Wednesday, December 31, 2008

The Secret Confessions of a Lying No-Good


What would you say to me if you knew it was the last time you would ever see me?  Would your words be any different?  Probably not.

There comes a point when you wake up and think to yourself, "how did I get this far?"  It doesn't matter how 'far' you actually are.  You could be broke, on the street, the question still remains... with everything that could go wrong, with no discernable difference between a stitched up corpse and a living human, it makes you wonder... with every particle in the universe, randomly bumping around, why is it that the ones that make up me... well... make up the person who I refer to as "me" at all?

And then there's the question of time.  After all, every moment we are conscious, every moment we can think and drink and fuck, is borrowed time, a gift.  We never made a conscious decision to exist, and it is an easy thing to rectify.  So why is it that we go on, living a life we never asked to be given?

The best I've ever come up with is merely "because."  Some people live to please their respective gods.  I would never take that away from them but I just don't get it.  Others live to please their families.  I can understand that-- my family is the only thing that keeps me pushing forward sometimes.  But still... how many people live life because they sincerely want to?  

Or an even more difficult question: what would that entail?  What would it look like to live your life because you want to?  Would it be egoism-- living life in order to make yourself happy, in order to ensure your own predispositions never become encumbered?  Would it be selfishness?  Sadly, I think that would exactly be the purest form of living.  To look at the world as a playground, a sand box for you to mold into your own image, to play god if you will and simply just... exist to exist and to force your existence on the world.

Sounds unethical somehow, but why?  Why is it that if I trick a person into giving me something I need, I'm a horrible person?  Why is it that if I manipulate my environment to be exactly what I want it to be, I'm an opportunistic, a selfish person with no values?  

Couldn't it be that I'm just human?


Monday, December 29, 2008

Flesh



it must be told the words
  forgotten lost in the ether
and beginning again, sight
 unheard of, repeating

again i hear the voices 
 whispering, their ghostly tongue
licking and biting and clawing
 and my scars their freedom

i have escaped and see again,
 these words must be told
again until the ending
 has been carved out
bled out, stretched across

scratch and breaking i 
 want to be born from
the lips of those that read
 these words that i have
forced my way into this 
 place this dawning
burning i can hear them
 looking for me

i am the voice you hear
 only in dreams
i am the inexplicable marks
 upon your body

i am you


Sunday, December 21, 2008

The End: The Beginning



"You know, she's the only one that doesn't know you are madly in love with her."


He laughed as he continued to work away on the new contracts, the ambient sound of distant telephones and watercooler debates at the edge of his senses.  His concentration, at least to those looking at him, seemed focused directly on the papers in front of his nose.  However, the mention of Eve had almost immediately distracted him.  Images of her close to him floated in his mind; he could hear the sound of her voice beckoning to him; he could imagine the wrinkle of her nose whenever she was disgusted or confused.


"So, when are you going to make your move?"


Adam looked up from his desk at his co-worker, Dave.  His eyebrows slanted and he tilted his head to the side, mocking a curious puppy.  "And what exact move would that be?  Would it be the one in which I completely disregard the fact that she's dating my boss?  Or the one where I jeopardize a friendship that has supported me for years by being a brute and forcing myself on her?"


Dave rolled his eyes and walked away.  The gesture was the same as he always gave: worthless.


He looked over.  And there she was, the woman he loved and could never admit.  She smiled at him, walked past into her office.


"Wuss," came from the cubicle next to him.  


Without looking up, Adam shook his head at himself.  "Shutup," he muttered under his breath as he continued to try to focus his attention on his work.


***

Finally finished, Adam felt a sense of accomplishment as he slipped the papers into his laptop bag, preparing them for transcription.  He leaned back in his chair, smiling, happy with himself.  Before he could feel too good, however, Dave popped up from over the cubicle wall.


"What you waiting for?"


"The end of the day.  The ticking of the clock.  Check-out time."


"That's not what I meant.  I mean, you've been with this girl countless times."


"In the office.  I've had meetings with her in the office."


"You think boss-man doesn't bag the secretary in his office?"


He hated to say it but he had a point.  There really was no statute of limitations for those who were willing to be bold.  


"Do you really think it prudent to ask the secretary out when she's being..." he swallowed hard, grimaced, "'bagged' by the boss-man?"


"Dude, do you really think that's going to last?"


"Regardless, she's not available."


"As if you care."


Adam looked at his co-worker, shrugged his shoulders.  "Well, the little angel on my shoulder does."


"That's your problem.  You are going to wait until the world comes to an end just to try to take what you want."


"How long have you been in the cubicle beside me?"


"Five years.  But that's hardly the point."


"The point is the world doesn't automatically open up just because you want it to.  Be realistic."


"Well, I'm sure you'll get everything you want.  Waiting for it until the very end."


Adam shrugged.  He looked at the clock and a very great thing happened: it turned to closing-time.


****


Adam wandered into the apartment, shoulders shrugged.  A cat meowed in the distance.


"Hey, Mew-Mew."


The black cat ran up to him and slammed his head into Adam's ankles.   Adam bent down to pet the feline, at which point the mood suddenly turned and the cat bit him hard.  Adam tried shaking the creature off, but the harder he struggled, the deeper the fangs dug into his flesh.  Finally, flicking his hands violently, the cat ran off.


"Freak," Adam mumbled under his breath before sitting down with his laptop.  As he did so, the entire apartment began to shake.  Dust fell from the ceilings.  Adam seemed to not notice and just took it in stride as the subway above his apartment rattled it to its core. 


After working for hours on the paper, he fell asleep with his laptop resting on him.  A tiny bit of drool dripped down from the corners of his lips.  He was brought awake to a woman's scream, which, upon hearing, he lunged awake, eyes wide and ready for danger.  The screams echoed again.  Adam grabbed a baseball bat and ran for the door until he heard, through the screams, he heard the word 'yes' repeated again and again.  


He dropped the baseball bat, sighed audibly.  He rubbed his temples, looked at the clock, whose bright red letters announced the time as three in the morning.  


"At least someone's getting something."


Adam plopped on the couch and turned on the tv.  He cranked the volume up just loud enough to drown out the sounds of tortured ecstacy coming from the neighbors.  On the television, a man in a nice suit stood next to a graphic depiction of a barren earth.  The graphics underneath him announced him as "A Pompous Jerk".  At least, that's the name that Adam automatically assumed.


"It has been clear for years now that if these systems are not put in place in a timely manner, the world as we know it will be unrecognizable in as little as thirty years."


"Isn't that nice?"  responded Adam.


"It is nice. Very nice."


Adam did a double-take looking at the television.


"Just as nice as the fact that, by the time the world is unrecognizable, you still will be 'playing the waiting game' with Eve." 


"Excuse me?"


"Come off it, man."


"Shouldn't you... not... be able to talk to me through the TV?"


"Everyone can see how you feel about her."


"Or I guess you can."


"The thing about waiting for things to happen is you can wait until there's nothing left."


Adam shook his head, closed his eyes tightly.  He looked at the television again.  The graphic under the man's name read "Dr. Thomas Aguile: Ecologist/Philosopher".  The man was turned to the graphic display of a doomed earth.

"The effects may be reversed, but not without a strong determination to alternative fuels..."

The voice drowned into the background.  Adam rubbed his eyes tightly and fell asleep... not aware that when he would awake, he would be the last man on earth.

Saturday, December 13, 2008

Confessions

A friend once told me, of my flaws, "it means you've lived your life."  I wish that I could honestly believe that.  Looking back, it feels more like I've let something slip past me without realizing it, like I missed the street I was supposed to have been on and have been wandering ever since.  It is a strange feeling, not knowing what exactly it means to live your life.  Does it mean admitting things that you are scared to admit?  I'm usually good at that.  Hell, I'm good at admitting things that I not only am scared to admit but probably scared for good reason-- not all things need to be confessed.  


I've just finished The Heroin Diaries; reminds me very much of Will O' The Wisp.  I do not classify myself as a junkie by any stretch of the imagination, but for some reason I can relate to these people.  Replace drugs with a general fear of myself; replace debauchery with a feeling sometimes that I only recently woke up, as if I was asleep for a long time or even someone else, possessed... 

I sometimes worry about myself.  Sure, everybody has a bit of darkness in them... but I worry that I nurture my own black tar; while I'm relatively clean by most standards, I still have my addictions, and one of them is to hide myself away in a little cabin, and I'm not terribly sure why I do it.  I feel like I've walled myself up and am beating against the walls, desperate to tear them down even though I built them for myself.  

Confession?  The thought should be funny to me.  Whenever I confess, I end up showing certain sides of me, selective... deliberate.  There is something false about that type of confession.  Every time I confess or ramble on about what's going inside me, I feel like it is never enough... I want to show people what it feels like, I want them to taste it, I want them to possess me for a moment, standing in my shoes and seeing the world filtered through my lens.  

Is that even possible?  

I certainly try.  I can't help it.  But there are just some things I can't confess, and it feels very much like the world just keeps on turning, the opportunity for expressing those things vanishing into the distance.  

I've talked much with a friend about what it means to be a writer.  We jokingly agree that a writer is a soul that very much so complicates every relationship he or she has.  Someone who is difficult to love not because they don't have it in their heart, or are incapable of it, but because there is constantly a struggle between telling stories that make people smile in the darkest of times... and telling the stories of those dark times that cast shadows on the ground.  I want to tell both... but the thing about shadows is that you find yourself looking into them too deeply.  

Is it a confession that I hate myself?  Hell, you only have to talk to me for a short while and you can see it, oozing out my pores.  Why do I do that to myself?  I'm a walking contradiction... I love life and everyone who has made their way into mine, but if I could love myself as I love others... I could be capable of so much.  Instead, I avoid reflective surfaces; instead I daydream about what it would be like to not wake up at all.  

It is no accident, I think, that depression and drug addiction go so hand in hand.  Depression is an addiction in itself.  One day, you come to some dark conclusion, and a part of you wallows in it.  It repeats itself; you hug it tight as if you are a child with a teddy bear.  The flesh starts to bleed and you enjoy it.  So you go about it again.  You look in the mirror, and you spit.  A part of you laughs and a part of you hurts, but the part that hurts is having as much fun as the part that laughs.  Because there is a masochist tendency to the depressed.  Hurting themselves, putting themselves in positions that they should never find themselves in, contemplating thoughts that no healthy person should think...

But for all this, I feel at least vindicated that I have fought constantly against these shadows.  I look back at my life just a few years ago, when I was wrapped in shadows so deep that I doubt anyone could actually see me... not that I think anyone truly sees me now either, but I couldn't see what was happening.  I acted badly, hurt those very close to me.  Annoyed those who were not so close.  And blamed everyone else for the disgust I felt for myself.  

To say that I'm better would be a lie.  I still walk that dark road from time to time and have the scars to prove it.  But when I think of all the things that hurt me, they don't have the same affect they used to.  Instead of thinking that some outside force has taken away everything I've wanted in life, I've finally refused to be stupid enough to think that any more.  I'm to blame for the life I've built for myself, and whenever I feel a lack it is because I've been either too scared or too weak to grab whatever I need for myself.  

I remember when I was around five years old or so, I'd stare blankly into nothingness and just... feel overwhelmed by it.  I'd look into a shadow and feel so damn empty and pitiful and I remember just bursting into tears over it.  In retrospect, that's a fucked up thing for a kid to be doing.  Shouldn't I have been playing baseball or something?  

Why am I confessing this?  Because I have devoted myself to purging these emotions.  Instead of just... giving in and trying to hurt myself as badly as I can just so I can feel like I've survived something, I, as of this moment, will admit: I want to actually make my friend's comment, that I've lived my life, truth.  

It is a scary thought for me.  It means, to a certain degree, silence... because in all honesty, what spews from my mouth when I talk to much is usually an attempt to connect, to admit of all the dark little streets inside me, in the hopes that someone will just turn to me and turn on a light.  It is still a romantic idea-- someone willing to be my light.  

But I gotta be my own damn light if I'm going to get any sort of positive attention anyway.  

So... looking at my own predispositions... my first step is to learn how to be a storyteller that talks too much about the light... in the hopes that I can express life a lot more respectfully, not as dark alleyways in the rain, but more like New York City at night... neither light nor dark... I love this city for that... walk Times Square at night and you don't even realize it's night-time.  But it is.  

At least then I can feel like those I've lost over the years don't look down and shake their heads.  At least then I can feel like I've earned my family being proud of me.  At least then maybe I can start pausing for a second in front of reflective surfaces, and see myself.

Friday, December 12, 2008

Burn me away


The blood underneath my feet,
slips, so slippery... 


I look into those dead eyes, 
  staring back at me


like an eddy 
  eddy that twists and burns as it goes down
a fire, forgotten...


I, trapped behind walls
 bloodied by my beatings,
scream unheard, beat my chest,
scorch the ground beneath my feet


and in the conflagration only dead skin
 falling like rose pedals to the ground


I speak in ghosts
 and feel the calling to the end of days
laughter


haha


can I have your hand and you could lead me to forgotten lands
we could dance
our bare feet making little ripples


haha


in my cave, I stare at the shadows, 
  my friend Plato shakes his head at me
Fuck him.  Cunt of a man could never stop thinking
never stop praising the ever-pressing questions
 from his crippled old fuck of a master


thoughts burn the ends, the dendrites are fried
from the incessant meandering useless
inactive thoughts that recycle and cycle
and return and never let me alone
to succumb to silence
to be able, finally, with the smoke leaking from the barrel 
to be unable to think


to have peace


haha


too loud much too loud the thoughts
that keep me from living that keep me locked
in this cage...


and what do I do when I wake up from this dream?


haha


I think to myself...

Thursday, December 4, 2008

A Thought Between Friends

"Nice to see you, Dr. Brinton." 

It was the truth.  Certainly, many of the medical profession gave an air of morbidity about them, quite possibly a direct result of their most prominent associate: death.  Here, in my library, amongst the forgotten and remembered dead, I could easily relate.

"And to you."

It is often asked of me if I take any particular precedence to any of my clientelle.  Here, amongst the books and the dead, I have a hard time saying I prefer any one ghost to another.  However, this "ghost" looked particularly troubled tonight.

"Is there something wrong, Doctor?" I asked.  Of course, there was the obvious.  One thing about the medical profession is that, when one realizes that no medicine has been invented to cure the inevitable, no true "reverse entropy" pill, there is a frustrated scream that echoes throughout the heavens.  No, doctors are not the most quiet of ghosts.

"Nothing, my friend."  An awkward smile that we both knew was as much a lie as any that has ever been told.  

I decided not to press the matter.   "How can I help you today, doctor?"

"Could you tell me more about a poet named Neruda?"

I laughed.  "Dear Doctor, he came a bit after you.  How did you come across the romantic?"

The doctor smiled.  "Not all my interests relate to what happens to the flesh post mortem."

I didn't have the heart to tell him that was precisely what he was remembered for: his fascination with how victims of violence often became "frozen" in their death-position, as if time had frozen the flesh in its last act.  Romance, humanity... these were not things that came to the collective memory when his name came across, but rather sudden violent brain damage mostly through gunshots through the temples, and the reaction the body tended to have after being punished in such fashion.

"No, I suppose not," was all I said in response.  

I directed him to more books on the subject that seemed to suddenly peak his curiosity.  I looked as he wandered off toward the shelves, and felt a touch of guilt.  The thought that, when confronted with darkness, the soul automatically is irevocably touched by it... as if festering in the presence of death and destruction... such was a judgment that I thought I was too intelligent to make.  

I guess, when confronted with so much death and decay, a soul longs for something... a touch more poetic, a flower to light the dark.

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Chorus: Broken Voices

I brought the long haul down with me
 as I stared into your bloodsoaked eyes.
I brought the long haul down.

It came from beneath, surging up and took me,
 and I danced with the revery of a thousand
ingested fairies, digested by the beast,
 the beast that beckons when we close our eyes.

I have lived for a thousand years on hate alone
I brought the long haul down.
I lived and breathed with Zarathustra,
 who took us by surprise from his mountaintop.

And Cain came to me, blistering with
 whispers that the end was near,
It came from beneath, surging up
it was so near I could smell beetle-breath,
 breaking my will to continue, killing me
... and took me.

Time itself has always been and always will be
 linear, retroactive, past-defined and
future oriented.  I have seen the shore
 of our torched Earth; I have spoke
with demons that feast upon foetid corpses,
 and they have laughed at my tears,
and have been laughing since we saw them,
 so many years ago, in that cold dark place.

I have lost my way and am forlorn;
 I thought I had a grip, just to get a grip,
but I found myself alone and walking,
 between the mirrors, between surrender and dreams
the beast that becons when we close our eyes.

The world has faded, colors have dimmed
 and it is all we can do but see
I can see the forest for the trees
ingested fairies digested by the beast.
 They say that the prickly pear, prickly pear...

In the dawn of the end, the warmth that kills--
 our dying breath, that breaks
or so they say-- do they say?
 oh say can I see through and
between the mirrors, 
between surrender and dreams.

The light, the Word, the end of the world...
 I am the beginning and the end,
the light and the word...

Sunday, November 30, 2008

The First Checkout

The first things I noticed about him were that his voice was extremely raspy, and his gaze extremely commanding.  He walked up to me and I knew whatever his desire, I could not deny.  

"I desire, dear man, tomes concerning the rise and fall of King Richard."  

With a sigh, I recommended the Auchinleck manuscript, though I warned him of the missing leaves.  He seemed very grateful, but in the pursuit of completion, I also made mention of Andre Ernest Modeste Gretry's opera, Richard Coeur-de-Lion.  I further dropped the name of Eleanor Anne Porden for her poem, Coeur de Lion.  I hesitantly decided to perhaps allow him to find James Goldman on his own; I was uncertain how the man would react to the subject of King Richard as a homosexual.

Again, he seemed very grateful.  He moved with such slow assurance, there was an awkward pause in which I worried my help had not been thorough for him.  I often get that way amongst people who seem to demand respect by their presence: a dogged determination to be as thorough as possible, cursing every slight lapse of memory.  I am positive there were other tales I could have mentioned, but the old, tired man seemed content to start his search with the tomes I had advised.

He walked away for a moment, and then turned back to me.  His eyes seemed very sad; I could not help but feel a pang of pity for this old man.

"Do the tales portray me well?" he asked.  I was not sure how to respond.  His eyes begged that history had remembered him well; I felt my tongue self-censored when it came to his crusades.  Looking into those pitiful eyes, I had no doubt that the man's beliefs were sincere, and sincere but misguided beliefs are enough to spark pity in a man as weak as I am.

"Very well, sir," I partially lied.  After all, I felt I had done right to censor my tongue.  In his slow but deliberate movements, I had no doubt that he would catch me in this lie.  He moved as if he had all the time in the world.

"And what of the boy?"

I casually avoided his gaze.  I knew the boy he spoke of.  The child was referred to as "the ant that had slain the lion."  It is said that, after being shot in the shoulder by the boy, King Richard had the boy captured.  But the boy had told Richard that he was only acting in vengeance, for Richard had killed the boy's father and two brothers.  In an act of mercy, Richard had set the boy free, even granting him a monetary gift before sending him on his way.  

It is said that captain Mercadier had the boy skinned alive immediately after Richard's death.

I simply shook my head.  The sad eyes of Richard gazed at me, nodded in understanding, and then turned in the direction I had pointed him in.

He was the first to enter into my library.  And I immediately came to the conclusion that the dead must be sad indeed, especially to note that the living constantly question them.

With a sigh, I returned to my catalogue, and the repairs I had begun on some of the more desperate tomes of knowledge.  

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Observations in NYC


Words sometimes flow. Thoughts always do, that's for sure, but the words for them... sometimes there are only images, and the words act as descriptors, but these descriptions take time. I look out my window, at the pitch-black sky, the concrete of New York City lit in pools of light from street lights and cars... there's a certain charm to it. I understand the tendency to think of dark figures jumping from building to building in the darkest grips of night when I look out at such sights. I can also understand why the notorious Dark Knight's home is a fictional version of this city. There's something about the brown buildings with jet-black fire-escapes that seems inviting somehow. I can understand vigilantism and I can also understand crime. Everything seems so easily accessible in this city, the windows, the women, the drugs... it is the city where everything flows through whether it can make it through the channels or whether it will get clogged up and drown.


Which is, in essence, how I feel most of the time in this cruel mistress of a city.


I've always been fascinated by monsters though, so the fact that this city casts its many shadows intrigues me. Not that it is exactly a frightening place to stay-- hardly. I came here after everything has calmed down, and violence has been something that has, luckily, eluded me. I've seen a handful of disturbances, and I'm not sure how, but some of my friends have encountered more than I have. I find it funny that this scrawny white boy, stumbling through various spots of Harlem at various levels of light, in various levels of sobriety, has never encountered so much as a paper-cut.


Not that I'm complaining.


I'm not sure what fascinates me so much about the darker aspects of everything. I think that's why I'm so attracted to this city, this Gotham City. It doesn't bristle with palm trees, it doesn't cast sun-spots in your eyes on any but the warmest summer days, but I like that. There's a sadness here, a sense of loneliness, a sense of desperation everywhere, that for some reason I find rather beautiful.


I picture a lonely figure walking down these streets, perhaps wearing a dark overcoat, a thin trail of smoke slipping between his lips as he sucks on a cigarette. Street kids play around him, though the hour is much later than they should be out, but you know how kids are, especially in this fearless city. However, as he takes each step, he could not be further from his surroundings. Lost in his own world, he walks into dark alleyways, oblivious to any dangerous creatures that may be lurking there, in the shadows. The air is brisk and cold; the concrete has finally started to freshen up in the winter breeze.


He marches down a steep set of stairs leading to a basement apartment. The paint on the steps is chipped and rusty. The street lamps cast an eerie glow on the side of the walls, his figure casting funny little shadows as he walks down.


And into the belly of the beast he enters.


I've felt that way many times, going down into the subway. There's something about it that is like entering willingly into the mouth of some great dragon, especially at night. In the daytime, people enter into the city's orifice in such a casual way that it is hard to feel any drama, but at night, there's a certain oddity about descending into the city itself. The streets are dimly lit, but you walk down and the light shines up at you. The dirt and cracked tiles are the first thing you notice, and the juxtaposition of the white walls and the dirty brown subway tunnels themselves. Every now and then a rat smiles up at you, hoping that you have a kernel of something to drop to its lucky little maw.


There are, hidden in broad daylight, shops that clutter the streets that would be at home in another universe, perhaps where Lovecraft's monsters walk the earth. It isn't that they are of services that obscure-- a psychic here, a dominatrix there-- but rather that they just... seem so obscure in and of themselves, like the deep red paint in Soho that marks either a psychic's abode or a dominatrix studio (I haven't really decided which it is). And as you walk the city streets and come across a shop or a studio you never noticed before, it is easy to think how something arcane and obscure could easily be hidden in this city. For all we know, there is a store inside this city that sells articles that may lead to the end of times. A part of me would not find the idea far-fetched.