Just Like the Rest of Them

The night was going well. Very well. At least, he thought it was. By this point, if it isn't abundantly clear how things will end up, then the best option is either to go home or go crazy. There's no sense in chasing a girl if she's not interested in the pursuit; but if she is, then game on. Because that's what it is, a game. There are rules, there are boundaries, there are points in either person's favor, and there is an outcome that usually denotes a winner or a loser. But if she doesn't show up for her side of the skirmish, what's left to do but improvise? Create a game between you and your friends. You're there. Make something of it. You don't want to play by yourself obviously, and while there's nothing wrong with a sausage-fest every once in a while, constantly relying on it as a backup for nights gone awry raises questions in the eyes of your spectators; which, if the cards fall as such, are always viable alternatives (just as long as they're not too good of friends, then things get weird). But, if all else fails, abandon all hope ye who tread this road, and get hammered. Whole-hog, no holds barred, pull out all the stops, whatever you want to call it, it'll mean the same thing: end the night like a champ. If, after thirty minutes since making the call, you're not yelling, stumbling, singing, dancing, or shirtless, then you seriously need to keep drinking. Drink until night becomes the next morning when you wake up wearing a bath robe, and that's it, spread-eagle in a neighbor's front lawn; drink until people become transient because you can't remember seeing them in the first place; drink until everybody becomes your best friend, even the staircase, because at least it wont walk away after hearing about how much what's-her-name is a bitch for leading you on. That is if you haven't gone home in the first place. The safer route is always a simple withdrawal. Acquiesce to the situation, realize your game isn't on tonight, and walk home before things get out of hand. It'll feel less fulfilling, but it preempts the chance that you'll make an ass of yourself.

But tonight. Well, that wouldn't be happening tonight. Things were going well. She'd been his partner in beer-pong, and they won hands down every time. They actually almost skunked a team. She made the cup, and if he'd made it too, the guys they were playing would've had to run a naked lap around the house. No questions asked. Clothes off, drinks up, through the party, and out the door. They did make one cup during redemption though, but only one cup, which is almost as good as the naked lap, because if one player gets skunked he becomes the "Table Monster;" where for the next game he has to hide under the table and catch all the little ping-pong balls that roll around on the floor, and can only talk in rhyme, like the troll from Billy Goats Gruff. It's hilarious. And kind of dirty. But that doesn't matter, he'd won every game, and every game he won, he won it with her. We're like, the best team ever - perfect chemistry, he remembered saying. What she said was lost in the crowd. They simply walked off the table, they'd won so many games, and made their way to the blacked out dance floor.

The music was obscenely loud. Obscenely loud meaning that it was sexually potent rap being played way too loud. But the beat was consistent and everybody was drunk enough to be okay with dancing like an asshole. So they joined in - an awkward combination of swing dancing and grinding, like every high schooler's worst nightmare about dancing in public come true, but with the alcoholic mediator saying "Go for it! Nobody can see anything anyway!" At some points, it'd have been a serious debate as to whether you could call it dancing at all, they just ran into each other. It hurt! Bodies flying forward, but the instinct to slow down doesn't register until her shoulder is in his chest, and his cheek-bone hits the back of her head. How does that even happen? If a five-year-old smacked rag-dolls into each other it would look more coordinated than this. But these are the motions you go through, he thought, and way more coherently than he figured possible. This is weird, his mind narrated, I have perfect control of my mental faculties, such that I'm aware of how pissed-drunk I am, yet I have no marked inhibitions about being so; it's as if the fact that I'm flailing wildly about is merely a primal regression brought on by a lack of societal standards. I wonder what life would be like if everybody was this free to do what they wanted.

If that were the case then God help us all.

So what happens now? You look around at everybody else to see what they're doing. It's actually a lot less crowded than you thought. Probably because the bar is right next to the dance floor - all those extra people were just taking shots and couldn't have cared less about whose way they were in, as long as they had a guaranteed 1.5 ounces of liquid love ready at hand. So that takes care of them. But after that, there's only about fourteen people dancing, apparently one guy for every two girls, but they've paired off so that doesn't count. All these girls are just dancing with each other. What the hell? They wonder why no guys dance with them, it's because they all just dance with each other. I mean, I'm with her so good for me, but look. I can see about five guys on the outskirts thinking about jumping in, but it's like diving into a pool of sharks just to grab onto the dolphin pool-toy. Even if you get a hold of it, you're still surrounded by sharks. That pack mentality is the most crippling part of trying to talk to girls at parties - most of the time you don't even want to hook up with her, you're just talking because she's cool and somehow your charm decided to show up that night. But if your conversation at all isolates the two of you from her group, they'll send a sentry over to rescue the lost duckling. As if you're a wolf or something! It's infuriating, this de facto mistrust of every guy who happens to be a decent conversationalist, immediately branded as a predator, a sexual deviant, a belt-notcher.

But, these were all just distractions. Because tonight, tonight he was at his best. The electric chemistry between them hardly confined to the beer-pong table; all those awkward dancers would have to look on in awe because he was tearing it up and she was loving it. Spinning and swinging, bumping and grinding, body pressed upon body, his face coming so close to hers he could almost feel the touch of her lips. Tantalizing isn't it? Fire for energy, direct alcohol injection, no wonder they run drag-racers on this stuff, it makes your heart burn at 10,000 bpm, especially when there's a gorgeous girl running you hard enough to break the earth's gravity.

Damn things were going well. Tonight might actually end with him getting lucky, and it'd be the direct result of him doing everything right. How often does this actually happen? Reading the signals and reacting to them perfectly. It's like both of them were exactly in the same place, the same state of mind; it's what they both wanted. So he finally kissed her.

And then something happened. She stopped dancing. She wiped off her lips. Turned her head and tried to walk away. He held her for a second, "What's wrong?" coming out a lot louder than he expected it to. The song had changed. Everybody heard it. She looked distraught, anxious, kept trying to walk away. So he let her. Dumbfounded, lost in a whirl of the next song, standing in the middle of thirteen people, mainly girls, dancing awkwardly to obscenities. One of his friends shrugged his shoulders, gave him a "Whatever dude" face, and threw him a beer. But she had disappeared. His night had been going so perfectly and all he had to show for it was an unopened beer and an expression of utter confusion.

What do you do now? What can you do? There's no point in trying to rectify the problem, because you have no idea what it is. You can't talk to her friends about it, because now they're gone. Probably talking to her. But why isn't anyone talking to you about it? Did everybody see something you didn't? Your friends don't seem to care, but why are all the girls looking at you like you're some kind of creep? Forget this, finish your drink, drift into the sidelines and get the hell out of here.

And that's exactly what he did. Drank the last drop of his last beer for the night, and walked home to go to sleep angry and to wake up still thinking he was a terrible person for reasons he didn't understand.

Late-Night

I haven't written in stream-of-consciousness for a while, so I made a point to. This was the result... any guesses as to what I've been reading?


***


Precipitously jump down the last four steps of the adjacent stairway, free falling for what seems like minutes, lasting only seconds, landing on the ground with a bolt; a free form exposition of energy gone awry, abandonment, full-scale flight from a paroxysm of things best described as ineluctably jejune, if only by the scantily clad intellectuals; wearing their posh little hats. But what do they know of satisfying the soul? Challenge them to race beyond themselves, flying down the footbridge, arms flung abreast in an emphatic embrace, wind buffeting at the extremities, and ask them if they've ever felt that before. Vicariously of course, but really? Give them facility to see the sinecure of their currently espoused lives - rather a mental Gastarbeiter than a permanently contributing member of active society. Transcendentalize if you must. Metamorphose - you know the phrasing; exacerbate the fact that living a sedentary existence gives plenty of time to imbue the mind with the thoughts of others, but what of those thoughts if they're left to ferment without ever giving one the chance to drink the spirits of our souls. Sure the accumulation of knowledge is instrumental to the development of our own personal faculties, but without the concerted effort to enact that knowledge, it becomes little more than hoarding, the stuffing away of brilliance in the hope that it accrues interest. Ironically enough, the only payoff is posthumous - when someone stumbles across the journaled account of all these "useless" words and can't breathe after seeing what it contains. Mountainous volumes of genuine passion - because that's all that can ever be asked of anyone; that they uninhibitedly dedicate themselves to a passionate existence, in whatever circumstances that may entail - left to rot because some self-conscious mind lacked the foresight to see itself. Paling in comparison never sounded so morbid - the only paleness is that of the lifeless figure which used to embody these leaves, yet it didn't have to end that way. Living in the moment, those moments of vision become magnetic semi-conductors, speeding us along at breakneck speeds, but only if we keep jumping to them, holding out our hands in repeatedly desperate attempts to seize one more shred of that ever elusive Genius.

Inches away from the well of the infinitely magnanimous....

Erasure

Anger finds its way when you least expect it.

The irresolute know it all too well as an affirmation of their own indecision, their pussyfooting around as if life will wait its turn to tell them its time to grow up, get there, and shut up. The only logical response to being told you're behind is to get pissed right? Fight the whole fucking world for all you're worth in the hope that it'll slow down just for you. Get it?

The more concrete among us, however, know it as a reminder of things better left forgotten; buried. An idea that seemed great at the time and becomes caustic weaponry, becomes a sick stomach, becomes a painful memory, becomes a sad night here and there, becomes an elegiac story told as a parable until it fades into obscurity...

What wisdom comes from erasure?

Palimpsest becomes the new favorite word once everyone figures out what it means. Crop it in there with other words like esoteric and destiny. Because what happens when you scratch away the gaudy surface? You see what someone else had written there before, you see the covered-up mistakes, the ideas that remain undeveloped if only through negligence, the truths someone else tried to falsify, all subliminally skulking their way to the surface...

Let's hope you see them before the rest of the world.

Blank Verse

Given to those who bear their fall with grace,
if not otherwise forestalled by dreams,
or lost in throes of unforeseen sin,
and broken down -- ashamed of their own world,
is a promise of redemption planned by hosts
of hosts. A welcome respite from the norm.
A representative autocracy,
made possible by a shared belief
in our inability to change the past.
WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE TRYING TO DO WITH THIS?
An inspiration made credible
by voices that will echo through all time.
A PLAN PERHAPS TO CHANGE WHAT ISN'T THERE?
Forgiven by those who fell before and rose
to meet the challenge face to face.
YOU KNOW 'TIS MORE FRUITFUL TO LIVE IN BLISS;
Rather than ignore what can't be seen,
Exist in confidence of life beyond;
IN CONTINUED IGNORANCE, THE WORLD DESPAIRS.

Famine

Its effects are more frequent now, this...

famine.

Not in any way that can be physically verified, but the hunger still persists. An inexplicable hunger...

A hunger that leaves me drained, wishing for some kind of fulfillment. There's no reason for it. I've tried looking for one, I've tried...

But the only satisfaction I find, comes from isolation, from indulging in the very thing that continues this drought.

Me.

That's what it comes down to. Me. My issue, my resolution. Perpetuated by a constant need to let others make my decisions for me, hoping that something will come of it.

But I need to make way for me.

There's something to be said for knowing who you are, and I know that this isn't me. As much as I try to remember it, shamelessly revel in what I thought would re-inspire it, nothing happens.

There are only the smoke and mirrors of a roadie-assisted light show, phantasms wisping in and out of beams of light no thicker than wire...

I see them for a moment, but by the time I've reached out to hold one, I touch only humid memories, tantalizing in their clarity...

They knew me.

Without having to try, they knew me, even before I did. It surprised me when they cared. But they did.

I see them, whispers of them, in the faces of people I know.

But for some reason...

I'm still... looking.

Synchromesh

It comes together, words as cogs and spiraling, spring-fed pistons, fastening a dissonance in dissolution to the explosive rendition; an informality unencumbered by the racketeering majority.

Prosody and metrical misalignment, a conspiracy of one, but only one? Blistered fingertips, callous, unscathed, feel naught but the insensitivity of aloofness - no longer needed, no longer heard amidst the repetitive drive. From start to perceived finish, a single runner, marathoning to the utmost end, breaking the rope set still by the same hands that started the descent.

This isn't meant to be heard, nor understood, he thinks. Lyrical if only because of its obscurity, he hopes. Written only so it's there when so much has passed without fill, he knows.

Oppressed by a lack of oppression. When life's this good, what's left but a confession...

Hijacker

It is a casual walk, one with feet that tap in time as his mind narrates a song to accompany them, his face betraying naught but that he's in his own musical world. A mental image fit for caricature, but implicitly of a nature he strives to live by.

80s hipster sunglasses, horn-rimmed, sans Croakies, a big smile, perpetual 5 o'clock shadow, comfortably dressed neither up nor down, smack in the middle of life. People know him. He knows them too. He greets them all, a swell of smiles matching his own as confirmations of gladness to have seen the other.

A wave of the hand, two fingers extended, the other two suavely crooked, emphasized by a grin; a gust of wind, clouds racing each other from one mountain ridge to the next, the sun making a photo finish with shadows on the ground.

He is a Hijacker.

Taking them along for the ride, implying everything, promising nothing, on a grand jaunt to somewhere over by the finish line.

But there are always storms along this road.

Maelstroms, awe-inspiring fits of racketing chaos, frightening explosions of light and sound, unforgiving in their delivery of nightmares, blackness made all the more oppressive by piercing glints of hope, no time to breathe between thoughts, swirling waves and folds, spinning and winding, flying, falling, crashing, rolling, splashing in unknown mires, deceived by welcoming ghosts, will o' the wisps in throngs, immerentium cum metu, and nothing to guide them, only double-backs and dead ends, hands pointing with no direction, footprints with no toes, and a voice imploring them for confidence.

Yet the skies will clear and and show the road ahead, ambiguous in its direction, promising no solace but for its clarity and an eventual end.

It is a cautious walk, one with feet that touch the ground inverse, hiding the tap of their footfall with poetic grace, toe to heel, steps kept in time by heartbeat.

They will see him as he walks, a casual meeting between friends. He knows them. They know him too. He will wave with two fingers extended, the other two suavely crooked, and emphasize it with a grin.

The Sculptor

Each day things become a little less clear,
a little less defined.
What was once a vivid portrait
of staggeringly refined intricacy,
has become a vestige,
a truth I once had the keenness to see.

Melodramatic, as it has ever been,
to slowly lose what stands before you,
knowing with certainty,
its resolution to leave you
is as unyielding as it is
heartbreaking.

Please don't leave me.
I've fought for so long,
searched every crevice,
every gyrus,
for that purpose,
for that promise.

With a penetrating introspection,
I thought I had found it.
Found clarity,
a grounded idea of what was lost.
I thought the work was done,
that I had finally discovered
the whithering husk...

of who I used to be.

How can I possibly hope to fill it now?
When its shell crumbles
like chalk between my fingers.
How does one turn dust
to definition?

[And now cue the comeback]


Can't it be discerned what's really happening here?
That time after time what we're not supposed to hear,
plagues us with words of a nature calloused
thick like tempered steel,
skin made rough by years of use,
able to play these strings with reckless abuse
of time, of harmony,
of discord and a unified idea,
of perceived emotions and hapless
misunderstood feelings,
trenchant if only because of their zeal,
unabashedly forthright,
can't it be seen? Can't it be SEEN?
It's right there in front of us all,
whether our eyes are open or not,
give it its due and realize
that everybody sees it differently.
My eyes find what was lost,
make clay out of dust,
make man out of clay,
make me out of the
monotone gray of the unfinished mold,
just as I had pictured it.
Just as I was...

And just as I am today.

Virginia Roads

When at a loss for words, describing that which defies description, emptily staring at this blinking cursor, how could any degree of self-revelation avoid the inextricable folly of surrendering too much or too little? Let's think about that, and then scrutinize it a little more - allow each word to pique its assigned synapse and see where the reaction leads us: an exponential irradiance, thousands upon millions of subsequent flashes of insight, tracing a willow as it weeps a neural firestorm in a veritable castigation of thinking too deeply. Why follow these paths of thought when they all lead us to the same vague conclusion? Why give each word its own multifarious cause, a meaning so abstruse that even the pixels that compose it have within them an esoteric ambition? To be interpreted and expected to have some apolitical Thermidorian tendency, as a pendulum swings from axis to axis, from now to then, and back again to what has yet to happen, giving hope to what can't be seen save by those who perchance saw something of a questionable intention; is to have been made the object of your own imposition; to have been given something from which you were never rightfully in contention; to have been deprived, by supposition, of that which finds itself most desirable when you are the first one who brings it to attention. It has shared its secrets before. They are common ground for those of us who heard: stories of life, love, and loss; but to have given them away so freely only to be chastised for not recognizing their superficiality, what else can be done? Stand evicted because the neighbors moved too close? Tread the isolated valley only to find outcroppings of homes 'til then unnoticed? Speed down the road, over cliffs and bends, past long forgotten ruins, hoping to find where time begins? And once you're there, you see more of the same, that running gets you nowhere; a distance measured by how long your foot was gassing the engine, and the stark realization that the end began because someone had already found it, what then?

What then?

Just Wait...

...for inspiration to strike...

Let's try this again then:
so hopefully the verbal torrent,
sputtering, splashing, raining, dashing,
falling from precipitous edificial flashings;
vertigo of a passive mental acting, laughing,
falling, smiling, cringing, crying;
making up for the hot-town's dying,
living for the word that's hardly worth implying,
one that once it's said, renews the predatory flying,
reborn in a wave of flames,
hunting, lunging, waiting, enraging.
Will it see or is it ready to be forgotten,
hosting the thief and what's been brought to him -
let him grin,
let him leer,
show him his place,
and leave him there.
Serenity and soundness,
beliefs to be renown,
can't wait for him to see them now,
posted where such was left to him,
solely to be reclaimed,
confused, untamed,
Let loose to disrupt all that's been laid,
glass and stone and foundational grit,
mortar and grout and functional bricks.
Can he see it now, the monument before him?
Does he see it once, twice, thrice, enrolled in?
Has he caught on to the the disparate flair,
jousting and jumping, landing on what wasn't there?
Master of ceremonies, dedicated to a fall,
leaps of faith, breaking an engine stall;
to the stopped spin of a propeller blade,
until the sun shines down on the solitary glade,
made dark by the impending shade,
hoped for heart but that nothing is made.
Wait for it then...
Just wait...
But to what end?

To what end?!

Avid: A Walk

I've seen the sky as it churns,
as it bowls over itself in waves of tremulous folds;
I've seen the moon as it hides,
behind the crests of this midnight sea...

I've heard the wind as it breathes,
as its fingers find my core;
I've heard the leaves' pleas for hope,
that they fall not far from home...

I know it now...

..Just outside my window;
A soft ringing of chimes,
carrying, as has been carried before,
the tiniest song to my ears,
merely hoping that I hear..

And I wonder where I'd heard it before,
for such a song it is to hear,
that it could sing me to sleep,
painting dreams to accompany me.

Paint the scenes I'd been hoping to find,
or hadn't yet discovered;
A portrait - perchance unexpectedly so -
of something I'd known, but forgotten;
a mosaic of pinpoint colors,
brightened by the darkness which surrounds,
if only momentarily so, such that I might see them again...


--
"Right then. What do you make of this one?"
"Tabbed is it?"
"Just up there. Yep, right there."
"Ah."
"Well?"
"To be honest, he probably hasn't the slightest idea what he's done."
"How do you figure?"
"Just look at it. Then look at everything else. We've been here the whole time, we know where all this is coming from."
"True. But what does it mean in terms of... you know."
"I really don't know that it means for that."
"That's what scares me, because if you don't know, he sure as hell doesn't know."
"We'll just have to wait and see."
"Quite."

Avid: To a Degree

"Shh!! It's starting!"
"Okay, seriously? This can't be that important."
"It might be."
"It wont be - I mean there's nothing there! You can see it in his eyes."
"Well if you'd shut up for a minute."
"Look I'm telling you this will be as worthless as-"
"Shit! Please be quiet... I want to hear this."
"Whatever, I wont hold my breath... (or my tongue)"
"Shut it, the curtain is lifting."

[Applause]

(A little timidly)
Welcome!
It's uh... it's been a while huh? Whoo... I'd introduce myself but it seems you might already know who I am so uh... Well then! I'm back! -ish.
Let's skip the formalities then shall we?

I'm in a rut. Things are going well, but only insofar as I'm willing to admit they're going at all. Balefully. Thought to be so anyway. Forgive me for my candor but there's really nothing to be done about it. I don't know. Maybe there is - I haven't seen any evidence of it yet.

Oh wait! Maybe we'll have a party! No? I guess that works about as well as any other opportunity to make things worse. Wait! Maybe we'll host a big dinner fashioned in the mode of Medieval mead halls where gallantry, chivalry, and pomp are seen as desirably the norm. That works right?

No... people will just get blackout and be too hung-over to do anything.

Maybe we should dress up in 100% organic cotton shirts, pre-worn denim jeans, and Birkenstock clogs and then spend the night in a stupor of New-Age "spirituality" while we sing songs about puddles!

No... people will just get high or tired... either way it'd suck.

Maybe I'll go for a run, purge myself of all negativity like I've been able to in the past. A 15 mile long-run dedicated entirely to bodily and spiritual cleansing!

No... It's 9 degrees outside and the fluid around my eyes would freeze me blind.

Maybe I could just talk to...

--
"Okay... so what are you thinking?"
"I'm thinking I'd have loved to 'av gotten out of here before this shit-show started."
"What?! Can't you see he's bearing his soul?"
"Yeah! I don't wanna sit around for that! I've got more important stuff to do than waste my time while he's monologuing about God knows what... He's just trying to be cryptic that's all - keep the message hidden from them while he makes it blatantly clear just what the hell he's going on about, that he's -"
"Hey! That's enough! Just because you think you know everything doesn't mean you can make this all... cynical and shit."
"It's not cynical, it's just all about -"
--

...her...

--
"There he said it. One word and it all comes crashing down... Curtain's dropped ass-hat!"
"Don't yell at him, this is personal. Just let him finish."
--

No. Because that would be too forward of me.