i wish stories didn't always get told after they were finished. you hear bits and pieces along the way. chapters within the story. but not the whole book. that seems to only get told at the end, when everyone's gathered around sharing their portion. their memories.

that was this weekend, and the one before, after my grandmother died. many of them i knew, the stories. i was in a lot of them. the unruly child that refused to be tamed. the chocolate cakes and birthday wishes. cat scratches and skinned knees.

but of all of them, i think the one i loved hearing most, was the one at the end, both in telling and in life.

i don't think anyone really knows the the details of the beginning. i don't think she shared that part, out of modesty i'd guess. she loved my grandfather, never stopped, even when age made her stop changing the flowers on his grave every so often.

so, since no one knows, i'm going to give you my version. it's mostly factual. i just filled in the gaps.


Grandmother's Bingo Partner

when everyone grew up, they grew out. all the children and grandchildren going in their different directions. grandmother couldn't stand to be too still for too long. life had to move, have some purpose, some action, some something. so amongst the many activities that took over her time, from baking for the church, and sending cards to every sick person with a mailing address, she played bingo. weekly. the kind of bingo where people actually care about winning the prize, even if they don't totally care about the prize itself.

she was a spark, my grandmother, even if no longer the whole fire. so i guess i shouldn't be surprised that old age and poor site couldn't hide her from the smiling, elderly gentleman that came to sit next to her soon after she started attending.

i'm assuming, of course, that he had poor site. for all i know he had perfect vision. i don't think anyone knew that part, and i forgot to ask. not that it matters. it doesn't. so since it doesn't, let's give him bad vision.

it started with polite conversations and lots of smiles. modest smiles, deep with age, that form from years of experience. they aren't light, these, looking at shallow depths. these smiles have eyes that see your entire life in ways we youth can't even understand. he could probably know my heart and soul from the color of my socks and how far i pulled them up my calf.

but i'm losing you, i can tell. back to the story.

smiles. lots of smiles. that only grew wider and more permanent. then one day, standing over the prize table he asks, "what would you like. tell me what you want and i'll win it for you." like two teenagers at the fair. she pointed and smiled. he didn't let her down. a tradition was started. each week it was the same. they'd stand over the table and he'd deliver the same line with the same smile that she couldn't tire of. and he would win. he would always win. i think it's a testament to love. love rigged bingo, on some cosmic, this-shouldn't-happen-every-time, miracle level.

even in the end, when she was in pain, and words didn't want to leave her mouth. the phone would ring. his name would be called. her hand would extend. all she wanted was the phone. the voice didn't make the pain go away. it just helped keep the smile there.

he wasn't the whole smile. no one was. their were pieces for my mother, my dad. aunts and uncles. they were big pieces. along with grandchildren and friends, the world in general. everything was her smile, because she saw her children, her happy life in everything around her.

but he was the finishing touch. he was the last love in the last days that took that smile, and broke apart the lips to let the teeth gleam from behind.


***


it's beautiful isn't it? i won't cheapen it with morals and takeaways. it needs none. it is its own takeaway.

"do you remember when we walked down halls with high ceilings. me in my green eyes. you in your black boot."
"i remember a lot of stairs and doors that would never stay open."
"they never would stay open would they."
"i think they hated me. the doors."
"no. they just wanted to give you something to do.
"they succeeded."
"for a while."
"yes. for a while."


"i still have the black boot."
"i still have the green eyes."

"and those doors, they're still closed."
"they always did."
"yes. yes they did."

"i remember them all. the conversations we never have. or most of them at least."

i like to tell myself that even though i know it's not close to being true. the truest version of that statement is "i remember them all. the conversations we never have. the ones that i imagine would have changed me. i remember them. or most of them at least." and even that is missing some of the nuances of reality.

or better still, "why is there nothing more in my mind than the alternate endings of these invisible conversations?"

granted that's not really a statement. close enough though. it's getting distracting trying to be grammatically correct.

i wish i could forget them. the conversations. because they too are distracting. distracting me from the other distractions. the ones that have some relevance to reality.

when i was in high school and much more social than i am now, i worked as a waiter. i know. that sounds amazingly different than anything anyone would expect from me now. my entire wage was dependent upon sucking up to strangers. i was good at it though, at convincing them that i cared in the slightest whether their steak was cooked to their specifications. all i cared about was how much they would be willing to tip me if i was willing to pretend i liked them for half an hour or so. i pretended well. they tipped well. it was a good combination.

but even a good actor gets bogged down when there are too many shows to perform at one time. everyone knows that. so we had a code, me and the people at the restaurant. whenever you were in over your head you just yelled "i'm in the weeds." anyone who heard that phrase knew that, for whoever uttered the tragic phrase, the world was falling apart. not falling apart and drifting away into nothingness, but falling apart and collapsing in on itself like a supermassive black hole. nothing escapes. it all condenses into infinitely compact nothingness.

i remember those days, when the weeds seemed like such a tragic place to find yourself. straining to see the world above the green masses that flowed with the wind in front of you.

it's funny to hear myself say this, but the weeds seem boring. i'm in the jungle now. not the "i'm on safari and trying to pretend to be a man" jungle. i'm in the f---ing jungle. like, "i'm being mauled by tigers" jungle. and it's not like i just stumbled into the outskirts of the jungle either. i live in it. in the rainforest of all places. there's no sunlight. no outside world. there's only the black dampness of the jungle.

it sounds cliche to say (what doesn't these days), but i think you get use to it. eventually life in the light, in the fields of weeds, or, god forbid, the grassy hills, feels boring. you don't know what to do with yourself. so much light. so much wind. so much...

silence.


in the jungle i'm on my toes at all times, ready to spring into, something. in my first days in the jungle i was springing into a run from whatever ridiculously odd noise came too close to my ear. usually an innocuous insect. occasionally a hungry tiger trying to rip me apart and snack on my lower intestines. these days i'm springing at the noise. strike first. worry about the consequences later. i've become amazingly adept at wrestling with tigers.

i'm an adrenaline junky. it's one of my many addictions. i don't get enough chances to put my life in danger now. so instead i put my sanity in danger from too much thinking and far too little sleep. some days i thrive. some days i go insane. i'm not sure which today is.

i've lost track of what day it is.

all i know is what i see. orange and black stripes in the darkness. moving through the day that is night that is day.

i am in the jungle, laughing. i am the jungle. and it's time to start hunting.

i should be in bed considering the fact that i'll be in the air in six hours. but that wouldn't be me.

it's fall, and, as usual, i'm restless. i think i've come to the conclusion that i'm the opposite of a bear. i hibernate during the summer (bears hibernate in winter for any readers below seventh grade comprehension levels) and start to come alive in the fall and winter. dying to find somewhere to go. i'm also the opposite of a bear because i'm not seven feet tall, 500 lbs, and eating random campers that happen to cross my path (plus i like to think that i can pull off a black fedora a bit better).

so here i am. it's getting cold. and i'm getting out. back to the city (to a real city - no offense nashville. it's me, not you. i really do like you. you're...quaint). it's not prague. but it will do.

for now.

it's 1 am, sunday morning, and i'm lying on a couch. in a bus. typing on my computer and getting ready to start a movie. by all natural accounts i should be sleeping or at least trying to. especially since i won't be finding my bed until well after four. but what can i say? i've chased sleep away for so long that now it's afraid to come anywhere near me. chrystal is convinced that i have a problem with my adrenal gland, and who knows, maybe she's right. maybe i had one to many bangups and now it's jammed in the on position. that would explain my insomniac wanderings in hyperreality. on the bright side though, i get lots of work done and read an ungodly number of books. i've already finished the books i brought with me on the trip (michael chabon is a brilliant writer by the way). so now i'm left with peanut m&m's, a strawberry/banana smoothie-in-a-bottle, and "no country for old me" to keep me company for the next few hours.

on the bright side, it could be worse. much worse. they could be plain m&m's.

when i was young,
love wore green eyes and a crooked smile,
but it faded,
before i could even convince myself it was there.

now i hold love in my arms,
while it's sandy blonde hair falls into my eyes,
staring,
wondering...
on nights like this i can't help but wonder...

am i enough?
will i ever be enough?


or when i'm old, will i look back and say
"when i was young, love's sandy blonde hair
kept falling into my eyes.
and to this day,
i still can't see beyond it."

they are those -
that go each way,
umbrella up (grip it tighter)
running past the deepest
steps
afraid of the water pools collecting
in the middle of their walkway.


                                        i am these -
                                        that puddle jump
                                                            (splash)
                                        rain soaked and waiting
                                        for the water to wash my life

                                        away.




wash it all away.
please.

::wash it all. away::

somewhere off to my right there is a madness
lurking and waiting.
a skulking wretch that eyes me with an eeire grin
as he drifts between the shadow and the light.

and i'm just standing here,
with my necktie noose coiled tightly around my throat,
screaming myself into a sullen stupor,
"the insanity of it all!"

                but no one even stops.
they just move on,
almost mechanically, in their prefab tracks,
apathetic to the complacency that is their life.

so i stand here, as they pass me by.
i stand here and think-
"i've seen the 'more'. i've felt the 'all'.
i've held the 'need' (i am the need)."
a classic street-corner sermon to people
that have no desire to listen. they
just want to finish their day.
and i'm left to fill the role of the
(wrecklessly young) minister
preaching to rows and rows of empty pews.

empty.

all except for the last seat in the far right corner,
where he sits,
that lanky creature of dysphoria.
he's still watching.

always
                watching.
waiting for his time.

I always imagined myself the hero of the tale. The knight that slew the dragon and saved the day. It was such a vivid thought that I was amazed when I actually found a dragon recently. I was going for a short walk outside a coffee shop in the village, and I just sort of stumbled across him in a small clearing.

Brilliant. Massive. Arching high and crashing low. There were faces chiseled into his multi-colored scales - the ones that didn't make it, now nothing more than memories and warnings. I was supposed to be afraid, I knew that. But I wasn't. I'm not entirely sure why. Maybe it was his obvious age that set me more at ease. His color was a bit dull from time and weather. There were scales missing here and there from some brave knight's errant sword. A tooth was chipped to the point of being broken, no doubt the product of too many meals encased in steel armor.

No, on second thought it wasn't any of that that kept my heart from skipping 20 or so beats. It was the fact that he was partially buried. Such an odd thing. I can't imagine that having happened while he had been a young dragon, strong and full of fire. But I guess with age came stiffness and inevitably slowness which allowed some prankish villagers to sneak up on him in his sleep and start the premature burial services. Apparently he must have woken up and scared them off before they could finish. Maybe he had slowly started to wiggle free over time, as much as dragons can wiggle that is. Or maybe he'd never even tried, I don't know. But there he was, still partially buried.

Now as much as I would have loved to seize the moment and play the hero, I couldn't very well kill a helpless dragon. Where's the honor and valor in that.
So I sat and waited. Waited on him to free himself. It wasn't a bad place to wait either. It was quiet, except for the occasional sounds of movement just beneath the ground. There was a light breeze every few minutes that seemed to come from nowhere, and not a human in sight. It was almost, peaceful.
After a while I started talking to him, the dragon. To pass the time. Maybe encourage him a bit (or piss him off, whichever might make him dig faster). He made progress. Very little, but it was progress.

I left later that night when it became obvious that he wouldn't be free any time soon, but determined to go back and check on him periodically, to see when my prized fight might take place.


It's been months now, since that first day. I still visit as often as I can. He hasn't made any progress. To tell you the truth, I don't think he's even trying. I don't think he wants to be free any more. I don't think I want him to be free either. I wouldn't know what to do if he were. The life of a potential dragonslayer use to be a pretty clear one, but after all this time, it's gotten harder and harder to tell the dragons from the humans. Now, I think I much prefer my quiet walks in the clearing, leaving the noise of the village behind.

And on nights like this, I lie down and stretch out on his back, staring into the flickering lights scattered in the dark above, and imagine myself the hero of this tale. The fearless knight that lived amongst the dragons.

i sat down to write of arnold as a literary modernist. of america as the bastard child of modernism and post-modernism, only it's the child that never claims its parents. seeking objectivity through the understanding of individual and cultural subjectivity, without ever really committing to anything as more than a thought. never real. never truth.
never truth.

and that's where i lose the thread of my thought. in the background miles has been playing tirelessly for the last 30 minutes, almost like he's searching for something. feeling his way through the music. it was enough that he was there with me, and i could leave him in the background, underlying my thoughts, without paying much attention to him. but now i can hear that he's found it, found the one note on his trumpet that holds everything that's ever been known in the world, and the rest of the band has stopped what it's doing to listen, with me in step behind them. he holds the note, letting its truth and sadness seep into the surrounding silence. you can hear the weight of it all, rushing in on him. falling in on him.
the note wavers.
trips into minor.
wavers more still.
fading.
fading.
(silent)


and now i'm sitting there with him. in the dim haze of the club. smoking my cigarette.
hoping not to hear another sound for the rest of the night.

maybe this isn't what i wanted.
"just a bit" i said or thought,
            i don't know which.
but a bit doesn't seem to want anything
to do with me tonight.
as soon as i sat down, he stood up
and walked out of the room.

it's just me now,
and excess is winking at me from a few tables down.
so, "what the hell" i say or think,
            i don't care which.
it's been so long, so silent.
maybe this is what i need to remember how to breathe.

find me in my vices and let me believe that i can stand with you in the depths of your intellect, shaking my head in agreement at the abyss that is before me. knowledge is power. power corrupts. standing tall on thoughts of granduer and wisdom we fall to earth and smash our heads on the simple stones.

and the world was better for this.

today the doubt speaks louder than the dream.
i can still hear the dream,
see its shape,

but the doubt i can feel.

it's not the monster you might imagine it to be,
the way that some describe it-
a four-armed beast that can squeeze your
heart, stomach, and lungs
all at the same time,
laughing and ridiculing your every thought.

doubt's nothing like that.
no, doubt is just a scared little kid
that holds tightly to your hand,
half hiding,
            half tugging at you,
afraid that you'll both be swallowed up
in the unknown.

just now he's cowering in behind me
as we both stare into the edges of view
where light fades to shadow,
                                              shadow
                                                        into empty dark.

and in the silence
he stands on his tiptoes to whisper into my ear
of all the greedy little things
that lurk behind these shifting shadows.

this is basically what it's come to with me. i don't care enough to keep trying. or, more pointedly accurate, i can feel that i will care more, and likely just be annoyed, so it's much easier to just stop now.

something to the effect of "to hell with [the collective / singular them]?"

sounds and feels about right.

i tried to smoke a cigar yesterday, instead of the camels i tell myself i gave up weeks ago, but the walk just wasn't the same. it's not the smoke, it's the fire - that burns all the way to my head. it heightens the apathy toward people, but passion in general. how i don't know. maybe it's all psychological. i feel my mind drifting into an old movie where you can mark the good and the evil simply by the way a person walks or glances from side to side.

that was the american dream right? black and white movies. adventure and changing the world. or maybe that was only my interpretation. did i just completely miss it all these years? i don't remember seclusive bubbles being part of that dream, where you marry and die to the rest of the world. all of those other bastards are just going to detract, so let's build a bubble and wave from the inside. take a vacation and take the bubble with you. you are the only people in all the world, relationships beyond family be damned.

now that's evil. how can you love and show love without relationship? how do you make the world a better place by just not being a part of it? "i'm not doing anything to make it worse. i'm just minding my own business." like hell. an entire society of interactionless (and mostly actionless) sects.

how can anyone dream of being so singular and so selfish.

to hell with the dream. live and die in it for all i care. i'll walk my vacant streets in smokey silence, throwing my smoldering cigarette butts into your perfectly manicured lawns. let it light, burn it all down. all of it. and you can sit together in your ash and flame.
this is hell. welcome to it.

window wars

tonight, the chalky white alley wall
and the coffee shop reflections
are at war
in the window world between.
overhead the bricks have begun to sprout
yellowish lamp lights
while the bearded man behind the counter,
apparently unaware of the paint specks
that have fallen from his forehead,
casually hands a window sill latte
to an off-white smear of a customer.
the drainpipe,
attempting to hold a stoic pose,
is quickly undermined by a pair of
checkered leggings
that sway a lazy beat below.
and in the middle of it all
floats a red-headed smile
with a graffiti halo.

a short war it was though,
for just as the gaunt young woman with the
manhole cover for a foot
was about to join the fracas,
a careless driver, with
a wrong turn and a bright
flash of light,

reminded both worlds of their place.

why is it that i feel so restless in every moment of my life now? no matter how much i try, i can't fall into line, into sync with the world around me. i find moments where i fit. but only moments. and then the moment passes and i'm standing alone in my head looking out and wondering where i should be, since this doesn't feel like the place. i'm tired of watching all of the planes fly overhead, with my feet buried in the pavement. staring. wishing.

i don't know that i'll ever be able to explain that to its fullest. to tell the people on the other side of my eyes that on most occassions i see them as strangers, no matter how i love them.


it's sad that it takes alcohol, and a good bit of it at that, to melt stoicism into serene repose. i feel like the gargoyle mounted to the roof of the most beautiful cathedral. listening to the ringing of the bells inside, and the beautiful voices of the choir, muffled by cement walls into a hush playing to the rhythm of the rain. with the rain as my tears. the sun as my smile.

i am become everything else. but me.

i feel like i need to preface this entire endeavor with the disclaimer that i will likely delete this entire site at some point in the future. i don't know when, but it will happen. it inevitably does.

it's something of a magician's trick, really. and a beautiful one at that. only it's quite a bit more impulsive. like disappearing from the middle of the street on a monday afternoon.

but that conversation can be saved for another day. or never. either will work. for now it's enough to have said hello and the eventual goodbye. so since the beginning and end are already here, we don't have to worry about them any more. we can just enjoy the middle.