Our Lady of Decreasing Altitude

I am crushed,
hardened,
ten thousand years old.

I am dirt under traffic cones
miles and miles of protruding bones.
sixty days of caricatures
alone in a skin.

I am glass hands on moldy rivets
melting,
fizzing,
light to helpless trails.

I am dizzy
cornered
well-spoken and well-maligned.
curable if caught on time.

I am tired of the big finish.
spoonbenders beware!
ripped up a tattered sentiment
and lost from keeping score.

****

I wrote this on a bus quite some time ago and just found it in the bottom of my backpack while not being able to sleep and looking for my cell phone charger. I especially like the bit about spoonbenders.

Feet Steps

He didn't knock. Why would he knock? In a town so small, why would anybody knock?
The sunlight dried up all of the fear in the room and turned everything into an angel.
What IS that? He wondered before he knew. Of course he knew before he knew; his brain worked like everyone else's.
A pile of angles. A pile of angles with no straight lines. Skin with creases, giving in to gravity.
Giving into gravity.
The wind blew through the little old house like it always did, and she rocked a little in her chair. She had spent so much time in that chair that it had worn to her specifics, only now she did not appear specific at all.
She looked like matter. Matter with mass and no matter.
And no matter what was she going to get up from that chair.
Years had gone by in that room, every one absorbed by that little old house and by that little old body that had misplaced all of its air when it was younger and was now gawking up at him, smiling wryly.
Now a deflated toy, won from the circus, asking questions to which it knew the answer. Before it knew the answer.
He thought of her as a child. He had never known her innocence, her impeccable phrasing, her skin before she had given it to gravity.
He saw her with sparklers in both of her hands, bright lights grinning with gay fury while the world spun around her so fast, so fucking fast that she couldn't ever keep up, and she would fall down on this flat rock that only seems flat and hurtle through space some more all grins, all grins like the angels grin. All teeth like being loved again. All tears like she only knew them.
He picked up her hand and kissed the callouses. It was lighter than before, but it was so heavy.
Her feet looked as they should. Bloated, chock full of innumerable things that nobody understands, unable to hold any more footsteps. Or feet steps.
He sat for a while thinking. Watching.
She had told him once that time was irrelevant; Time is a mechanism for those who fear the end. Old people. She had said.
I'm not old people.
He remembered that she never really knew what day of the week it was even; she knew what time it was by when she was hungry.
"Now you are above time, my friend." He said out loud, his sounds full of hope.
"Now you are awe."
He stood up and paused a moment, feeling the pressure in his body restore, and walked out of the little old house.
The sun was fighting its way into the clouds, disintegrating into the earth.
It would be dinner time soon.

Recence

Probably not a word.

The light in our bathroom used to be B-movie, now it isn't.

I played a video game for an entire day today for the first time since probably early high school.

Sometimes I'm a third grader with a lot of fucking dreams. That aren't about fucking.

If there's anything that can keep me awake, it's the thought of being given up on.

Before you go Greek: Don't.

Sidewalks are too opinionated nowadays. People got too lazy to hold signs.

"Almost anything that you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it."

If I played the trumpet in a room full of helium; it would be annoying.

If I played the trumpet in a room full of regular air; it would be annoying.

I don't play the trumpet.

The Fountain has surpassed whatever else was there and is my favorite movie. Probably because I'm forever curious about things like dying.

Whatever that means.

I drunkenly acquired one of those giant Jawbreakers from a friend. It's disgusting to think about all of the dried up little dead bacteriae on there, but I'm still licking it.

They went out of their way to die. It's the least I can do.

Some of the best things in the world are things that you buy way too much of, but can only consume a little at a time. And then you have this stocked bunch of shit that you don't even want because the last time you had some it was really tasty but then turned gross.

That's a great feeling, because it's different from all the other ones.

I don't have a minute for the environment. It never had a minute for me.

Looking at the big picture; he fell off of it.

"If ze French had a baseball team there would only be left field and NO ONE WOULD BE SAFE."

Of all of the teams in the league; ours has to do with beer. It's just how we function. Apparently we started with a good drunk and then got hungover, our stepdad beat us (August), and now we're in therapy.

Yeah, I think I would spend the better part of my thirties in an intellectual war with a dog.

Rascal. Rascal and Punch.

Audio tapes do not count as victims of racism.

Substances are often used to celebrate. Well, if you have a vague idea of how your brain works; they're always used to celebrate. Or not celebrate.

This got long. Unless you're an eon.

Then nevermind.

I had a thought today

In Portuguese. The first one yet.

And I can't get it out of my head.

"No Fevereiro, as árvores são o gelo. E sou também."

All it means is "In February, the trees are ice. And I am too."

Hm.

I used to do this for my high school newspaper.

Aries - When they find you washed up on the shore among the pieces of the ship, they'll finally know -- briefs.

Taurus - Your doctor will prescribe a short round of new antibiotics, and eventually the new 'addition' will fall off. Just give it time.

Gemini - Yes, you can get it done on your own, but if you ask people for help, you can accomplish half as much in twice the time, because they're pretty awful at what they do.

Cancer - You have a love decision to make, but it will have to wait until everyone stops trying to lynch you for being a witch.

Leo - You'll make an important speech today to a lot of important people, and hopefully you won't get murdered for it.

Virgo - Life will frown on you today when you realize that no; it really isn't all the same in the dark. Especially when you're sleeping with a walrus.

Libra - Playing God will not turn out well this week when giant shark-rat finally gets a taste for blood.

Scorpio - You'll think about the plagues in the Old Testament this month, and where those teenagers managed to get all of the damn frogs.

Sagittarius - Watch out for a conflict with someone at work this week. And paper cuts. And the stapler hurtling at your face.

Capricorn - The police will find out about where you're getting the wood and labor for the new addition to your house. Also, your neighbor will wonder where his living room and kids went.

Aquarius - No one will believe you when you say that you have found a daily requirement for alcohol intake, but most of them will drink it anyway.

Pisces - In order to maintain a PG rating of yourself for work and/or church, you will have to put pants on. And get off of the tiny horse.

The Sea

It's dark in here now. You didn't really have to close the door. All I can see is the little shadows of your feet in the crack. Little breaks in the beam of light. Hesitance.
I know. It's crazy right? I think to myself.
And I laugh. My voice sounds strange in the room, as though the walls were surprised to hear it and sent it back in all the wrong directions.
Like they were sleeping. Startled.
Cash in, the night says. She's waiting.
"So what?" I say, looking out the window.
Staring her right in the eyes.
The light crashes into everywhere when you open the door; it's too fast for everything to get out of the way in time.
Like the sun came up. Like dawn is the bulb in the living room.
"Esperaba que me amaras," you say.
"Es todo lo que quería." It bounces off of the wall and slaps me in the face.
I grin. What a time to grin. I couldn't help it; your tongue was all wrapped around the air in a way full of humor.
Is something funny? the night prods.
"Everything is funny," I say to her, knowing that you won't understand.
You're waiting. Disintegrating with overcast eyes.
"Extraño el sol. Eres el sol. La noche parece al mar."
I say it, my armor fleeing.
Suddenly I am full of fear, and I need you more than ever. Earth and Moon, pulling on each other.
And the sea.
"La noche?" you ask later, after we have fallen together.
Broken, but glued again.
You only love the sea, the night says, enraged, twirling me out of sleepiness.
You belong to her, and she to you.
Those words roll around in my head, the sharp edges stunning me as I explain mentioning the night to you.
Your eyes close.
Close enough.
The Spanish coastline roars and I shiver, like my muscles know. Excitatory, inhibitory.
I can see her out the window, screaming with a jealous hate, rattling my insides.
It's dark in here now.
Earth and Moon, pulling on each other.
And the sea.

Haha.

Guess what!

My mom found my blog. HI MOM!
I'll find a job soon, I promise.
No really, I will.

So I went to physics today (picture a shorter English guy with graying hair whacking my brain with a meter stick), which is all well and good, but afterwards (and before discussion) I walked over to EMS to, um, tinkle...because there were a thousand kids in the other bathroom. Anyway, the sky was that dull bruise color when I went in, but when I came out; the sun was shining in full fury. So I closed my eyes to suck me in some good weather (also because of the awful hour of morning), and a man walked across my path. I thought it was the neatest thing to just listen to footsteps. So I wonder, when was the last time you closed your eyes and just really listened? Try it. Outside.

During discussion kids kept walking by the door, being loud, being kids. Some astronomy thing, or something. But afterward, I walked outside, and what did I see? Forty thousand kids, running around in a circle all at different levels, and one kid, standing in the middle. I asked just what in the freak was going on, and was told that they were demonstrating what an atom would look like (yeah lady, if the kids running around were fast enough to form a cloud, and the nucleus was bigger. Atoms totally don't look like kids, but kids apparently look like atoms). I had about my thousandth, "Wow, this should be in a movie." moment in the last few weeks. Just an absolutely surreal couple of seconds. One of the other better ones recently was this absolutely hilarious conversation between some middle-aged people about how important it is to protect yourself by wearing a helmet on your bike.

The week after that I saw a kid wearing full pads and a helmet, using his hand signals even for turning enough to cross the street.

It was amazing, and more than enough to make me grin.

So I decided...

To make up little stories off of pictures that I find on google that I particularly like. They don't have anything to do with me (it's fiction), but it's kind of fun.

Maybe I could start a story like this.

maybe truth

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
so they laugh in the street
jackals under the hot ink of night
crows issuing threats to calm
love only breathes out
my name crowds the air
but is an abstract there
curious to mothers
an earth for each other
foundries here for your linguists
bodies here in your heyday
your hearsay
abhorred on a bridge between hearts
some simple thing
psyche thereabout
necessary vicissitude
love only breathes out
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

What?

Does nobody else stay up until breakfast opens anymore? Come on, people. Turn the lame knob down about three clicks.

I need a new calendar. Apparently it's time to throw last year away.

I think I can live with that.

If someone asked me to put how far into my life I am into a fraction, I would say 1/9, because I'm going to live until I'm 180. I decided. It's a good even number. I forget who said it, but there's a joke that goes, "I'm going to live forever. So far, so good."

Ain't that the truth.

Now I just wish humans didn't have to spend so much time sleeping. Just think of what you could accomplish...

...probably just a whole lot of thinking, "man, I'm pretty fucking tired."

Oh, Donnie.

"I don't even debate it anymore. It's just absurd."
"The search for God is absurd?"

Maybe it is. What people don't seem to realize is that God...is an idea. An idea perfectly fashioned BY human nature FOR human nature so that maybe...just maybe...there might be a justifiable reason not to live out one's days in unconscionable and egregious apathy. The idea is there. I'm not talking about your littered-with-illogicalities traditional christian He-Thee-Thou, no. We will not lower our understanding to idolatrous nincompoopery (the best word ever) here. Maybe this God is not a figure. Not a man. Not a being of any kind. Consider things which provoke ambition, sentiment, that raw feeling presented when one knows there is a purpose worthy of any pursuit. The emotion present when we realize that we have just found a reason. Maybe music is God. Or love is God. Rain is God. PEOPLE are God. Right now think about a reason why you should live life to its full extent. Maybe that is part of your God.

Stick with me here.

I never thought...

I'd be so happy to be back in this state.

It's good to see my breath again. I have been wondering what it's been doing.

Probably not

Maybe one day you'll learn.

I should get that tattooed on my hands.

IT'S DECEMBER TODAY

AND it snowed enough for people from Florida to go 'fuck?!' and realize their state is placed where the sex organ of the nation as a whole would be.

look at a map, I don't lie.

Also, some fogies looked outside and went 'balls!?' because there was no school today, just a whole lot of winter at once.

For those of us with four classes in a jagged-bleary-eyed row, this is very good news. Rivals the time I read about Easter and thought 'crap' but then realized that it's actually all about candy. Or that time I went to a birthday party at a lake and it was me and eight girls or something.

That was a very special time.

Not like that pasta filled with weird white vegetables that looked like cheese that I only realized were vegetables AFTER consumption. THAT was a shitshow. Not literally of course...I mean christ is this cauliflower? Plastic cauliflower? What am I supposed to do with this?

It's like licking a vegetarian who doesn't shower.

In other news, there's a web-exclusive video about George Clooney on being sexy on MSNBC.

You'd think they could've just found a bear or someone from the 'saouth' named Opie with Lyme disease. ALL HE DOES IS SQUINT, DOES NOBODY ELSE SEE THIS? Maybe it's because he formerly suffered from Bell's palsy, but it's probably just what having air up top looks like.

He's a liberal that liberals look at and go, 'uh, no thanks. We'll just find a bear-spokesman. Where's Opie? No, George. We gotta find him a puppy or something.'

Here's a tip Cloonster, might want to lean in close; I'm going to whisper.

Making fun of the head of the NRA isn't the best idea I've ever heard. Those people love their guns. Hell, they made a club about it.

and let me just say,

worst Batman ever.

Nos vemos.

other languages are just better.

If anyone can actually read this, four stars for you.
***
Es importante ver la verdad
pero cuando todo lo que vemos es un reflexión
nos perdemos a veces
puedo imaginarme lo que corre entre ti
pero nunca lo he visto
porque eres un espejo
Vale más que me muestres a mí mismo
porque tu y yo
somos reflexiones
y nada más
Eres el sol
y mis ojos no se adaptarán a ti
Agarro la luz
y allí en mis manos
baila un reflexión
y nada más
***
Yo te daría mis brazos,
si los usaras para rechazar a tus demonios.
Yo te daría mis ojos,
si los usaras para mirar la lluvia.
Yo te daría mis manos,
si las usaras para para escribir una canción que es diez millas de largo.
Yo te daría mi voz,
si la usaras para cantar en el volumen más alto.
Yo te daría estas cosas,
pero tu serías yo.
***

Some story

Harold could see his breath, but he didn't like the faces it made. All around him the people hustled by, smirking and huffing out their own little pieces of themselves, expressing mere ambivalence to the life around them. Ahead a group had clotted around an old brown bus stop, an entire thrombus of indifference. These structures struck up confusion in Harold; as he had always thought that anywhere a bus stopped could be a bus stop. The clot all seemed to exhale in unison then, as if challenging him, creating a large oblong cloud. Harold watched as the people cloud floated away until it was cut apart by the cold sun, all the while thinking the words one less. One less breath for you. Another face rose from his own mouth, this one a theatre mask.
"Enough of that," he muttered, causing a woman carrying a child to his right to give him a protective glance. She looked much too young to be a mother. The lines of her face gave her about twenty years, while the child's lack of them gave her about five.
A handsome old voice spoke to Harold's left, startling him and causing him to look even stranger than the stranger he knew he was.
"Cold enough for ya?" it said. These lines were much more worn, the dirt left after a crowd has walked the path too many times to count. Metal winked from the chest, and more from the waist. Lines, all lines, Harold thought, disregarding the useless remark with impatience. All oblivious lines.
"Hey, I'm talking to you," the voice tried again. It seemed trained for attention, for just this kind of thing. Harold saw a flash of blue appear in front of his feet and looked up.
"It's you, isn't it?" the lines asked out loud.
"No, it's not." Harold replied, fully aware that he was himself.
"You have to come with me. I'd give you the old expression, but I'm afraid there's only a hard way here." the lines persisted, dangerously. Finger lines were spreading out toward Harold's arm.
He sighed out another face (a clown) and looked past the blue lines to different vibrant colors on the sidewalk.
YOUR SAVIOR IS HERE. ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS FIND HIM was written in tall crooked letters where people usually walk. Behind them an arrow pointed to a cross gracing the walkway, as if a religious symbol poorly-drawn with sidewalk chalk could force Harold to discover his salvation. All of it was mocking, really.
He spat, thought about the people cloud dissolving in the frozen light, and ran.
At first the street was empty except for the usual mountain of sound, and then he saw the monster machine bearing down on him.
TOO LATE. YOU'RE ALWAYS TOO LATE, his mind gnawed at him. One more likeness expired out and stood before him, hauntingly. This one was a portrait of himself, with the familiar lines drawn in the immediate and deep sorrow of the terminally ill.
The bus crashed through the foggy image and Harold's eyes grew wide as the apathetic life around the bus stop suddenly gathered all of its attention onto him.

One less.

***

Five-year-old Katrina Metz stood mesmerized by the bustling scene around her. Her bright blue eyes had stayed fixated on the strange man with the police officer throughout the entire altercation. Something had convinced strange man to try an escape into the street, and just before her mother's soft slow hand had moved with unusual quickness into Katrina's field of vision; she had seen his face. He appeared as though the Devil and God were raging inside of him, one of which commanding the upper hand. For years she would remember the most frightening part of that face; that she couldn't tell which.
And then there was the sound. The sound of rapid hope loss. The sound of therapy.
Strange man now lay sprawled ten feet away from the point of impact on the sidewalk and noise, crumpled face down on some words written in bright chalk. There was too much blood to read them.

***

Let's look at...

the divided self. Plato presented it to me through his usual strange Socrates dialogues.

We are motivated by reason. Reason implies some kind of rational(good) thought, but he also states that we have an irrational(bad) side and 'just' members of the community obey the larger (good) side.

Hence the divided self.

So, continuing along on this I wonder what/who chooses which side is rational and which is irrational?

Say it's raining outside of a restaurant that I'm in, but I don't have an umbrella. I'm about to leave, and there's an unattended umbrella just sitting by the door. Reason tells me to take it because I don't want to get wet, but reason also tells me not to take it because then somebody else would assuredly get wet. Which is rational?

if I was deciding for myself, and I figure this is objective(if everybody decided what would be best for him/herself), I would take the umbrella. I don't want to get wet, that could lead to illness(and so on).

if society played enough influence on my decision(this is also objective), I would be more concerned for the other person getting wet and sick and whatnot.

if God was (hypothetically) deciding, we would probably all just be smoten into little steamy rubble piles.

BUT something bad happens any way you look at it.

How am I supposed to decide what side to listen to? This 'God' character isn't going to tell me(too busy smiting and maybe not existing), society has no idea what is favorable for itself and can't be trusted AT ALL(one word. politics.), and there is so much that I don't know with any decision that I'm surprised I make any at all.

More difficulty comes from so many things being interconnected in these decisions.

say I don't take the umbrella, get rained on, develop pneumonia, and die(supposed rationalism kills me).

say I do and the umbrella owner is approached by a woman on the street who offers him some of hers, if he'll walk her home. They marry and have a million kids and so on(supposed irrationalism brings two people together into happiness).

say he chases after me and gets smithereened by a truck(supposed irrationalism kills him).

say I don't take the umbrella and the same million-kids-and-so-on situation happens to me(supposed rationalism brings me happiness).

say the umbrella is 'lost and found' and nobody takes it, and we both get hit by a truck.

You can't see any of that coming, but it makes pretty good TV.

This is where it gets sticky and I'm back at where I started.

So all you can do is hope and guess, I guess.

the strangest thing...

I'm pretty sure I'm only really attracted to people who challenge me and fight with me.

is that healthy?

probably not.

I'm experiencing for the first time meeting somebody who is too like me to work with. It's completely insane and I think my brain just doesn't know what to do(ah, introspection. We can even think about thinking. How boo-dang is that?). At first I was frustrated with myself (another nifty idea) but maybe it's okay.

I had a dream once that I was kneeling down, looking at a line in the sand. I looked up and saw myself in a mirror, on the other side of the line.

of course then it turned into the usual weird deformed things and sex dreams(woo!).

You can interpret from that what you will; I know what I do.

I hate my dreams. At least the ones that happen while I'm sleeping.

Wilco - 'Misunderstood' and laying on the floor with your eyes on the ceiling is a pretty good way to think about all the stupid things you have yet to do.

haha, I said boo-dang.

and then?

so it's been a while.

so I've been busy(really).

so nobody that I met today seems to be out-fucking-rageous(my new favorite thing to say)

so I don't think I can handle anything less anymore.

give me the movers and shakers, would you?

I know there's way too much left to learn. why don't you make me feel like it, eh?

we seek to eliminate the taciturn, but search for them at the same time.

I don't sleep enough.