Avid: A Letter

I almost mailed a page from my journal today, I may still mail it; essentially written as a letter, torn from the binding, crinkling about with a rustic charm, it was one of the only pages I've written that has been so explicit as to actually bear the name of its intended audience at the top.

So... maybe I did write with the intention of sending. Maybe I was imagining the response it would receive... hoping it would be one along the lines of what I felt while writing it.

But when I finished, and when I looked at what inspired it... my confidence in my intentions faltered... was I trying to say something meaningful, or simply falling back on something that, now gone, I wish I had more than ever?

Was I expressing a true sentiment, one that would be mutually felt? Or was I imposing on something that followed its course when I was there and continued on without ever looking back once I left?

It's impossible to tell with these kinds of things, but when it's been several years since words were last exchanged... impossible is more of a jumping off point on the spectrum of predictability.

People change... I've felt it - in more ways than one. There are times when I look into a mirror and as soon as I leave the room I can't remember if I actually saw anyone looking back... and there are times when I look at pictures of things that were supposed to be memorable, yet are as possessing of memorability as the first three years of life: you know they happened, but you have no idea what it was like.

In some ways that may be a good thing... it leaves less room for painful memories... but it's pretty indiscriminate, because the good memories are gone too...

An holistic purging of years of one's life, and what's left but the husk of emotions that have hopefully shaped it for the better... it's--

"Oh great, he's been rambling for days and now he's probably going to pitch the movie."
"And what would be wrong with that? Isn't this right now the biggest reason why it is his favorite movie? Showing that even though some memories are brutally painful, it’s not worth getting rid of the good ones just to be free of them?”
“Yes yes yes, it’s all good in that sense, but for him I think it’s something different.”
“I wouldn’t be too quick to land on that conclusion, he lo-”
“Well I’ve already jumped and you’re just going to have to deal with it. What if -”
“I”m not playing this game, get over yoursel-”
“WHAT if, the memories that came before the ones he hypothetically erased, what if those are in fact the memories that truly make him happy?”

--like in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind when he realizes he wants to call off the procedure--

"I don't think he's realized where this is going yet."
"Surely not."
"But... he couldn't really feel that way? I mean it's been a long time."
"I know... but first impressions are... well, they're tricky."
"So you think he'll decide to go through with it, just live, forget, and love what has long since run it's course?"
"It may be a vestige of feelings that are no longer there, but he knows they were real when they happened, he has proof. That's all he needs."

--except...--

"There it is..."

--I don't fall to my knees, I don't beg for the procedure to stop. Instead I beg for the happiest moments I can remember to be forever emblazoned in golden pictures, blown to the size of building facades so that I'll always remember them--

"He's found it."

--There are some that may fall along the way, but what's left was so sublime to begin with, that having an aged view of it makes it shimmer all the more... so maybe I won't send the letter. Maybe I'll keep it as a testament to the love I still have for her, but only as a complete validation of how good things can be if I let them, as a reminder to not let my worst enemy always be--

"Yep."
"Well, I gotta say, you know him best."
"Oh, come on, you know I can't let you say that. We're on the same team here."
"God... it's weird though. Sometimes I just feel like I'm talking to--"

myself.

Avid: A Departure

Not far from here:

No - it's not too far from here at all, that day, a day I've been through before but under entirely different circumstances.

It's the jetting out of my life, and I'm excited. I can start for a second time without any loose ends, without anything pulling behind me.

It's kind of like a couple driving off in a limo with "Just Married" written on the back, but it's not, it's me driving a little car with "Just Me" written in big emphatic letters. A bumper sticker below it promising the world it's true.

Smiling; much more fun than pouting. Laughing; WAY better than sobbing. Excitement; infinitely more enjoyable to deal with than uncertainty.--

(It's with a smile)

"Kind of an unabashed look at the past wouldn't you say? Is he going to show any kind of discretion?"
"What do you mean discretion? He's not actually saying it is he?"
"No... but still, there's not much covering what he's talking about, you can't deny that."
"It's about as thin as a mosquito's wing, but who's to say that it even needs to be hidden?"
"I don't know, I just think it shows a lack of tact - he hasn't thought about that since... I can't even remember when, but bringing it up now just shows th-"
"Shows what? That he's still harping on it?"
"That's what it looks like to me."
"Then you and I are seeing two totally different pictures."
"How do you figure?"

(The dial turns)

--Push the postage to the courier and know
he'll get it to where it needs to go.

(The song changes)

--It was over before it began but where
did it go if it never made it home again?

(The wavelength finds its nocturne)

--And to whom is it owed if not once to the person
who wouldn't have ever thought it'd happen anyway?

(And all is left hanging from the hinges)

--And to the open roadway do the tires speed, vacationing from the unseen ends of green and trees towards living that's bound to be serene.--

(silence)

--So there it is: carefully sculpted upturned lips with naught but the hint of a sheer disposition to show their genesis.

Keeping Abeyance at Bay

These footsteps fringe the unseen manacles, make known the fetters between his wrists and ankles, crossed, making an "X" about his waist, moving in intersected unison only when they drop from their meticulous fronts. Lowered through the lumbar, he strains his muscles to escape this shackled barrage of mentally emphatic friction, but with each push sends spittle jaunting to the baking pavement, his lungs plashing with inhaled phlegm, rasping, gnashing, heaving through their tortured use. His sight is limited to the mountain's approaching crest, a view tunneled by the sheer scarcity of function in his eyes - his heart pumping a crude blend of vitriol and the golden-red blood of the mythological gods, making him at once both on the verge of bodily submission and existential triumph.

His quads begin to sear the underside of his skin, making each hair stand up from the simple wish to be left alone, reticent to be burnt out of its solitary stance as the single dominant resident of that unprepossessing follicle. Stricken with a waking form of rigor mortis, every step is a struggle merely to extend and contract, making the same labored shapes a thousand times more difficult; his breathing so spasmodic that he imagines he's inhaling the detrital breath before it has a chance to disperse and become the beautifully oxygenated inhalation that naturally comes next.

And then he's there. All at once the climb has reached its zenith, its paramount ascent akin to the precipitous rock face one sees at what could only be described as the end of the earth, its peak... unlike anything he's ever been so fortunate as to arrive at. The trees form the canopy of what appears to be a tunnel made exclusively for him, extending infinitely into the distance as an expanse of greens and browns, painted so richly that impasto pales in comparison with itself. The light pierces the leaves with such minute vastness that the space not filled with life is lit up in spears of gold... the air has a crispness about it such that each movement of limb is met with the eager reply of a gentle caress, leaving each and every hair on his body standing on end, but from a much different motive than before. As he breathes it in he experiences a feeling of blissful rejuvenation and knows what purpose the grueling climb before had served: to eliminate all traces of bodily contamination in full preparation for the perfection that lay ahead. No impurity deserves the honor sharing the same body with something of this worth...

And as he stands there basking in elation and wonder, something stirs the leaves around him... a swirling that takes place without even the semblance of a wind to inspire it. The atmosphere becomes nearly palpable, and as he feels the massive weight of an interminable aura enveloping his body, he hears in whispers an inaudible resonance, seemingly making its birth from within the trees themselves... yet... unthreateningly so... it is as if this world, this oasis of celestial brilliance, was sounding its gratitude for being given the chance to heal another injured soul...

Avid: A Dialogue

Waiting for inspiration to strike:

Described vicinity - surrounding desks, small gap for passing traffic,
unassuming hum from a myriad of electronic friends; computerized ecstasy in the form of plastic boxes pushed behind cabinets so as not to distract from the moneymaker: the eye into a soulless machine... I don't like to personify them, it gives me the creeps to think they have personalities. Kind of like some people you may meet. They have a name, a face, and a personable conduct, but to think that there's anything more than a mess of spitfire circuitry inside them is just weird.

I've been struck; I just caught onto it. It's like stopping in the middle
of a conversation to try like hell to figure out how you got
there.

"Wait. Why the hell are we talking about cave-aged cheese?"
"Well... the conversation started with me asking you why you got home
at at 3:00 AM this morning."
"Oh yeah!"

And we're enthralled to see where it goes from there. Or where it's been for that matter. The going and coming of flighty ideas, bubbles floating around waiting to be popped by an unwary needle.

Pop. No...

That's not what I was hoping to find, wh- no not this way again, not thi-- Oh come on! Why do you always have to act like such a fucking victim! You're-- NOT going down that road again... I don't want to remember any of that, at least not in a way that's so flippantly public.

Because yes - despite my personal reservations, I am writing for a public audience. Aren't we all?

Please broadcast me to millions and millions of potential viewers just to see how many change the channel.

"Disgusting isn't it?"
"Quite. So blatant. So uncouth and unrefined. It reeks of rusticity doesn't it?"

That's a new one.

And what the FUCK is going on up there? Not there - THERE, all that rumbling around in the ceiling. No seriously, it's like someone's moving a desk or something...

Bubble's gone. Should I pop another? Do I even need to? The aether from this one has worn off now, but I don't think a high like that should be had more than once--

What do you know about high? You've ne-- NOT going there.

Ugh... being distracted from your current distraction is a major killjoy...

Out of Tune

There is a resonance.
Like the shudder that trickles down your spine,
causing its prickles to extend as far as the tips of your fingers,
making known so very well the pins and needles
burning lightly in the recesses of your skin.
There is a resonance.
Plucked by hands of a deft conviction,
assured beyond reckoning of their own savoir faire,
as an instinctive tribute to the esoteric philharmonic in us all.
We hear it when we look into the sky at night;
Overwhelmed by the enormity of what's beyond our comprehension,
But we know it well.
It has found its way to our ears our entire lives,
and we cannot live without it.
This humming of the stars,
all vibrating with the tonality of pure harmony,
chords to our souls,
they resonate in our hearts.
You can hear the songs of the cosmic lyre,
with strings of divine creation,
playing in sublime euphony,
subtly moving through the inner sanctions of your ethereal substance...

It sings without voice.