I travel winding, country highways
past estates sheltered by trees
until at last I’ve gone far enough east and am met
by a view of the cold Atlantic.

I stand on a beach with
thick, coarse sand.
The sea appears as
shimmering blue stretching as
far as the eye can see,
meeting the sky and becoming an indistinguishable
smudge of air and water.

The waves crash against the shoreline which
stretches on to points north and south.
The salty, fishy smell of low tide is in the air,
accompanied by shrieking gulls and
other swooping sea birds.

As darkness sets in the water becomes
harder to make out but
is still unmistakable.
A steady sea breeze
sweeps my hair to the side and balances out the
humid night air.

The tide moves in,
gains strength as the moon exerts its
pull and forces it
back toward the shore
as if each successive wave is an attempt
to swallow up the land
only to be turned way and
followed again by another
and another
and another.

The foamy, white crest of the waves
stands out in the darkness,
can be seen racing in from
both the left and the right,
steadily collapsing like a
stack of falling dominoes.

The sea is loud,
making it difficult to hear my companion’s words
so we decide not to talk at all.
We’re content to hear only the steady break of the waves that
have not stopped for all of mankind’s history,
are a symbol of something outside of our world,
something bigger.
The waves are a clue to forces we don’t fully understand
yet never cease to find solace in.
It is steadiness that makes the ocean so relaxing,
knowing that each wave that breaks will
be followed by another
and another
and another
If only the rhythm of our own lives were so simple.

Staring out at the dark sea is proof that there are
things beyond human knowledge.
Here is something hopelessly
vast
like outer space
right here on earth.
And yet,
all the things that make it so awesome
and us so insignificant in comparison
do not feel like a reason to despair, but
to delight.

The ocean is terrifying at night.
It is a black, writhing body with no borders,
only icy depths full of nothing
and everything
as if my greatest fears are contained in every rising swell.

I strip naked and proceed,
through force of will, into the frigid blackness.
The whole ocean moves.
Swells rise up before me like dark phantoms
gaining shape and size as they close in.

Only now can I understand the size of the sea.
The light tricks one into thinking they can accurately
imagine the size of things
while darkness allows no safe illusions.

A swell is about to break over me. I
close my eyes and dive head first into it,
open my eyes underwater and see nothing, only
hear the deep, bass of the surf around me.
The world is a dull roar in my head.
I go limp and close my eyes, look up and see the
white light of a crescent moon,
a single streak dancing on the writhing surface of the sea.
My naked body is carried by the motion of the waves,
a piece of driftwood in the tides of time
I am a babe in the womb,
floating peacefully in the amniotic salinity.

I give in to the night sea,
to the forces that control it.
Let them drown me,
sweep me out to sea.
Let them have their way with me.
For I know sooner or later,
they will do so anyway.

Beware those of faith. They are
the greatest of all disbelievers,
for they reject the dogma of man,
of life on Earth.
While their gospels promise salvation, they
smack of desperation,
nihilism;
are but guilt
for being part of
those woes they condemn.

If I’m not inspired
it’s because I’ve been living, have
no time for idle thoughts,
idle feelings.

Let the possessed ones
rule over their lonesome empires of hubris!
Give me chipped teeth and creased skin!
Open sores and mangled limbs!
Broken bones and battle scars!
For I am in a fierce contest,
not to win the hand of some fickle, illusory maiden
but with this life.

Let me crawl along the ground,
a frantic, scavenging beast
fighting to stay alive,
rather than spend another second in some
substratum of the mind.

Give me one minute with a real man!
rather than an eternity with a charlatan
whose subtle panhandling tries to
convince me of my inferiority.

Give me streets that stretch on and on!
Crossed with cursed bodies,
broken-down, rotted hulks of humanity,
deluded atavisms howling at the moon,
streets where widows scream and
bleary-eyed men stagger towards clarity, where
a lost soul is a known quantity
and a conviction is another campaign promise.

Let there be light!
From the haunts that mark man’s sad searches for pleasure:
Murky bars
Throbbing bawdyhouses
Bulging parlors
Oozing dancehalls

Bring forth darkness!
The shadows hide my shortcomings.
I am a man of Earth
who is neither proud nor ashamed.
Such ideas mean nothing to mortals.

There is only the wind in my face
The ground beneath my feet
The spoils of short-lived victories
strewn about me.
The barbarians are at the gate
and I find it assuring.

Those men
who think they need saving
are the loneliest souls of all,
heads craned upwards,
looking for a messiah to crash down amongst us,
meanwhile missing my hand
extended in brotherhood.

Men of Earth can always
look down,
scrape a friend off the pavement,
swing haymakers at those
cheap agents of ego
and connect often enough to resist
elitism posing as Belief.

As the U.S. soccer team desperately played for an equalizer in the waning moments of extra time against Ghana, I thought that the outcome of the game and my reaction to it might make for an interesting essay. In fact, I was already quite certain of the general tone and themes that would be presented in a piece about either a win or a loss. They went something like this.

Scenario #1: Victory

In this version of the essay, Team U.S.A. ties the score and goes on to win in a penalty kick shootout. I describe the victory with cheesy, predictable platitudes such as: you have to keep on believing in yourself despite seemingly insurmountable odds and success ultimately trumps any hardships one must endure.

The essay then diverts into a deep, introspective tangent, in which I have the epiphany that life trudges forward with predictable monotony no matter how joyous a single accomplishment is. I go on to describe how unadorned moments comprise the essence of existence, not the occasional supernova of the ego. I end this section by stating a maxim, for example: After the flames of temporary glory have turned to ash, one must resume the search for contentedness in the small, poorly-lit corners of life.

This version of the essay concludes with me witnessing something outdoors, for instance, a bird landing on the feeder and pecking at the suet. I smile and bask in the enlightened perspective that no great achievement can replace such a moment of simple beauty and connectivity with the universe. And then winning a soccer match doesn’t seem so impressive anymore.

Scenario #2: Defeat

In this version of the essay, team U.S.A. loses. I am crestfallen, which prompts a comparison between following a sports team and being in a relationship. I talk about how, with both, there is a strong tendency to root your emotional well-being in an externality. Then, I equate winning with being in love and losing with heartbreak by writing something to the tune of: When times are good, you feast with the gods. In bad times, all the world casts long shadows. I complete the metaphor with a witty one-liner, such as: But with love and sport, even when you direct a string of obscenities at your beloved, throw the remote control at them and storm out of the room, vowing that this time you’re tuning out for good, you sheepishly return and give things another shot.

After a weak transitional paragraph, the piece assumes an angry tone and I lash out against the profit-driven, mainstream-media-controlled consumer culture. I construct a pointed argument about how the sporting industry is just bread and circuses and Team U.S.A. is a bunch of gladiators used to distract people from the issues that really matter.

I can barely contain my rage; I seethe and flecks of spittle fly from my mouth as I write about America being currently engaged in the longest war in its history, the thousands of lives that have been ruined by pedophilic priests, and the millions of gallons of oil spilling into the Gulf of Mexico, among other topics.

In the following section, the tone shifts from angry to somber. I realize that, in a way, this loss is an awakening. I declare that I now understand the proper function of sport is to deflect reality and will never again buy into the corporate-hype advertising machine. The essay ends with me characterizing the masses as bovine for continuing to be duped by the sporting world’s high-production stagecraft.

Scenario #3: What actually happened

Team U.S.A. loses. My friend shuts the TV off quickly, before we are forced to see the other side’s victory celebration. We sit in tense, awkward silence for a few moments and I break it by saying, “Fuck it. Good thing I bet on Ghana.”

On the ride home I can tell I’m a little tipsy because whenever I drive drunk the car’s hood appears superimposed on the road. When I operate the vehicle in this state I’m not really driving, but rather guiding the hood in the appropriate direction.

I arrive home tired from drinking midday beers so I take a nap. When I awake the sting of defeat lingers. To deflect it, I go for a bike ride, channeling my frustration into climbing the biggest hill in the area. It is a 15 minute uphill charge of pain and sweat and grimacing.

Upon cresting the hill I turn right around and fly down at breakneck speed. I yell out, “Fuck you motherfuckers.” But I don’t really know who the motherfuckers are or why I’m mad at them.

As I’m riding I wish I had a pen and paper because I have a wonderful idea for an essay. I want to write about the absurdity of predicting how you’re going to feel about something before it happens.

I met the man who sold the world.
He’s very poor;
has terrible posture.

I asked him why he did it.
Well, my fine sir, he replied,
wouldn’t you have done the same?

Meanwhile,
children sit embalmed in lectures,
note-taking,
waiting for the bell,
working towards the day,
having a smoke break will be
the highlight of their morning.

I was sitting on the front steps reading, within ear but not eyeshot of the driveway, when I heard my mother talking to a woman with a slightly-crude voice. I thought it might be the woman who lives next door. I’ve never met her, but I know her husband, Al. He regularly drinks Natural Light beer with his shirt off in the middle of the day, so it’s fair to assume he’s married to a woman with a slightly-crude voice.

The woman asked if she was at 85 Joalco Road. My mother confirmed this, and then the woman explained she was here to administer an interview on behalf of the United States Public Health Service, that my brother, whom she referred to as “the 21 year old male,” had been randomly selected for the study and stood to earn $30 should he participate. She wanted to know when the 21-year old male would be home, because she had quotas to meet with regard to particular demographics.

“Too bad you couldn’t pick my other son. He’s a 28 year old male and he’s home right now” said my mother.

When she said this, I decided not to stand up and have a look at the woman with the slightly crude voice, even though I very much wanted to. It occurred to me that the interviewer and I could help each other out, seeing as she has quotas to meet and I’m broke, unemployed and living with my parents.

But being broke and unemployed at your parents’ house isn’t all that bad. You get to do things like walkaround in a bathrobe outside at 10 a.m. bird watching and drinking coffee.

That is what I’m doing when a navy blue Jeep Cherokee pulls into the driveway. A woman gets out, smiles, and says, “You must be the 21 year old male. I spoke with your mom the other day.”

She doesn’t look the way I imagined her to, which was short, older and graying. Rather, she is tallish, oldish, dyed too-auburn.

“Yeah, she told me about you. You’re in luck. You caught me on my day off.” I say, opening the gate to let her in. “What a morning.”

It’s about 70 degrees. The birds are giving their morning recital. Early daylight spills over the top of early-spring-green leaves. Bands of clouds drift lazily overhead on the slightest of breezes.

We decide to work outside at the picnic table. I quickly go inside and pour myself a fresh cup of coffee then take a seat across from the stranger.

“Where do you live?” I ask her.

“Middleton.” she answers.

“I’m not sure where that is exactly. Near Concord?”

“Not really. It’s next to Farmington.”

Farmington is a very sleazy town, so Middleton is probably at least a little bit sleazy by association. I wouldn’t say this woman is sleazy, but there is a hint of sleaze. The voice…the dye job…the pack of Virginia Slims menthol extra long 120s…

“Do you work for the census department?” I ask.

“No, I work for a company subcontracted by the government.” she says and hands me a brochure.

The cover says: National Survey on Drug Use and Health: Answering your important questions. I open it up and read the first page:

What is the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH)?

The National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) is the Federal Government’s primary source of national data on the use of alcohol, tobacco and illicit substances. The survey also contains questions on health, illegal behaviors, and other topics associated with substance use. The study was initiated in 1971 and currently is conducted on an annual basis. This year approximately 70,000 individuals, 12 years and older, will be randomly selected and asked to voluntarily participate.

The woman finishes setting up a computer and some papers and explains that the interview will take about an hour, the bulk of which will be completed anonymously on a laptop and afterwards, she’ll ask me a few questions.

She then asks me my date of birth. I take a long sip of coffee, hurrying to calculate the year my brother was born.

“You stated your birthday as October 3, 1987, making you a 22 year old male. Is this correct?”

She has to say this according to protocol, but obviously it’s not correct because I am a 21 year old male. I fix my mistake, hastily adding the excuse that I suffer from dyslexia.

“I’m just awful with numbers.” I say.

She gives a half-laugh, half-sympathetic sigh and at this point I highly suspect she knows that I don’t have dyslexia…that I am not, in fact, a 21 year old male, but rather, the 28 year old male my mother mentioned.

“OK” she says. “Ready to begin?”

And so, on a perfect Wednesday morning, outside at the picnic table, in the presence of a complete stranger, using a slate grey laptop, I anonymously reveal my entire history of personal drug use.

I thought I’d tried most things. I was wrong. There’s a book I have to look through and answer things like list all of the drugs from Box A you have tried in:

A. the last 3 months
B. the last 6 months
C. The last year
D. At any point

The boxes are divided by drug category, such as opiates, hallucinogens, amphetamines, sedatives, etc, all with an accompanying photo and ID number. Every drug imaginable is listed. There are a lot that I’ve done.But also many I’ve not done…or even heard of.

I take mental notes of the drugs I’d like to try. It’s like the feature on iTunes when you’re searching for a band and they show you what Other Listeners Bought. Well, I love amphetamines, so I’ll probably likelisdexamfetamine as well…and all the other drugs in Box C for that matter.

It all reminds me of the D.A.R.E . (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) program, which most Americans over the age of 27 probably were forced to take part in. Like D.A.R.E., this survey is opening my eyes to all sorts of wonderful substances.

I recall the first day of D.A.R.E. distinctly. The entire 5th grade gathered in the library and a police officer came in with a display board containing illustrations of all these different drugs and explained how they had horrible side-effects and we should never even consider trying them. The cop told the story of a man who, in a PCP rage, took 18 rounds from police officers before going down.

As a 5th grade boy, I figured if I could get my hands on this PCP stuff…well, I could rule the neighborhood.Nobody would fuck with me.

The D.A.R.E. curriculum consisted largely of role-playing where, in a typical scenario, one student played the drug dealer and another an abstaining youth who employed the proper version of “Just Say No” to reject the dealer’s advances.

Not once in my adult life has a drug dealer materialized out of thin air and tried to push their goods on me like in D.A.R.E. There were plenty of times I wish they would have, but to no avail. The closest I’ve gotten is in tourist hot spots where drug dealers whisper, “marijuana, cocaine, ecstasy” as you pass by. As an 18 year old in London, I tried to buy weed from one of these guys and ended up with oregano. Since then, I’ve learned you don’t buy shit from drug dealers on the street in an unfamiliar area. You go to a university area and ask around at bars.

Back in the 5th grade, I even starred in the D.A.R.E. play, which was the culmination of the ten week program.I can’t recall much about the production, except that I had a lead role. The character I played, due to some unholy cocktail of substances, collapsed. My line was “Help, I’ve fallen and I can’t get up.” (That’s right-Steve Urkel style.)

Between then and now I’ve done a lot of drugs and never once have I fallen and been unable to get up.

Quite the opposite: When I get up, I don’t want to fall down.

Drug Abuse Resistance Education was started by members of the Los Angeles Police in 1983. Today, 36 million children around the world and 26 million in the U.S. participate.

Over the years, a number of studies have been conducted to ascertain the efficacy of D.A.R.E. Some particularly interesting findings include a 1992 Indiana University study that found students who completed D.A.R.E. used hallucinogenic drugs at a higher rate than students who didn’t enroll in the program. In 1998, Dr. Dennis Rosenbaum reported D.A.R.E. graduates were more likely than non-graduates to use alcohol, tobacco and illegal drugs. Also in 1998, Psychologist Dr. William Colson claimed that exposing young students to drugs encouraged and nurtured drug use. He wrote: “…as they get a little older, students become very curious about these drugs they’ve learned about from police officers.”

In 2001, the Surgeon General of the United States placed D.A.R.E. in the category: “Does Not Work.” The Association for Psychological Sciences (APS) put D.A.R.E. on a list of treatments that can potentially harm clients in 2007.

D.A.R.E. reflects the U.S. drug control policy of zero-tolerance. It was adopted as part of the control strategy of the U.S. government’s War on Drugs. Last year, Gil Kerlikowske, Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, stated the Obama administration would not use the term “War on Drugs,” claiming it to be counter-productive.

After 40 years, $1 trillion dollars spent and hundreds of thousands of lives lost, it seems the War on Drugs is counter-productive not only in name. Comments by Mr. Kerlikowske suggest as much.

“In the grand scheme, it has not been successful” he told the Associated Press recently.

“Forty years later, the concern about drugs and drug problems is, if anything, magnified, intensified.”

This month, President Obama made a pledge to “reduce drug use and the great damage it causes” through a revamped policy that treats drug use as a public health issue, focusing on prevention and treatment. Despite his promise, the president has increased spending on drug prohibition through law enforcement, which accounts for $10 billion of his $15.5 billion drug-control budget, a record in total dollars and as a percentage of the drug-control budget. Obama’s drug-fighting budget is 31 times what Richard Nixon’s was (including inflation adjustment) after he signed the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act in 1971, which effectively began the War on Drugs.

The Associated Press has tracked how taxpayer money has been spent to combat drug use over the past 40 years. Here’s what we’ve been billed for:

• $20 billion to combat drug gangs in countries like Columbia and Mexico. Annually, 330 tons of cocaine, 20 tons of heroin and 110 tons of methamphetamine are sold in the U.S. Almost all of it is imported from Mexico.
• $33 billion to promote prohibition-style “Just Say No” messages and prevention programs (like D.A.R.E.) to young Americans. Reports indicate that high school students today use drugs at the same rates they did in 1970.
• $49 billion for enforcement measures along America’s borders to halt the flow of illegal drugs. This year alone, 25 million Americans will use illicit drugs, around 10 million more than in 1970. Almost all of it comes in across the borders.
• $121 billion to arrest over 37 million nonviolent drug offenders, roughly 10 million of them for possession of marijuana. Studies reveal being locked up has a positive correlation with drug abuse.
• $ 450 billion to lock up these nonviolent drug offenders in federal prisons alone. Half of all federal prisoners last year in the U.S. were incarcerated for drug offenses.
• $215 billion per year, estimated by the Justice Department, for “an overburdened justice system, a strained health care system, lost productivity and environmental destruction.”

And I thought I’d spent a lot of money on drugs and had nothing to show for it.

When I’m done with the computer the interviewer asks me a few questions about my employment, insurance, household income, etc., and then we’re done. I sign an interview payment receipt and the woman counts out 3 crisp 10s and lays them in my hand. My time as a 21 year old male is officially over.

I walk the interviewer to the gate and wish her well.

“What an interesting job you have…traveling to people’s homes, setting your own hours.” I say.

“Yes, I enjoy it.” she says. “I get to meet many interesting people. The only thing is that if I ever run into somebody in town or at the grocery store or something, I don’t know their name.”

“Well, if I ever see you, just call me 21 year old male.” I say

It’s now around 11 o’clock, giving me five hours before my mother comes home. I should probably go fill out some job applications. But it’s an awfully nice day. And I’ve got a lot on my mind.

Had I taken D.A.R.E. more seriously and never used drugs, would I be a broke, unemployed 28 year old male living at home?

If the War on Drugs has failed, then who is the victor? Drugs? Drug dealers? Drug users?

What, precisely, is implicit in the reality that America has 5% of the world’s population but uses 50% of its illegal drugs…and has 25% of its prisoners?

Is Middleton a sleazy town?

Such matters deserve a deeper consideration.

But I’m all out of weed. I have no car. And unlike in D.A.R.E., drug dealers don’t just materialize while you’re walking down the street. Especially not on Joalco Road in Strafford, New Hampshire.

Besides, while drug use rates haven’t changed much after 40 years and $1 trillion spent, the prices have. I’ll be lucky to get a few joints worth out of $30 of today’s hydroponic shit. As a generation of D.A.R.E. – mockers know: Drugs Are Really Expensive.

But there are other options.

I hear Al whistling from his porch. His shirt is off. There’s a koozy on the railing.
“Yo Al, I’m comin’ over buddy. You owe me from last time.”

Yesterday,
rocketing through vernal splendor
on my bicycle,
I felt so alive,
my joy untouchable,
indestructible.
All of the little plans I’d made for myself
seemed perfect,
even Godly.
King Midas with the wind in his face

Today,
seemingly hung-over from mania,
I set back out along the same route
hoping to rekindle that blissful
invulnerability.
Retracing my steps, I
found only restlessness,
like a junkie chasing a particularly clairvoyant high,
one of those rare moments
when life cannot touch us;
we exist outside.

But this night,
I was very much inside,
very much a sentient being
No more playing God.
My life seemed neither good nor bad,
important nor unimportant.
I sat very still in a spot, as if by
remaining motionless I would
become invisible,
forgotten.
I watched the sun disappear and
darkness set in.

Men pedaled by furiously, teeth gritted,
fighting the pain, or
perhaps issuing it a challenge.
Walkers sauntered past
wrapped in the coolness of the night.

I was bound to my spot by indifference,
caring less to try something else than to
ride the feeling out.
I’d chosen my mooring, a place where
couples dressed for dinner walked hand-in-hand,
joggers breathed self-loathing out through their mouths,
pigeons picked at the scraps of a crumbling empire,
old folks looked at things with more fear than fascination
and small children looked at things with more fascination than fear.

Fixed and stoic I remained among
so much nocturnal flotsam
not knowing at the time
I was hoping to
recapture the glory of a day gone by,
that I wasn’t restless, but desperate,
afraid that my joy had nothing whatsoever to do with myself
and everything to do
with chance.