Tag Archives: prose

. Survivalism

Todays heaviness bore down on me from the very start. My mind was not built to cope with the type of punishments that I put it through and days like this worry me because I can feel the very last of my sensibilities giving way to much more devastating things.
Madness conveys its affections towards me,and whatever distasteful creature lurks in the dark attic of a mans soul, begins to figet in its chamber – behind my eyes.
These anxieties do not speak a single word and yet have the ability to convince all of my common sense of its inferiority and redundancy and so all logic leaves on its own accord, and what’s left is what you’d see of me on days like today; lowly, writhing scraps of a man.
But how could one talk down such a frenzy that knows nothing of any type of vernacular? Consisting only of a mouth that gnaws and hands that only rip and claw.

Living with a panic disorder is to continually be killed again and again and each time is different than the others. What then happens – after years of terrible exposure to this – a pathetic type of survivalism is born. A negative neuroplasticity. Faulty wiring. We grow accustomed to the fear and begin to subconsciously nurture and enable it. It sits within our gut like a wayward son that we care for through some unfortunate instinct and a moment without this mania is even more terrifying than the initial dismay. A days worth of silence is far too eerie. ….like that strange orange hue the sky takes on just before the tempest.
Something sinister is lurking just past the horizon. We know. So we learn to nurse this disgusting companion.

All of this builds an incredible amount of character – constantly fighting for your life. But a deep sorrow comes from the triviality of it all. Awareness that the battles we wage regularly, however endless, are not true. And the only soldier is the now frail voice of reason laying war-torn in the foxholes of a mundane daily routine. There is no honor in a war that no one knows of.

Only through some faulty destiny do we survive. Strong enough to endure this consistent despair in humble silence, yet not enough to rid ourselves of these useless endeavors.

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.X

Once you begin to feel enthralled and passionate without the need of any type of reciprocating entity or conveniently placed body, the entire population is at your mercy.

“Love” is such an odd endeavor that you learn just as much about when its absent as you do when you’re in its grasp, and the very moment you start to feel those same sensations without any type of target for then,  it becomes no longer a game of ‘who will make me feel that way?’ but instead ‘who will I share this with?’ and you will immediately notice a phenomenal increase in the quality of your enviroment, and particularly your company.

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. Serendipity

I knew she was alive and breathing all along. Theres been so many nights when the city dove into complete silence, and I could remember hearing the sound of her chest heaving. So charmingly distinguished from the terrible moan of a million other things that were lost to this sluggish, repetitive town. A place that’s certainly inept towards any type of sensitivity of the human spirit. Most of the year I’m susceptible to a certain diminishment of my vitality. But I knew she was there…

She is Serendipity and I’ve leared to tell her apart from all other enertias – gravity pales in her comparison to her draw. Even her very likliness can lift the skies and force an entire ocean through the keyhole of my bedroom door.

I awake to pleasant shivers as she traces my cheekbone with the tip of her finger each morning. The way the sun from the window across the room silhouettes her body is more irresistible than any piece of lace she could possibly be draped in.

If only I could translate in succinct verse all of the things she’s showed me. The sophistication of a quiet winter evening sitting alone under the quivering leaves of an old oak. I collected a million different shades of blue and green from her eyes and I would use these fascinating hues to paint my own grayed world for weeks at a time. I feel the air pass through our twisted limbs with complex softness. Like a crazed feline – too curious to just let each us be and yet much too empathetic to destroy us. Slowly, her gentle breath on my shoulder begins to distinguish me apart from all the pitiful bodies lining trite American homes and interstates.

When we walk down rainy avenues, I hold her hand like a child holds onto a small balloon. My reaction to feeling that she was much lighter than air and if I should ever loosen my grip, she might drift away into the clouds above and her eyes would color the darkened atmosphere with those intricate blues and greens. So I took small pieces of string and began to sew small pieces of my own life to her, to keep from dancing away into the air – So that my world could retain these wonderful new tones. Past memories and dusty old literature from my bookshelf were sewn to her along with a few love letters written from the foxhole of a uselessly romantic young man. Pieces of me strung to her soft skin, to keep her from dismantling in the wind like a dandelion. So that, should she ever get carried away, she would take me along for the ride.

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. Butterflies

I sat on my back porch this morning and watched as the blackening clouds above began to create a tempestuous atmosphere – scattering my notebooks around on the table. I saw two small butterflies mating in the midst of all this dismay and watched as they were thrown about in violent wind gusts and torrential rain. Torn apart, then hurtling towards each other again in order to finish despite every type of disorder imaginable. Gripping onto one another regardless of the fact that neither creature could provide any reasonable argument of what is it they expect to accomplish through all this insanity.  Driven solely by subconscious requirements, and a complete disregard of any reasonable voice within telling them to go home alone where it is safe.

I snickered to myself, because I as watched these frail insects endanger themselves and each other repeatedly, I was aware that it was merely due to some type of instinctual desire. Nothing more than sex and survival. A mindless act embedded deep within their DNA.
However, if I was ever asked to give the definition of “love” in humans,  I would describe this very scenario before me.

Love is very capable of becoming a type of institutionalized abandonment of all rational thought.
It is the wings that continually push us towards each other, unaware of the pitch black around us ripping us apart.
Love is collecting every type of type of madness and yet smiling each morning – the way the mentally ill stare off in the corners of dirty asylums, oblivious to anything else.

And sex and survival are merely just an excuse.

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.Dad

I had a dream about an old man. He was sitting on a chair across from me with his head tilted backwards, and every odd minute, his head swung forward as if he kept nodding off but then sporadically remembered I was there.

“Are you feeling ok?” He muttered in a thick spanish accent.

“I dont know. I feel ok. I just dont feel quite right”

The old man sat forwards and started empying things from the pockets of his faded yellow shorts. Apologies, allowences, a few outdated birthday cards, some soccer games he couldnt attend…. He fumbled around a bit and handed me a VHS tape. I stared at it and tried hard to remember why it had any significance.  It didnt seem familiar at all, and yet there was a crushing feeling in my chest at the sight of it.

“Whats wrong?” He asked.

“I dont think I like this movie anymore.  But thank you.” 

“How’s mom?”

“Shes good. I miss her every day more and more and yet I see her all the time. I stopped looking her in the eyes years ago, Im too afraid. I think there is something wrong with me. Maybe you were right?”

He dug into his pockets again and gave me a wrinkled manilla envelope. Inside was a small, folded picture of himself as a young man standing on the deck of a boat. He was staring outwards over the water with a pensive expression but he had the warning signs of a smile that was just about to crack though on his face. I can only imagine this photo was taken the very second he realized there was a camera next to him. He had my very eyes. No, I had his eyes.

The crushing feeling came back.

“I didnt mean those things, you know.” He told me. “….An earthquake deep under the ocean still causes disaster on land even when its thousands of miles away. Im sorry that my own tremors shook you.”

His head kept rocking back and forth as if he was still on that boat. He would doze off and wake right back up to hand me different things. Things that I had tried to forget over time. Some were very bad things, and some were wonderful things that made the bad things not seem so bad.

“I’ve been having trouble sleeping, Christian” whispered the old man after a few minutes.

“But you look so tired. Im sorry I kept you so long.” I responded.

I didnt know what else to say. I was afraid of saying the wrong thing. I was afraid of everything. And the feeling in my chest was becoming increasingly unbearable . I wanted to cry but I knew I couldn’t until after he fell asleep. But the old mans head kept swaying back and forth.

Finally he spoke again…

“All the hurt that you carry with you causes collateral damage in others lives,  just like the quake sends violent tides towards the shore. And the closer people are to you, the more tremendous the damage you create without intention. I cant seem to get any rest. I had to come see you but I’m exhausted. ”

I stopped looking him in the eyes. I was too afraid.  The pressure in my chest was too much now. Everything I had was breaking through my ribcage.  I started to gasp for air and my hands grabbed hopelessly for anything to hold onto as suddenly massive, towering waves began to expel from my chest and devastate everything in sight apart from us two. My fists clenched tightly around on the manilla envelope.

I started to speak. But with what air? The entire world was now submerged under miles and miles of ocean that came rushing from through my chest.  No breath came in, nothing came seeping out. And yet my voice was clear. 

“Im sorry if my dreams have haunted you. Im sorry if I let you die long before your body did. Can I keep this picture?”

“Yes. You have my eyes, you know.”

“Thank you. Good night, Dad.”

And with that, his head tilted back.  The second his eyes closed, mine opened.

I climbed out of bed and began to get ready for the day.

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. Chemicals

Maybe the chemicals needed for these types of things no longer flow accurately… My mind makes a mockery of all natural and fairly simple things. Things that should ideally coexist beautifully – like love and lust.

Yet, these two have become entirely different to me now. They are two ends of the same snake eating its own tail. They will lead back into each other continually but only come together in some sort of violence. They refuse to operate along the same guidelines.

My lust causes romance to become obtrusive and deserving of ridicule. Nothing beautiful belongs in these moments. 
Only hues of black and blue and green underneath.
I do not make love, I make you do everything else. I make you suffer. You burst into flames, then I throw your ashes out over the ocean. 
And my palms pressed into your neck make you feel like you’re drowning.

Then we wake up in a hotel overlooking the east coast. Like we got lucky and somehow drifted back to shore. Your limbs are twisted into mine, and my arms and torso are wrapped delicately in your black hair – like seaweed decorates a shipwreck.
You listen to my heart push blood around inside my body. Back and forth. Waxing and waning like the tide. But now the current is so very low – so very far away from you – because I’m back in love and you are safe. Away from filth and depravity of moments ago. Like it was all swept away in the undertow.  Though, we both know that tonight, my heart will push the tide back in, and soon it will engulf you entirely, and you will once again begin to drown. Gasping for air. Clawing at my chest. Your empty vessel will again be lost in the fury of my seas. My waves crashing relentlessly against you. Doomed to break apart and sink to the bottom of the ocean.

…..then we wake up again, strewn about like broken planks torn from haunted shipwrecks. Waterlogged. Safely washed ashore together.

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. Fireflies

Pulses of anxiety run up my legs and rush up my spine towards my brain the way squirrels climb up bird feeders out back. They collect tiny peices of my mind and run away out into the yard. Every morning I am confronted with the awareness that there are despicable things waiting, and every morning I wake up with less and less of the pieces required to place logic and reasoning in between me and the fear. The Earth feels entirely hollow beneath my feet and inclined to crack and give way at any moment. I’ve spent the better part of 20 years stuck in that tiny bit of helplessness you feel when you go to pay at a restaurant and suddenly discover your wallet missing. 
Vertigo is my consort.
What a repugnant companion.
What an uncharming life.

I lay in my bed and listen to the overwhelming silence and try frantically to discover any type of distraction. I begin to focus on the sound of my cat patting around a small insect – Indifferent to its demise.  It reminds me of being a child in Jersey and all the times I used to bring jars of fireflies in from the field. My mother would smile. Even fully aware that I was destroying all these undeserving little things, she didnt say a word. Innocence is so endearing even though it can mean the destruction of another. A child kills something and we feel empathy, an adult kills something and we feel rage and sickness. It becomes forgivable when we know not our trail of ruined things or countless inflictions. That’s the basis of a lot of poisonous relationships in our lives. Its also the basis of a blissful, childlike existence.

My mother crept into my room each morning and threw away my jar of dead things and smiled. As if I was a cat who dragged a lifeless mouse in as a deplorable gift. To give thanks. She understood that its better to pick the mangled rodent up with a glove and a trash bin than to tamper with that type of innocence and instill the kind of messes within a child that no disinfectant can clean. Thats what we do when we are young – our selfishness and innocence is the most admirable and preposessing thing, even through the complete destruction of all else. 

My only goal in life is to never stop being capable of this. Everything else can drop dead behind me and I’ll hardly notice. I’d like to playfully rip the world apart limb from limb between my claws like an insect and then move on to another without any recollection.

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.X

6:35am

I am surrounded by black ash. This is hindsight. Its clear as day now, but I don’t remember any flames from last night. In fact, if it wasn’t for spending my morning wafting through these fading embers, I wouldn’t have any inclination to remember anything at all. I must have said too much last night. I must have drank too much. I must have taken it too far again. But.. Too far? Is there even such a thing anymore?  Wherever “too far” is, I’d like to go there.
In fact I suppose I will spend the rest of my life looking for it.

But is “too far” a person, place, or thing? I’m intrigued by the possibilities.

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.X

Sometimes you meet the most distasteful people who have an amazing, almost admirable disregard for themselves and others. And you sit across from them in a Tampa parking garage and listen to them lie directly to your face and its evident that you know it, but they dont break. You stare them directly in the eyes. As deep as the eyes allow. Which is surprisingly pretty far. 1000 miles, and yet still no signs of a bottom. Just a dark empty hallway with an endless amout of exits that lead you right back to the beginning.  And you begin to wonder…..Is there even a life in there?

Where did you come from and how could you possibly have made it this far?

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. Ribbons

After the rain, the streets are impossibly smooth here as if they were composed of silk and not crumbled brick. They twist haphazardly throughout this city like ribbons strewn about, like they were dropped from the sky and left here by some lazy god.  In my own town I feel alone, but out here these ribbons drape around my body like lovers limbs.

I’ll never sleep alone out here, but in my own home, not a single tongue has ever took the shape of my name. Not a single arm has ever formed the curve of my shoulders. If I had touched you the way I touch these old brick roads, I would have never had to visit this place.

But its probably far too late. I dont know. My mind doesnt think clearly these days. I have an empty bottle and a birthday card with my name spelled wrong.
I have expletives and hard words in my memory and a couple of songs that make me feel as if the future is bright, man.

I have everything I could possibly need and I dont want a single bit of it. I come out here because not a god damn thing in this city belongs to me and nothings more romantic than that. Everyone here moves without my legs and they build without my arms. They all kiss without my lips and the ladies wear the most beautiful sundresses. They capture my heart and keep moving. The sort of girls who get a little too tipsy on the first date and kiss you in mid sentence and then walk away due to embarrassment which is the most annoying and sexy thing a woman can do.
Here in this place, the mouths all chatter and I walk closely enough to hear voices, but far enough to not make out the words like the humming of hymns outside of cathedrals.  It all sounds so gorgeous out of context,  but to take part would rob it of all its beauty due to the simple fact that the truth that lies behind any noun is hardly as fantastic as the surface.  Like bright green, landscaped graveyards with marble and ivory placed perfectly makes us forget the rot placed below.

Logic always crumbles under the weight of obsession. This place bore through me and took place of all rational thought. It’s ribbons began to fray and tie themselves in knots around my extremities.  So how could I expect any type of reprieve from coming home when I can no longer even hear their whimpers for my return? No, I couldn’t be gone long enough.

The rest of the world is consistently in frantics. Trampling each other due to some sort of instinctual pull that has always eluded me. Pushing themselves further upstream and straight into the jaws of awaiting bears. The humor of one species deep rooted instinct driving it to become nothing more than plaque on the teeth of another. So, I stopped swiming and I keep floating away out to sea, here in the middle of nowhere, to this strange town. At first, I am enveloped in the deepest black, but every morning at dawn, when the rest of the world sits chewed in the stomachs behind the mouths of bears, the sun from above the surface turns my town into the most astonishing blue hue just like the sea and, similarly, I float slowly to the bottom of it with ribbons tied around my neck and wrists and legs.

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