A Sealed Sketch

In the box I told the story that I thought you might not know, the story of how I found myself climbing to your door.

In the box there is a world-- it is a plane for the most part, with occasional mountains in the far right corner, and a tower in the fore-ground. It is a tall tower, all huge stone blocks like the ones used to make pyramids for to remember kings, and there is a window towards the top, worlds away from the flatly anchored ground, where in the box I stand, looking up.

And when I see you looking out there is a moment of despair, eternities of moments of the desperate longing of one who knows their heart is incomplete and must needs remain that way.

It is the longing of one whose heart's desire is impossible, unreal, and in the box it fills the sketchéd lines.

In the lines of ink, I twitch my ears and wag my tail and set out to climb your tower, for what else can I do? And my hands slip, and slide, and there is no purchase for coyote-fingers on the black lines and I fall, not very far, and am confused.

And on the paper, I look back up and cannot see the tower window from the ground.

In the box that I sealed and folded and hid away, on the plane of shadowed sketchéd lines, I turn for the mountains, and nearly vanish to a pinprick, to the distance and away. When the ink moves on I am returning with stones, stolen from the mountainside, and there is a hope in the silhouette once more.

And when the stone tower that I build on the plane by the tower in the box crumbles, it hides away the scene, leaving no trace of what may've gone before, until the dust should clear away, and I am left among the stones upon the ground, scattered and bemused and the cloud yet obscures the tower window where you may not e'en remain.

In desperation now, there is a silhouette, in pen and ink on an inked cliff, holding the scraps of feathers I suspected, in the box, would not suffice for wings. And from the cliff a not-quite-wingéd shape falls, forward at first and then abruptly down, straight down, like an unshaded and unsubtle sketch.

And like the simple line on which I'm based, I crash in distant clouds of disturbed dust, a tragicomedy that fills the space but poorly, and a silence follows, in the box where the mountains point so subtly to the tower where I saw your face.

In Defense Of Love

Author's Note: I am kind of a shite writer sometimes. This is one of those times; I've had this flowing about my mind for a good few months/years now, but it always seemed like... like writing out the steps to an equation that you see complete in your head-- which is actually a lot harder than writing something complicated out-- it seems self-explanatory. But. All the same, here is the first bit; when I have a bit of time to breathe, think, and re-calibrate my head, I will write the second, which deals with "What God hath made clean call not thou unclean," and, if I were a philologist of absolutely any skill whatsoever, would also deal with the works of the Apostle Paul, and why I don't think what he is saying is what a lot of people think he is saying. As it stands I might try and touch on the point that he was writing to wayward churches with advice, not transcribing The Words of Jesus to all Christians everywhere at any point in the future. Or I might leave it-- sometimes it's better to have three decent points than three decent... and one weak.

In Defense Of Love

Let me begin with a disclaimer. I am not the best person to write this—nor anywhere near the top of the list. I am not as wise, nor as eloquent, nor as learned a writer as it takes to do this subject justice. Furthermore, it has been said before, I’m sure, and will be said again, more eloquently – and again, and again, and again, I hope, until it is no longer necessary to repeat; until we are, as the poet says, too old to need such crutches. In the meantime-- here goes nothing.

With the disclaimer out of the way, a more… traditional introduction is in order. This is a hard essay for me to write, simply because the final conclusion is something I reached a long, long time ago; it’s something I find self-explanatory, and I don’t know how to convey that simplicity.

Put succinctly – expect rewrites.

To the Christians the world over—every church deacon and pastor and preacher and priest and bishop, and every authority who’s made the claim that God Hates X. Unless that blank is filled with a word like ‘bigotry,’ ‘hatred,’ ‘hypocrisy,’ and especially if it is filled with a specific group of people, consider this essay directed almost entirely at you. I am a Christian, and it’s taken me a while to be able to say that again without wincing at all the implications – after seeing what this religion can be capable of, it’s hard to then take a deep breath and go back, and say to myself that it’s the institution, the people in charge – that I have no beef with God (at least, most of the time – I will admit to a fair amount of skyward-fist-shaking, and furious profanities shouted in quiet dark spaces), that I have never disbelieved in Christ.

That I believe in Love.

For that is the greatest commandment, is it not? Love the Lord thy God, with all thy heart, and all with thy soul, and with all thy mind. No side-stepping, no hemming or hawing; that’s straight out of the KJV, the Bible the more strict churches believe is The One And Only Word, right down to the punctuation. Love thy God; love thy neighbor. These, Jesus says, are the greatest – there are no commandments greater than these. But what does that mean? Love thy God – how, exactly, are we to do that? Besides an internal belief, and surely that isn’t all, what are we to do?

Peter doesn’t ask this at the time – I can’t recall if any of the disciples do. It’s a lawyer who originally asks him what the greatest commandment is – what he must do to inherit eternal life, depending on which gospel you’re reading. But at the end of the gospels, Jesus asks Peter. I’ll just… I can’t paraphrase this.

“So when they had dined, Jesus saith to Simon Peter, Simon, [son] of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my lambs.

“He saith to him again the second time, Simon, [son] of Jonas, lovest thou me? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my sheep.

“He saith unto him the third time, Simon, [son] of Jonas, lovest thou me? Peter was grieved because he said unto him the third time, Lovest thou me? And he said unto him, Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee. Jesus saith unto him, Feed my sheep.” (John 21:15-17)

Unless there’s an entire lost gospel kicking around somewhere about Jesus’ time as a shepherd, those are metaphorical sheep there he’s talking about. The message is clear: If you love me, take care of your brethren—your neighbors. Everyone you can. My sheep. My flock. You. How do you uphold the first commandment? Follow the second.

God is Love. Over, and over, and over again, this crops up in Christianity. So why is it that apparently, in order to worship Him, we need to wear nice clothes to church every Sunday, marry a nice boy/girl (depending, obviously, on gender) in our own social group, always support our country first, and spend much of our life shaking our heads in disapproval at those who don’t follow our set of rules? All of our rules are meaningless – yes, everything even The Apostle Paul wrote, everything that does not uphold those two commandments. Love thy God; love thy neighbor. If it’s not supporting that, what is the point?

So there’s my first proof. But that doesn’t quite hit the heart of the matter; there are plenty of people who preach the doctrine ‘Love the sinner, hate the sin,’ and in this manner avoid outright acts of violence towards any subgroup they disagree with, while at the same time telling them, basically, that their love is something God hates. That they are condemned as sinners – oh, of course we all are – but… they are, moreso, for something they didn’t choose.

Here, I will pause the sermon-type bits to make a short point that I find very difficult to talk about LGBTQ without mentioning. Often, the argument or debate or discussion quickly disintegrates into a snit-fight over whether homosexuality/bisexuality, etc. is something natural, or something chosen. I have one quick question to every single person who’s about to rush me with one finger upheld, pointing, condemning, or, most infuriatingly, holding up invented 'studies'. Look at your Significant Other. Your Better Half; your fiancé, fiancée, your wife, your husband, your lover, the one person who you want to spend your life with. Look at everything that makes you love them – if you will, an itemized list. (Note: Do not actually try to make an itemized list. It’ll take you a good few eternities, I assure you.)

Did you choose that? Did you choose her eyes that make you smile? Did you choose to have that little flutter in your chest every time he looks at you? Did you make a conscious choice, at some point, to first be attracted to that person, and then to fall in love with them? (...Or to fall in love with them and then find yourself blown away when you actually meet them face to face?) Somehow, I doubt it. So unless you’re about to tell me that you made the conscious decision to be attracted to girls with red hair, to really tall guys, to girls with dark eyes, to guys with green eyes, or to guys or girls at all, I don’t want to hear it. Nobody chooses who they fall in love with, okay? Moving on, now.

I'll pick this up later with a Part Two. But I'll summarize that Part Two now by saying that it is unbelievably hypocritical to blather on about homosexuality being a huge, incredible, horrible sin, to persecute and attack and marginalize the very humanity of couples, two people whose major crime seems to be loving one another, while ignoring the rest of Leviticus. And before you go on and point out that shrimp and unclean animals are allowed by Peter's vision, I will quote that passage: "What God hath made clean, call not thou unclean." God seems to have scattered people in all different molds. I'm pretty sure His intention was not to make some automatically more powerful than others, simply by dint of being born out of the majority. And before you put on airs about that passage applying to food, not people, and who do I think I am anyway, I will roll my eyes in advance, and point out that the same passage of Leviticus forbids women to leave their rooms while on their period, forbids men from touching them, or sitting where they have sat, and declares that if a man rapes a woman who is not betrothed, they must be married. (If she is betrothed, her family/fiance gets to kill the rapist! Fun times.) That passage was never specifically refuted either! (Unclean, unclean!)

Now I'm going to go beat my head against the wall until the overtired crazy goes away, and write that rest thingy later.

I should also add, as an aside... this is not meant to be patronizing. As I said, it's a letter to Christendom, explaining... well, why I think they're wrong. It could be argued that everything I've said here is heresy-- so be it. But I don't want anyone thinking this is a "Hey, gay dudes, lesbians, trans people! It's okay, you have my religion's permission to love, now!" It's more... a statement of belief-- I don't think love is condemned by my religion, or ever has been. I think we got something wrong, somewhere a long ways back.

Of Cities, and Unfolding Minds

So I’m sitting in the top bunk of a nifty little bed in a hostel room, second floor, first living floor, and typing up a summary of… well. Honestly, I just wanted to write something. I’ve been missing it.

To my left, there’s a lovely view of a rooftop, and a wall. On the rooftop, there’s some kind of dark brown vent-pipe, and, if you lean, a gray lighter, a beer can, assorted seagull feathers and cigarettes and the like. The wall’s got some sort of triangle on it in black spray-paint, and if you lean far enough out, you can see a brick building, maybe four, five stories, and beyond it, sky and skyscrapers. In the hostel room itself, there’s two bunk-beds. Mine’s the top of the one on the far side of the wall, next to the window, and the other one is against the side wall, long from the door. There’s a longish mirror, and four plywood lockers, big enough for a duffle bag, which is all I really need. Oh, and a towel hook. That’s rather important.

My first roommate is an older woman named Kendra who travels the world doing… something. She doesn’t have a home, she says, and seems to enjoy it. My other roommate, who only arrived two nights ago, is a bit younger, maybe a few years older than me, named Kim, from Australia. She’s very cool, seems to spend most of her time traveling. I guess that’s what hostels are for, and when Rebecca finally goes traveling next summer (she’d better, anyway), she will enjoy the company, I think.

I was wondering if there was something wrong with me, as I did not seem to be completely overwhelmed by this city. I was expecting, what with the mountains, and the hills, and the trees, and the fountains, and the architecture (so crazy! so, so crazy!), to be just staring goggle-eyed all about, but somehow it just feels… comfortable. I like this city. I am not overwhelmed, I do not feel like a tiny, insignificant prawn lost in the shuffle of bigger, more important lives. Dwarfed by the mountains, and the trees, yes, but the streets are wide and the skies are big and there is water. I could spend some time here.

…I could spend a lot of time here.

Quite honestly, I would not mind living here for a while. And that is partly the awesome geography, and the topography, and the architecture, and… well, it’s also largely the fact that these streets I have wandered down, I have been wandering down them in very excellent company. A beautiful city is nice, but it is infinitely nicer to have someone who… well. Someone to appreciate it with?

We’ve passed the stage where we both mutter apologies when our hands brush up against each other. I’m rather glad for that. For all the mockery of Those Puritans who freak out about holding hands, it is actually rather a big step for someone who just isn’t a physical contact sort (though hugging? hugging is awesome). And last night we talked about mental illnesses, and minds, and… mine. And I kind of just talked and talked and talked, and told him all (well, summarized) the stuff in my head that I cringe from, and some of the stuff I’ve embraced, and the stuff that’s a blessing and the stuff that’s a curse and the voices of doubt and the voices of hate and the voices I love and the voices I’ve run from and all the things in my past I have bled over and bled myself over and been terrified to face for so, so long and he listened, and commented occasionally, and we walked through rapidly darkening streets and below bright lights very quickly up very steep hills and it was dark and a bit chilly and the breezes and my mind opening up to someone who I’ve known for five years and less than a week, simultaneously, and it felt…

Really, I don’t know.

Maybe that’s okay?

Dance

It's an unscripted thing, something you've never seen before, and you want to possess it... to take it into your body, your mind, to bring it into your soul and get drunk on the rhythms therein. You're already body-drunk on the over-effects of the livingness of it, of the wild actions and the breathless spaces of perfect calm-- for no longer than a beat at a time. It almost hurts, the perfection.

You've been searching your whole life for something like it; you've climbed mountains and watched the rocks go tumbling past you, to a doom for any man. You've gone diving, seen the depths and the shallows alike, and all the wonders that play there, and you've seen the herons bowing over ponds, and the cranes in their rituals, and you've seen the eagles dive together, interlocked.

You've searched your whole life, and been everywhere, it seems. You've met, you've-- heard. It all makes sense, everything is made clear, and you are-- transcended.

It's over, just like that. And the man sitting next to you, lounging with one arm thrown carelessly over the desk, nods indifferently. He glances at his clipboard, the checklist, and makes a bit of a face.

"Yeah... I just don't think it's what we're looking for. Thanks anyway-- next!"

And just like that. Just like that, the lights go back on in your head, and the next dancer heads on up to the stage, tossing her hair coquettishly. You don't see where her predecessor went, in the darkness out of the spotlight, and the brief sound of her footsteps is lost almost immediately to the opening piano chords. The dance is trite, simple, but it's got a hypnotic sort of effect. The director nods approvingly, tapping his pen against the clipboard.

The dream is over, and the morning that life bestows you has stolen the last shreds from your mind, like a bead of dew, there and gone before the sun has risen from the haze in the East. The dream is over, and you return without a thought of reluctance or relish to the waking life.

Wordcloud from Wordle

Unknown Caller and the Unknown Future

Laying here, under this bridge, maybe it used to be a road, I've lost the capacity to understand these things, wondering, thinking, didn't I used to be able to follow a train to its conclusion, the railways didn't change, maybe I did,

Hear me, cease to speak that I may speak-- shush, now

Oh, it doesn't make sense, how did I get here, though? Not here, I remember finding this place in case it rains maybe I won't get as wet as if the streets weren't up there, above me with the cars going over them to places, other places, they go too fast, too loud, or they used to be but at night it's easier to hear and there aren't as many, but so things are quieter and the sky is brighter. No, wait. that's not right.

You know your name, so punch it in

Sold my soul for self-control, pushing for the devil's goal, not much more to reach for anymore. That was a stupid thought though, now there is less to reach for, just that broken bottle over there, but it won't look so good if I take it out of the light from the over over the bridge into the shades here even though I look better out of the light they said back then. No, not back then. Now. Near now. Yesterday or one of those days.

Hear me, cease to speak that I may speak

There was a reason why not to do this, except now it's just that I have no money and so it's been too long and I can feel things getting worse and is this what they warned me about? The plane ticket was supposed to not be me except it wasn't the plane ticket they warned me about it was the needle, I wasn't supposed to use the needle ever ever ever ever because things would be bad and I would be bad and friends would all go away or stop being friends or friendly or shewing himself themself itselves friendly

Password, you-- enter here; you know your name, so punch it in
Password-- you. Enter here
Password, you, enter here
password
you
enter here

This was originally about depth perception

The skky is so three-dimensional, it's more complex than anything humans could make, except that it would probably be difficult to sculpt the sky anyway-- sculpt the sky, should be the goal of every philosophy, ever artist's dream: to sculpt the sky. It's a statement that could mean The Sky-- you change every aspect of life, to the extent that you have sculpted the way people look at everything, no one even looks at the sky the same way anymore, or you could take the easy way out and just sculpt the sky itself, or sculpt a copy of the sky, which makes more sense, potentially.

What you kind of have to wonder is what's up there in the sky, in all three dimensions and even the fourth, but the thing is there's so much to really contemplate even in the three dimensions we can perceive as humans that it's difficult to understan why people are always trying to find a fourth; what, is what we've got not good enough? I really think if you open your eyes to the world around you, to the absolutely limitless potential for shapes, static, kinetic, it's impossible not to be overwhelmed, and, perhaps, impossible to retain sanity-- which is probably why we can't, or don't, do it. Like whatever-it's-called, the eternity code or the eternity paradox or virus or the reality bug maybe? that essay that was all about how people would read this code-- and, of course, it's been confronted by literature of all kinds, in all methods-- and their minds would just shut down, because the sheer eternity of the thing would overload them. The debate, I believe, the major debate was over whether they had transcended reality into a state of pure bliss and omniscience, or whether they had just lost their mind completely, sanity wiped out-- but some people hypothesized that it all amounted to the same thing. Like the paradoxes which shut down computers, but the human brain... instead. The closest thing the author had said came was a sentence written in which a word was deleted, but the author let both the word and the deltion stand. Personally, I think if that's the best we can do, we might as well hand over the keys of reality to the birds-- ah, if only we had them.

If you sold the keys of reality, what price would they fetch, and what price would you want, and who exactly would want to buy such a thing, as though our own perceptions of reality were not enough, as if our own perceptions were too much, which, of course, they are, and that's why we can't even take those and we step out of them and we step into other perceptions either with drugs or omniscience which is shut off by sheer willpower or lack thereof because to know eternity is simply frightening as the lunatics know from their experiences with the great wonderful world of wild wonder eternity or something like that, it's like when you contemplate the sky and not just how far it goes-- limits and eternal stretching is the easy part, even when you think about the fact that the universe is (supposedly) expanding constantly, and perhaps even exponentially, but then you think about every shape that could be contained in that-- the abstract, the cubist, the natural, the sheer impossibility of it blows your mind simply because it is actually possible after all, the shapes are there-- we just don't see them because they're all the same, like if you connected every molecule of nitrogen with opaque or translucent lines and made them not transparent (except that they probably aren't, it's just that the atoms are mostly empty space, especially since the cloud of electrons is spread out and the molecules are so far apart because it's the nature of a gas-- if you compressed it to a state of solidity would it still be transparent? I think liquid nitrogen is opaque), and the shapes would utterly blow your mind, just as the shapes of clouds, except if we could perceive them in three dimensions, rather than the two which come with the lack of depth perception induced by seeing them from such a great distance, as is the natural state or so they tell us.

Maybe that's why we watch sunsets, because we can't bear the daylight sky, and it gives us such great pleasure to see it finally ending, and the imagination of our overworked minds can finally take a rest on the night sky and start contemplating stars, which are infinitely more complex than clouds unless you take eternity into account, at which point everything is equally simple and complex, and you spend hours just staring at a rock, because the rock is so interesting, infinitely more interesting than some strange philosophical doctrine (that sentence, by the way, was written that way partly because I tried to write it while Born In The USA started playing and the lyrics just carried over), even if that philosophy is about how everything is equally complex, because at some point every philosophy starts talking about actual people, and how you or they are supposed to behave, and after a while it just gets depressing-- you've got the idealists, the cynics, the Christians, the atheists, the existentialists and the nihilists (who claim, or are claimed by their critics, which makes it probably more true than the former, at least according to someone (possibly Gilbert Keith Chesterton) that they are merely the logical end of the existentialist philosophy-- though I must protest that existentialism only turns to nihilism if you're utterly cynical, which, of course, is half the point) and the optimists and the Marxists and the modernists and the postmodernists and now, you've got the pretentious sort of artists who look back at postmodernism as, somehow, not postmodern enough (or maybe just too postmodern, depending on the day of the week and trend), and turn out making things that are, honestly, just strange, which I always thought was part of the point of postmodernism (to be fair, that's only part of it-- strangeness in and of itself must be more than simply itself, or less, or only just, because if you are being strange for the sake of strange it's post-postmodernism, or maybe post-post-post-neomodernism, or neopostmodernism or something, but if you're being strange to prove that, say, life is strange, or life is not strange, or people are strange, or people are not strange but society is, then it's postmodernism, or sometimes just modernism, depending on your overall point, point of view, and whatever critic happens to be talking about your work), but I guess that's only if you really don't care what the critics think, unless you do.

Philosophy, Dualism, unlikely but interesting people

Today, it seems, is a day for dualism. Well, yesterday was, I guess; it's now almost three in the morning of this new day, which I'll probably miss the first few hours of, sleeping. At least I won't miss much-- it's pouring rain right now, and will continue to do so until well after sunrise, I think. The only real hope is that it lets off before I have to go to work, and in enough time for me to get to the bank, too. That's another thing! When I can drive, I won't have to worry about scrambling up steep, muddy banks on high-speed roads with sharp curves and no sidewalks so I don't get run over! That, and I won't have to drag my work uniform around in that huge backpack anymore, which will be nice. I'm sick of that stupid thing. I look like a little kid, and I feel like one, and when my shift seems to always start at the same time all the little kids are getting out of school... Well.

Anyway, dualism. A friend was telling me today about a book of Bruce Lee's he picked up (it should be noted that, although many people see Bruce Lee as a great martial artist, or a great philosopher, he saw himself as a philosopher first-- at this point in the conversation I pointed out that a great martial artist must needs also be a philosopher, or at least that's always been my perception, and my friend agreed), and how he was talking about the Western and Eastern philosophies. The main point was that Bruce Lee took the same approach to philosophy that he always had with martial arts-- an approach he could take, having seen both sides of the coin-- which was that both had their merits, and rather than standing around arguing about which was better, you'd be better off studying both and taking what looked right.

And then I ran into this blog post/speech by Stephen Fry:

[After a long bit on self-help books, and sugar, and enterprise, which I almost entirely agreed with*]

Well, I count myself one of those suckers for at least 50% of the time. I love dumb action movies, and sentimental weepies. I love hamburgers smothered in sweet tangy sauce. I love toys and games and theme parks and RVs and spectacle and simple solutions. I love having my vulgar glands and cheap sensation receptors tweaked and tickled. I love believing in promises of a brighter future. I love the idea that training myself to breathe only through my nose or to chew my food 48 times before swallowing will make me thinner, less stressed and sleep better or whatever the latest fad might be. I love the idea that five simple mantras chanted twice a day might help me concentrate, make love more satisfyingly and become richer or that by following Jesus or Anthony Robbins will make me rich and happy.

But for the rest of the time I want the truth. I want it unsweetened. I want to wash my mouth free of all sweeteners. I want to test all claims and statements on the anvil of experience or by empirical double blind randomised cohorts according to best scientific practice. I want to doubt, to experience, to think, to challenge and to scoff. I want art and literature and cinema and music that rejects easy pappy, poppy formulae and which reflects the truth of experience and all the ambiguities and complexities of existence. I want not sweet but bitter and sour and salt. I want realism not idealism. I want facts not fancies. I want imagination not wishing upon a star. I want learning, language and literature not philistinism, fantasy and infantilism.

First GK Chesterton, then Bruce Lee, now Stephen Fry. Maybe instead of going to school, I'll just spend the next ten years hiding out in a library, occasionally coming out to climb trees once a week or something.

*I don't know what it is that bothers me so much about books like How To Win Friends And Influence People. Maybe it's pride-- the idea that I somehow need -help- to "win friends" No! No, the idea that friends are something to be won! and "influence people." You see, I damn well -know- how to make friends. I just don't care enough about most people to make the effort. Ye gods, that sounds awful. What I mean is, if someone needs help, I will by all means help them out if it is in my power to do so. I will not go party with them, nor will I make small talk, nor will I giggle at their stupid jokes, nor will I spare them long rambling verbal essays on philosophy if we are in proximity. I don't want to win friends. I want to be friends with the people who I care about, and the rest of the world can go fuck off.

DISCLAIMER: It's three in the morning. If I made this speech to the above-mentioned Bruce Lee fan, musician, and close friend, he would probably smack me upside the head and point out all the problems with this footnote and all it implies and outright states. But it is late/early, and my aqueous humor hurts, and I don't care.

Talkin' 'Bout My (nameless) Generation

Friend: You’re from Generation X, right?
Me: No, that’s my older sister’s generation. My generation… my generation has no name.
Friend: That is an excellent song title. You should write that song.
Me: Heh. I’ve been thinking about it for a while – it is, isn’t it?
Friend: Yes. And you are going to write it.
Me: …I am?
Friend: Yes. Tonight.
Me: …Okay.

I didn’t finish the song in one night; I started writing concepts in a bookstore café, and when I picked up my guitar that night the chords felt right, and the notes came easy, and the melody and harmony just clicked, which it never has before, but the lyrics were absolute shit, and I knew it as I was writing them, and didn’t let it bother me because I needed the songwriting practice, musically speaking. I’ve begun again this night, sans guitar (though I believe a guitar would help, I’ve no desire to wake my family, as it is currently two o’clock in the morning), and it’s… better. It’s a rough draft, instead of, well, shit.

Here’s what I’d written ahead of time; I’m typing it up here to get me past the block I’m on right now.

I’m supposed to be writing a song, My Generation Has No Name. I’ve thought about that concept so many times, it’s strange to be thinking the actual… song. And… it’s true, you know. Our generation is undefined, the unknown value that could shape the equation and, consequently, the world. Heh. We’ve got rap, and synth-pop, and death/metal/gore/scream (etc)-core, and a bit of rock, even. We’ve got a pretty strong Indie crowd. We’ve got punks, and grinning cynics, and too many of us have come onto the scene pre-destined, defined to our last little trait – our personality as good as owned by the media. When will culture start charging by the soul?

Destiny in our control / when will you begin to charge us / by the soul? (Idea tho’)
These frozen clocks all look the same
my generation has no name

CONCEPTS
culture (moves on)
potential (infinite)
implied in the name [of the song] is a certain formlessness; we are allowing the world to shape us, while our voices become hollow(s) to echo, despite their boundless range – our generation has no name.

Aha, I can be as patriotic as I damn well want to be, and that includes toward my generation. I do believe in potential, and I do believe that every generation gets a chance to change the world, and we are wasting ours.

Stories, etc.

To date, I have begun stories about a man, an old general who tried to conquer the world and was sentenced, by those who stopped him – after much bloodshed, pain, heartache, and loss – to be eternally imprisoned in a stone tower, which would move every day from place to place, at random, throughout that world, so that his followers (for even after all that he had done, there were those who wanted to go on) could never find and rescue him, and he created a companion in his mind, out of regret for all the life he’d lost and wasted and spilled on barren wasteland, a wraith of the innocence left in him, a hallucination; an old god who keeps watch over a tiny eldritch monster which lives in the bottom of a bottomless pot of soup; a guitarist who accidentally goes wandering into another world, where dreams are watched by the servants of the king there, to keep them from the daemons who seek to conquer all; a man who is cursed to die a thousand thousand deaths, and each time he wakes there is some new horror he must face, for all of eternity. I have finished none of the above, and I don’t know why.

I’m angry, and lonely, and hurt, and mostly I don’t know why. I used to really like my job, but lately work in general bothers me – I don’t mind working. I don’t mind coming home tired, and sore, late, I don’t mind dealing with people (mostly), I don’t mind doing dirty work. What gets to me is when there’s politics. When it’s tough to do my job because the boss needs to keep this or that person happy, when I can’t get things done because they need to be done by this person only, for some stupid obscure reason, when things need to be super-professional because we’re trying to impress someone higher-up-the-chain, and I want to say “Are you fucking kidding me? I just dug through three different garbage cans looking for a catalogue I threw out too early, the both of us swear like sailors when we’re working on something particularly hard, when it’s raining I come into work soaked and when it’s snowing I come into work frosted over, you barely ever wear a uniform because it’s so cold in here three layers of fleece isn’t even enough (for you, anyway, personally I couldn’t care less about the cold), there’s three different handwritings on the smaller bags because we all take turns making them up, and this business works fine because everyone who works here cares about it (I think…), and because you’re damned good at what you do, and everything works, even if it isn’t clean enough to eat off of (which, mostly, it is). Who gives a shit if my hair is frizzy as hell? I wear a hat when you tell me to… why does it matter that everything I did last night besides the drawer was off the clock? Nobody was around. The drawer comes out even nine times out of ten, or more, and customers rarely leave unsatisfied. When I tell people stuff about birds, I’m helping them. I like doing that. I… just don’t. Get it.

I don’t really care about money. This, I’ve been told, is a failing. I don’t need a lot of stuff in my life, most of the stuff I like best is beat-up and old, and as long as I have clothes on my back and enough to eat, I’m fine. Most people either don’t understand that or don’t believe it. I don’t understand them. I don’t understand why it’s okay to lie, cheat, fuck people over, as long as you’re getting paid enough, but if you’re playing guitar in the street you damn well better be collecting. I don’t understand why it’s good form to put change in your hat so it looks like you’re making money already. Will people only give to someone they think others have given to? I don’t understand why crack whores are despicable, but Artists doing crack at Parties are glorious.

I hate this life, and I think one of these days I’ll just disappear, and in retrospect, my deepest apologies to any of you whom I abandoned in the doing thereof. I hope you understand.

The Untouched, Untouchable, Intangible HORIZON

I had to take the dove feather out of my notebook to paint it.


This is what the back looks like now:

What I'm Looking For

I can’t help but feel that if I just ran the hell away from here, my life would be okay. If I buy a plane ticket tomorrow for Death Valley, and just walk, take nothing with me, just… go. I feel like my life’s been building up to this. I feel like somewhere behind this padlocked skull, there’s momentum building, there’s a coiled spring, waiting to launch me into another life, another reality, I can’t help but realize that it’s probably all a symptom, but at the same time…

What if I did?

Tomorrow. If I got off work tomorrow, bought a plane ticket, and mailed my phone and a letter of thanks and apology to the three people keeping me sane right now, if I disappeared like a puff of smoke into the wind, if I never came back…

I keep trying to work on these stories. They’re all half-finished, they all look bleaker and bleaker the harder I try to fix them. Nothing seems to fit, nothing seems to matter, I can’t think straight and my brain is twisted into knots, nothing fits or works or sounds right and just… I don’t know whether it’s me, or my environment, or just… I don’t know. I haven’t mailed my college application off yet. I don’t know why. I finished it a week ago.

I’m not stupid, or naïve, I like to think. I like to think I’ve washed all the romanticism out of my head with cynicism, and then replaced the cynicism with idealism, and then watered that down with reality and beautifully gray skies. The thing is, it’s a Romantic’s dream, running away. Buying a spontaneous plane ticket to Death Valley? That’s a castle in the air, man. But, oh, God, I want it.

I want to get the hell out of here, to pack my guitar and my laptop and a bunch of notebooks, and just go. And to wander, across deserts, and through old, deserted towns, and bustling cities, and grasslands, and fields, and forests, to just wander, to fast and meditate and find what I’m looking for, to hear more than the voices in my head, to meet people with odd and strange viewpoints, and learn from people who had no teachers, to sing in places where the sky touches the ground, to find the soft places between the worlds, to live.

And someday, I want to stumble back into town, and see my friends again, and share adventures, and hear all about how they took their potential and their grand dreams and spirits and souls and lives and did something amazing, about how they realized all of their dreams, and all of their potential, and how they changed the world, and how they’re big, real, more awesome than ever now, and how they fill the world around them. And I’ll tell them stories about how I saw the eagles freefalling with their talons locked, and I climbed down the Grand Canyon wall, and crossed whitewater rapids on foot, and where I finally met Coyote and here’s the scar I got from where he tricked me into picking up a hot coal, and what it looks like to see the sun set over the Edge of the Very World, and being in places where it rains all the time and where it never rains, and just, just and then… and then I can settle down, maybe, and things will be easier to understand, or maybe I’ll just turn back around and go out again, and and and I don’t even know.

Castles in the air. If you jump for them, you more often than not fall back to Earth and break your spine, but there’s always the off chance you’ll catch onto something on the way.

To A Friend,

I keep seeing your picture on Facebook, and it makes me think, and remember, and smile a little, but mostly just think. And miss you. We didn’t even really know each other all that well, we were from two separate years and mostly just had Band and insanity in common, and by insanity… well, you kind of outstrip me there, which is probably something you’d be proud of. Maybe. I don’t know. I just remember you telling me about your girlfriend of a very long time, and a bunch of stuff that I probably shouldn’t say here. I didn’t know what to say. It’s probably a good thing you never knew I had kind of a crush on you for a while, there. But then, I basically had a crush on every guy who stood out, for at least a week. I blame public schools for that. At least those stupid things went away.

But I still miss you. There was also the time we tried to break into the locked piano in the auditorium so you could satisfy the craving you had to play piano that day, and it was pitch black in there, so I held my cellphone like a light so you could try and pick the lock on the cover, but we never got anywhere. And when we came out of the auditorium, we were both laughing because we’d just realized how sketchy it looked that we were sneaking into a dark auditorium alone together during lunch, and because that was after (or before? it’s all pretty cloudy now) the whole stupid fucking hormone thing, it was pretty hilarious. There are not a lot of guys who I would enjoy trying to break into a piano with, probably because most guys wouldn’t try to break into a piano, at least not with the sole intention of playing it. Shock—horror.

The more I think about you, the more I miss you, and this is a really bad habit to get into, especially since it’s almost two in the morning and I have to work tomorrow. It’s been a really long time since we saw each other – more than two years, at a guess. Or at least more than one year. Anyway. I miss you. I hope your life is going really well, because as a person, and whether you believe this or not, you deserve it. Rock on, man.

What Power Struggle?

really though i never really had a reason to enter the fray, things just seemed to work this way, and i am just about as unchanging as Coyote hisdamnself. man, you might bring out the wild howling, or the manic laughter, or the omnivorous glutton, or the hunted predator, you might be able to twist the image a little, but it's still the same tufted tail, the same wild eyes, the same twisted soul. unlike Coyote, i could apologize, but i don't think i will. because i wasn't made to fit a bastion of order. man was not made for the Sabbath, but vice versa. (sentences like that are part of why i love my language so much. geez, only you, English. only you.) i am crazy because that's what i am. yes, i will try to handle it, i will try to keep things a little bit safe, and i will damn well apologize with every ounce of sincerity in my heart when the fucked-up parts of me go too far and i hurt someone, but... this is what it is, man. i am what i am.

Disclaimer:

Now, I may have a messiah complex as big as Bono's.

but.

But I believe, somewhere between skin and soul, I believe that I have a calling, that God put me here to do something. I believe that I am supposed to be out there helping fix this world. I believe that I can change the world.

Someday, slavery will be gone from every continent. Someday, no one will die of mosquito bites, of a disease we cured over a century ago. Someday, people will not starve in a world of plenty, someday children will not be murdered for the color of their skin, someday enough people will care, someday this kind of shit won't happen anymore.

I believe that I was given this life for a reason, and if I don't work on that I will have wasted this gift. I believe, somewhere inside of me, that I was given the dreams and visions that come to me for a reason, and that through Christ I can do all things, and also that it is distinctly possible that Coyote was sent to help me, or decided to help me, and I have faith that this is not blasphemy, that my ancestors believed it for a reason, and that there is behind me a Trickster who will lend me his strength if I ask him.

As I thought this on the way home, my mind immediately spiraled off into the mythic dimension, and before more than a few seconds had passed I had to shut off the train of thought concerning Coyote, because it would lead me to... well, vision over visibility. An illusion, a trick. But mark my words.

This will not stand. There is a day coming when this world will be at peace, when love will triumph hate and bitterness, when despair will be washed away. This world will change.

Whatever is not an expression of apathy, it's the eye of the storm.

To Whom It May Concern, and with all due respect,

My attitude is not defined by the speech-pattern of apathetic dismissal, "Whatever."

My attitude is defined by the final word with which I choose to leave your company, and most people's-- that is to say, "Peace." Which is, in case you didn't know, a shortened form of the full farewell, which is to say, "Peace be with you."

Peace be with you. Peace unto you, and your loved ones, and peace be unto this world, this torn and scarred world, this home of our fragile human race, which is within our power to make a heaven or a hell.

My attitude is in the songs I sing along roads and under echoing bridges and to the open night sky, songs like Sunday Bloody Sunday, songs that fan the flames of my soul, lyrics that grip my heart in a vise. My attitude is in the lines "Where you live should not decide / Whether you live or whether you die" because that is where my passion lies.

I say things like "Whatever," I shrug, I grin and laugh it off often, because my mind is occupied with stories, with dreams, with love and hope and fire and pain and longing, and whether it's the date or the initials that come first on an invoice doesn't even scratch the surface of any of those things. I won't say I couldn't care less, because on some level I do care-- I shrug it off because the mistake's been made, and file away the information for next time. Whether I remember it or not depends on other factors.

Someday, I won't have to walk into a store, pick up an object, and wonder if it was made by hired workers or forced slavery. Someday, enough people will care, enough people will care and think and speak and work, and slavery will be eradicated. Someday, children will stop dying from diseases cured centuries in the past, and people will care as much for the starving continents away as the starving in the slums of the next city over. Someday, this world will cease to be a hell for most of the people in it.

I repeat this to myself at least once a day. I have to. I force myself to believe it as I speak it, to see it in my mind, a world without a hell that could so easily be prevented, because if I start to believe that it won't happen, it hurts, so bad I want to cry.

When I put the earbuds back in my pocket, and I shake the snow or the dust or the rainwater off of my shoes and jacket and walk in, I shake off the passion and fury and sorrow that wars within me, because if I didn't have walls to put it up behind, it would consume me. I'd be impossible to put up with-- more than I already am, that is. But it doesn't go away. Know that. It doesn't go away ever, and I never stop caring, and I am never, ever apathetic. I'm just distant.

Peace, dude.

It's Devoid of Feel

"What do you see out your window today?"

Byron frowns pensively and twitches the curtain back. "There's a flock of birds," he said. "They're all huge, built like albatrosses, smoke-blue. Like a flock, they're squabbling over motes of light in the air around them."

Damien smiled. "Is that all?"

"No -- the sky is dusky red, like the end of a sunset, around them. They're flying all around, without stopping, like hummingbirds, because there's no ground to land on."

"How many are there, Byron?"

He shrugs, watching them. "I don't know -- hundreds, it looks like. I wonder where we are."

"Look down, then -- can you see the ground?"

"It looks like we're up too high for a ground or a horizon to be visible."

Then Byron closes the window curtain again, and sits back in his chair. He looks over at Damien, who lies on his back on the thick rug. If there'd been a fireplace at the front of the scene, rather than a blank stone wall, it would've looked cozy. He was youngish, unsure of his exact age, and had a shock of black hair, which he kept in a ponytail. Sometimes, Byron wondered if he'd ever been young like that. It didn't seem likely.

"Byron, I'm not hungry." Byron glances at him. "I really wish I was."

The older man snorts. "All the physical sensations in the world to choose from, and you wish for hunger?"

Breaking A Pattern

The other day I was looking back over this blog, and I realized that it is a very strange juxtaposition, between ramblings about friends, whining about life, and complete insanity. Or partial insanity, anyway. I have these moments – moments that last weeks – where I wonder if I’m really insane, if I’m just normal and milking the quirks, if that twitch in my neck is something I could control if I really wanted to (and I know I could, it’s just difficult and requires a lot of concentration), if I’m really insane or just a little weird. It’s not normal to have the sudden desire to leap into traffic, every time you walk down a busy street; it’s not normal to go wandering the streets at night, because you get restless; it’s not normal to think or act or speak the way I do. But I wonder, I wonder if I’m really insane or just a little odd. My friends… well, I don’t know.

I have to remind myself every so often that the hallucinations were there. I have to remind myself that there have been times when I’ve broken into a run on the street, unable to look back because there was Something there behind me. I have to remind myself that hearing cats behind me all the time when there are, in fact, no cats in the vicinity, is insane. I have to try and remember that it’s not just abnormal to always be warding off suspicions that your friends are spying on you, it’s paranoia. Insanity. I have paranoid schizophrenia, and I need to remember that just because I have good days, just because it’s a mild thing right now, doesn’t mean it’s not there.

The worst thing might actually be the periods of depression that come along. I have to remember that this is a symptom of the illness, and to fight it. Lying in bed without the motivation to get up is not just being lazy, it’s allowing myself to be that way. I have to fight to find the inspiration to write, and draw, and think, and not just lay about, which I’m afraid that I’ll do without the push, inner or outer. I still remember my mother holing up in her room for days, not eating or talking to any of us, just laying around praying and crying, and she had five kids and it didn’t matter because she couldn’t see past the haze. I have a life to live – I have a job, two jobs now if this works out, and stories to write, and school to go to, even if it is community. I can’t afford to let the haze of insanity hold me down here.

And, on that note, I’m off to my first day!

Coyote's Wings

Long ago, when all the spirits that we know as animal spoke, and were brothers, Coyote and Eagle were friends, and they would hunt together, Coyote running over the ground and Eagle sighting prey from far up on the winds. Now, Eagle soared over the mountains, and because he was so closed to the Sun, he could be warm even in the winter, because in those days the Sun was very close, and even slept in the mountains at night. But Eagle felt bad for his brother Coyote, who ran over the ground, even in the winter, where the Sun could not reach down through the trees, because of their thick needles and leaves – back then, even the leafy trees grew all year round.

So Eagle said to Coyote, “Brother, aren’t you cold down there, where the Sun cannot reach? You’d better come up here with me, and fly over the trees.”

But Coyote is very proud and stubborn, and he only laughed at Eagle. “I feel just fine, brother! I have thick fur and the cold does not bother me at all.”

Eagle continued to ask his brother, each time they went out hunting, if he would not feel better up on the wind, where it was warm under the Sun. And each time, Coyote would laugh and tell Eagle to focus on his own tasks, and let Coyote worry about the ground – he was not cold, under his thick fur.

One day, Eagle and Coyote were out hunting, and they came across the Heron, who was weeping in his home by the lake, which had not yet frozen over.

“Why are you weeping, Heron?” asked Eagle, as he landed on the tree above. “It is a beautiful day, and there are plenty of fish for both of us.” It was only them, for that moment, as Coyote could not run as fast as Eagle could fly, and he was still catching up.

Heron looked up at Eagle sadly, and said “Oh, Eagle, I am weeping because I cannot catch any fish with these wings!” Back then, Heron had very dark, heavy wings, which could carry him very high but looked out of place against his light body. “They are so heavy and dark that the fish always see my silhouette and scatter before I can get to them! I cannot catch fish anymore, and I am afraid that my family will starve.”

Eagle pondered this for a moment, because he was very wise, and he saw a solution. “Heron,” he said, “What if someone were to take your wings? You could catch fish as the men do, by stabbing with your beak from the shores, and the fish would not see your wings.”

“That is a great idea, Eagle!” Heron was overjoyed, and he did a dance with his wings – the dance that all herons do, now. “But who will you give them to? They are very big and dark, and very powerful.”

“I will give them to Coyote, so that he does not have to run over the cold ground when we are hunting together,” said Eagle.

Heron clapped his beak. “Eagle, are you sure that is a good idea? Coyote can be very foolish, and he might do something stupid with these wings and hurt himself, or you.” But Eagle did not believe him, and as soon as Heron had shrugged off his wings and waded away, Coyote came running up.

“Brother!” he cried, his ears perked. “Why are we all here so still, when the day is beautiful and there is hunting to be done?” He saw the wings then, floating in the water, and stopped short. “What are those there for? Aren’t those Heron’s wings?”

Eagle stretched his own wings and smiled. “Heron doesn’t want his wings anymore,” he said. “They are yours, if you want them.” For he knew that for all Coyote’s pride in his legs and his own warm fur, he was very curious.

Coyote pretended to be disinterested in the wings, but secretly, he was immediately filled with joy at the thought of flying high, and being able to soar with Eagle above the trees. He sniffed at the big, dark wings, and then said “Oh, well, I may as well take them – I wouldn’t want them to go to waste!”

As he put them on, Eagle said from his tree branch, “Just be careful, Coyote. They are very powerful wings, and dangerous if you are not careful with them.”

“I am always careful!” Coyote was never careful, but he thought he was. He immediately took off, flying in circles over the lake and laughing for joy. Eagle was pleased at his brother’s happiness, and they went back to hunting together.

But it had not been very long when Coyote began to try to do tricks, as he had seen Eagle do with his mate. He flew straight downwards, and then straight upwards, and he began to fly with his eyes closed, despite all of Eagle’s warnings. “I am Coyote!” he cried. “I will do tricks that no bird has ever done!” And he continued to fly with his eyes closed, turning around and around.

Eagle cried warnings after him, trying to slow him down, but Coyote continued to fly until he flew straight into the Sun, knocking her out of her path. The bright heat of the Sun singed the wings to the white color they are today, and Sun fled, for she was afraid of Coyote pulling her down to the Earth. As she fled, the trees turned yellow, and then red, as the heat left them, and all their leaves dropped off. Eagle came and pulled Coyote away from the Sun by his wings, almost detaching them, and carried his brother back to land in his claws.

Coyote was still unconscious when Eagle took the wings back off of him and brought them over to Heron, who was happily stabbing his meals in the lake. “Heron,” he said, “You were right. Coyote flew into the Sun with your wings, and damaged them. Do you want them back? They are not so dark anymore, and you will be able to catch fish without scaring them.

And so Heron did his dance with his wings, as all Herons do now, and Eagle went back to hunting on the wind alone, while Coyote went back to running over land. To this day they share their kills, and Coyote runs over the ground, warm in his thick fur, while Eagle soars over the wind, and Eagle does the wise thing and does not offer Coyote power anymore, and Coyote is crazy and cheers Eagle up with his tricks.

It feels too cold to walk outside right now. I don’t know why – it’s only seventeen degrees, I’ve walked in colder. Maybe I don’t want it bad enough, maybe I’ve been sitting here, inert, for too long, maybe it doesn’t matter. It’s cold, and I’m lonely, and Mohan hasn’t talked to me in ages and I haven’t talked to him, but I’ve been hearing the kittens, for whatever that’s worth. Ever heard a cat meow from a few feet behind you, looked around, and seen your own cat sleeping peacefully right under your chair? Or vice versa, sometimes. It’s a little unnerving. It helps that the kittens (I know they must be full grown by now, but I still think of them as The Kittens) have a deeper pitch, and aren’t as vibrato in voice.

Walking home from work today, I had this craving for someone I haven’t seen in a while. I wanted to talk to him, hold his hand, walk together and talk and understand him. I wanted company. Want. I want company. I want someone to hug, and I want someone to talk to and care about and kiss in the dark when we’re alone and it’s the magic of the night that lights up your soul and I want adventure and love, and love, and it… just… hurts.

Damn, I’m whiny this fine evening. That’s why I go walk, when things get lonely. I find things to focus on that aren’t life, and it’s a little easier to take. Ah, well. Took some pictures, and now I’m just going to read Sandman and fall asleep. Maybe things will be better in the morning.

The -real- reason to run away.

I think I need to run away and find the part of me that makes up stories again. Just leave, leave this whole town, house, state, region, life, find some place that’s going to be new and fresh and what I’m looking for. I want to be a storyteller again. Where did my soul go? The sky is grey, featureless, unshining, unshadowed, unsmiling like a blank slate, but I’ve had enough, I’m ready to soar, I’m ready to leave contrails of fire and a comet’s trail and make you think so hard your head explodes. Hell yes.

My best friend gave me an endless scene for Christmas/New Year’s/whatever we’re calling it, she’s Jewish and I’m Christian and our other friend is Agnostic/indescribable, so I’m really unsure, but it hardly matters. I’m ready to dive into another world, make things stop making sense, start letting the world run away with me again. We’ll see.

I’ve been having dreams, by the way. Disturbing dreams. The night before last, I dreamed that my dad gave me a plate of eggs, and I got halfway through and he pointed out that I’d also consumed half a slice of ham, and I was horrified partly because that’s meat, I ate it, why did you give me a plate with meat on it, and partly because I hadn’t even noticed, or maybe my subconscious had and had kept eating anyway, and now I’m freaked out because I don’t know what my subconscious is trying to say, but I woke up with a really gross feeling, like… unclean, and now I want to go vegan more than ever. Last night I dreamed my dad and I had a huge fight about David – this came on the heels of a strange and beautiful dream in which I took this friend to prom, despite her not being bi or anything, and the fact that I not only am straight, but also have never had a crush on her. I drove a Bentley. I don’t know what that means. I also was about as masculine as I’ve ever been, and I don’t know what that means either.

Discovery, and a journey with no destination is still a journey worth making.

Well, I started writing something full of self-pity, and anguish or angst, and this torn, hurt, lost feeling that’s been growing inside of me, like a little jagged sword-blade, slowly ripping the hole wider, little by little as the months pass. That’s a better description than listing the reasons and environmental stress, like the first post did. Why I’m here… well, it matters, but that’s not what it’s about, really. It’s about getting out, or at least living with the world I’m in.

The fact is… mostly, I want to leave. I want to take my guitar, my laptop, and my cat, and just go… away. Somewhere. I can’t – I have no car, no money (at least, not enough to get away), little momentum – just the urge to go. But there I am again, complaining. Basically, today I sang a song for a friend, and he seemed to like it, and he showed me a bunch of cool stuff on the guitar and now I’ve got even more to do to take my mind off of all this crap, so… yeah.

I wrote this walking to see a friend, when I stopped to have a drink at Starbucks: “The impossible things we see by the side of the road – ghosts of fallen leaves, shadows left on the pavement, like a footprint; bubbles rising from the solid ground beneath a puddle; your smile, on a bit of jagged glass, there and gone like a sunbeam’s flash;”

Later I made it into a song.

Impossible things
found by the roadside (wayside?)
starlight, trapped in frost,
all crystal, distant,
cold as the fire that sparked it,
bright as a hole in the sky,
impossible, oh, impossible things
glass, soft as a candle,
shifting in the winds
like a sea of cattails,
singing beneath the streetlights,
oh, impossible, oh—
and a smile in your eyes,
brighter than sun and star and hellfire,
like the rhythm in your voice,
oh, those long days
impossible,
impossible things
we find on our journeys,
impossible things
the gems in the coal mine,
rainclouds in the desert,
oh, impossible—
the songs you sing,
the broken wing of a soaring bird
oh, oh, oh…
impossible things, found by the wayside
impossible, ohhh… impossible

I dunno. Maybe it’s crap. I kinda like it, though, and if I can find a good guitar part, I’ll try and make it a song worth singing.

So I’m still here. There’s still roads I haven’t walked, there’s still trees I haven’t climbed, still trails to hike and paths to take and songs to sing and stories to write and so, so many things to discover. I’m tired of going nowhere. Maybe I’m not looking at this the right way. I can whine and cry about still being in this town, this state, this ugly little nowhere and this house all I want, but there’s so much that I haven’t done, it seems useless to just complain. I think I’ll start taking new roads, when I’m not working. Not really Going Somewhere doesn’t mean I have to be going nowhere.

Because this world is worth it.

This feels ego-centric even as I start to write it, but I think I'll do it anyway.

I pray I never have the sense to bow my head against the wind; I pray for the strength to be able to laugh at myself; I pray that I never lose touch with idealism, and that I always stay grounded in reality.

Yeah, self-centered as hell. But ya know what? I mean it. It's not that I don't want to change, it's that I don't want to be anyone else. I don't want to turn into a bitter, angry person. Or even a bitter happy person, actually, or even a cheerful cynic. I've done that before, and it's not worth it. There's so much out there! There's so much emotion, so much love, so much beauty and art and potential, and I don't want to go through life ignoring it, or worse, mocking it. I -did- the whole "This world sucks, why bother" thing, and then I heard a song, and things changed.

One love, one blood
One life, you got to do what you should.

I was lonely, and angry, and torn up inside, I was laughing at the world and screaming at myself, I was lying awake at night dreaming of an end to all the pain, I couldn't stop moving and I wasn't going anywhere, and then one day I heard a song, and I let the words and the chords sink in, and I almost cried there on the street, walking home in the rain, and I started thinking. And searching, and trying, and caring and now... now I'm awake walking, at night, kneeling in woods and taking streets in the vague hope they won't be dead ends. I'm writing, I'm singing, I'm praying, I'm loving and learning and it still doesn't feel like enough, I still haven't found what I'm looking for--

but it's better than nothing.

Cynicism is worse than nothing. Cynicism is apathy, despair, and... well, apathy and despair under a guise of laughter. I think it's less painful than apathy and despair, but certainly not less destructive. I... rely on it too much, still. It's hard not to, in a way, because it's easier to just laugh at things, to say "I'm above that shit" and stop caring. You care, you open yourself up to hurt.

Anyway.

I want to be restless and wild and passionate, I don't want to settle, I don't want to stop caring, I don't want to stop wanting to fix this world. No, one person can't fix the world, yes, people are constantly trying and there's still tons of shit out there. But you know what? I'd rather go down fighting. I'd rather spend the rest of my life striving and pushing and shouting and caring and hurting than shrug it off, laugh it off, and sit back to watch things fail. I believe this world can be a better place, people can change, and with that in mind I would rather die than sit here and smirk.

This world sucks. Let's do something about it.

Of snow, forgiveness, new beginnings to eternal cycles.

This night, I walked out into the air, clear and cold, and went to a quiet place, a clearing in a wood, covered in snow and quiet. And I knelt, there, and prayed for forgiveness for all I’ve done this year, all I’ve thought, all I’ve felt, all I’ve said with malice in my heart. There’s a lot of it. I prayed to be forgiven for all that I am, underneath the grin and laughter, all that I am instead of what I could, should be. And I said that this year, I will do better. And I meant it, and still do.

And then I stood beneath the lights, walking away from that quiet place, as snow began to fall from the sky in little, whirling, crystals, and I caught them on my sleeve and marveled at their beauty, their crystalline perfection, and I stood with my head thrown back to the sky and watched a dance older than any can say, a new thing each time it begins, and I laughed, and spun, and caught the sweetest of life’s moments one at a time on my tongue.

This is the same planet as it was yesterday, as it always has been, and this sky is the same as it has been, the stars still shine as they have always, the snow still falls the same way, but this is a new snow, it is a new night, it is a new year and a new life, and I am forgiven, and I will start anew.