Wake Up Call

I’m so sick and tired of feeling cold, 

The night shouldn’t have to feel this long
When all I want is someone to hold
Who are they to say it’s wrong?
But it doesn’t matter what I say
Cause by night it all comes down to
Hoping the next day’s just another day
Another chance to change, but I never do

So here I lie looking for more
Listening to music my back on the floor
And time, time spits in my face
To awaken me, shaking me,
Rat who hates the race

What do friends mean anymore
When today they’re here, then they’re gone
Always thinking about the future, nothing more?
Think about that and ask someone
What were you thinking all those years ago,
What’d you see then that you can’t see it now?
Are people like the wind to you a constant steady flow,
That those who came before, get blown right on out?

Well this blows
So here I lie looking for more
Listening to music my back on the floor
And time, time spits in my face
To awaken me, shaking me,
Rat who hates the race

Hates the time he spent giving himself away
Hates the ground he treads every fucking day
Hates the clouds and wind and snow and rain
Hates knowing all of it will happen again (x2)

But when day turns to night
And I get tired of the fight
I can’t help but have a little hope
That someday everyone’ll know
Just what it means to love.

To feel the warmth and give in return
A warming feeling that doesn’t burn
It’s all I ask, it’s all I wish for
In times like this people need it more
More than they can show.

So here I lie looking for more
Listening to music my back on the floor
And time, time takes me by the hand
Shows me the future, the Promised Land,
Proven with a patience, proves to me again
That people grow and change,
Not always for the better but that’s okay, 

What matters is that you remember your friends.

Another Epiphany

Stairs also go down.

Trying My Hand

Amid the dissonance occasionally there will arise a moment in which, deep within the fibrous layers of my consciousness, I know, beyond any suggestion to the contrary, that magic exists. That something as simple as imagining a conversation with someone I've never met could move me to begin writing, speaks to the favor of this magic. And not simply writing for entertainment - writing for the sake of capturing the overwhelming beauty, the poetry of human interaction; for the purpose of sharing what I feel and knowing it's real; for helping the world around me to start noticing itself a little more. I want people to experience this unselfishly, because they deserve to; everyone should know how precious it is that we are able to communicate in the way we do; that we should do it more, with people we've never met. To steal a line from one of the best movies I've ever seen, there is magic in this world, and it's in the distance between two people as they attempt to know each other. There can be no plot without a beginning, there can be no suspense without the unknown, and there can be no resolution without revelation; and even through all of that, the immeasurable depth of ingenuity possessed within every person will ensure that that cycle continues, that while every story may not be a happy story, it is artful nonetheless. Joyce has proven that there is beauty in the mundane, I hope to prove there's beauty simply in saying so...


...It's not often that his attention is so utterly arrested, but today a pink hat has started him thinking...

Generally Speaking

Looking at it from this perspective, it becomes a little easier to see what I mean. Watch:

There's nothing to it. That's all I can say, really. Well, there may be a little bit to it, but not much more than it takes on any other night out - it's just a modulation of who you talk to, how you do so, and how busily preoccupied you are with waking up in your own bed.... See where this is going yet? If not, just bear with me a little longer. What I'm saying is, it doesn't matter who it is: someone you care about, or someone you don't. I've seen it happen enough times to know that the person doesn't matter at all, it's the act, the fulfillment, the intent and the resolution; the primordial, philandering drive to pursue and predate, and all that matters is the accomplishment... really. People may say otherwise, and they usually do, but everyone - everyone - knows, what they're really thinking is "I hooked up." There's no meaningful qualitative evaluation of it, despite any surface claims to the contrary, but rather a simple acknowledgment that it happened. And that makes them feel good. Momentarily or not: the fact that they consciously engaged in a hookup, after going out with the intention of doing so, that single fact is enough to brighten the spirit just long enough until it happens again. And it will. Because they will want it to happen again. And it'll be just as easy as the time before, all you have to do is follow the formula:

1.) Drink. A lot. 

2.) Make yourself available by talking to anyone. 

3.) Remove any standards of decorum or preference. 

4.) Look for the person most likely to reciprocate your advances. 

5.) Talk to that person. 

6.) Flirt with that that person.

7.) Suggest more drinking. 

8.) Suggest you both find a ride...anywhere. 

9a.) If he/she goes with you, you're golden, go right to step 10. If not then 

9b.) Start over from point 1, until 9a is successful. 

10.) Find a bed and hook up.

And then wake up the next morning and leave. Game over. You win. Imagine yourself being carried home on the shoulders of all your little congratulatory egos, because this was a huge boost. By noon the next day you'll have forgotten the whole thing and it's time to move on to stuff that actually matters... Whew. Glad that's out of the system, right?

I guess. But think about this. What if... and this is a huge presumption... what if I told you, that in everything you just read, that that person, the one who knows and follows the formula exactly and makes good on it 9 times out of 10, has absolutely no romantic courage whatsoever? Would that be hard to believe? That someone capable of fulfilling every middle/high school boy's dreams of infinite...whatever... has the relative Guts of a bumbling pretentious braggart?

Would that seem surprising? 

I hope not... Because it isn't. For some reason our culture, the culture of recent, current, and forthcoming college students, ennobles a guy's ability to hook up with tons of girls. Ennobles. Yes, that's the word I'm using. Because a guy who bangs 50 girls becomes a legend. But why? I mean really - think about that. Why is that news?

Does every guy universally want that? 

Yeah, at some point, a guy will think about what it's like to have unlimited access to sex with tons of girls. But the guy that does it - that stud apparent - has the emotional maturity of a guppy, and even less courage.

Because think about this situation: instead of wanting unlimited promiscuous sex, this other guy, bless his heart, wants something more...something different, off the beaten path, better. He wants a girl, one girl, to be a bigger part of his life. Not his sex-life. His daily life. 

The person he is when he's alone - he wants her to know that person. The person he is when he's with his friends - he wants her to know that person. And he wants to know her in the same way. 

Wanting it is one thing. Anyone can do that, we're genetically wired to want waaayyyy more than we'll ever have. But asking for it... Telling her. Well fuck. That's saying something. Something real. And it doesn't even have to imply all the requisite implications of liking someone - remember the days when you used to think about saying "I like you like you" - it could just mean, "I care about you a lot, and I hope that one day you'll allow me to show you who I am, that you'll show me who you are." Physicality doesn't have to have anything to do with it... yet. I mean, don't get me wrong, physical attraction is the First Form of Attraction, but physical acts don't have to come right away. They shouldn't define a relationship, only enhance it... But even still - the simple act of telling a person how you feel, often with the heart-rending hope that it'll be reciprocated, that shows true courage. That's a willingness to face the worst kind of rejection. If the first guy you read about gets rejected, it's obvious he's being rejected on purely physical bounds. If the second guy gets rejected, it's personal... it's emotional, fundamental. 

It's basically saying "Okay... you... like me. Great. Thanks... but sorry - I really have no interest in getting to know you... at all. The sampler you've given me so far is great, but I'm too full (read: busy, distracted, emotionally shallow, etc...) for anything else. We can still be friends though!" Often said with the obligatory raising of the voice, hopefully imparting some hopeful resolution to a really awkward situation. Sorry for that by the way. Every girl who's ever had to deal with that. We know it's really hard on you.

But... now that it's been laid out. Who deserves more credit here? The guy who risks nothing, or the guy who risks everything?

Think about how you feel about it. Then think about what you've seen out there in the world... And maybe you'll see why this had to be written at all...

A Collection of Bits from the Summer

"Walking the Turnpike"

Grasping to hold on, and letting go all at once,

Emblazoned - fraught to the end with charnel hues,

and a distance left to the wheel.

If it were only for me,
I wouldn't see it through,

But for you I would.

Years unhinged by a single glimpse

Of the way we left it with too much known to say

I'm sorry. But I mean it now.

Cavalier - that's what it was -

A rocking disillusion, and what I meant,

I never really knew

That for you the sparks always glow.

A drive through the backcountry,

But now I can never go home, at least,

Not in the way I've come to know.

Saunter through my life, my memory,

But something brings me back -

To the years, unhinged by a single note,

Where the words said too much to show

I loved you. But I mean it now.

***

"Beyond the Grove"

To carry the apples

a basket in hand. 

a foot steps forward

through gravel and dirt.

The grass gives flight,

bugs chase the sky,

the sun welcomes every kind

of smile this time of year.

Gust by gust the wind

gives way to roads unknown,

and brushes paint the trails.

Tires tread where none

have ever gone,

and none will ever go.

Again to the porch

and set the apples down,

in through the screen,

shuffling home.

This is where time forgets 

its friend - the end - 

and leaves a man

to live till the sun sets

beyond the grove.

***

Today waits while tomorrow readies its hand - 

open to the alms of whatever romance happens to fall, 

a casualty of forced remittance. A gift to nothing and no one. 

A trace of paper blown by the wind. 

Caught, but for what reason, if not simply to fall again.

***

These hallways are dark before noon,

The doors closed and locked,

secrets to hide, phantoms of the past

slipping in and out of the quiescent 

gaps in the floor.

Whispers gather like flies,

drawn nervously to the windows,

praying for escape, for the light.

But the keys remain hidden,

locked, as it were, by their purpose,

in chiffoniers of their own haunted hearts.

Quietly waiting for the footsteps

to stop in front of their door.

A grand understatement that

at least someone is looking,

that someone has found them,

that someone will let them out...

But the wood creaks again,

Further down this darkened hallway than before,

And disappearing through the shadows,

The footsteps are looking for more.

Shorn

An amputee moves his fingers,

Still feels, still holds the wreaths:

Withered by a gust,

And made to promise,

To bloom, as memory would have it,

In bouts of perennial loss;

They tingle, fill the gut -

loath to remember it -

With the anguish of a man

Who once heard

the wind

That chimes the bells.

Just Listening

There are some days when you just don’t have that much to say. Some days when, without provocation, you can get away with saying hardly anything. I say “get away with” because there’s always so much pressure to have something worth sharing, something the world needs to hear, and can only hear from your mouth, that when you don’t have anything, it’s nice to be able to disappear for a while: a guiltless understanding that, maybe for today, you don’t have to be the world’s herald… Well, not the “world’s” herald, maybe just your world’s herald.

Take this kid for example. He’s been sitting quietly in the seat just to the right of the lower left corner of the room (if you were to look at it from the roof) for the past hour and a half. Quiet and listening. Listening more than anybody else in the room, even more than the people intently involved in a conversation about other conversations. It’s not hard to do, he would assure you. In the simplest terms, requiring the least amount of physical effort, asking no more of the mental condition than for it to open itself up to accepting and acquiring all the verbal stimuli it’s willing to accept and acquire, you… close your mouth. And suddenly, the world changes.

Not only do you hear more, you see more. You actually see the person sitting across the room. You see the subconscious response: the flowing, ebullient bravado of smiles and laughter. You see people as who they are, or whom they wanted you to see, and you see the moments of self-consciousness when they feel they’ve strayed from that image. A smile that fades to guarded silence. And in that moment, you want to be heard. You want to tell her that you’ve been listening, and that she’s beautiful.

But he doesn’t. Or at least he won’t. He’s been sitting there all night wishing people wouldn’t talk so loudly. He just hopes this doesn’t turn into one of those times when being quiet makes him more noticeable. There’s nothing worse than being dragged out of your comfort zone because it’s intruding on everybody else’s, especially when that intrusion is a purposeful act of avoiding it. Do people universally see that as depressing? Or creepy? There seems to be this widespread unspoken agreement that when someone sits quietly and listens, especially in a room full of people, it’s somehow an invasion of everyone’s privacy, or an indication that this person is socially inept.

But, for someone who’s been listening for so long, it gets easier to see when it’s going to happen. When someone pulls the conversation around to you and how you haven’t said anything the entire night. It’s like watching a long carpet unroll. Someone starts it, others jump in to keep it going, passing it to people further down the line, more join in to chase it and continue the fun, until finally, everybody reaches the same point, the same obvious conclusion: that the carpet ends. Even though you’ve unrolled it before, still nothing was hidden in that last roll, which means nothing will pop out when it lies fully open. And in the silence, there’s a moment of expectation, of wondering what to do next, but the carpet does nothing… It’s just there. It may have always been there, but now that it’s in the spotlight, people become aware, just for a moment, that eventually… they will walk on it.

He answers their question. “I just don’t have much to say, I guess.” And so… they resume walking.