pieces
supposed to give way
to some kind of dawn?

Dusk has long since passed
and midnight,
so far,
has lasted forever.

Spark.
Spark.
Flashlights far off in some distance
beyond arm's length.
Might as well be those
spilled salt shaker skies.

The horizon dips and dives and bobs
as men take to their boats
and row forth.
Hope's pacing the beaches.
Sometimes making a swim for it,
but always washing back ashore
breathless
and
giving me dirty looks.

They're painting yellow lines again.
Do not cross,
they say.
Stay back there
in no man's land,
they say.
Comfort's comatose since that sunset.
Their silhouettes blocking out
crackling streetlights.
Shadows long as faces.

Check the clinking chains.
Buzz buzz fizzle.
Sleep this one off.
Just be aware of never waking up.
These bare arms tortured and torn
so I'll stand here and
wait for the dawn.
Setting the alarm is pointless when
the power's shut off and
the doors are locked wide open.

Just one more broken shoelace.
Then I can run the colors
far up.
Out of view so I no longer
need salute
those tattered rags.

There's a wanted poster
with a reward
and a likeness
pinned to every door in town
just in case someone gets weary
and forgets his tickets are lucky
to even say general admission.
Take what you can get.

Save the good news
for the people who can use it.
Someone's always here
to bear the weights
when they pile up
like days on the calendar.

So business is booming,
as it always is,
for those in the business
of vacuities and vocations
and off-key songs sung
that everyone thinks
they can relate to,
but can never relate to.
Not even the song writers.
'Cause living life in resort towns
is living life hard.

Spark.
Spark.
Follow the neon signs,
for they're up and begging,
serving ugly places to
ugly faces
for as long as your paycheck
can sit on the stool.
Pretzels are a package deal.
Only the good ones
stay dark and buried
to keep our bad blood inside.
That's no way to get paid.
Stereophonic screams
keep the rent paid
and unsaved souls unsaved
these days,
they say.

I used to wonder what people think.
Then I started going to bars.
Now I don't need to wonder.
They say it even when
no one's listening
and it's not what they think
that bothers me.
It's what they don't.
Where have all the dreamers died?
Maybe they've rowed off
to that up and down.
Good luck and
good for them.

Maybe they just grew up
and quit dreaming.
Maybe that is the dream.
Good luck and
good for them.

Soaked pants
and soaked socks
from standing
in the breakers and
trying to will that dawn
because I have a knife
at a gun party
in this house of wax.
Sometimes the thorns get loose,
run wild,
but that gets remedied
fast enough.
Scrape together this graffiti
to something meaningful.
I'll never make it happen
from this evil hand,
they say.

Open the windows,
please,
because it's 5 o'clock
nowhere
so long as that sun
isn't coming up
tomorrow.

Watch out for those scars,
though,
kiddo,
and stay off that line.
The paint's still wet
everywhere.

All Four Seasons

2007-10-14T14:28:00.000-04:00

The land is too flat here.
I picture hills and valleys whenever I cross the bridge
all along the horizon –
that boring, far as the eye can see horizon.
and the trees don’t change color.
and don’t lose their leaves
and I hate it so much.

So I’m outside
all around town
armed with spray paint cans
in all those autumn shades
and I’m tearing the leaves off the tress
and I’m throwing them to the ground
and I’m covering them with what hides
inside those cans
because fall is here,
no matter how much this town
doesn’t like that.

You Can't Convince Me

2007-10-08T21:46:00.000-04:00

Sitting in a park as
storms roll through.
Lightning striking in every place
circling me like hyenas
and
getting closer every second.

Smoking cigarettes
and
listening to the architecture.
Feeling the crashing thunder.
Absorbing it.
The smell of the rain.
The quiet bursts of droplets on my arm.

Or her
walking out of
the shower without knowing I’m there.
Bathroom door open.
The nonchalant walk.
The “no-one’s-looking” towel
wrapped around her like
paper.
Hair, soaked.
Unbrushed.
Unrushed.
No make up.
The half comfort smile across her
lips.
Girls don’t understand –
that’s when they’re most beautiful.
When they’re themselves.
Even that “oh you scared me” comment,
when she looks up at me in the chair
book in hand.
There’s still a few seconds left
before she starts to put on the show.
I know the truth.
I’d rather have the truth.

Driving down the road
and
going nowhere.
Only the good songs
through speakers.
No one
in front of me, pattering along at the speed limit.
Straight line through the towns
and
villages –
sidewalks empty.
Motor humming along with the beat.
Screaming the lyrics.
That worn spot under my left foot from tapping out
so many rhymes in repetitive modified Morse code.

Or being the only person awake at 4 AM
and
walking the avenues.
Follow the yellow painted line.
Double solid doesn’t mean no passing here.
Only the path to make.
The trees silent – birds still asleep.
Ocean waves crashing in the distance.

Exploring a golf course in the pitch black.
Somersaulting down the hills.
Log rolling through undulating greens
then dodging the groundskeepers when they wake for work,
hiding behind trees
and
in brush.
Guerilla warfare.
Armed with a pen
and
paper.

Climbing to the roof of a building.
Or the top branch of
a dense tree.
Leaning back
and
opening a novel
brought out from being tucked in my belt.

Rustling through abandoned buildings with a cell phone
and
a keychain flashlight –
the kind I’m not sure if
they’re haunted or not.
The kind where I walk through with
a nine and a one already dialed.
Just hold that last one
and
I may still
be alive when help comes.
Every click and bump
Spinning me on heels.
Was that just the floorboards?
Was it an axe murderer?
Was it a ghost?

The first drag on a cigarette.
Five AM coffee with the newspaper
on the porch.
The grass wet with dew
and
freshly cut.

A harmonica with a bottle of whiskey
and
some old jazz vinyl.
A local café.
Driving in a blizzard.
A home cooked meal.
Getting a cup of joe
for a homeless man.
Listening to his story.
Learning from it.

Sleeping next to a beautiful girl then
waking up and
kissing her lips,
tasting her love.
Blank pages and empty rolls of film
begging to be bled upon.
Watching a couple married fifty years
walk down the street
hand in hand.

There are some things
I wouldn’t trade

for

the world.

Look! Look!

2007-10-06T23:43:00.000-04:00

¡Mira! ¡Mira!
The small children yell.
Look at that man!
How he sits alone!
And drinks alone!
And reads old books in places words are hard to see!

¡Mira! ¡Mira!
The little kids laugh.
Look at that man!
How he smokes so much!
And how he writes so much!
And how he is silent in crowds!
And how solemn his face stays!
Why has he no smile?

¡Mira! ¡Mira!
The kids draw closer.
Look at that man!
How he ages before our eyes!
And how the wrinkles grow!
And how the laugh lines disappear!
And how his eyes darken!
How his hair greys by the second!

¡Mira! ¡Mira!
We must ask him!
Viejo, why is it you sit alone?
And write so much?
And age so fast?
¿Por que?

Porque,
he says,
Because, niñitos,
My hands strangled my heart.
I sit alone because I am.
I write because I ended my own greatest story.
I age like this
drinking
reading
writing
alone
because it is my penance
for stopping the one thing
that was ever completely right,
perfecto,
in my life.
Make not my mistake.

¡Mira! ¡Mira!
Look at that man!
How he turns to dust
and blows off with the wind
right in front of us!
Forever scattered!

¡Mira! ¡Mira!
¿Viejo?

Hi-Fi Gods

2007-10-06T18:28:00.000-04:00

Life gets tough
when you spend your days
unsure.
Locked in the dark.

Some days it feels good,
like I'll get to hear her voice again.
Like I'll get to see her again.
Hold her again.
Kiss her again.
Sleep next to her again.

Then reality sets in
and
I remember that the only way
we can speak
is through little colors
making shapes to words.
Little electronic dots.
And
every time I see them
it hurts.
My knife
through
my heart
by
my hand.

Then reality sets in
and she says
"I'm going to keep trying
here,"
with someone else,
but,
"if we don't end up together
I don't...We have to. You and I,"
she says
and I think to myself
if you want that
go after it.

But now I need to tip-toe
around the only person
I never had to tip-toe around
and my whole scope of thought,
all my developed mannerisms,
are out the door.
And neither of us have a clue
how to act
so I revert to the only way I know
except now
there's a blade in my leg.
And it's pinning me down.
Gulliver on the island of small people.
Have pain - can't travel.

Then reality sets in
and I've never been sicker.
And I know I'm the reason all this is fact
and the only thing I've done is run,
but I'm trying my damnedest
to hold my ground
and absorb these resounding blows
from both outside and inside my skin
because
through all this darkness
and all this wind,
even though I keep losing sight of it
and keep thinking it's gone out,
way off in the distance
there's a flickering candle.
The first one in a long time
and the last one I'll ever see.

Dayloading in a Midnight Hurricane

2007-09-30T11:14:00.000-04:00

I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.
I'm well aware
I text you a lot.
and talk too much
on IM.
I know the two of you
deserve your time together
and
I don't deserve anything.
You owe me nothing.
I owe you everything.

I'm getting just what I deserve.
I've earned this fear,
this pain,
Which only hurts more with
the passing moons.
This, the first silent
and on the one I held hope.
This is how all those lost last ones
begin.
Maybe you can see through me
better than them.
You always could.

These demons,
they knock arrows,
roll sleeves
and take aim.
They push me through
the eyes of needles and
begin tirades.
Wild. Vivid. Horrific.
They wash their arms only to grow
and
force out fears like scratched cassettes.
Not enough to be clear,
but just enough to get it.
The clock's hands run madness
without ever moving.

Watch me fight, now.
Watch me remember.
Watch me remember all those things
you said. The ones you said you
couldn't say.
How those times it felt I was dreaming,
but no - all of it true.
I need to keep them playing through
and through
and throughout
my aching mind.
Watch me squeeze this shield
harder than ever.
Watch me weather every assault
because
you're worth it. More than that.
You are worth any price.
Every price.
Everything.

This I scream at them
with a voice I never knew I had.
Without a single waiver.
No matter how many quivers they empty.
No matter how badly I get lost in the clouds.

Again you keep me grounded.
Save me from myself
from thousand oaks between us.
How ruined I am - this mound of ash -
and how you could believe
those things you cannot say
I'll never understand.
but I don't need to
because I believe them, too.
some things I'll never question
again.

But the wind is so furious
this pile of cinders can barely
keep it together
and the clouds are on fire
and rain explodes with such power
it's making me bleed out
yet I dare not guard my face
because
all I can see is your breathtaking smile,
your winter sunrise eyes,
and
all I can hear is your voice.
and for every second we're apart
I get scared I'm losing you forever.
Again.

But if you take my hand
I can promise you
no force,
No matter how great
will
ever stop me - no -
us
again

because

with you with me
we are

immortal.

You are the only thing
that keeps this idiotic group of charcoal
in one piece.
I love you.
There is nothing I am more sure of.
Nothing.

So bring the wind.
Let it try and disintegrate us.
So bring the clouds.
Let them try and burn me.
We are the phoenix.
So bring the rain.
I will take the pain.
From it, I will protect you.
Bring the night.
You light my way through all darkness.

Holding you is morning in heaven.
You have this power over me
and so long as we’d be together
I'd have it
no
other
way.

Storm of the Century

2007-09-24T04:58:00.000-04:00

Storm clouds are gathering.
Growing on the horizon.
They gather like afternoon tea
and grow
in the early evening's dying heat.
Thick enough to cover the sun.
Night falls quick
days like this.

Rain bands envelope the horizon
bringing the door-car rush with them.
Streetlights start humming. Buzzing
in time
with the high humidity bugs
in the thick air.

I'm sitting in this public picnic shelter
loosely assembled and
loosely assimilated.
The wind's picking up.
Hammers rumble.
Miles away a blacksmith goes to work
forging light in a spider line
then starting on the next
soon as the last is finished.

People are packing with cautious eyes
turned eastward,
but I stay.
Just this shelter and I,
sharing stories and histories of
decades and wildfires.
Night skies and lost loves.
Day dreams and their dreamers.
Something's coming.
I can feel it in the wind.

A child has sat down next to me.
She shows me her doll
and talks to me of playgrounds.
Of show-and-tell.
Of shoebox diaramas.
Diaries and cooties.
And how this icky boy in her class
with glasses
keeps teasing her.
He hangs out on his front porch
'neath raging blue skies
talking of being an astronaut
before running fast,
backyard bound,
and sitting alone on the
see-saw his father built.
The one next to the sandbox
his father built.
Next to his favorite tree to climb.
He wonders if his father built
the shed
the house
the tree
the world
or if it had always just had been there
and sure it always would be.
She says he falls asleep
on the bus ride home
because he stays up all night
thinking of these things.
He thinks it's possible his dad
built the world.
She gives me a noodle necklace
and gets up
and walks away.
The station wagon's leaving.
The clouds drive in closer.

Another young girl sits down.
She's at the far corner of bench
and plays with her ponytail
and tells me about this geeky boy
who lives down the street.
He's only been there a few years
and they never talk
despite being at the same bus stop.
She plays field hockey with
His older sister.
Their little sisters are friends.
He keeps to himself and
hides out in his basement after
getting home from school
and doesn't do any homework
because it's boring.
Instead he writes notes and letters
for no one to read
and throws them out right after.
Instead he reads really old stupid books
by people who have been dead
for, like, ever.
What do they know that
the babysitters' club doesn't?
He doesn't wear glasses anymore,
though.
But
he draws on desks and spends
study hall in the library.
Sometimes he rides his bike
to school.
She chews her gum and forgets
a copy of The Giver
on the table
before climbing into an old F-150.
The clouds drive closer.

Here’s this early teen girl sitting down.
She’s on the other side of the table and
toying with some lip gloss
and a pocket mirror.
She talking a lot about
boy bands
and MTV
but in between there’s a story
about this boy who got kicked out
of school.
How he wears all black
and colors in his nails in class
and stands on the edge of groups
and writes stupid letters
and listens to his CD player
on the way to class
and sits with people
he doesn’t know well at lunch
and doesn’t resemble much of
any group.
But some bad rumors and
some bad national news
and some bad faults
got him dragged into the office
for a pow-wow with the head honcho.
So they say he sacrificed cats
and his letters were lists,
but when they opened his locker
all they found were books
and notes
and sketches of smiling people.
And he still hides in the basement.
But they might let him back
next year
because they made him go to
a shrink
who said he’s better adjusted
than most people his age.
They think that’s the problem.
That
and
his friend screwed him over.
She picks up her purse
and as she walks away
a bottle of black nail polish falls out.
The van door closes and
the clouds drive closer.

Directly across from me
drops in this nineteen year old
thinking she’s twenty six
and
she brings up this kid
she’d graduated with.
How a while ago he ran into some trouble
and since then he checks his shoulder
down the hall.
And how he and a few friends
play in a band
but have no clue how music works.
He did a few shows with some other kids
a while back
but never held an interest.
He got into a few fights here and there
and doesn’t talk much to anyone.
He showed up at a few parties
after walking the stage
and mumbled a few words
and drank a few beers
and smoked a few cigarettes
and stuck with his friend.
She’d walked up to him at that party,
but he spoke far too complex for her
and he’d said something about
going far away.
She didn’t know where because he
wasn’t interested in hearing about
the fight she’d gotten in
with her quarterback boyfriend
that day.
She said she saw him going dives
and speakeasys near the downtown
bars which she was in line.
That he knew a few people at
the coffee houses
and hung around in the places
not many people knew.
She’d asked him what he did there
and he said he wrote
then
right there at the party
he went right back to writing
without saying a thing more to her.
And he never let her see what it was.
She saw him one summer
working this no-minded job
hammering stakes
and pitching tents
in all kinds of weather
and carrying folding chairs
twenty at a time.
Covered in dirt.
She’d thought he was smart
and caught him walking in
one of those dives
and asked him why he worked that job.
He’d told her he liked working alone.
He didn’t want to deal with others
and went he went home
He felt like he’d done something.
He hated his life doing that job,
though,
she said.
She’d asked him if he still wrote
and he’d flashed a notebook
with most every page filled.
And he wouldn’t let her read it.
Then she rose
and gave me a pen
and climbed into her Neon.
The clouds drove closer.

Filling her spot was
an early twenties girl
who said there was this one kid
she loved
for a couple years
who would drive for hours
to spend a couple days with her
and things got rough a few times.
They’d fight a bunch of times
and break up
and make up.
He was 400 miles away
from her
and home
at college
in a metropolis.
And he fought the culture of that place
and hates it so.
He tries so hard to stay who he is at home
and is scared that he’s failing.
And that he’ll never find home again.
He was her first.
And he loved her,
but
he was scared he couldn’t make her happy
so he ended it
while they were miles away
and
he fought every urge to talk to her.
And never answered her calls.
Or letters.
And she knew he was dying inside
at what he’d done,
Even now over a full year later.
And he hasn’t had someone since her,
but he hides in his bedroom
in his apartment, now,
after moving clear across the country.
She told me he can’t
see any kind of future
and it scares him.
And he still loves her.
He writes bad poetry and stories.
He drives for hours in random paths
trying to find something new.
Something he hasn’t seen yet.
He doesn’t find anything.
So she stood up and brushed her hair.
And blinked a few times.
And gave me
an envelope that I’m scared to open.
She got in her protégé and drove off.
The clouds drove closer.

Now there’s a woman in her late twenties
or early thirties
sitting at my table.
She’s talking about this guy she knows.
How he lives by himself
and writes volumes
and reads libraries
and teaches people.
He can’t find happiness anywhere
and still claims he’s not from this town.
He misses his home
and doesn’t know if he’ll ever make a good dad
because he’s so proud of his.
She tells me he said
his father built this world.
He says he’s lonely,
but he has been for while.
Ever since that last girl
who he hopes is happy
and every day he goes off to work
doing the same thing and earning the same check
as enough to get by.
He wonders how he got here often
and thinks back to that kid on the front porch.
On the see-saw.
She stands up and takes a breath
and looks around
and as she gets into her husbands sedan
I notice she left an empty bottle
of whiskey.
The clouds are nearly on top of me.

An old women sits down next to me.
She’s shaky and covered in
varicose veins.
She talks about this guy she knew
who lived down the street.
Whom she knew nothing about
other than seeing him writing
in a notebook
in a dive
once.
And he died, years ago.
She doesn’t remember anyone noticing.
She said he never looked happy,
but he did seem contented.
But he hid every feeling well.
The old woman crawls to her feet and looks at me.
“You’re too young to be that man,”
She says
and tells me his father,
he built the world.
And she puts in front of me
an empty notebook.
And walks away.

The clouds are here, now.
Dead overhead.

Oh, hold strong,
mighty shelter.
Hold steady.
For the rains are coming
and I,
but a boy,
am powerless to stop them.

Sleepers

2007-09-21T12:34:00.000-04:00

Often I’m fed “Be-Independent” lines,
but
no one who says that
ever have been
So they know not the insatiable
loneliness
that comes
hand in hand.
Two lovers chained together
for the recklessness of us all.

Try not to indentify with us,
here,
deep in the dirt.
Scared faces.
Broken minds.
Seamless eyes.
Bloodless veins.
.
.
.
Silent hearts.
Long since still.
Some, by our own hands – clasp
shell tight
to cover all sound and sight.
Some, we mask a few quiet beats.
Just here and there it jumps
on its own.

Sometimes mine jumps – just to let me know
it’s still there.
Too bad that’s rare.
And that’s usually bad
you know,
when it keeps going on its own anyway.

So,
here I lay,
deep in the dirt
just waiting for a crack of sunlight
to jumpstart
this Medusa’d heart.
Maybe then
I’ll quit holding it.
Let it work solo
again,

but it’s peaceful
Here
deep in the dirt.
Throw on another shovelful.
I’m not ready for blinding blue sky.

Not
just
yet.

Old Photos

2007-09-18T02:10:00.000-04:00

My roomate has this new girlfriend.
They're perfect for each other.
She's twenty-seven. He's twenty.They both act seventeen

and,
not unlike a seventeen year old,
they'd both get pissed
if I told them that
because,
not unlike a seventeen year old,
they think they've matured
beyond mid-forties.

She's smart - book smart.
He likes to think he is.
So they both play coy around the world
instead of being honest.

Childish arguments stem from
childish statements from
childish mouths.
One gets mad over a stubbed toe
in a tickle fight
and
the other tries to laugh it away
like it matters.
Ten minutes later it's
"Hey man, you got an extra condom?"
time again
and they close the door all
non-chalant
like I'm not able to understand
what's happening.

I'm just happy I get fifteen minutes
of freedom -
not tormented by high pitch whispers
and constant smootch-smootch.

She's attractive,
but the furthest thing from my type.
I can't say that, though.
Everyone wants their girl to be
the hottest.
The richest.
The coolest.
But "everyone" doesn't homogenize
as easy as the word implies
and while I'm okay with that -
I seek not outside approval to validate
my choices.
He does.
But he won't admit it.
Subconsciously we all do.
But I won't admit it
(maybe I am right here?).

So, yeah, she's not for me -
mentally or physically.
I don't like her eyes (too inset)
or how every time
I see her smile I think she's drunk.
She's extremely bright in her field,
but she's still that
"Your friends look up to me"
cheerleader.
Both still high school seniors.
I need more than that.
I need her to be wise
(it works well with my world weary).
She needs a chip on her shoulder.
Preferably one that fits into mine.

Here ups this lone twenty-two again.
I'm just too jaded
to set it down.
I'm just acting
like a twenty-two year old should.
Not like a twenty-two year old does.

But

maybe that's what happiness looks like.
I'm happy for them.
It gives me hope
which I need
because I've been having dreams
of that Hamilton girl again.

And in them her face is dark
and
her hoodie's always up. I can't see
her eyes.
She's different. Like something
is wrong - something serious. She's
changed. I don't know her anymore and
there's nothing I can do.
I can’t kiss her lips.
And it
all of it
scares me shitless.

And I wake up in cold sweat
every time
feeling like shit unsure
at what I've done.
I hope I never forget her.

They give me hope,
but I don't know what for
yet.

So, Gina.

2007-09-16T03:06:00.000-04:00

"Hi, Chris.
I'm Gina."

"Hi, Gina.
I'm Chris."

We shake hands.

My mind blanks. It
SCREAMS
to find something. Some
quid pro quo to keep
words moving.
To give me a reason to
keep my eyes from darting.
A dialogs, perhaps.

But

it is a skipping record -
just repeating space between the
tracks.
Over and
over and
over and
.
.
.

Well,
you get the idea.

"Oh shit,"
she says.
She stands up, her eyes
tightly concentrated.
Focused
on a single point.
I watch her. She's
beautiful - not overtly. That
candid
kind of pretty.
The sexiest kind.
She walks about.
"I gotta handle this,"
She says.

"Hi, Chris,"
she says again, but this time with
a cute smile,
"I'm Gina."

"Hi, Gina,"
I say as we shake hands again,
"I'm Chris. You have pretty eyes."

Some guy is about.
"You shouldn't have labels,"
She says,
"No labels. They're no good."
Then she winks at me
and turns.
"That your label?"
I ask.

"Yep,"
She says,
Then walks inside.
My tab's already closed
so I'm taking this beer slowly.
Just in case, you know,
she comes back. I'm catching
glimpses through the blinds
and
every time
I do
She's looking back.
Just her dark eyes between
venetian blinds.

She comes back. I
light her smoke
and she
leans next to some guy,
but looks at me the whole time.
We trade smiles back
and forth.

"Hi, Gina,"
I say and quietly smile,
"I'm Chris."

"Hi, Chris,"
she smiles back and whispers,
"I'm Gina."

Then gets dragged inside
to watch a
pool game.
And I wish I could kiss her.
The bar's closed now.
Past last call and my beer's
dry.
I'm tired. Time to go
and she's too
to
and
fro
for me.

It's probably just me -
too scared to make a move.

"Bye, Gina,"
I mutter and toss my smoke,
"I'm Chris."

And you're perfect.

At least,
for me.

Frostbite Fix

2007-08-26T15:26:00.000-04:00

This kid. This one right here - he needs something most won't ask for. Something to keep him sane. One of those rare ideas to remind him who he is. Where he's from. Why he wanders so much. Why no matter where he goes, how far he walks, how many he speaks to - why he never feels home.

That kid. That one over there - he's one of those wandering souls. Stuck in limbo and talking about it like it matters. It means nothing to no one and he knows it, but the thought of meaningless existence never sat well with anyone.

So that kid. The one you're looking at - he's trying his damnest to keep his eyes lit up. To keep seeming worthwhile, but people see right through that these days. Higher education and shit.

That kid. That one right there - he needs a frostbite fix. One of those five-layer cuts. Fifteen minutes outside and back in to melt the icicles off his face. Some snow to shovel. Spin outs and burn ups. The contrast so he can appreciate again what he once did, but the universe is so big and his mind can't get past the idea that all this is insignificant.

Yeah, that'll set him right. That frostbite fix.

They call this "Flash Fiction." I don't.

2007-08-21T11:03:00.000-04:00

Hey.
I'm bored.

Care to go skipping stones and feet on Saturn's rings with me?
We can hitch a ride from the next passing comet.
Stop for a snack on Jupiter's moons.
Swim in Neptune
and
console Pluto
before turning back.
On the way in, slide down the tail of a shooting star.

What do you say?
Let's see what's out there.

I'll swing by in Haley's ride around civil twilight.

Pick up a tank of gas in the sea of tranquility, then sling shot past the sun.

On more open stretches we'll see what this thing
can
really
do.

Living in the Present

2007-08-16T10:16:00.000-04:00

It’s been a tough couple of weeks, now.
There’ve been
break downs & break ups
pow-wows & make ups
war with no peace, now.

These past few weeks started swinging
and didn’t stop.
“Hey stranger,” she starts like the world is anew
now she’s back in town.
Some fucked up way to turn it about her.
As if to say,
“I’ve forgiven you.”
That’s nice.
I haven’t forgiven her and
I know better, now.
People don’t change. I’m living proof.
Everything else may,
but
everyone stays the same, now.

So these past few weeks
just keep kicking me in the gut
like trying to get a across an idea that just isn’t getting through.
No, no, I understand, now.
Really, I do.
And this other once has since fallen silent
since that big name is back in lights and
has shown up at her door.
And though words change, the rhetoric stays the same,
still pouring forth like waterfalls.
And I’ve been drinking more, but by choice.
Inebriation feels better than
consciousness.
At least this way
I know why
I’m fucked up
These cans & bottles can’t empty quick enough, now.

I’m praying for a change because these
calendar rows
have it out for me.
First goes the timing belt.
Right in the middle of the road,
but at least I must have looked tough
pushing by myself
across three lanes of traffic.
Then the battery ground takes a crap.
No start.
No shit.
That makes 2 tows, now.
The wallet’s
getting angry, now.
And there’s still more to break, now.
This is not the change I wanted.

Another goes past and it’s not only my soul
who’s absorbing blows.
A couple well placed questions pairing with
the wrong answers prove
the right person.
That translates to fists of fear
because I found out who wronged, now.
Who offended.
And three-on-one hurts when I’m the one,
but walking away with a
bruised rib and two slash wounds
doesn’t mean shit
when I’m the only one who’s doing
the walking, now.

But these are the first words I’ve penned
in weeks, now.
And tomorrow starts more progress.
In two days long missing relatives come to visit,
but I fear
that will only remind me of a past I’ve
worked hard to forget, now.
And this tropical storm-turned-hurricane
is supposed to be headed this way.
I get it.
Don’t worry, now.
I’ll be the one standing in the middle
of the street
arms out, palms up
when it hits.
If I’ve lasted this long, now
Rapture can’t even
stop me.
Right?

Yet,
I digress,
now.

My Twenty-Eighth Dream

2007-08-02T04:06:00.000-04:00

It is today’s refrain when
sky shatters to glass.
When the sun decides the final drop
is in order.

People run lotus flowers
like time bandits,
jumping here and there.
The minstrels.
The troubadours.

Take three steps backward.
Fourteen millimeter freedom
(what is that in inches?)
in a desolate but restitute
nod of your head. Find it.
Embrace it.

Ignore your nickel wounds. Music.
It mends all wounds.
Well,
some never heal, but the rest, indeed.
Oh yes, the rest.

When you start counting
the clock fifty-five full spied one eyed jacks
the furthest distance won’t matter
because
all there will be are
fountains
of imagination.

And that, my friends, isn’t half bad.
How fast can you
step on the gas?

We’re all the same wanderers.

I'm So Sonnet with Goodbyes

2007-08-01T07:39:00.000-04:00

Understand these simplistic words wrought here.
Worry not, for I shall not bother you any more
no matter the depths of time nor the daylight near.
Just promise me you’ll watch out. I won’t be keeping score.

Over both shoulders, yes, I can smell the sneers.
This place does not lend itself to me and my poor
spirit, checkbook, bottom line. It’s only fear.
A few more seconds. I’ll be out that door.

My shadow, how true that it longs for your taste,
but there’s tension in this room.
Count until ten. I’ll be gone.
I’ll be making haste.
I’ll leave behind me these unkind parts soon.
Shouldn’t take even that long.

[a-b, a-b.
a-b, a-b.
c-d, e, c-d, e.]

July, sweet July

2007-07-29T19:41:00.000-04:00

We finish our cigarettes and walk in.
A trio plays with only two different kinds of instruments
And strum and hum.
Troubadours.
Somebody want to get this kid a lyre?

I ink more this many day old sketch
And readjust my tie.
And x off another mosquito bite.
Rudy looks at my Wal-Mart photo prints
In all their 28 cent glory.

We drink our coffee and move from
This art house to the bar
Where we lean and put back
Two-for-one beer bottles.
It tastes half-better than regular price
And everyone knows
half-better is ALWAYS better
Than normal.

We discuss the same things
And do the same things
And look around, listening to
Five conversations at once.
All of them about the same things.
I can walk and chew gum at the time.
Does that make me eclectic
Or just eccentric?

Rudy’s getting tired so he bounces out.
A red rubber ball through the door and to his car
And now I’m on my own and I’m nowhere near
Ready to leave. Torn between the night and dawn
I often end up late simply because it’s cooler out
And there isn’t anyone on the streets.
Like walking down the corridors of a high school
In summer session.

My usual table is unclaimed. It’s an unspoken
Agreement with the occupants, I guess, or
Just that no one wants to sit in the far
Dark corner. Either way, it’s empty so
I fix that and pull a notebook out. Hopefully
There’s something I can write about.

The summer days are warm here and only
Amplified when there’s a lot of people
In one place. I need a frostbite fix. It’s too humid
And though I’m no proponent of
subzero temperatures
a significant part of me misses snow.
There isn’t snow back home, either,
But at least I know we’d get it.

As I’m writing I see the girl. Ah, yes,
That infamous girl whom has all those
Good qualities and great ideals.
That’s the one. Yes, yes that one right there.
Let me sit back a minute among these
Brass bluebells and wireframe spider webs
And let me come up with some background music
Behind a rocket December storm cloud.
Yeah, that’s the one – with those winter sunrise eyes.
That one with the steers orbiting around her.
No matter how close they get, though,
They’re only attracted to the light hoping there’s
Some heat inside. It’s there, but she’s keeping them cold.
Moths circling a park lamppost.
I can see the true warmth.
This is no racecar theory. This is the track.

This is 6 AM in Coronado.

Somebody want to get this kid a watch?

Midnight off Park Ave, 1951

2007-07-28T03:26:00.000-04:00

So I’m talking to this girl – not really – she’s
just talking and
I’m not needed but to reflect it back at her
at my friends’ apartment
at my friends’ party.

So this cat walks in the door and she really
starts to exist
all over the place.
And everyone’s drunk
and doesn’t notice
and the girl in front of me says she always wanted to be
a nurse
so her major is communications
or art history.
I don’t care.

So Brian comes down the stairs and I know
he’s broken something.
A drawer.
A desk.
A door.
Probably all that
and more.
I know because
I know him and
he knows me.
He knows I don’t care about the radio painter
and I know when he has big eyes
and a half smile
something wooden
met his foot shortly before becoming
splinters.
He’s a lit cig between his lips and laughs as
the girls on the lease yell.
Relax, Hep-Cat,
He says to them,
Life goes on.
And he foxtrots outside snapping
thumbs
the whole Kerouac way.

So Sasser sees this chick who’s really existing
all over the pace
and roars to hug the old friend
and slices his hand as it goes through
the inside window of the
inside door.

Wow, Daddio,
Yells Robert in the silence,
The sound of glass breaking
is really
Distinctive.

This Time I'll Get It Right

2007-07-28T03:24:00.000-04:00

She’s in pictures, I think,
I said, The still ones.

Anything major? Neil asked.

No, no, nothing I’ve ever seen printed, at least.
It seemed to me that there were only
two types alive
here.

The ugly ones and
the models
and
even most of the models could easily be
mistaken
which tells me one thing;
that
Daddy has
way too much money.

Still, though,
the models are horrid
beneath their skin.
As are the ugly ones (who are not by physicality),
but they from scorn
and
envy
and
neither can understand that pretty clothes
and
pretty purses
and
pretty easy life
in
pretty pictures
do Not
make for a pretty girl
be it
ink
skin
or heart.

Cake on the makeup, sweetheart,
baby, beautiful because you’re still the same cat
when you go to sleep.

Bang bang snap. You’re immortalized in this.

I'll find that one sane girl. That one who
I can trust
and believe in.
Chances are good I already have
because I know someone who has them all beat.
both inside & out.

It's in the Details

2007-07-20T03:26:00.000-04:00

There are specific things I see
when looking at a girl
which
stand
out
more than others.
These are not the most obvious physical manifestations
that girls try so hard to draw attention
to and from
like waves on the beach,
but
the way they do just that.

I follow the map she lays out,
but
consciously,
stopping at each predetermined point
only to turn
and
look back
so as to evaluate the path traveled.
How I arrived at this juncture.

I notice things like her demeanor –
the way she leans against the bar
with her left hip in a sine curve.
Her reactions to the music.
To the boys trying to pick her up.
To her friends.
To the bartender when
he makes a drink special.
How her eyes roll at a lame joke –
always to the upper left with a half-smile
on the same side.
How she laughs.
So full.
So rich.
Chocolate pudding in droves escaping by the cup full.

The advice of a man long since forgotten
flashes through my head.

“WHO ARE WE IF WE TAKE NO ACTION?”

Nothing.

“WE ARE DEFINED BY OUR ACTIONS.”
I think, or inactions.

A man can be measured by his thoughts,
this is true,
but
can only be defined by
how he puts said thoughts to use.
If he does at all.

See: Christopher (n.); a man of many words
(debatable),
few actions
and
an equal number of rewards to match.

She’s in protected airspace
and I,
sans wingman,
am against all odds.
Vegas is livid.
Any money put down against me
is bound to be less
at the take.
We’re talking 1:1/4.

More like 1:0.

BUT
who is a man who makes no action?
Would it count as a blaze of glory
if I can’t squeeze off a single shot?

The wolves.
Oh,
Indeed
the wolves circle.
They don’t even bother
disguising their presence.
It’s just that sure
the kill would be made.
That’s the level of confidence.
The psych.

Or is it already made?
If a man takes no steps to the pack
is he already dead?
Ended by his own inaction?
Listed by sloth?
Friendly fire.

From his own gun.

Does that qualify a kill
for the pack?
Like a plea of
NO CONFIDENCE.
Or guilt
by association.
Idle feet never move forward.

But they never move backward.

Or do they?
Like the wrong way
on the down escalator –
if feet aren’t moving
then
eventually the end
will be met.
That is no way to live life.

And already a competing force is engaged
in solo dog fight with her,
his wingman
successfully dancing
with both her bogies.
Shootin’ and scootin’
like an ace
with twenty stamps on fuselage.
They’ve tired
and retired.
Their guns fallen silent.

My only hope is that
she puts him to the ground
or he starves for fuel.
Vegas is on the phone again. Yeah, no dice.

This is another one of those times
I’ll look back upon
with distain.
Yeah,
no.
I know.
I’ll justify it
to myself,
but
still feel hatred
for not only doing nothing,
but
for justifying it,
too.

Live life with no regrets, right?
But live to fight another day?
The secret is to find the balance
of both.

Holy shit.

The solo rumbler has broken off.
If only her pack would split
for a few minutes,
but
I think, yes,
there’s a new one.
Just when I get
the chance for a clean shot.
I can’t take
the two defensive aces,
a foreign bogey
AND
keep on her six long enough
to get tone.

But wait,
yes!
He’s off.
She’s not exactly open,
but
one friend is gone,
too.
Deep breath.
Line up.
Take the hint.

Collect yourself,
I say.
Who are we if we take no action?
Ok, afterburners on before you turn back,
I say.
Nothing.

I tap lightly
on her shoulder,
dropping a few bullets across her nose
and
pulling up on her seven-thirty.
Tracer rounds.
Just so she knows I’m here.

She takes a second to react
And
turns to look at me,
her face lit up
and
eyes big.
It’s the fake interest face
and damn it’s a good one.

Don’t get riled.
Keep calm.
Keep wits about.

“Are you from here?” I risk.
“Sometimes,”
she says back
looking at my eyes
with a little bit of
bounce.
I think the radio’s garbled –
a little shook up
from the last attacks.

She’s drunk.

My god,
that smile.

And she knows what she’s doing.

I parlay a new transmission,
But
with no effectiveness.
She points past me
as a group of boys pull in
on my ten o’clock.

“That’s my boyfriend,” she says.
One of them looks at us
and
I wing over hard
and
make Gs
multitudinously.
Time to get out.
Flak’s going off everywhere.
I wasn’t counting on ground support.

I extend a hand
and shake it
with whom I learn rather quickly is “Clayton.”
I know it’s a lie,
but
she wins the match.
There is no answer
to that.
I turn back to her
and
mumble something
in a vain attempt to restart my engine
and get out of this flat spin.
Pulling the ejection seat,
the canopy blows open
and
I’m out.

Who am I if I take no action?
Just another floating soul.
And do I regret making futile steps? Not really.

I parachute through the door
and to the gas station
for quart of malt liquor.
“Long time no see,” I tell the attendant,
“What’s new?”
I’m not really interested,
but
he’s a fine man
and
I’ll not rob him pleasantries.
“I fell in love,”
he says.
Well,
no
shit.
“I just got shot down by the same thing,”
I reply.

Another man
now making his purchase
looks at me.
He is large,
early middle aged,
and
soft spoken.

“Hey, man,”
he starts,
“No matter how bad it ever gets
I always think highly of myself.
No matter what.
If I can’t tell myself that much
how can I ever expect to do anything else?”
I hold a solemn face to him
and nod.
He puts his hand
on his chest, “All that matters,”
he tells me,
“Is what you think in here.”
“Thank you,” I tell him
and
turn to exit.

The sign on the automatic door says, “KEEP MOVING.” Well, I’m working on it.
I really am.

A Pox.

2007-07-15T21:13:00.000-04:00

I.

God damn me. This plague of the one lettered word.

This unending war.

A siege upon me brought forth by

you-know who.

Yours truly.

A man should never try to jump class or clique,

No matter how hard he tried

he will always know he does not

belong.

However opaque he is

in reality

he shall forever feel transparent.

An open book.

An outsider. An imposter.

The new rich.

A pox upon the man who attempts to

jump class or clique. For this

is through no fault but his own.

A pox upon the man who does not understand

by now

that he is the same person

he always has been

and will continue to be.

His beliefs

&

tastes

&

Actions

solidified in concrete.

"I was here" carved into the sidewalks of his soul.

"I AM here."

A pox upon the man who is not satiated

knowing who he is.

A pox upon the man who thinks he can bring himself to some different world

and be accepted.

A pox upon the man who does.

A pox upon the man who gives up

who he is.

A POX UPON ME FOR WANTING TO BE THAT MAN.

Bring down the fire.

A crown upon the man who can find happiness.

For we are all at war.

All besieged

for the same thing.

That one same subjective thing.

At least I hope we are.

I KNOW I AM.

Someone needs to take up the search.

This time I'll get it right.

The End of the World

2007-07-08T01:09:00.000-04:00

“Why up here?”
she asks.

“Just a few more steps,”
I tell her.
“You’ll see.”

“Well, why me?” she asks.

The door swings open.
Thunder smashes and the sky
shatters.
Blue black shards rain down.
We
dive to avoid them.
Dodging drops like mortar shells.

We reach the edge and
sit.
She dangles her feet off cliffs
teeter tottering with her toes.

A freight train de-rails.
Tornados follow the grid streets.
Avenues funneling to center city.
They weave by rooftops and through
taxis.
The people down there running.
She’s still shaking her toes and
swinging her feet and
leaning against my arm.

The incarnation of God in a traffic light
in traffic life
completely ignored. Torn off
foundation.
The wind pushes her hair
into my face.
Yarn everywhere.
And I, Raggedy Andy. The feeling of walking
through a spider web encompassing
my body.
Emancipating it.

Earthquakes open fissures and cracks.
The day-old volcano, spewing its innards
has changed from a calm flow to
rage. Every building in its way
razed to the ground.

A black puff strikes the ground and sends itself
everywhere.
“Look,” I say,
“The clouds have started falling,” and point
to the blast site where what used to be
a sky scraper crumbles.
Concrete renders back to dust.

“Ashes to ashes,” she says.
The symphony plays on
each meteor the applause.
Craters, the standing ovation.

“Why is it when we
don’t understand all we do
is build something taller?” she asks
and looks up at me.
“It’s for a better
vantage point. So we can see beyond
the problem,” I tell her.

“And on to the next one,” she says as
the ground shakes more.
A tornado passes in front of us. She
waves like a friend in a car. It keeps
on path. Could have sworn
it waved back.
Water is filling the streets.
Someone left their hose on.
The water bill’s going to be
a bitch
this month.

I start laughing. There’s a guy
in a row boat below us. He seems
focus. Centered. Collected.
“Hey,” I cup my hands and yell
down to him, “What are you doing?”

He turns his head to our feet and yells
back.
“This mail has to get through,” he shouts, “Rain,
sleet, snow, or
the
New
Testament,
we’ll get it there no matter what.”
The Postal Service.

The girl yells down to him,
“Nothing can stop you, but Sundays!”
“God damn right,” he laughs back,
“Holidays, too!”
“I think that’s already happened,” I mumble to her
as he grabs the oars and rows forth.

I wrap an arm around her while
the power lines in the distance
the high-tension wires
separate with sparks.
The clouds continue raining themselves,
punching neat holes through the billowing smoke
pouring out of fires like distress signals.
She keeps swinging her legs
like a toddler
in a shopping cart.

The calendars are all
destroyed.
That’s what this is about.
Destroying measurements.
The end of precision.
The New Age.
No one can mark this as a holiday
if they know not what day it is.

We weave our fingers together
like the funnel clouds.
Another lightning bolt
explodes
across the sky
and coils around the light show.
The dancing ions.
Her dancing toes.
The city is dropping to the ground
or the world is growing up.
Depends on how
you look at Armageddon.

How insignificant this all seems.

The raindrops are splattering around us.
Our hands still intertwined.
Her hair still webbing across my face.
The water now halfway up the building.
The windows shattered like the sky.
The sunset on the horizon.

She kicks her feet.

She drops her head into my neck.
Her soft skin.
The ground shakes
and I cannot tell if it’s from
the thunder wrapping us
in its blanket
or if it’s another power line
or a cloud joining the party.

That’s all Armageddon is –
just everything wanting to be
in the same place.
The same point
at once.
Pangaea, but with
existence instead
of land.

The same as when two
people are too far apart when
only skin to skin.
It’s so beautiful.
And I just don’t know what’s going on.
And I don’t care.

The people who care – they’re the ones running
fleeing
fighting
scared.
Looking over their shoulders.
Trying to find the high ground.
Finding cover.

I’m happy here. I can feel
the rain
how hard it drops and flows
on my arms.
I’m happy here. I can feel
the noise
how it compresses my body
and releases me just as fast.
The lightning painting the world
before wiping it clean for
a different bolt to have a shot.
That’s true equality. True
freedom.

A piece of sky cuts through the rock ledge next to me leaving
jagged edged remains.
Her green eyes. Her red hair. Her soft skin.
Her sweet half-smile (the one she makes
when she thinks no one is looking).

I pull her to her feet,
but I don’t have to.
She floats there anyway.

“What?” she says softly
a bed of pillows flowing out from
her lips.

I kiss her

as more sky falls around us. As the rain
and tornados weave to avoid us.
The clouds open holes that we pass through as they continue
they barrage on the ground.
The wind starts swirling us in circles.
Light peaks through cracks
in the now devastated dome above us.

And there
on top of these ruins
we slowly start dancing.
Separated from the chaos everywhere else
we dance
and the world forgets us

because it understands that

the two of us
dancing here

are not building something taller.

We’re making our own
Armageddon.

Some thoughts recorded in the water underneath a bar

2007-07-04T16:30:00.000-04:00

This world has changed.
It’s become different to me.
The same world, true, in physicality, but
a new description.
A new abstract.
A new summary.

I’ve learned to read the simulacra map
and keep a conscious eye on the movements of people.
The colors of flowers.
Their hue is no longer simply purple.
Or red.
Or yellow.

The sunrise tulip opens at dust and reveals
a menagerie of flavors. I can taste the orange peel center.
I can hear its red church bells.
Sugar stigmata.
It’s like being on acid,
but aware of it.

No longer does the lens of my camera capture an image.
It shows the act and gesture.
The film plays a song hummed.
This black and white playground in a full spectrum of color.
Living,
but vivid.
Pictures are not beautiful because of how they’re taken
anymore.
It’s what the picture is of that inspires me.

Conflict arises in my mind when I think of what I saw
before my pupils perceived such ingress.
I feel as an imposter -
a plebian in the world of kings
trying hard not to be found out.

The girls glance past, never knowing what I’m seeing.
Assigning words and sounds to each movement.
Each article of clothing.
Her moonlight silver cover and charcoal yarn tango together.
They lambada.
And her back-against-the-wall slippers,
her Cinderella-with-a-credit-card glass.
Her last chance for happiness with an APR bumper sticker.

A wave rolls through her body. Each
cell twisting and flexing,
It begins to rise in her toes
moving cautiously, but
vigorously
through calves.
Re-energized at the knees with a bend and thrust
“Forward we must march!”
Climbing Iwo Jima hips with fury and prowess.
I can see the beginning of the peak somewhere
deep
within the salt flats
until finally…
Yes!
A crest!
The breakers show. Whitewater revealed
at her tectonic collision.
Crashing, a lion’s roar. A freight train de-railed. The storm surge. Bikini Atoll. Hiroshima.
I grab a hold as the tube turns back on itself and ride to
soft sands ahead.
Lips Eyes Lashes Brows
until pushing up the beach.
That last chance for glory!
Her yarn spreads; a wild match. No rules, just a firecracker spread in the sky.
Gravity kicks in as if it forgot it was there and
the advance slows. Crawls. The evolution of man.
Small to big to small again.
I cling to the edge of some yarn and whip
full arc around until I’m back at her toes.
I can see the bubbles forming.
Just barely popping at the surface.
Here we go!

I’m not serving truth by the ladle
or revolting against “the man.”
I’m not here to open her eyes.
My wish, my fantasy;
to be the vessel to her next dawn.
Less the boatman than the boat across Styx
(not the 80s band, though).
My one gift to give.
The next batch of vision.
The new bubbles.
The Devil’s advocate that forced upon us Renaissance.
To ferry souls across the river
and never leave it myself.

Limbo,
but

with a purpose.

This…
This truly is a good life

and I am thankful for it.

Proverbial, I Am Not

2007-07-02T13:26:00.000-04:00

I.
count my eggs before they hatch.
put my pants on both legs at once.
am not the exception to the rule.
am not the exception that makes the rule.

I.
do not have 20/20 hindsight.
do not make lemonade.
am ignorant with no bliss.
am not the life of the party.

I.
dwell in the past.
make the worst of things.
measure once and never cut.
use every cliché in the book.

I.
do not help people help themselves.
am not the change I wish to see.
am not corrupted by absolute power
am quieter in actions than in words.

I.
am more contradicted and confused than the bible.
am imperfectly happy.
am blown neither in nor out of proportion.
neither shit nor get off the pot.

I.
do not call a spade a spade (or anything else for that matter).
look gift horses in the mouth.
have a dull pen and a sharp sword
do not grow fonder with absence.

I.
will not live to fight another day.
have thin blood. thinner than water.
am neither damned if I do nor damned if I don’t
am neither certain of death nor taxes.

I.
do not take an eye for an eye, but both at once.
do not do as the Romans.
do not keep an ace in any hole
am neither fair in love nor war.

I.
count everything that glitters as gold
am through another and have yet to see that dollar.
behold no beauty
am neither safe nor sorry.

I.
will forever curse the darkness and never light a candle
do as I say and won’t tell you anything different.
meet up with good and quickly at the bar every night.
repeat history, then forget about it.

I.
began life at birth. Not forty.
beat dead horses (at least in a race).
mind everyone’s business
hate company when I’m miserable.

Money can’t buy me love,
but it can buy everything I need to get it.

I am imperfectly happy.

The Last True Tragedy

2007-06-28T01:10:00.001-04:00

Katie Shirley died yesterday.
I hadn’t spoken to her in over a decade.
The cars drove up the street.
Coming by spades.

And

Lined the neighborhood. People
Entered. People left. Each one

Crying.

The high school opened its doors.
High summer & post-graduation
The kids filled in.

Crying.

There were five girls.
Five driving. Laughing. Singing.
Looking forward to the future.
Nervous as all hell, but ready.

Happy.

The town bleeds. Each and every
Last person spilling life into the
Street. Every one of us

Dead.

Mr. Shirley paced up and down
His driveway this morning
Head in hands.
His only child will
Never return home. He, only

Crying.

Mom broke down. She could
Not keep it together. All she
Could think – I’m sure – is what
Would it be like if it was one of hers.

Crying.

The town was silent today. The
Shock. The fear. The horrible
Thought.
Katie was never my friend. She’d
Lived across the street. She was
five years behind me, but

Happy.

The town bleeds today. As one.
And though I cannot help but feel
This that every one of us does, the
Only real change that truly occurs
In my life is that Katie Shirley
No longer is.

Katie Shirley was.

Yet, I bleed with her.

The Theme Song of 40th

2007-06-26T16:24:00.001-04:00

everyone's telling me that
we need to start changing things
if we don't start changing things then we'll be left behind
that it's starting with me
why aren’t the people telling me this
doing anything

who decided that i have to start this
it wasn't a choice given to me
why do i have to set the standard now

what kind of standard did those before me set
that i now have to fix

again those not responsible have been blamed
and are left to clean up the mess
because those before me can’t
be the responsibility they think
i should have

everyone's telling me that
i deserve
an expensive car
a huge home
a hot wife
a pampered life
these things will make me happy
they say

and i can get them all
for nine ninety nine a minute
these are the same people telling me to change things
and not doing anything themselves

well i say store bought happiness is naught but mediocrity
and complacency
well i say that’s no way to live
it’s all in the details, anyway
what did i do to deserve all this
this gift
how did i earn the better life they’re selling

is it the law of the land
that the next generation is in charge
of fixing what the ones before fucked up

the plight of my age is apathy.
from the days of ninja turtles
g.i. joe
doug
and the rest of the Saturday morning cartoons
(back when they were worth waking up for)
we’ve been consistently fed
that we need to do the right thing
that one person can change the world
that knowledge is half the battle

and
now
now we’re old enough
to start seeing how much of that
actually exists
we realize we’ve been lied to
that the world is not ours for the taking
for the changing
that we can’t all be astronauts

well i say i don’t have to fight
who they want me to
they’re not my enemy
I’m not the one who pissed them off
and violence begets violence but
at least this time
we have hope

hope that we won’t pass on our enemies
to our children
like some genetic phage
this is their war
let them fight it themselves
they dug their own grave
make sure they don’t fall into it
because i’m not going get dragged in it with them

so we just sit around
most of us not even
noticing anything
the rest of us
in philosopher’s circles
and we always end up in the same conclusion
there is no right answer

and the good guys don’t win
even if we can figure out who they are
shredder still caused trouble
and
cobra commander was never captured

instead of ending this great evil
(subsequently then the cartoon and cash flow)
donatello just got bigger muscles
joe got X-TREME
doug signed a contract with disney

i was happy with what we had
now there’s too much for anyone to handle

just be the best person you can
she says
well i’m trying to be
i hope i’m doing well
because the only morality i can measure myself against anymore is
whether or not i’ll give my life to save april
or if i hold the door for patty mayonnaise

my biggest fear
however
is what happens to the kids
growing up
X-TREME

i’m thankful
everyday
for the apathy we have
it might be the only thing left
that can stop the next great war

well i say
we should teach that in schools
instead of
prayer

well i say
apathy is hope
because at least this way
we have a chance

instead of only good intentions

but who am i to know
i never made a dime in my life
and even
if i did
i doubt i deserved any better

what it is to Be.

2007-06-25T13:13:00.001-04:00

She is

Stunning.
is
Beyond stunning.

She is

B r e a t h t a k i n g

to the point where
i spell it out.

She is

so beautiful
it Depresses me
because
i’m Supposed to
be a writer

and

can’t
think up any words
that can even
draw Tangent
to
her.

if that makes Any sense.

She has

that brown
Red
hair.

She has

that light skin
(that kind you can
fall into like a
bed of pillows and blankets)

She has

that perfect Smile.
Not excited
Not close-lipped
Reserved and Concise.
the kind of smile you
can find the Truth of Man in.

She wears

hoop earrings
But
not the big kind.
these ones are Classy.

She is

Outgoing.
in a way that i Want to be outgoing.
she was the First to say
her name (“Hi, I’m Ashley.”)
and to shake my hand.

She makes me

want to Please her
and keep Kissing her
and learn how to Cook
and speak Intelligently
and say Manly things
like couch (not sofa)
so as
to please her in More ways
than sex.

She is

“Engaged,”
jen says.

why is it everyone
is suddenly
Engaged?
or Married?

what happened to
twentysomething?

what happened to
Years of fun
and being Ready to marry
once you find the right one?
(and you Know it’s the right one
Because you searched through
the Rest? high school doesn’t
count. college doesn’t count.
only in Real Life
does anything
count.)

can i feel Old
here
at
twenty-two
and Past my time
if there is no Ring on my finger
and
no Grey hair growing?

where did the Search go?

perhaps I should
dye my scalp.
Encircle my finger
with the next
girl.
shape myself to the
Puzzle Piece
needed for the hole
i feel the need to
fill.
and complete the
Picture.

that’s True rebellion
These Days;
Not getting Married
before you vote two
presidents (and Lose).
and after you learn
how to Stop
talking religion
over a Cigarette and
a Beer.
and capitalizing words
you think should be important
in Crappy poetry.

we still cannot Save Ourselves.

my little sister
is Nineteen
and getting Married
in the coming five weeks.
unless my parents can
find a way to
stop her.

her fiancé is not
even a citizen.
but if she’s Happy
that’s another point
for the Loosing Team.

my older sister is
furious. “you’re just Mad
because she’s
getting hitched
First,” i tell her.

“no,” she says, “no.
when
i do it
i’ll do it
Right.” Right. by “Right”
she means
Expensive.
because
she’s the Expert
or so she thinks.
not even my Parents
can say that.

their marriage worked
on the First shot.

“let people
Repent
at their own
leisure,”
my dad says.

maybe
i need to go
into things
Looking for
a wife.

Fuck it.
i’ll stay Existential
for now.

i hope ashley is Happy.
i mean
That.

i light a cigarette
and drink this beer
and think about
god
and think about
how my guy
Lost the last election

And

of All this

i
am

Sure.

Untitled

2007-06-20T22:58:00.000-04:00

These 3 am nights are wearing me thin. I’m not up these early hours because I’m out with friends or trying to make enough pennies-on-the-hour to eat. There’s no reason for this, so don’t expect to find one. That’s exactly why I do it.

Hanging from a tree branch in some tattooed and spidered willow, leaves slinking just enough to massage the ground, I can find clarity. We’re not talking the kind of enlightenment from a book, a lecture. Not the click that happens when you finally get derivatives. No, my friends, this is not the light bulb being referenced.

This is the kind of clarity that grows from a runner’s high. From a streetlight dying in a puff of halogen just above as you walk underneath. From a tree trunk that, since ’76, has professed the love of J. K. plus M. L. Around the corner and only fifteen years ago Tim was here. I can feel his ghost in my bones. It’s ironic – Tim’s probably pushing forty, yet his likely still beating heart can lend his spirit, or his thoughts, or his outline, to linger here. Just below Tim, a promise carved. A part of me hopes it’s still held true. A promise is a promise, even if Dane is smoking chronic everyday. The legally binding contract of a Swiss Army knife meeting bark. The auspicious, superstitious tattoo of forever.

The clouds are low – maybe not but a stone’s throw up – and gaining speed as they race bats and fireflies and airliners to who knows where. Let them. The city’s light pollution has turned them white with a rum splash of sobriety, but none of this matters because in here time is frozen. It’s stopped by the joined hands of J. K. and M. L. By Tim on his branch. Dane’s blunt.

The wind’s picking up and it shakes the ghosts out of me. A shot of purity from carbon monoxide air. Rustling leaves give way to an empty parking lot. About half a mile away Campus Police are going at least fifty in a thirty. Maybe they joined in the race going on above me. Let them.

I’m not inside this tree for some subconscious safety blanket, although my old Intro to Psych professor would argue otherwise. The coffee house comments on my work aren’t my main focus anymore. Maybe I’m here to find some peace. Some clarity. Smart people call it enlightenment. I don’t. I wonder at which college they lecture English Lit Two. Kafka and Milton in graves on these professors’ desks waiting for the next generation of new insight. Let them. Just please don’t keep these long dead authors up. It’s late.

If I knew what I was looking for, I’d probably not be here. I’d be out searching for whatever it is. If I knew what I was looking for, I’d probably have at least an idea of where to find it.

That doesn’t matter because while I’m in this record of history on a vine, Campus Police have decided that the Civic doing no more than forty around the bend needs a ticket. That, however, is in another time. Not mine.

Myself

2007-06-13T00:39:00.001-04:00

I find myself in small bars again. I'm not a "crowd" person or, for that matter, even a "scene" person. As I open a pocket notebook and form shapes to ideas, the bar keep watches me. She is her late twenties, maybe early thirties, and overweight. Her soft face is surrounded in thin blonde hair that screams for attention to the new 'do. She never saw herself working this job for the rest of her life and eyes me. The guy next to me sneezes a good six times and I say, "Bless you," to each one without looking up. He, not unexpectedly, says nothing in return. People are scared of writers. They know not what you write about and fear it may be them in an unfavorable light. I do my best to write only the truth I see. Down the bar, two older women are playing Megatouch.

"Don't you remember when they taught us to spell," one says, "Together is To-Get-Her." I quickly consider it as one of those signs from God telling me I should return to the last place I was where the girl I want to love is surrounded by friends sending happy birthday salutations, show her how close together and to get her are related and to do both. As soon as the idea enters my head and arhythmiates my heart it leaves and I return to my overtly intrinsic self.

Thinking about her world and friends I come to understand, yet again, that I both do not and shall not belong to that clique. You can't change someone's mind, no matter how hard you want to. My heart is big so when I fall I fall hard. The echoes reverberate for miles on end when I hit bottom, which seems to be pretty often. I draw on my pint for purity. For peace. For wishes and things to never happen and so it is that I start exacerbating endless possibilities, dreams, thoughts. The bar has cleared by quarter to midnight and I can feel the burning orbs of the keep on me.

"I just got engaged a few weeks ago," she says displaying the rock on her hand. I ask if he's the right one and she replies affirmatively.

"I believe it."

"I had to kiss a lot of frogs before I found him," she tells me. I consider whether or not the girl has kissed enough frogs, or any at all. The keep pushes a glass of Yukon Jack in front of me and says it looks like I need it, on the house. She saw me mouthing Billy Joel, I guess.

"Who broke your heart?" She asks.

"Who didn't?" I reply. She nods understandingly.

"Do you think she'll ever see how good of a guy you are?" She asks. I drink the glass in as many gulps and look to her.

"She knows I'm a nice guy," I answer, "And there's the rub. Last place and shit, you know?" She smiles at me and pats my hand softly.

"She'll come around one of these decades," she says. I take a moment to consider whether she means the girl in my mind or someone I've yet to meet miles down the road.

"I don't want to spend my life waiting," I say and put back the remnants of my beer which she quickly refills without a word. I drop dollars on the bar and she pushes them back in my direction.

"A peace offering," she starts, "From my kind to yours."

"Women to men?" I ask, "Doesn't seem like much will come from it. Doctor Phil has the cornerstone of that market," I try to squeeze out a crappy joke.

"From women to the good guys," she says, "We need people like you." I accept the gesture and understand that this treaty is not honored outside the two of us, let alone these walls. I take a deep breath and allow my eyes to wander around the room.

"I'd walk with my people if I could find them," I tell her. She just smiles.

"We're all lost. Just some of us less lost than others," she tells me while walking to the end of the counter and looking to the TV. I finish the gift and drop some singles on the counter, nodding thanks to her.

"Where are you going? To find your people?" She asks as I make steps to the door, "Or to find the girl?" I push the gate open and lean back.

"I have to find myself first," I say and dive into the night. So I am going to do just that and I am going to try and be myself right now.

All Of My Days

2007-06-12T23:37:00.000-04:00

“I don’t care. I make more money than he can ever dream about,” Big Cat said. Big Cat was really Kyle Strubell, a frat brother of my best friend. He told me this with a crooked, drunken smile wiping across his face shortly after I told him a guy had complained to the bouncer about his antics. Shortly before that he was pole dancing with a pool cue and being his obnoxious self. Big Cat has no relevance to this story. And it is here, though ab ovo, quite also in medias res, that I recant both my story and my sins.

We were in Oxford’s on Monroe Ave, an upper class post-college age hang out where the drinks came in highball glasses. The kind of place you look out of place not holding a Heineken or Corona, with lime, of course. Popped collars and sweater vests ruled with an iron fist. The kind of place where the girls are attractive and out of your league because the other guys are already talking to them. These are the types of girls who go out sans boyfriend with their other relationship-bound friends and make you think they’re single and looking for a good time. Buy them a drink and you’ll soon find out that there’s a waiting line to put it in front of them. They eat it up. They love it. Frankly, it’s probably the only thing they eat.

I was drinking Guinness, wearing a blank black t-shirt and jeans that had worn through both knees enough to nearly qualify for shorts. I refuse to become what I don’t like. That is not to say I don’t like people in the aforementioned fashion, it’s just that I don’t like most of them. Big Cat was part of that clique. His girlfriend was also here. She was a sweet girl with a great body and a borderline butter face. That’s mean...she’s a little ways from butter face, but I wouldn’t qualify it as that hot. Opinions are like assholes…

Either way, the standard group of guys, plus Big Cat and his girlfriend Meg, were spending some quality time huddled together around the pool table playing armchair quarterback. It had occurred to be earlier in the evening that your caliber of person in places like this are qualified by your clothing line, your bottom line, and your debit card. It used to be checkbook, but honestly, no one my age writes checks. I’m not even all that sure where my checkbook is, but I have yet to leave home with out my plastic. It had also occurred to me that while my friends, and good friends they are, can meander their way into the crowds surrounding us, blending in quite well, I am unable to do so. My five-forty-five, three-to-a-pack short sleeved shirt is easy to spot simply for its lacking collar which – by the way – seems to cost the clothing makers at least an additional ten dollars per shirt to retail. Call it a nod to originality. I was at least partially proud that I didn’t look exactly like the rest of the patronage.

I sipped my beer and noticed a table of four attractive girls sitting close by – Three blondes and a red head. I wondered if they ostracized the red haired one for looking different. If they looked up to her for her difference. Who was in charge of that pack? My mind quickly conjured up ideas of them walking into the bar with prowess and power of a conquistador and taking a table from whom they deemed lesser women so they could sit and rest after a long battle from the car to the bar.

I must have been staring, or gawking, or simply zoning out in their direction because once my eyes snapped back from focusing on infinity I caught four sets of eyes trying to burn a hole in my chest as if to say, “My boyfriend is bigger and richer than you so back off. You want this. You can’t have it.” Truth be told.

Quickly I looked away and felt the fires subside. Brian Mooney and Big Cat had taken up Big Buck Hunter and were on a Montana safari trying to take down ten pointers with a plastic pump action twelve gauge. I leaned up against the wall and went motionless, trying to chameleon in with the wood at my back, feeling the least bit like one of those montages in a movie where the camera pans in on the kid in the middle of everything, frozen while the world moves around him in a blur. I was deaf to everything but the music playing in my head. Catching myself mouthing the lyrics to said song I fought the urge to continue a breathless confession that met nothing with the beat.

The group had moved on to a different corner and continued the process of making no conversation with the simple nod to each other mimicking the complexities of modern language. It’s a weird conflagration of norms and morays in these bars. We are told in so many words to return to primitive states and minimize communications to grunts and head bobs, but then told to not act on instincts to club a girl over the head and mate with her in a cave. A confusing world within a world, all dictated by social directives forcing us back to nature and then punishing us for it.

Thoughts like this continued in my head, being forced in with the pound of every bass beat from the subwoofer next to me that pushed my body with each pulse. That’s one thing I can be thankful for – the low range sound waves force your body to move and recover in a fashion that matches its pattern. You’re not dancing, but it looks remotely like it.

A napkin hit me in the shoulder and after picking it up at my feet I looked to see where it had come from only to find the sirens’ table waving me over. I knew I should have resisted by simply looking away or moving to a different corner, but sirens are sirens. That’s the point isn’t it? We can’t hold back from their calls until we hit the rocks and sink, their laughter bubbling down through the waves. I smiled at them and dropped my eyes to gather myself for the impending death that lay ahead; their boyfriends, the rocks.

A tap on my shoulder, that same shoulder which had been battered with a ball of paper, forced my head up to meet eyes with one of the blondes from the table who had left the nest behind to come within inches of me. They were hollow and polished, surrounded by a serving of glitter. I supposed the glitter was to make up for her shell of a face by pushing more flash and glam. Besides, it was easy to tell she liked shiny things.

“Come join us,” she yelled into my ear not making any attempt at introductions or gestures to just exactly who ‘us’ was.

“Why?” I shouted back. She looked at me confusingly. Why, she wondered, would a guy not want to sit and be seen with the pride of lionesses who thusly held deed to every male in the establishment? I could see the gears grinding in her head and waited patiently, expectantly, for steam to whistle out her ears. In fact, I even chuckled a bit to myself at the thought of it. She took a deep breath, thought for a second and put her lips back to my ear.

“Come join us,” she said again, proud that she had come up with a response at all. I couldn’t stand to question her again, fearful that I could have been held accountable for her head exploding. Oh well, points for effort, I guess.

“Okay,” I answered. She smiled and tossed her hair around; still proud of herself in thinking she had outwitted me. Then turned to the table and walked ten feet to her seat and adjoining Bacardi Razz and Coke. Following her at arm’s length, Big Cat’s justification of his actions went through my head. Innocence in bank accounts. Guilt in dollar bills. How did we get to here? By now I had stopped and put my hand to chin and thought about it quietly.

About as soon as I realized the pause in steps I looked up to see Mooney in all his awkward drunkenness shaking over the table I was to be assimilating to. Big Cat’s arm on his back, pulling him in as close as Mooney would let him. Kyle was known for trying to pick up girls for Mooney who was, by all accounts including his own, socially challenged. This was no small phenomena. In fact, I’m nearly completely sure it was the glue that brought our faction together. The red head started hitting Big Cat on the arm to get him away, but he just stayed there yelling things like, “Ladies, he’s a really great guy. And he has a twelve inch cock. You know you want to see that.” I smiled both to myself and on my face. It was a Strubell thing to say. Mooney eventually broke away and the girls fended off the advances Big Cat was making for him until Kyle turned away and went back to pole dancing between shots.

I now considered whether or not I should continue this fruitless journey. Not only would I have to deal with inside jokes and demeanor, but now the situation would warrant an explanation of my friends’ actions. Oh sure, I could just disavow them, but for what? They were my friends and I was not ashamed. Besides, they were good entertainment and in our finer moments, fine philosophers. We were banded together by our both mutual and individual quality of being “that guy.” And being “that guy” sucks.

After sipping down some more beer for no other reason than to put me within two gulps of needing a fresh one, I took a deep breath and looked at the floor. I could see my path laid out like one of those dancing mats where the left and right footprints are marked with arrows showing you how to trip over yourself. It’s nothing but another means to the same end for me. This mat didn’t show only where to place each foot on the floor, but the exact point that I would place my foot in my mouth. My feet hit the last prints I and entered firing range, preparing for the onslaught.

The sirens stopped chatting after a few seconds after my arrival and looked up to me. Rather than dealing with an annoyed or judgmental, “Can I help you?” or “Yes?” I cut in first.

“You dropped this,” I said confidently, putting the napkin on the table and unsure of who to reference. It was one of those high school stage moments where every other bulb in the theater died, save the spotlight blinding me and following me wherever I went.

“Keep it. What’s your name?” the blonde asked - the same one who had walked over to set the hook in my mouth as I stuffed the paper in my back pocket and forgot about it.

“Christopher,” My answer bleak and direct. If I can keep it concise I may have a chance of escaping without much humiliation, I thought. The blonde paused, as if waiting for me to ask hers – something I, frankly, didn’t care to know. She looked at me, still waiting for something that I wasn’t planning on asking. The red head rang in next.

“Pull up a seat. Don’t worry, we won’t bite,” she said.

“I’m good right now, but thank you,” I answered, lying through my teeth. My feet were killing me from standing all night. Also, the mambo, or waltz, or whatever it was I did on my way to this place. Take that as existential as it can be.

“Fair enough,” she said with a little confusion in her voice, “So, Christopher, how are you?”

“I’m doing alright. Yourself?” I said.

“I’m fine,” the red head answered, “Not a man of many words are you?” The other three laughed a bit to themselves. That was okay because I was now looking dead on into the eyes of the red head with a straight face and finding myself getting challenged on my own ground. She quickly looked away from me at the rest of the pride who instantly stopped their laughter.

“If I say something I mean it,” I told her a bit stoically. Then, “Why did you want me here?”

“What makes you think I was the one who wanted you here?” She demanded. I shifted my weight to the other foot, letting blood flow fresh and new to my now aching right leg.

“Because that napkin,” I said, “had your lipstick shade on it. Seeing as the rest of the assembly here has the same shade of yellow red on, it must have been the one you used. That purple shit you have on. Not many people would go out of their way to get a different one.”

“Okay,” she said while searching for a response. She opened her mouth to speak, but I broke in first.

“Listen, I’m going to get some fresh air. If you come up with some better conversation – or any conversation for that matter – you’ll know where to find me.” The words came out of my mouth sternly. I emptied my beer and put the glass down hard on the table. Then, “By the way that yellow shit would look better on you. Purple lipstick makes a girl look skank.” I walked past Mooney who now looked like he was having a spasm with Meg and pulled his arm while yelling that we needed to go smoke. He, being drunk, followed vehemently.

I rolled my pack out of my shirt sleeve, grabbed two smokes, and put it back in its holding place. Pulling out my Zippo and setting the sticks ablaze while I walked through the door, I turned to watch Mooney stumble through the threshold and on the street.

“Yo, gimmie one of those,” he slurred out as I put one in his hand.

“I’m out of here, chief,” I said, pulling out my keys and turning for my motorcycle. The red head came through the door and walked over to me sitting on my chariot.

“What? You’re leaving?” she asked.

“And your point is what exactly? Who do you think you are?” I said. Mooney leaned close to me.

“Dude, shut up. She’s hot,” he whispered to me.

“Look, sorry I was a bitch. I like you. I’m used to getting hit on non-stop,” she started.

“So what?” I said, “And how do you ‘like’ me already? We’ve yet to hold a conversation worthy of the word, so go back in there and let someone hit on you. I don’t care,” then to Mooney, “Kid, I’m out of here,” I started the bike, “I’m game to meet up later if you want, but I’m going for a ride right now.” The girl just looked shocked. I didn’t care. I didn’t want anything to do with her or her friends.

“Well pimps up, hos down, son. We’re hittin' d-rocks around two or so,” he said as I donned my helmet. D-rocks was our term of endearment for Denny’s in Victor, the place we had spent most of our latter teenage years, but now with the smoking ban in all buildings in the state and what with us being over twenty-one, bars had become the new refuge.

“Deal,” I replied while finishing my smoke and tossing it to the gutter, “I’ll be there at two-thirty. Damn you’re white,” to the girl, “If you want to meet up later that’s fine, but I’m done with this place tonight. Talk to the white guy over here.” With that I dropped the bike into first and lay hard on the throttle burning up Monroe Ave until I picked up the expressway and swung for the lake. I knew Mooney would tell her where to go. He wouldn’t pass up the opportunity to try and get with her friends even though he had no game and knew I had a proclivity to red heads.

The stagnant summer air was tough to bear, but now free winded on the bike it rushed pass with a steady tone that blended well with the sound of the motor as I leaned into turns and wove through traffic to cut off 590 and towards Lakeshore Boulevard. I ran clean through the gears and coasted into a gas station before stalling through first to stop. Walking in, I picked up a new pack and filled the tank before pushing on to the Charlotte parking lot. There weren’t any cops around, or at least I didn’t see any, so I took the bike on the boardwalk and down the pier. I dropped my helmet on the handle bars and sat down at the edge. Lighting a cigarette I felt my phone vibrate and opened it to find a text message from Mooney:

I KNO UR AT THE LAKE. FIRE CROTCH SAYS CHECK THE NAPKIN. D ROX @ 2. WERE LEAVIN NOW.

I thought for a second about text message etiquette. I never liked the abbreviation system devised from lazy or limited skills in phone work. I don’t know, good grammar is sexy. Flipping my phone closed I took a deep drag on the smoke and let it out easy. The light above me swept across the sky in gentle strokes, painting the horizon quickly and decisively before moving to the next block. Piece by piece it was absorbed by the darkness and faded away into nothingness. The waves crashed calmly against the rocks, massaging them with each iterance. Mooney knew I was at the lake because he knew I loved it here. I loved the peace.

I left Charlotte around one forty. It was a thirty minute ride from the lake to our haven just beneath the interstate, but knowing my friends were reliably late. And knowing Brian Mooney – in particular the state he was in – he would be making demands of a Roman Emperor; yelling things like “Let’s go to Lyell and pick up mad sluts” or insisting we “Re-enact the civil war!” Thus I allowed ample time that the burden of driving Mr. Mooney filter itself to nothing more than a need for smokes and when he went in the gas station to fulfill said need, he would invariably exit with a six pack, “for the ride,” he’d say in defiance of open container laws. He would then, with a speed not normally possessed by man nor beast, drink said six pack. Josh was driving and allowed neither smoking nor drinking in his car so when Mooney tried to get out of the car at a stop light to run to the gas station he was not entirely surprised to find that Josh had continued on once the light turned green. This was the nature of the call I received shortly before picking up route 104.

“Let me guess,” I started the soon to be one-sided conversation, “You’re at a gas station. Where?” This was not the first time it had happened.

“I’m…not sure,” he answered.

“What do you see?” I asked.

“I see, um, a couple of signs,” he said, “One says ‘Monroe Ave’ and the other says ‘Sunny Co.’ What the fuck is ‘Sunny Co.?’”

“I’ll be there in ten,” and hung up. Sunny Co. was the beer-goggled Sunoco sign on Monroe about three miles south of the bar. He was lucky I had my other helmet on the rack. I usually don’t keep it with the bike, but I was pretty sure I’d be driving someone home tonight so I brought it with me. Both my helmets were closed face, but Brian, ever the self-made man, still tried to smoke through it. I hate riding with drunk people on the back mostly because they either don’t lean into the turns or lean too much. It’s a constant battle of fine tuning to get yourself in sync with them, rather than the other way around.

Sometime around quarter past two we arrived at Denny’s and since Josh is a cross between a Sunday driver and an old man too short to see over the wheel when he drives, we pulled in first by a minute or two. I parked the bike, like usual, on the sidewalk. People get pissed at you for doing that. It’s stupid, I know, but after having enough cars back into it in a spot you start exploring alternatives. They’re just jealous from having too many wheels.

Sarah, our usual attending late night waitress, showed us to a booth and asked if we needed menus. Brian demanded beer and Sarah reminded him that Denny’s doesn’t have a liquor license.

“Still?!” he yelled, slamming the table with his fists. No one cared because no one was here. This place was hit harder than most by the smoking ban. It used to be you’d come here at two in the morning and have to wait for a seat in the smoking section. Now the place was lucky to have two tables at one time. I reached into my back pocket to pull out a piece of paper – I often write these things down to remind myself of them later – and felt the napkin. Looking at Brian thoughtfully engaging in a metaphysical conversation with the dessert menu, I remembered the text message he’d sent me earlier and opened the napkin. A phone number was scribbled on it. I assumed it was the red head’s. Brian leaned hard on my shoulder.

“You got some slut’s number?” He shouted, partially from his excitement and partially because he had no control over his voice.

“I didn’t ask for it. It kind of just hit me,” I told him.

“Stupid broad,” he mumbled.

The door opened and I looked up from my coffee, but couldn’t tell who was coming in. We were around the corner and out of view. Sarah walked up from asking how many. I heard pieces of a girl’s voice asking for a kid who looked wasted and something about another with a motorcycle. I’d parked on the other side of the building tonight in case any vengeful Victor high school kids with Dad’s car and a night license came through with a couple of feet to the pipes.

“Hold on, let me check,” Sarah said. She walked to the far side of the diner, and then back toward us. She leaned to me and said, “There’s three girls up there looking for someone that meets your description,” then looking at Mooney who was trying to establish that he was here in his breath on the window, “and he’s not too easy to hide in a crowd right now. Let alone an empty diner. What do you want me to do?” I pondered this a moment. I figured I’d tap Brian and make him aware of what’s going on to get at least part of the vulgarities out of the way.

“MAD SLUTS!” He exclaimed when I told him. Looking at Sarah, I told her she could let them know we were here now that Mooney had gotten that out of his system. The girls came toward our booth as I coiled myself around my coffee, leaning into the table with the cup at eye level and an elbow propping up my arm. I sipped it, breathed in the smell, and looked up from it. Josh started whispering.

"Where are they going to sit?” He asked. I shrugged and slurred out that ‘I don’t know’ sound that ends up being no more than a vocal inflection. We had often tried the three-a-side booth and it doesn’t work. Even with two in each seat and a chair at the end it was uncomfortable. That was the downside of going to Denny’s with more than four people – someone always ended up back on the elementary school bus like they got there late. You had to go looking for a spot with only one kid in it. If you couldn’t find one you had to walk up to someone and say, “three-to-a-seat.” And you felt like an asshole. And you sat with half your ass off the seat. And half your body in the aisle. And you got in everyone’s way. And we treasured our booths above all things but our coffee at Denny’s. Thus our crowd divided into separate gangs when making a d-rocks run. There was a set group of people you called first before jumping territory. That’s not to say we weren’t all good friends, but there were three people you always called before the rest when going to Denny’s. These girls were not in the group.

The red head lead the pack again. As Sarah led them to the table across from our booth I had a chance to study her. She wore tight boot-cut blue jeans over heeled black boots. Her hips swayed side to side, but with a feeling of doubt, like she was trying to impress someone with her walk. Only, without being sure it was working. It was, but only superficially. Her low-ride waist line was loosely supported with a large leather black belt. There was no way she was without a thong under there. Her deep red crew necked shirt and adjoining black tank top beneath etched out the great plains of her waist through the Rockies of her breasts and back to the neck of the Pacific. A map of the country laid out on a female figure. Her slightly sub-shoulder length hair matched her shirt in it’s depth a rich tone and masked part of her heart shaped face until she brushed it away with the delicacy only a women possesses to give way to burning green eyes.

The two blondes followed in time, clutching their purses with demonic strength and matching foot by foot as brigadiers. Sarah tabled the three menus and asked for a drink order.

“Coffee for all three,” I said into my cup. The trio looked at me, then to Sarah, nodding in agreement. Sarah turned to me and smiled.

“She’s cute,” she said, “Why’d you drag her here?”

“They came on their own accord,” I whispered back, “They just knew how to follow my bread crumb trail.”

“Did you even leave one?” She asked.

“The only trail I leave is of cigarette butts,” I replied. Josh looked at me, then to Mooney who was now growing in anger to see his proclamation of locale was fading, then to Sarah, and shrugged. She refilled our coffee mugs. I tried to explain to Brian the principle of evaporation, but gave in soon after and took to drinking coffee. Josh broke in first.

“Why do we even go to places like that? I can’t hear. I can’t see. I can’t speak,” he said.

“So you’re the three monkeys? Hear no evil and whatnot,” I said, “Look at it this way – at least you’re still innocent.” Mooney began sobering up partially on account of the coffee I’d been egregiously feeding him and partially from his inhuman liver. He snapped in the moment, albeit still slightly above standard conversation volume.

“You’re honestly telling me people can gain innocence in a bar?” He demanded.

“No,” I replied, “For starters, that was too loud to be a bar. Secondly, I never said you can gain innocence in a bar. Only maintain it. That’s not a guarantee that everyone will.” I caught Troupe Beverly Hills out of the corner of my eye. They seemed to be listening in on our philosophizing. I continued, “I’m only saying that if you want to, it’s possible to keep some kind of self respect about yourself.”

“Wonderful repartee,” Josh said sarcastically. One of the blondes decided her opinion mattered and began voicing it to us.

“What the fuck are you guys talking about? Honestly, this late night diner banter of yours isn’t impressing anyone,” she stated as if proud of herself for getting a word in. Josh looked at me, trying to tell me to hold it in. Mooney punched my leg.

“Don’t do it,” he said to me. Mooney is one of the few people I’ve met that can see what I’m going to say before I do so. He can read me well enough to know when I’m going to let loose on someone. Verbal assault is a crime, right?

“Listen, chuckles,” I started. Brian put his head in hand and Josh turned away, “I don’t know who you think you are, but my colleagues and I are trying to have a civilized discussion about why we don’t like the places where you hang out. This isn’t a talk radio show and we’re not accepting calls at this time. Now I don’t know if you consider yourself Dante or Virgil, but in either case your snide and obviously well developed criticism isn’t leading us to paradise so if you could do me a favor and keep your hands and arms inside the car and – probably most importantly – if you could keep your mouth shut at all times I’d really appreciate it. Don’t worry, we can find our way out of inferno on our own, but much obliged for your input. And even if we don’t, and we get stuck going deeper and deeper until we find Lucifer himself, beating his great wings and chewing on the three traitors at least we’ll know the worst spots are already taken and that’s hope. However miniscule it is, it’s still hope. At least we know the way back to limbo. So long as you can hold your tongue until the check comes I think we’ll be on good terms, that is, unless you have something to add.” Brian broke down laughing.

“Ouch,” Josh said half sarcastically.

“God damn it. I need a cigarette,” I said before the blonde could respond and got out of my seat, rolling the pack out of my sleeve. Sarah must have heard me because she ran out saying to give her a second so she can join in. I told her I’d meet her out there and made my way to the door. Lighting it as I walked through the vestibule I felt my body relax once again and leaned against the outside wall. Expelling the smoke from my lungs, I watched it, as I often do, swirl and rise in the calm air.

“Everything’s trying to climb to heaven,” I thought out loud, “Can it really be so good?”

“Heaven is eternal bliss. You can do anything you want,” I soft voice said behind me. The girl had come outside alone and in lighting her smoke decided to join the my argument with myself, “It’s perfect happiness.” I thought about this for a second.

“So there’s no freedom in heaven?” I asked, “Because for me to be perfectly happy I can’t be able to choose anything that would make me less than just that, ergo my life is nothing but the will of something else. The will of whoever defines said bliss.” Sarah came out at the end of my sentence and after taking one look at the girl’s face told her I was always like this. I took no offense. It was true. My mind wandered and began conjuring up questions of why most of those TV ER drama chick docs always had the same 80’s perm and why I look up at street lights dying to wonder how I get so lucky as to watch it happen.

“What’s your name?” I asked the girl, still without having looked up to her. I wondered that, too.

“Holly,” she answered. I tossed the butt away to places unknown and thought about what would happen to it. In my head a time lapse movie of it blowing around and being covered with snow and rotting and blowing around some more played. The life span of a cigarette butt is not unlike that of a human. The spark starts it and passionate fires burn until there is no more fuel, or until it is crushed, followed by getting kicked aside and decomposing in society for the better two thirds of existence until finally turning into dust.

“Well, Holly,” I said as she finished hers and doomed it to another season of waste, “Let’s head back in. I wonder how your friends are faring against Denny’s coffee.” She nodded in agreement. I held the door for both women outside and followed them in. The mouthy blonde turned and began to voice her something to add.

“You’re an asshole!” She started, “You judge us just on looks and think you know our whole life story. Well fuck you.”

“No,” I said calmly, “I judge you on your actions. If that makes me an asshole then so be it. Stereotypes exist for a reason. You go to bars and clubs to dance and shake your shit around and try and get as many guys as possible to salivate over you, then dump them five minutes after the free drink comes through. Off to find the next one. At the end of it all you go home and bitch to your boyfriend about something he honestly doesn’t care about because he’s way too in to Xbox. But no, that’s not it. Sometimes a girl’s just gotta go out and dance, right?” I leaned over and got my face half a foot from hers. My eyes locked dead on hers, “Nobody puts baby in the corner.” I winked at her and slid into my seat. Brian was laughing again. Josh chuckled a little to himself, trying to hold it back best he could. Even Holly and the quiet blonde let out a little. I just sipped my coffee.

“Your friends are assholes, too!” She screamed. Gulping my coffee back, I put down the mug and looked back at her.

“Have they said anything to you?” I asked.

“No.” She said confidently.

“Then you’re judging them on appearance,” I said, “I judged you on your actions. That makes you a bitch.” Her eyes got wide and rage pulsed through her body like a fire at the Triangle Shirt Factory. Her fists clenched so tight I thought she might draw blood. Finally after a few breaths she calmly asked me a question.

“What do you have against me?” She asked with a little more than serenity.

“Nothing,” I said, “I mean you’re a bitch, but that’s your deal. I don’t have anything to hold against you. I don’t know you. You’re probably very likable once past that heartless outer shell. Then again you could be just an even more heinous bitch, but who am I to know that?” Josh smiled.

“This is how Chris makes friends,” he said to everyone. Sarah came around and refilled the cups. I just smiled and said thanks. Mooney, now just shy of completely sober yawned hard. Only the depressant effects of alcohol remained inside him and the caffeine was losing like the French in most every war. For sale, french rifle. Never fired and only dropped twice. Pretty soon the Vichy government would open shop in his blood stream and bring sleep to his whole body. Josh, too, was getting tired. He offered to give Brian a ride, who duly accepted. I elected to stay, still having enough energy to believe in the democratic rule of my body. They said their goodbyes, dropped fare on the table and left. I leaned back and began writing the nights events thus forth on a piece napkin.

“Why are you ignoring me?” Holly asked.

“I’m not ignoring you,” I said, “That implies intention. I’m not obsessing over you, if that’s what you mean, because I’m not that kind of person. At least, not while you’re around.” The quiet friend spoke up.

“Hey, um…why didn’t you call her? I mean, she, like, literally threw her phone number at you and stuff,” she said in a high pitched, but not squeaky voice. I mulled it over a minute.

“I didn’t call her because I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to call anyone, and because if she was really that interested she should have tried being herself and not her bar-self.” I answered definitively. “So what do you think of all this?” I asked the quiet blonde.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean,” I said, “You haven’t said word nor whisper at all tonight and now you ask me a question which tells me that you don’t say something unless you genuinely want to know. And so I ask you, what is your opinion?”

“I think you should have called her,” she answered.

“You don’t want to be here right now, do you?” I asked in a tone reflecting that I already knew the answer.

“No,” she said, shyly, “but I’m their ride and they’re my friends.”

“I’ve a lot of respect for that,” I told her, “I’ll not keep you.” Finishing my coffee, I stood up and dropped a few dollars on the table, enough to cover my share and the girls’, plus tip. Looking at the girls, “Enjoy the rest of your coffee. It’s on me.” Then I turned and walked without looking back. I caught Sarah on the way out and told her I’d taken care of the girls. Swinging around behind the building, I threw my leg over the bike, my cigarette into the mulch, and sat a minute trying to rationalize why I left three attractive women who followed me. Why I always try to leave. It’s okay.

With that I kick started my iron horse, donned helmet and drove home, only to pass out and start the day a new. Now, in a different and familiar bar, I can scribe this.

I know now that I am Virgil, bound to guide you to the Promised Land, to Paradiso, but banished from stepping foot into it once we get there.

Fun at Twenty-Two

2007-06-12T20:21:00.001-04:00

i gotta find those fucking tums,
i said
dig dig digging around my closet.
i had blamed their disappearance
on the last girl but just because i was mad

through the cigarette smoke I hear
my cell phone chime.
and hate its existence along with
all things modern. It dings
and i become aware of
a new text message.

And I know who I want it to be from
And I know I hate her
(only for what she’s done to me
though).
Lousy bitch.

i open the phone to find some deep
thought displayed on
the screen.
and think about the price of rent.
and the price of happiness.
I just realized that the last
summer
i was single was 1998,
It said. Live
it up,
I answered

Wrong girl. Wrong time
to be talking to me about
relationships. God damn this
heartburn.
I put on socks. The a/c is working
but I’m still sneaking
smokes inside. My roommate
wouldn’t like the idea, but
fuck him.
He eats
three-quarters of the
grocery bill
anyway.

And sleeps on the
couch every night.
His room has a tv in it
too,
you know.

Lousy bitch.
I close the phone and think
about how the girl (the
first one)
broke the news to me.
She didn’t.

An old Cadillac drives
down the road spitting
smoke
and
flame
from the tailpipe.

I think about that Sunday
night
Monday morning
when she lied to my face while
we stood next to her
ex’s car
in her driveway.

i think about her reason
for not living like she
wasn’t in a relationship
(and how for
the entirety of the past week
or so she’d said she wasn’t
and didn’t want one).
I’m engaged, she said.
Huh, I grunted in that
surprised-but-in-thought
fashion.

would you do anything
for
the person you love?
she’d asked me.
Loaded question.
Lousy bitch.

i smoke another
cigarette and put it out in to
an empty bottle of red stripe.
i’d go outside
but the mosquitoes
it’s feeding time.
and put the red stripe back into the
empty case.

and equated my life
to that bottle
and to that case.
man, I just wanted
to spend a little more
comfort with you.

I need to find those
fucking tums.

Lousy bitch.