Lost on the Page, Drowning in Words

Beacon

2022-12-08T21:43:00.000-08:00

What's it like to rise from a sleep you never knew you where in?

How do you reconcile reality when you've spent so long sitting in waiting of just another day to pass without any...

...meaning?

How is it so easy to just lose yourself in repetition, lose everything that you ever cared about and believed in and just succumb to apathy and despondency and static?

I've been stuck in a dream loop so many years now. A repeating, bland non-sequitur that seems like a farce of who I am. Of what I believe in. I'd forgotten myself in the mundanity of the daily expectations and in doing so betrayed everything I've always held most dear. I'm complicit in the surrender of myself as I just settled into the routine. The metronome of wake, work, sleep, wake, work, sleep. Ad nauseam. Ad infinitum. But that's not what I've fought for through these years of my life. I always believed in the power of the imaginative and the creative. I believed in passion and chaos and wit and chance and love.

And I gave up on that.

I don't even know when that actually happened. Like a creeping blanket of fog rolling over the sand banks during autumn, I just failed to notice what I'd allowed to happen to me. Faith and focus corrupted by distractions and others' self-interests and I let loose my grip on that live wire that was my own pulse. I lost myself because I tried to be a pillar for those who never cared.

And in that... I gave up on myself.

I drifted into the sea of oblivion and allowed myself to accept the embrace of obedience and inconsequentiality....

...then by chance and on a whim, I heard your voice in the dark. I hesitated because I'm so used to being alone. And you sent me a song; you sliced a knife through the darkness, piercing a light I'd forgotten. Then I opened the door and saw your smile, radiant like a supernova... immediately disarming and endearing in that moment...

...and every moment since.

You were there to cradle my head as I wept. You've brought me to tears of joy in laughter in ways I never knew were possible.

You saw me for all the flaws that I am. And you embraced me for them.

I am forever changed by that moment I opened the door.

I'd forgotten what I believed in.

You are that beacon that guides me back.

I'm Not the Villain...

2022-06-27T19:47:00.000-07:00

I'm tired.

It's been a long day, or week... or hour? I don't even know anymore.

I can't remember the last time things felt right.

I can't remember the last time I knew where reality and the dream divided.

I'm tired of always being the villain. I am not the sole source of your misery, so top placing upon me. I've had the worst two years of my life and I am trying to find my way out of a very deep, dark hole.

You always rebuke me for not supporting you because you are feeling depressed...

Guess what: who isn't these days?

Yeah, shit sucks. Welcome to the club. I've been depressed since 1993. But I manage and get through it. Don't focus your frustration on me.

Have you asked how I've been lately? I'll patiently wait for the answer...

...

Yeah still waiting.

Time Capsule: A Love Letter

2022-05-02T22:55:00.000-07:00

Hi there, stranger.

Yeah, stranger. Because you don't know me. How could you? How could you have ever looked up to those stars in your younger years and think this is what you'd become? How could you imagine the joys and terrors, the prides and pratfalls you'd experience? The answer is simple: you never could.

You were once an ambitious and idealistic dilettante who spent his time nose down in a book and mind lost in worlds only you could see. Life turned out to be much more...vicious that you anticipated. But that doesn't mean that you were wrong.

I've lived many lifetimes since last we were together. I've felt loss, success, pride, and pain. I've fallen in love beyond comprehension and then watched her pack her bags and took her to the airport. I have achieved so much more than I ever expected just from doing what I learned and adapted to. I was fortunate enough to meet some truly incredible people along this insane road that we've been sprinting down towards the dusk. I have failed so much of what we expected to do... except for one thing. I have stuck true to our notion of not feeling regret. All the mistakes I've made along the way are for sure decisions I question, but I don't regret them. Every single failure or success is a story. What matters is learning the lesson from each tale.

I can't tell you things will get better. I don't know what my future holds for me. I've lost a lot in the last few years and frankly... I don't know what tomorrow or next Tuesday or next month holds for me. But I can tell you that all the suffering and misery you faced were worth it. I know my strengths and what I have learned over these many years. I know my conviction, and I know that despite all my flaws I try and live with myself in honesty and hope, despite the cynicism.

I've grown detached from the main thing that keeps me connected to you. I don't write anymore. Call it existential apathy or declining creativity or whatever... I don't do what you used to do every single night. I remember those days listening to Miles and just typing away on the Smith & Corona. I remember taking walks to the West Side Highway park just before dawn to listen to Bob Dylan live at Royal Albert Hall in '66 just to feel inspired and then write for hours as the sun crested that undying city behind me. I remember every single sensation I had in our moments.

Yes, I have fallen off the path and am in a place I can't understand. Neither of us would have thought that this many years later, we'd be worse off than when we started. But the point of this little retroactive time capsule is that even in the face of all the loss, all the failure... all the terror, I haven't given up. And despite the pain that you are about to face, know that you're not alone. There are a menagerie of strange, beautiful, weird souls that will have your back no matter what. Not trivial friendship that only works for them: true bastions that stand with you through the best and the worst. Family.

I wish I had advise for you. I'm still trying to figure this shit out myself, so I'm as useful as a cotton candy dildo in this regard. But when I sleep and remember you and who I was... I hope that those lighthouses I have still transmit to you. That you know you're going to be okay. That even if the future is uncertain and your life didn't go to your plan... it is not over.

Remember what makes you... you. Remember what you love and believe in. Remember that your ideals are worth the crucible.

Remember who you are.

Remember.

Absconded Reflections

2022-04-27T22:42:00.000-07:00

The sun crests the lingering clouds of the season, kissing down golden light upon this once former battleground.

People surround me, emerged in the joys of the daily act of living. Lone travelers watching their dogs play with reckless bliss; burgeoning couples strolling in the late afternoon hoping to find more of themselves in each other; lost poets preaching to the already abandoned.

A police siren cascades down Tremont. A second follows soon.

I miss the city. I miss this life, this energy, this chaos. The sounds of thousands compounded into a single, cacophonous melody.

I sit and watch the squirrels run amok over a dropped hot dog. The sun cuts through the clouds and warms my face.

This bench is the isle of sanctuary I haven't had in such a time.

And then there you are. Sublime bliss and badassery embodied as you always have been. You casually gaunt across the pathway as if you were the sole soul striding across this route.

You haven't changed a bit. Your devilish grin and crippling eyes are just as I remember them. I am completely undone... yet again.

You reach out your arms for a hug, a relic and a remembrance of years passed and years amassed. I accept your embrace and am immediately taken back to a different time, a different me, a different life. Lo, what could have been.

We stroll idly through the streets that have become home. Streets I've alway known but never understood until I emerged myself in them.

The sunlight glimpses off your now golden hair as we pass State Street. You're filling me in on the years past and I'm stuck, hanging on every word you say. It feels like the past is merging with a day dream.

Sitting across from you, squinting through the darkness of a proper Boston pub, I'm transported back to a different time. A time where we laughed and cried and existed in unison... the best times of my life. Your sardonic grin never ceases to amaze me and break me and make me wish for a life that never was. If only....

I say goodbye to you. Sadly I'm familiar with this experience. But it never gets any easier. In fact it only gets harder. The sounds of the city on the weekend resonate around us and yet all I can hear is your voice, saying goodbye. Once again.

I ride my old train, hit up my old neighborhood on my way back to my car. You are the only thought I have. You always have been. I step out of the train, the cool spring air caressing my face as I pause... lost in fog.

You are always a part of me. I wish I could be more.

Falling Stars

2021-06-28T00:49:00.000-07:00

The heart.

It's such a fickle and finesse and furious and frustrating thing. It can give you the strength to overcome the greatest of obstacles in life or cripple you over the slightest obstacle like a hang nail. It is this radiant power that controls us all, drives us to be the better versions of ourselves and yet also allows us to be nothing but a fragment of the person we once knew. Figments, shards and shadows... specters of previous lives we've lived that ever reside in that center core...

I'll never forget that first night we met, mon ami. I walked into a cacophony of a day and managed to keep it together. And after we survived the fray, we spilled drinks and shared laughs and I felt a bond I hadn't experienced since a prior life. In a night I knew I had met a harmonious spirit with which my deeper notes would be matched by your brighter tones...

I am always drawn back to a memory that is both beautiful and tragic. A night spent alone, staring out at the moaning maelstrom of the Atlantic sometime after midnight. I had fled to a place that gave me comfort, pursued by ghosts of the present and the scars that hadn't yet formed. The salt was heavy in the air, the sea foam spraying like pollen in a New England spring. The world was silent around me but for the metronome crashing of waves, the January sky blistering cold and gloriously luminous. I thought of you, I thought of her, I thought of all those that I hadn't lived up to...

Do you remember that time where we stayed up way too late, hanging in my room just talking and laughing and crying? You opened up to me about your astounding backstory in a way you hadn't in the years we'd known each other? As the first scarlet rays of the morning's light hit my windows, you smiled as you shared your secrets as silent tears cascaded down your cheeks. You've never ceased to amaze me to this day because of your strength and joy and passion for life. You are a guide and a nurturer to all of those you care for...

It's my last day in New York, a place that had become home and which was the cocoon that allowed me to start becoming the person I am supposed to be. Or was meant to be. That's still up for debate. My last box is packed and sitting next to the front door. I try to hold back the hysteria of joy and sorrow and confusion that is stabbing at the constraints of my constitution. The time has come, the chapter has concluded, the back cover has closed. I grab that box and close that red door for the last time...

You were a puzzle in pictures from the get go. Moving like water, nothing phased you. I still don't know if anything will. You were laconic yet direct: you asked what I was reading at the moment. I stumbled because how often are you asked that question? But that was a lighthouse alert of who you are. The seeker, the searcher, the explorer of the possible. A sphinx's riddle is never the one they ask you, its the one you find when trying to know them...

Los Angeles. The city of angels. All fallen, of course. A mirage in the desert, an illusion to the weary. A waypoint for the wandering...

How timid you were when we first met. That southwestern charm with a wit and a will. And how much you came to mean to me; words aren't enough and those are my specialty. From simple weekly get-togethers to close confidant, that's how it went. That summer day will stand as a splinter: enjoying a day off and reading on the concrete beach to coming in for the rescue because you asked. What happened to those moments sitting on a porch in winter, rocking in chairs, talking about the future? Where did you go?

The time came to end my west coast endeavor. In a matter of days I packed my belongings into a truck and my life into my car. After a journey across this continental map and many reunions... I found myself back home. Back in New England, back in the land that I come from and which I know better than I know myself. The serenity of silence during a winter snowstorm, the languid lethargy of summer swelter. The explosion of emerald during spring and the myriad color flourish of Autumn. The places I once walked as a child, as a kid, as a very different person...

You proved yourself a hurricane the first night we socialized. An invitation rejected, followed up with a declaration. You carry scars from your past and you saw the same in me. Yet you didn't retreat like most do. You always see into those around you whom you care for, and you set fire to anything that hurts them...

So many years spent alone. My little cave in Charlestown, my Boat House. A place where I could retreat from the world when the day was done. A Kramer-esque neighbor who helped me keep up just enough mischief to remind me of my younger days, yet a place of solitude. I grew complacent, ready to spend the rest of the time I planned alone in my haven...

I never even spoke with you before you were living in my apartment. So young, so kind, so eager. You burn with such a brightness to protect those around you to the point of losing yourself. And yet despite the difference in years and experience in our lives, you became dear to me. I still have the note you gave me for my birthday and it makes me smile...

A single season brings about a wave of change. The comfort becomes uncomfortable and the unexpected becomes dependent. How did I allow my self to become so vulnerable to such an eclectic tapestry? Like a moth in the spider's web I was caught but I welcomed the embrace. Such a change end venture like no adventure I'd taken before....

Mi corazón. Llegaste a mi vida inesperadamente. Y me cambiaste. Qué más puedo decir de ti más allá del hecho de que siempre sacas lo mejor de mí y eres mi familia para siempre?

This house. So many stories unfolded, so many moments both planned and unexpected that resonate like shockwaves in my mind. Those moments of joy like a birthday cake in the face or someone singing Rihanna while cleaning or the general joviality of 'The Bachelor' nights... the house was quite the keeper...

It took so very long for you to finally socialize with this bunch of misfits. Despite MANY attempts prior. Yet you finally broke down and humored a bunch of lunatics. And by doing so, you got to see me and I you and that bond wouldn't have formed without. A pact made, a bond formed, a kinship guaranteed...

It's late. This past week was long and arduous and taxing and tiring. There are times where I doubt if I can persevere or even make it to the end. Yet these scars and stars that I carry give me that strength to do so.

It is that fickle heart that gives the best strength. In the darkest pits we find ourselves, it is the hearts of those around us that pull us out.

Sights from a Broken Window

2021-05-20T00:20:00.001-07:00

There is an ominous silence hanging over the suburbs,

a languid tranquility that suggests rest yet only reminds me of those most anxious moments.

When did silence become such a dramatic opponent to cause such chaos and anxiety?

I suppose always.

I think of those dawns that I stayed awake for, sitting on a doorstep or perching on a fire escape just to see the rising rose glow of the earliest beginnings of the day. And the ones I ignored to just exist and be surrounded by the weirdly amazing.

How many years have passed since I was me?

What shadow do I see that stares back in the mirror these days?

Where is that joie du vivre that used to be the unstoppable fire behind these eyes that needed to see and taste and breathe and experience every ounce of life that could be squeezed out of the marrow of a moment? What happened to the Bohemian lunatic that never sacrificed an ounce of self in defense and pursuit of that unknown truth I always hunted for?

The wheels just turn now. Wake, prepare, work, rest, sleep.

My greatest fear come to pass: I have lost myself in what I am supposed to do. Who I am supposed to be. And that's not even who I thought I was at the time. This Sisyphean merry-go-round monotony is not a future, it is an unseen bear trap along the path that has brought me to my knees in tears.

How great were the days when you could take command of a lighthouse and just BE.

I think back to my early days, long before the ambition.

Those simple days with just the world before me and a cadre of weirdly perfect compatriots... all of us trying to figure out our place in this strange world we never felt a part of. And yet I see these beatific saints and sinners find their place and their peace...

.... and I remain stuck in the woods, lost in the tornado, trying to find my north.

Honesty to self has to matter for something. More than a blind obedience to expectation.

Is it too late?

I tell myself it's not too late.

Which truth do I trust?

The Levee

2021-04-19T21:09:00.000-07:00

Here we are.

Where are we?

When did this happen?

When did I forget how to do this? The very reason, explanation for my single-minded reason to exist?

When did I become a shell of the mind and manifestation that I used to be?

When did it all change?

So many fragments from the past that stab like small slivers under the fingernail and yet they go unnoticed. The figments and facades of the past linger like paper cuts unseen yet never heal correctly. You carry those subtle scars indefinitely.

I remember when this was beyond second nature. Words flowed like Angel Falls from my mind to the point that I thought I was going crazy. I could never keep up with the narrative. I lived in the story I was trying to always tell. I couldn't breathe if it wasn't written. I lived with the characters I wrote.

A few years seems line an eternity.

My fingers feel atrophied, coated in rust and decay. Do I even have a voice anymore?

All that I've given, all that I've lost. Was it worth it if I'm so far gone and sinking into the routine? Is this all I am now?

Nina Simone, Miles Davis, and the sounds of an early morning street were the metronome that used to dictate the pattern and pause and pulse of the uncontrollable currant of verbosity that stemmed from my brain. And now I look at a keyboard like an explorer finding an ancient ruin so alien to them they can't comprehend what they see. Am I that far gone?

Be responsible. Be an adult. Be considerate....

All phrases that come like the first gusts in a hurricane.

They lash and scratch and score and scar as the billowing thunder cascades down upon me, moving in to break and destroy and annihilate everything that I am.

Faces and friends from ancient days oscillate in the frontal lobe: reminders of the comforts of the past while serving as the sous knife that kills those concepts you've helped onto life a life preserver. When did I forget those who mattered so much to me?

Standing out in the middle of the night, staring blankly at a black tar, slow sludge of a languid river dripping in concealed moonlight; i can't tell if I'm crying or if my eyes are freezing. I see my life in it's entirely pass in the momentary pass of a river glint.

I am broken. No horsemen can fix this, no kinsmen can amend this. I delve deep into the depths of my shame and sorrow. The only light I see is down in the darkness.

I wake up. I am so much older than I remember. These hands have wrinkles and the grey hair in my bear shocks me still. I glance out the window and see the first break of sunlight creeping over the urban landscape. I close my eyes, unsure of which reality I prefer more.

I walk out my front door, 'Led Zeppelin' performing in my ears. I'm not sure if I can sustain.

"When the levee breaks..."

I continue my stride uphill as the sun crests the red brick mills around me.

When the levee breaks...

I refuse to be flooded.

RUSH - Dreams

2021-02-12T22:46:00.000-08:00

'I can see them all. Thoughts and lives and dreams that are buried. Are they dust or am I?'

'I see oceans of souls, lost in walking pets and tasting fruits in markets that are mounds of ash. I see the tears of a scared child frightened by by construction. I feel the joy of a family at a dinner table and their abrupt fear as the night sky transitions from black to the same tangerine hue of their star. I hear the cries of the children as their mother weeps silently, strongly, trying to protect her young. I smell the scent of a burnt world.'

'I see genocide as I see abundance. Charred husks are talking and laughing and moving about as life should in the same moment.'

'The laughter of children echos through these strange honeycomb cluster homes. The scents of wildflowers I've never smelled tinge my nose. There must be an ocean nearby: that sea salt aroma is unmistakable no matter what planet I'm on.'

"There is a festival in the main square. So many faces that I cannot see. Yet I cannot forget their haunting visages. I see them without knowing them. I know them without truly seeing them. The sky begins to flare, like an orange being crushed slowly. The light becomes unbearable, the cries become indistinguishable. Panic. Fear. Terror.'

'A lone vessel rests over the planet. A crowning achievement, breaching the confines of the home sphere. The four passengers look on below as their home is consumed by a cascading wave of light and rage. A wave the color of the second sun's setting rips across the surface of their home as breath escapes them. I can feel their destitution and utter terror, but only at a distance. There is a numbness to it, like watching tragedy in a vid stream. I feel every ounce of pain that is coursing through them. The clementine colored cascade finishes its crest and encompasses the planetary sphere. As tears begin to stream down their cobalt cheeks, I know... they know.. we know... they are already dead. Their lives are dead.'

' I think I feel tears on my face. When am I?'

***

Morgan woke abruptly. The sound of the artificial rain was a subtle metronome against her window, a constant reminder of the atmospheric stabilizers of Europa. She was drenched in sweat, her shirt sticking her her skin. She looked around the darkened room frantically, searching for the source of her stress. Her hazel eyes locked on the display pad near her bedroom door: 01:38:54 local time. She rubbed her eyes and shifted to her side. The thermal conduits were running quiet so her room was an oubliette of silence as she scanned the room.

'Just the new atmo', she thought as she fluffed her pillows and tried to get comfortable. Within moments she drifted back into sleep.

***

' This world is a graveyard. The burned bodies of families lay frozen in place where they sought shelter. Cities are but ashen ruins, the charred remnants of a world. The astronaut returned to her world collapses to her knees, the burnt remnants of a pet Ithkal crumbling in her hands as she knows she will die alone on a dead world, tears coming slowly as does with complete defeat.'

'I hear the screams as this world is incinerated. I hear the cries. I feel the burn of the fire cascading down from the sky. I die a billion times over..."

***

Morgan shot upright in bed, he forehead glistening with sweat, her chest pounding. She didn't look around this time. Her eyes locked straight ahead, seeing something that wasn't present.

"Collin," she whispered through gasps. She knew this was not a dream... at least not her own.

Never Goodbye. Good Journey.

2021-01-24T18:07:00.003-08:00

I have always struggled with my emotions. There are so many things I wish I could rationalize and make sense of and apologize for. I've had to come to terms with the fact that mine is a mind unable to perform the way it does for most. As a child, I turned inward and made my own worlds so I could find a place to fit in. Still to this day, I struggle to understand my place in the world around me. I'm blessed to have friendships that defy logic and I've found family because of pure chance. I have encountered people who have believed in me more than I ever could conceive possible. I have been lucky to cross paths with those who would never give up on me... no matter what.

My friend John was one of those people. My paths have crossed a lot of faces during my many turns around this rock. The first day I met John, he made me laugh... not an easy task. And on that first day that I moved into management, sitting in the basement office with 'The Clash' blasting on my boss's computer... John sneaked in to raid Xochitl's candy drawer, looked at me with all his heart and said "shhh, don't let her know. Also, you're gonna be awesome!"

John was out the door before I could respond. But I still remember the idiot grin I held after. Someone I'd barely interacted with gave me the kindness and compassion and consideration to reassure me on that first day. I think about that interaction and I still laugh.

My favorite memory was during a really bad snow storm. We all lived in the area but, thanks to New England, commuting home wasn't an option. I was invited up to my boss's room of the night and I had no idea how funny that night would be. John came prepared: I knocked on the door, I was welcomed with a nip of Fireball whiskey, and 'Nelly' was playing on a speaker. Within three minutes I nearly broke my ribs laughing as John performed a stripper-like display on Xochitl while Leanne and I tried to stop crying from hysteria.

That is who John was.... laughter. He was joy and levity and kindness and sincerity. He embodied the best of all the people I've been blessed to meet along my path. I'm a better person for knowing John, and I will miss his influence and smile. But John will never be gone because of the impact and value he had on those lives he impacted.

Good journey, my friend. May you stand in peace with slow sunsets and quiet, stellar nights. I love you, you magnificent maniac... and I will hold my glass up until we can spill drinks again.

Excising The Scars

2021-01-17T20:59:00.000-08:00

How do you say goodbye?

How do you learn to move on from a wound that has been a part of you for so long? When every moment since the time that scar formed... when that pain has been a lingering nuisance in the subconscious for so long... how do you let go?

I can't forget those moments together.

Not the grandiose ones of parties or birthdays or revelry....

but just the plain simple moments where the world was quiet around us and there was just the sound of us...

...breathing.

I don't recognized the face that looks back at me in the mirror.

So many lines, so many grey hairs that weren't there when it mattered.

And yet I know it's me.

I sit by a river that was never ours, but a place that has become my solace. I read and listen to the wails of frustrated geese and taste the scent the industrial waterway before me, the people milling about, the heavy roadways riding like artificial arteries across the way and I find myself suspended.

Am I still there,

or are we still going to be here?

I can't really remember myself before you.

Is this me even a thing without you?

But I can't sit by the river forever.

Time has that nasty habit of continuing on. Just like that churning Merrimack before me, it pushes forward... cascading over islets and downed branches and boulders and buried hopes. The push of the current never ceases.

Night falls over this quiet extinct city. The sounds of life and love and joy and misery and memory resonate like shockwaves throughout the empty cold twilight. I watch the few passersby pass by, their aimless strangling a beautiful bob in the ebb, the serene bliss of those momentary distractions.

I'm not who I used to be. Neither are you.

We are not anymore.

As the sky darkens and the stars fall and that condescending crescent grin moves higher over the settling night, I stow my book and I stare out at the onyx paint slick that has become the river.

I can't see it anymore... but I can still hear it.

I can't see you anymore. I can't see what we were anymore.

I'm not sure I can hear it anymore either.

But I hold that sound.

I look up at stars that I see alone.

I feel that scar on my arm from that night.

I look up and I see an empty void.

I'll cary these scars forever.

But I can't rely on them anymore.

The river has continued on,

the waters are now different.

Unsteady Mirror

2020-10-26T21:00:00.002-07:00

I stare into that mirror and I'm haunted by what stares aback at me.

When did this become who I think I am?

Where is that ambitious miscreant who once thought the world would be their plaything? When life seemed but a blank page to write my own narrative upon?

These grey hairs stand out, more and more coming as each week continues on.

Where did these creases and wrinkles come from? Where has the time gone to pass me into this aged facade of what I once believed? How can that much time have passed?

I remember those days sitting at Cafe Reggio, unnecessarily long hair flipping flippantly with the southern gusts of the Village as I read Kant and drank cappuccini. I remember the scents of halal food trucks wafting through the late afternoons and scribbling n those notebooks I always carried.

I can't remember the last time I carried one of my Moleskines.

My eyes look tired. Bags and lines beneath each that I can't recall. I have to squint to see details now.

Beauty was never a concept I considered. But truth, love, justice, freedom, creativity...

the tenants of all I ever had faith in.

When did I lose track of them?

How long has it been since I believed in what I believe?

The hours spent in diatribe with collaborative camaraderie seem like such a distant memory. Days spent in discourse, nights spent in debauchery and all the while the story and narrative was always there. The north star to my starless seascape. I always believed in that guiding force.

When was the last time I sat down at my typewriter? A year, two? Do my fingers even remember how to do this?

I try to find my voice but it is drowned out by the maelstrom of the events of life. I look to those guiding stars and yet I can see nothing but a nebulous haze. Is this the true sinking of the ship I have held onto for so long?

My reflection stares back at me, a sense of sadness and complacency in his eyes. He looks to me as if to say this truth is not absolute. Broken doesn't fit well.

I stare back in defiance. I refuse to settle. Life is a beautiful story that never ends. The only time the chapter comes to a close is when we give up on the narrative.

It is never too late.

It is always the right time.

It is now.

It is.

Periphery

2020-10-16T21:51:00.000-07:00

"You've gotten older," she says with a wry grin, those emerald eyes averting momentarily as she always did when she was being coy.

"Time keeps passing no matter how much we deny it, my dear." I cock my head like I always do when I'm trying to find the right words. And I can never find the right words.

"Always relying on philosophic roundabouts."

"Well, some things never truly change." We exchange a smile, a moment that flashes back to decades before when we were young and there was just that moment. She dips her head, averts her eyes again and takes a sip of her drink. She looks around, searching for landmarks that are familiar to our time together but that time has long since passed...

...

"You two are just adorable! I need a photo of this moment!"

That random friend, just met and strangely now part of our circle heckles me for squinting and grinning instead of a smile. She chastises me and you tell her that my idiot crocodile smirk is a sign of me being happy. Not many recognize that one. We lean together, the backdrop of our eccentric neighborhood and home right behind us. The flash glares off the mojito glasses in front of us but I don't say a word. We enjoy the tapas from our local spot and the night just drifts into those memories so perfect and serene you struggle to remember the details...

... I still regret not having that photo, despite how things turned out...

...

"Hey old friend, it's been a while." I never expect your calls anymore. So many miles and eons have passed between us that I don't know if we still matter anymore.

"Yeah, I guess it has been. Are you..."

"How are..."

"How's your family?"

"How's you're... ah yeah they're fine."

"Yeah, me too." I don't know what else to say, sitting alone a lifetime away from you.

...

"Can I help you pack anything," I ask, clearly lacking enthusiasm. I'm on that tiny little green couch that had been such a source of comfort for years. Pizzeria and red wine-sangria and the gandalf pipe and old shows that just made every moment last as long as it was needed.

"No, I'm fine."

...

I still remember sitting at Cafe Reggio, reading Baudelaire and drinking my espresso when you come up the street from class, fired up about linguistics and looking like the beatific artistic saint with your handbag and your torn-up Bowie shirt. You sit down and just unleash your mind while subtly ordering a drink. I light a Dunhill and smirk as you bombard with passion. The growing autumn twilight doesn't drive us away at.

...

"I don't know what to say." We're at the security checkpoint at the airport, your bags already checked. Theres almost no one in the international terminal at this hour. You always have a knack for the untimed.

"Thanks for coming with me." You look hard at me but I can't keep the eye contact. I know something meaningful and important is about to end. You place over your shoulder at the digital terminal clock and then slowly turn back to me. You keep your eyes down to match my downtrodden visage. "I'm gonna miss you." You wait for me to react.

"Yeah, you too," I say, reticently raising my chin to match your gaze. You flash a pirate smile, the one I know all too well and you softly nod your head. You check on your bag and then turn back to me. There are a million words whispered in a moment without a sound being made. You smile again and you throw your arms around my neck. I match the act and that moment freezes.

A slight tear slides down your cheek and you smile again, steeling yourself. You grab your bag and turn and head off towards the terminal. I stand and wait and watch for longer than I can remember, my mind silent and my senses numbed. You slowly disappear from sight...

...

"Do you remember that random pizza place we used to get from for Futurama nights?"

I choke on my drink, laughing on my doorstep as your voice pierces my ears.

"How could I forget."

"They never remembered the toppings." Your laugh in my ears sparks synapses of a lifetime ago but I know they are closed doors. It's just nice hearing my friend laugh again.

"Talk to you soon," I ask after a while. My drink is empty and the haze over city stars is starting to clear meaning dawn is coming.

"Always."

And the line goes dead, and I am left with those sounds of a city neighborhood. The barreling glow of the corner street lamp feels like a lighthouse of oppression in a moment and a lifetime of an instant.

I wake up that first moment you are gone.

The lamppost is a lighthouse in the anguish.

Constellations

2020-10-12T23:57:00.000-07:00

I think about that morning a lot.

The slowly ascending crescendo of the basic sounds of life.

And yet those moments were everything.

The gulls and gills of Charlestown sung loud while we just lounged and

lived.

Breathed.

Were.

You scream at me as you put your last few items in your bag.

"You're just too much," you say, your body trembling but your eyes resolute.

"I love you," you say after the long, discomforting pause. "But I can't stand you anymore."

I watch as you pass through the gate to my building. I know this is it: you'll move on to whatever the fates decide but I know that our paths will not cross again. I take a seat on the sidewalk, hoping to see starts in LA but I'm left with a myriad void,

I look at the curtains, downed to block out the light, thinking of when we put them up. So much had happened before we thought it might be prudent to shut them out. Remember the nudist couple across the the street?

I'm waiting in my car, parked in front of a generational home. But I can't imagine being anywhere else at this moment. You come out through the driveway and the security lights turn on. I see a wry grin creep lethargically across you visage.

'I see you,' is all I hear. The world softens for that moment.

"You snore a lot," you say with a noticeable sense of amusement as I crack the lids to the day.

I'm pretty sure I grumbled, and you just smiled and came closer.

I watch you pack and I am broken.

"Hey, I live down the hall. Just wanted to say hi."

I stare straight up into the sky. I seek no constellation.

Hallucingnes

2020-09-07T22:24:00.000-07:00

I'm just sitting outside, resting on the the stoop looking up at the shrouded stars of the city life.

There is a strange silence in a neighbored usually rampant with noise and chaos and life.

You sit there next to me, stoic and silent and sublime.

The crucible of those hours hang heavy on your shoulders,

the rally flag of familial fortuity have been staked hours ago,

and the army amasses mobilized for you.

We sit and count stars and discourse the strange change of the tides of life.

You're there. Those tranquil moments where I can read everything in your thoughts by the wry grin on your face...

...

... I watched as you took down art that hung on our walls for years. Symbols of stability broken and shattered in the mere passing of moments. The songs we used to play for joy now sound out in resonance of misery and loss. I search for the words to keep you knowing I contemplate in pure futility. You've been gone longer than I can allow myself to admit...

...

We're sitting on the back porch, the waning crescent moon perched like a petulant perpetrator of perpetual pain. You say you cannot cry and I cannot say why. I cannot be anything more than there.

...

.... And I remember when I was just too much to take. I kept failing and you kept taking those chances...

...

I'm sitting outside my house. The sun bears down on the Charlestown streets and I watch as the neighborhood moves like a calculated game of Risk. I close my eyes, close my book and rest it on my chest. I bask in the blind warmth of a city street and then you call me. You need me. And I am there.

...

That morning waking up together. You're arm wrapped around my chest, the morning light intruding in a moment where I felt peace. Where we were able to wake up and face each other and just smile. That pirate grin you wore as you stroked my ear with the blade of your thumb...

...

You ask me to be there, And you are never there. I sit, entranced, ever waiting.

...

... I watched as I fucked up. I was never right for the moment. I always tried to be there and that was my problem. I was always there and never here...

...

I wake from this fever dream, the tears coming without cause, and I ask myself a litany of questions.

Was this real?

Did I ever mean more than just a doorstop?

Whatever love it may be...

It's not this.

...

I woke up in a fever, hoping last night was not real.

...

I sit and stare out my window looking at the same stars. But you are but a shroud to me, some ethereal mist that has no weight because some never cares. I have to let go of hope...

...

My thoughts of you meaning were but that dream.

I hallucinate too much without drugs.

Go find yourself hope.

These Familiarly Strange Cobwebs

2020-08-31T01:15:00.005-07:00

And yet once again, here were are...

the stranger in my own narrative.

Where did this reality come from? How could so much change in a single year after so much changed in a moment?

There was a time and an instant when desperation and isolation and a yearning to not be alone brought an amalgamation of scatterd souls together for a brief period where we could share our joys and sorrows together.

The trigger was one of us. One lost and unanchored and without a concept of the next step forward.

And so like those most insanely beautiful maniacs do, we banded together. We rallied behind a flag of purpose to preserve that which had become beloved and sacred to us. We embodied 'E Plurbus Unum:' Out of many, one. We created a strange summer camp for the genders: the boys camp, rough, savages, riddled with too many people in a small cabin but inundated with fraternity and video games as the common demonstrator; the women formed a sisterhood... one that seemed unshakable as we all struggled together. Tabula Rasa coming, terra incognito for all of us. It was going to be the best year of our lives.

...

...I sit here now, a year later, in my own place again, returned to the comforting isolation. I can breathe, I can exist without feeling the obligations of relying upon others and being reliant to others. And yet there is that deafening silence where my adoptive sisters would emerge from their room for a food run or a just to make sure I was okay. The times with their chinchilla were beyond measure.

....

...

Those early days were something out of a daydream or a sitcom. We were a cohesive unit, a diasporic family merged through the bonds of fidelity, the needs of necessity, and the addiction of broken fragments coming together to form something imperfectly perfect.

The laughs, the tears, the late night conversations overlooking the slumbering streets of Allston. The random moments where somehow we all ended up together. Those were things you could not plan. They were just natural chemistry.

...

I spent most of tonight after working staring out my new living room window. The old cotton mill smoke stack stands like a resilient sentinel, defiant to its current insignificance yet beautiful in its imperfection. I watch a couple watch their pup as she sniffs around the courtyard.

...

Somehow it never worked the way we thought it would.

Time is a bastard,

and life is an asshole.

Combined, it was an inevitability that it wouldn't be perfect. But you'd think after a year and a half of running through the crucible together that there would be lasting meaning.

And yet here we stand.

...

I walk the confines of my house, the songs that remind me of so many parts of the past permeating through my head and I cannot comprehend what I can even feel anymore.

After so long in an insulated chamber I was alive again. Those atrophied parts of my already broken heart were resuscitated into life once more. I was saved from myself by this party of absurdity.

I even let myself get vulnerable.

It ended as it always has, but this was a chance that reminded me of the reason you take them.

...

I'm sitting at my keyboard for the first time in a very long time. To be honest, I don't know if I know how to to this writing bit anymore because it's been so long. And yet like the sailor to the sea, I am am drawn back whether I think its the right thing to do or not. My fingers can't remember how to work perfectly in time with my mind. I am trying to find this part of me again, after a very long hiatus.

...

There are so many talks we had on the porch, discussing life and the meaning of it all. And now those conversations are just left mute: insignificant musings that were only used to indulge in selfishness.

...

For the first time in a a long time I'm just listening to Bob Dylan. Live At Royal Albert Hall. The haunting notes of a wailing harmonica bring me both a comfort and an inherent terror: I've felt this loss before.

When she told me she was leaving and I sat beside the Hudson.

When I was told I was too much to handle.

When I thought I was ready.

...

I still remain at a loss to the changes of time when it results in the changes of a heart.

...

---

...

We do our best to both show we are fine, and yet also cry for help.

Listen to your loved. See the kaleidoscope visions.

Make it all clear.

Shattered Thoughts

2019-12-04T20:58:00.002-08:00

There’s a lot to be said about that which is never spoken.

Those moments when souls have been stripped bare and dragged across acres of salt and all you can do is lower your head, take what could be considered too much of a sip of the drink and then just stare off into the distance.

And yet there’s that power, that magnitude of those unique people you meet along the way… those seemingly innocuous souls who turn out to be the prophet or the saint or the tempter or the torture that you never saw coming.

You are stuck in that introspective moment, locked in pain. You are forced into a straightjacket of the mind and then without cause or reason you notice the look;

not the look of judgement or resentment or trepidation.

It’s the look of recognition. It’s the face you see in the mirror because only that face could understand what you’ve been through.

It’s the look of sympathetic resonance.

It’s the look of the harmony between balance and chaos that shapes the cosmos.

It’s the look of someone who sees just how very broken you are, and yet does not retreat from those vicious shards.

For the most part life is but an unending procession of monotony and repetition and monotony and repetition and monotony and ….

…fuck. See? See how easy it is?

And that’s just it. When did we become conditioned to believe that any of this nonsense would be easy? Life as a definition is the struggle for preservation......

*********************************************************************************

“Should we talk about this?”

It’s a question that goes unasked but lingers like a severed limb. She averts her eyes, a skill she knows so well and knows that breaks me into a thousand shards.

“Hey,” someone else interjects, saving us from the harsh reality. “Who needs another beer?”

“I do,” she says eagerly. Her jade eyes light up as she smiles; she is the beacon that fills a room whether she means to or not......

*********************************************************************************

And just like that,

I am back into a place I never

thought I’d see again.

This weird amalgam of love and hatred and fear and power and passion and utter, crippling confusion.

How do people deal with this?

At the cost of sounding like a cynic…

is this pain worth it?

I genuinely oscillate between belief and regret.

This is just too much to comprehend: the mind seems like its about to rupture in absolute joy and complete mystery and I no longer have a heading in this fucked up maelstrom called life.

I’m haunted by the past…. scars that I keep wearing and fail at covering up.

And those marks had held me back for so long,

Have ruined so much

that I don’t know how to operate anymore.

An Overdue Reunion

2019-11-20T19:15:00.000-08:00

It’s one of those strange nights.

Nights where you can’t remember when today started, yesterday began, and tomorrow ends.

Early morning stumble to the train,

the sky grey as the deepest Nantucket fog;

departure after the sun has crept back beneath the view. Luminous dusk lingering overhead.

You walk back into the new true that you call your life;

those now familiar quizzical steps that lead into safety.

You inherently dodge a bo staff flying past your head as your gypsy tribe calls you

“welcome and come home!”

The surreal bliss of sliding down into your childhood chair as laughter and banter and genuine love permeates presently throughout the premises….

I stare into the orbs. It’s a paralytic, this metaphysical prison capturing at a moment’s notice.

The ethanol dances calypso circles around my cerebellum;

the witch doctor’s haze creeps across my gaze.

“Hello old friend.”

I watch as my own reflection speaks to me. He grins and squints and cocks his head the same way I do, but yet we do not look alike.

“ It’s so nice to see you again.”

He looks so different. His face tired, his hair grey, his features softened; and yet, his eyes speak of miles.

“You look so surprised, like you never expected this?”

I try to muster words, to round up the stampede of thoughts cascading through my brainpan.

“What happened, jackass? Your words turn to piss?”

Of fucking course: my introspective self started delving into limerick. What an asshole.

“Yeah, sucks… doesn’t it?” He says this with the inflection of a question when it’s clearly a statement. “Realizing you’re not what you thought you’d be? Tough shit: what are you going to do about it?”

I can only stare back…shamed at my own reflection. I feel as if I have failed myself.

And then I see another reflection. And another. And another.

A galactic arm of reflections.

I see myself as a young malcontent, expecting nothing but the worst of the world;

I see myself as a child, laughing with my dog Jazzmine as waves splashed against the shore;

I see myself eating dinner in a five-star restaurant in New Orleans with my best friend…simply because she had plans fall through and needed an adventure;

I see what I envisioned;

I see what I could be, for better or worse;

I see who I am, right now.

I rinse my hands and wash my face three times;

buddham saranam gocchami

dharmam saranam gocchami

sangham saranam gocchami.

I keep my eyes closed as I feel the last remnants of water trickle off my face; they catch on my chin with my mask gone.

“It’s alright,” he whispers. I open my eyes once more and look back at me.

“There’s still time. To find your purpose again.”

I take a slow breath through my nose.

“What,” I say, “no more rhymes?” I grin.

“Asshole.”

“Thanks for the reunion.”

Lost in the Now; Lost Together

2019-11-13T20:23:00.000-08:00

xWhen did my words become so difficult to find?

It's hard to dust off the cobwebs, especially when you've made a subconscious effort to repress them. Wait, no: repress isn't the right word.

Bury.

I have buried my words.

What was once my greatest escape and means of understanding the world around me have become a liability. They are the warm droplets of blood escaping from a wound that I've tried to bind and hide and pretend doesn't exist anymore. They're scars only I can see that remind me of who I was, who I thought I was going to be, and what I became. But more than that, they're the opening in the armor that prevents me from blocking out the New Orleans style marching band of cacophony and discord that perpetually resonates in my head.

The good,

the bad,

the beautiful and tragically ugly and utterly

inexplicable.

And yet as I keep these impulses at the tips of my fingers in chains, locked away in the dark... I can feel my grip on my own identity sliding away. How do you go so long with a singular purpose only to cast it aside like a soiled towel when you need it more than ever to find that balancing point on the see-saw called life?

The answer is fuck you. You can't.

***

It's been such a long time since I've sat down at this rickety little desk to put thoughts to page that my fingers feel arthritic, my mind feels atrophied. This was like breathing for so long and now I feel like I don't know how to take a breath.

The only way to remember gravity is to just lean out against the cliff and

let...

....go.

How fickle this game of 'Twister' is.

Change comes like the sea and yet things never really change under these quiet skies.

I lay in this room,

a place still unknown and yet I'm surrounded by pictures and faces and paintings that remind me of a place I knew as safe and mine.

I find myself in terra infirma, terra incognito.

This tabula rasa carries a lot of chalk lines from the previous lives I've lived:

scratch marks of nails dragged in pain still linger just under the surface.

How do you lose track of people you're constantly around?

A fever dream, a beautiful collaboration of a seven part symphony.

Beautifully broken bodhisattvas brought together out of bond and purpose and collective bliss:

a tribe of fallen stars, fitting together so perfectly as broken shards of glass to form something

beautiful.

...

And somehow that mosaic seems so distant now.

Where is that collective that was once stronger than steel?

How is it that we're always together yet...

...it feels like another life since we were together?

It's a strange sensation...

...being estranged in your camp.

***

Recompense isn't easily found for me.

But once again I'm taught a truth from life:

Words to page.

Solace isn't found.

It's accepted.

Maniacal Sightseeing

2019-09-24T00:46:00.000-07:00

Bam, bam, bash...
who took out the trash;
someone owes someone cash.

Crazy digital age we live in,
transactions are a rampant nonchalant necessity.

Want to sleep.
Want to sleep.
Need to sleep.

Day off tomorrow, need to do the adult stuff.
Trying to act responsible.

Little gremlin hosting a wine and cheese party in the brainpan:
fire and battery acid pumping through the veins,
Sleep is for the weak,
peace is for the meek.

Jesus Christ doing crunches in Crenshaw,
how did it get this late?

Wasn't I just cooking dinner?
People needed to eat,
lean into that paternal role in this crazy little collective you call
home.

Easy peasy, making stir fry:
meme-like journey to a grocery store leads to an epidemic of
fiscal irresponsibility and and untapped level
of hilarity.
Apparently someone got hard nipples thinking about ravioli....

The fuck?

Is that the sun or my neighbor's bathroom light?
I think I need to buy real shades;
apparently a pirate flag and a Mongolian flag don't block enough light...\\

.....DA BEARS! DA BEARS DA BEARS DA BEARS!

...how did I end up outside again? And when did it start raining?
Still...it feels a lot nicer than the hot box of a house called home.
My foot taps along to Led Zeppelin as I hear cries from inside about
banana bread...

...fuck.
I am alone in a house of people.

....I was riding on a wave when I thought this dream came true...

I am tired.
I have been tired for days.
I lay down to sleep, switch off the lamp aside my bed, close my eyes and try and drift off to the sounds of familiar shows on Netflix...

...Holy fuckmonkey,
I'm at my desk,
I'm the very keyboard that is typing this absurd words,
and I've no clue how.

That table at IKEA today was nice, I should have bought it...
FUCK YOU, YOU LUNATIC! STOP SPENDING MONEY!
OH FUCK OFF...STOP BEING PARANOID. MONEY COMES, MONEY GOES.
Excuse me, folks... but perhaps we should discuss a bit of balance in...\

<COLLECTIVE NARRATIVE>
GET FUCKED STRANGER!!!!!

"Hey can you hang my curtains tonight," my beloved maenad asked. Was that tonight?
What year is it?

BEARS BEARS BEARS!

"Food is up," I groan, knowing it's not good enough to impress only me.
Is this now?

...

"Hey man, are you ok?" I stare into the darkness at the silhouette of my brother.
Fuck, what did I do this time?
Wait.... what day is it??

"I'm worried about you."
"I'm good, buddy." Images of self-immolation flash through my mind, countered by images of me as an octogenarian bartender in the Bahamas.
"You know you can always...

"...go back to bartending."
The fuck?
Wasn't this conversation a week ago?
Two weeks ago?
"I just miss talking with you."

"...So doesn't the Pope," I mutter.
...."Excuse me sir?"

I look around and I'm at self-checkout at CVS on Harvard Avenue.

...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...

This looks like absurdity. This is what life feels like in MANIA.

HAPPY MONDAY.

; )

Brink

2019-07-14T07:31:00.000-07:00

Where do I begin?

Where do I begin…

and where do I

end?

I have found myself asking this question a lot lately. In the vast expanse of chaos and chorus and reason and rhyme I have been feeling like a half-deflated mylar balloon adrift. A feckless and reckless child throwing sand into the wind. And in that act of innocent insolence I lost my footing and fell off the seesaw.

What are the words that I can use to unravel this mountain of broken bricks and shattered bits that I’ve managed to bury myself under and ask you to excavate? I muse the idea of the Houdini act; flash of light and smoke and poof, I am but a specter… a mental splinter that lingers but is impossible to extract.

Exhaustion.

My mouth runs dry, my already fevered cheeks flush with shame and humiliation and hope. I’m trying to sleep but I know I can’t before these words are down and inscribed upon this digital tablet from Sinai.

…

My courage eludes me.

I can face down the darkest corners of my mind and bear pain that breaks me and yet this is more than I can carry.

Fuck it. My six stars never cease to guide me.

Mine has been a lonely road.

For nearly a decade I have been alone.

I’ve had a few lighthouse souls that have stuck with me through the years,

but thanks to the growing complexities of life…

we’ve moved apart.

They’ve gotten married, they’ve had kids, they’ve become distant pleasantries.

Yet all the while I’ve managed to stay running in the same circle

at the bottom of the same dark hole I’ve called home for too long.

I’d grown close to members of this lunatic-saint family. But I always stayed at arms length to protect the cracked bits of porcelain I have left.

And then this celestial alignment occurred

and these six stars erupted into

clear focus.

These exceptionally unique and dynamic and beautiful and bruised warrior-poets came

cascading into my life and utterly

changed

my universe.

Such magnificent presence broke through the

veneer and alabaster

that I’d shaped around myself and the part that I’d

buried,

my capacity to love and

let love in was cast into the sunlight.

It was like trying to wash your face with a tsunami:

I was and still am overwhelmed.

I am so rusty and unfamiliar with that part of myself that I let my demented mind start a

Spy versus Spy series of misadventures

with my emotions.

I couldn’t fathom what I was experiencing without trying to simplify it like fitting the correct shapes into boxes.

And this dynamic… it is something in all of my years and all of my travels… something I have never experienced.

I love you, because of you. I love them all, because of them: the poet, the stoic; the young sun and the nurturing moon; the bonfire and the beacon.

I have lived a life with what feels like naught but pain and sadness and carrying those scars alone. But I am not alone anymore,

and I am terrified of losing that.

I live in the eye of the hurricane. I see the beauty of the sky and the storm, and yet at times I am overtaken by it. But I cannot always outrun the maelstrom.

I have lived in dread of that.

As long as I can remember.

Yet when I am with you, I fear not: you are the guiding lights in these unknown waters.

You remind me of who I am.

You remind me of who I want to be.

I will always give everything I have for you,

because you have given me more than you know.

I am beyond the point of sorry being enough.

We have given ourselves to each other.

You have given me…

…hope.

To quote:

“The Bond that links your true family is not one of blood, but respect and joy in each others’ life.”

-R. Bach

A Brave New World...

2019-07-06T23:54:00.003-07:00

It's hard to understand these thoughts.

It's late. No later than I'm used to but I'm tired and I feel battered and broken. I've been living in a tempest after so long in tranquility that I'm grasping at ferns in a field that's been burned down and demolished for another fucking 'soon-to-be-failed' manufacturing plant.

Fuck.

How does one begin to process distilled madness and chaos and bliss and family and love and things you can't begin to even fathom? How do you make sense of the center of a tornado?

Moses doing crunches. I need another drink.

It's that weird hour where even the most night-hawkish friends I know are bunkering down, bracing for another day of reality. And yet here I am, stuck in a cognitive loop and trying to drown it all out with stimulants and vodka and the most beautifully depressive music a lonesome soul can find. I look around my apartment; this cabin in the urban woods that once was my retreat from the cold realities of the day has been injected with life, with lives. A diaspora of wanderlust souls have invaded my isolation and I am so much more the better for it.

But of course there's that little asshole sitting on my shoulder, whispering in my ear nothing but negativity and sorrow and self-pity. He's been stapled there for what feels like an eternity. He tries to tell me that I've made a grave mistake; that I'm not worth the love around me. He sabotages me at every single step along the way, trying to convince me that I'm too fucked in the head and too broken in the heart to be apart from my isolation; too fucked up to be a part of something more. He looks a lot like me.

And then I look at the slumbering faces around me... I think of those luminous torches that are not in the room but whose fire burns so fucking bright I'm scared I'll burn myself. I look back at the pictures we've taken over the last two yea...wait, fuck, no... the last two weeks. How does such a short period of time have the gravitas of several lifetimes?

I'm fidgeting. The anxiety monster is close.

I close my eyes and lean into the slipstream daydream of my memories with these bodhisattvas. Two miraculous spirits learning to play and sing and harmonize together; family I never thought I'd have bandied together over Amuuricah's birthday which included really lousy tequila shots; three people lazing on a couch talking shit while watching 'Stranger Things' ; the simple joy of a friend you love beyond reason giving you a hug as you pass by in the shift change.

I am terrified. I am not prone to change. I am hurt, and I have lived that way for so long that I didn't think I'd remember what it felt like to feel anything different. Yet despite all that, here I stand on the edge of a precipice... ready to take one of the greatest risks of my life because I have power and force and creativity and love backing me. These beautifully flawed and wonderfully scattered and immeasurably unconquerable saints saved me when I didn't even know I needed to be saved.

There is no force in this world stronger than love. And there is no love stronger than that which we choose.

Dream

2019-05-31T01:25:00.002-07:00

And just like that…. she comes back to break me. She, the loving phantom from my dreams, from my nightmares… the spectra of my joy and my torment. Oh those soft spots in their porcelain soul; how can you protect against such innocent cruelty?

“Do you remember…”

the pause is noxious…

“…that…”

and she goes silent.

My breathe stops: I know this moment. This is a moment I constantly dread; it's a moment that is just inevitable.

Fear in Truth

2018-05-14T22:52:00.001-07:00

How is it that the world can change so much for you without you ever even noticing? When does the reality of what you are actually doing coincide with the dream life you’ve always been living? What is the worth of a life if it is one spent in mere repetition and subservience?

This is never the world i thought I’d live in. I never thought I would be this person. I have made countless mistakes in my life… most of them a direct result of my decisions. Some of them are actually consequences of other peoples’ sins that I cannot control, and yet I am held accountable for. And yet still, through all of this, I always held on to a few set principles and paragons to live by. Until I didn’t.

Somewhere along the line, I lost my way. It is not an easy thing to come to terms with: you realize that all the sacrifices and mistakes you’d made until now were all for naught. This idea of writing seems such a simplistic, noble idea in principle. And it always came so easy to me. While that might come off as arrogant or egotistical… it is a matter of truth. I was never the one to be the life of any party. Instead, I was the one always on the perimeter, the chronicler of the world I saw around me. Ive always been fortunate enough to be blessed with friends and family that understood that outlier trait about me. In that characteristic, I’ve been able to see the world in front of me and, to be honest, multiple worlds that could be. Be it imagination or simply a different perspective… the ability for me to put down my rationality of the physical world via words was always a way for me to find my place.

Until those words stopped. Or, more accurately, until I stopped listening to those words. As the days, the weeks, the years pass… life has a nasty habit of distracting and discouraging us. Drama comes up; people you love disappear from your life; those you love are broken from events you couldn’t begin to predict. Long and the short of it is that it is so easy to lose almost anything to the nebulous schism of the moment to moment existence.

I really sound overly sanctimonious preaching like this. I have no right. These last past years have not been kind to me, but I have seen so much worse that I feel like a complete asshole even talking about this. Yet finally, after what feels like an eon of rudderless emptiness, I think I’ve found myself again.

Every day is a struggle. The joy (said facetiously) of living with mental health issues is that I cannot predict what comes next, who I will be next, or how I will deal with any amalgamation of this fucked up arithmetic. But I know that it is worth fighting through. While I feel that pain of loss, of sorrow, of losing… I know there are darker valleys to be in. And though this platform of mine is still diminutive, I feel its important to stand with a sense of pride.

I needed to put words to page tonight. I just needed to. It is how I process my reality and my pain. And it is also how I create my great joy.

I am not famous.

I am not a household name.

I am a writer.

I am a survivor of emotional disorder.

I am not alone.

And neither are you.

The Good Fight

2017-02-02T20:37:00.000-08:00

Hello my darlings, my dears, and my not so nears...

It's been some time since we've done this dance. I promised that I'd keep in touch and keep preachin' the word, but I guess I broke that one didn't I? Though I suppose that's of no surprise to those of you who know me: I have a reputation for being capricious and absent minded. A completely warranted reputation, mind you. Now I could cite the current state of affairs in the world today as reason for my absence and neglect but that would just be making excuses. And we ought to be better than that.

No, I cannot blame geo-political intrigue for my languor and hiatus... despite my desire to. And for once, I will hold back on my verbose, vitriolic political rant. For now. Instead... I think it's time that we had a heart to heart, but to do that you'll have to forgive a moment of introspection and self-reflection.

I am not an easy person, in any definition of the word. I am impulsively compulsive, irrationally rational and vice versa, obsessed with organized disorder, and a generally pessimistic som'bitch to use the parlance of our times. I know these things about me, and those closest to me do as well. How they've managed to stick around is beyond me because frankly, I tire of my own company on a daily basis. The problem is something beyond behavioral explanation or even cursory understanding. And that is the real problem, isn't it: we, as a nation... we still lack a supportive, embracing, and understanding dialogue about mental illness.

I suffer from depression, and I'm at the will of mania. Some of the doctors in the day have said Manic Depressive, some BP1, some have muttered incoherently about lemurs with pitchforks... though as I type this I think that might have been me. The point is there is something not quite perfect in my genetic makeup that causes me to struggle. What feel like daily annoyances can send me off into a hysterical fit of mischief and self-destruction, while a passing glimpse on a sunny day can spiral me into unstoppable sadness and tears. For those of you out there who manage with these feelings understand without question; those of you who don't probably never truly can. And while I know this sounds preachy and all self-important the truth is that's not what I am trying to do here.

As I've grown older and experienced more and more in my life I have also had to find various ways to cope with this. In the earliest memories I withdrew and insulated myself within myself; college was a blur of booze and bullshit with some of the best friends I could have asked for... people who put up with my fluctuating psycho-emotional state of mind without hesitation. As my dear friend Glen once said, "There are like five different you's, and I never know who to expect." In reality, I'm sure all five of those me's came to the dance each and every night. I've always hoped that it would get easier to deal with as I got older but the truth is, it gets significantly harder. It's a hell of a lot easier to spend a day prone in bed hiding from the world when the only consequence is a college course. When you have bills to pay, responsibilities to fulfill, people to consider... that is exponentially worse. In the time it takes for a cliche jackass to type about a drop of a hat, I can have a trigger that moves me from the ecstasy of doing cocaine with Maxim models at Mardi Gras to the sensation that every thing in my life is falling to pieces. The cliches really do not do justice to the feeling in those moments. Hope, peace, reason, simple existence becomes a goddamned fucking crucible that feels insurmountable. It is as if the very blood in your veins coagulates and your heart becomes a furnace; every smiling face is a razor blade drawing against the skin, and while you seek isolation, that very looniness just compounds the feeling three fold.

I have had close people in my life question this, and while not intentionally... chastise me for it. "Just stop it," or "get out of your head," or "so don't." If only it were so easy. I really wish it was, because I would probably be better at this whole life shit than I am now. But the fact of the matter this isn't a conscientious decision: it's just a part of who I am. I have come to terms with this, and over the many years I have learned a lot of tricks to help me along the way. I have been blessed with several compatriots and guides who have battled alongside and taught me a few things. I have also lost more than a few dear friends who couldn't keep fighting... leaving a legacy for the rest of us to continue on. All things considered... I am in a place of contentment in my life. I have a wonderful, albeit complicated family; I am blessed with a cadre of brothers and sisters I call friends who have all been there for me without question; I am on a career path that I enjoy and I am rediscovering my literary voice. It doesn't mean that life is easy, and it doesn't mean that I'm always ok. But I fight the good fight because that's all there is to do. I was raised with a Bostonian disposition and quitting isn't in that DNA.

Alright... self-righteousness aside, let me say this: open up the conversation. For those of you who don't face this obstacle, try to be patient with us that do. Understand that we are sometimes the victims of our own brains and aren't in the best place. And for any friends, family, or complete strangers that may read this who are struggling with this but keeping it inside... don't. Talk to someone: talk to your family if you're comfortable enough, your friends if you're close enough, a trained professional simply because you can and they help. Just start talking. Silence is never an answer.

To all those I referenced earlier... you know who you are. That won't stop me from saying thank you: thanks for always being there for a late night call or midday distraction beer; for being a shoulders to cry on and a supportive arm when I fall down from laughing too hard. Thanks for putting up with my impulsiveness and every other character trait that might be flawed. Simply thank you for being you and being part of my life.

Cheers,

-s.

P.S. Like the rising tide of activism in our nation, I will not be silenced nor ignored. More to come soon. Nighty night.

Apology

2017-01-14T08:56:00.000-08:00

2016 is over. It’s dead and buried and hopefully being urinated upon by a surly, spectral bum with a spiteful disposition, And I think I could hear the collective sigh of relief at 12:01am Sunday morning. But there was also a noticeable hesitation in the reverie, a timidity to the bacchanalia. And for that I feel sorry.

Sorry is a word I’ve been saying more and more lately. Or I’ve been forced to say it by circumstance, but does that really matter? As we transition into a new year, we the People are also transitioning into a new, uncharted, unexpected, and to me inexplicable chapter in our world. Eight years ago, we are inspired by a campaign of hope; we believed in the inherent values and tenets of the national ethos. Now, less than a decade later we’re resigned to our choices out of fear and doubt. We’ve been deceived by a con artist and, in the process, severely damaged our collection relationship with each other. After all the bonds of our citizenship ought outweigh a party’s platform. But, while that trend has been growing slowly like a cancerous tumor… it has gone terminal. We have lost the united beliefs that forged a nation born from collected rebels… that survived civil war and managed to keep moving forward. Ad we, a nation of dreamers and explorers who once strove for the stars, now stand like ostriches with our heads in the sands, shackled by promises of restored retro-era glory. And for that I feel sorry.

I’m sorry that more Americans feel detached from and abandoned by the government that was elected to fight for them than ever in our history. I’m sorry that people do not completely understand our political system because our education system is fractured and ruinous. And I’m even more sorry that many of those elected officials have indeed betrayed we the People to further advance their agendas, careers, and bank accounts.

To my Democrat friends, I’m sorry. We lost the fight, but it does not mean the end. To quote scripture, “I Have Fought the Good Fight, I Have Finished the Race, I Have Kept the Faith.” In the coming days, many of your beliefs will be challenged so keep the faith despite the loss. Dare to dream again; dare to hope.

And to my Republican friends I too am sorry. First I am sorry if my passions and beliefs got the better of me; I’m sorry if my speech or opinions pushed too far. And I’m sorry that this is where you’ve come as a party. I’m sorry that your leadership has failed to pick a side in this last election. And I’m sorry this is your candidate. If you picked him out of party loyalty or a dislike of Hillary Clinton then I’m sorry that you felt this was your only option. To those of you who believe in your candidate, I’m even more sorry. Because you’ve been conned by a pathological liar, a narcissist, and a buffoon. At least that’s my opinion, which I’m also sorry for.

To all of the women in my life, as well as those whom I do not know, I’m so sorry. I’m sorry that we have normalized, rationalized, and legitimized what is simply sexual assault by putting a predator in the highest office in the land. I’m sorry that every step taken since the Suffragettes has still not been enough to give you equal rights, and that far too many people are still ok with this.

To all of my friends of color, of various ethnic backgrounds, of immigrant background… I’m sorry. I’m sorry that as a culture, a community… we’ve let things linger like this for so long. I’m sorry for the delusion that hate crime and discrimination HASN’T been happening right in front of us this whole damned time. All the while… we thought things were getting better. I’m sorry for such arrogant ignorance, and I’m sorry if I haven’t done enough.

I’m sorry for my friends in the LGBTQ community. I’m sorry that the rights, honors, and privileges of this nation do not apply to you because your love does’t match an ill-quoted text predating the Dark Ages. I’m sorry that some people believe their religious opinions are worth more than your basic happiness; I’m beyond sorry that love itself is being assaulted via religious zealotry. And I’m sorry that the second most powerful person in the country is about to be a discriminatory crusader against your basic human dignity.

To my younger family members, friends with children, and all of the successive generations, I’m sorry. I’m sorry that your predecessors prioritized private interests and money over environmental responsibility. I’m sorry that clean energy is still considered fringe and obscure because of a coalition of politically connected rich vampires. I’m mostly sorry that you’ll never get to see so many of the amazing animals of my childhood because we stand at the beginning of the next mass extinction. I’m sorry you will grow without seeing such beautiful, remarkable creatures.

Personally, I’m sorry to those whom I have let down. Some I have failed because I could not live up to their mantle while others I have distanced from due to beliefs. I’m sorry that I am not the idealistic dreamer I once was, but I am not sorry for still trying to be.

And you. Those trace elements in this nation who suddenly feel embolden and able to promote your rhetoric. You know who you are. I actually am sorry. Not for you though. I’m sorry that your traitorous vitriol is rising from the dark recesses of time, polluting the flawed yet perfectly imperfect dream called the United States of America. I’m sorry that honest, hardworking people are not subjugated to your presence and your hate. I’m sorry that the Founding Fathers, who rebelled against oppression and fascism, have you as their heirs. I’m just sorry that you don’t get what this country stands for and that you never will. And while you spread intimidation and fear… I am NOT sorry, for I will be standing side by side with the true soul of the nation. I will stand by women; I will stand by the LGBTQ community; I will stand by minorities and the oppressed; and I shall stand with immigrants and refugees seeking a better life in the land of dreams like my very own Grandfather.

Now to you, the reader… the audience. I’m sorry for going on such a rant. Wait… no, I am not sorry, for the message is important to hear. I apologize simply because I have one single favor to ask of you: do not sit idle. Begin again the dialogue between the red and the blue; view your countrymen and women as brothers and sisters… not political adversaries. Know your neighbor before you hate and condemn them. I implore you to remember the dream that Revere, Hamilton, Washington, Jefferson, and Adams fought and bled for. That all men are created equal; that we are indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

The phrase I most often ponder regarding this country is “E Plurbus Unum.”

“Out of many, one.”

We become one.

So live as one,

laugh as one,

cry as one,

stand as one,

fall as one,

Rise up Again as one.

Out of many,

we become

one.