Recently my reputation of saintliness is wearing in with the corrosion of my apparently Godlike patience. Truth is, for whatever reason, I’m just not as long suffering as I used to be. Gradually, a spring of anger and spite opened up somewhere in the back of my mind. It ebbed and it flowed, but still it kept, and keeps, accumulating.

College is stressful, but it really shouldn’t have been affecting me like that. The excess malice could only be explained, in my mind, two ways. Either A) people are genuinely meaner and/or more obnoxious in Seattle than they are in Durango, or B) it’s something inside of me that’s making me feel this way. I like the people here (for the most part), so it was apparent that option A is a crock. 

Then it hit me. Yeah, it always hit me. Bricks. Cliche, I know. I’ve never actually been hit with bricks, but if they feel anything like rocks I can relate.

But yes, back to the metaphysical bricks: 

Anger is a secondary emotion.

Maybe not always. Maybe not the hostility felt towards the jackass cutting you off in traffic. But this time it was. But secondary to what?  This one was easy:

Fear. It’s always fear for me. 

I’m at a point where everything is more than a little uncomfortable. I just did a 180 on my major, I’m scared shitless for racing season in Crew,
and most of all I’m scared of getting shut out and left behind again. More bricks.

Like dominoes this time. 

Someone cracks a joke at my expense and I secretly want to lay the son-of-a-bitch out. It’s not the joke. It never is. The jokes are hilarious. It’s because I’m afraid I’m falling behind again and the circle is closing in without me. It’s not that I want to crack my knuckles on someone’s jaw for a jest. It’s the idea. The thought that I’m once again the odd one out, being left out and left behind, 

Which scares me

Which makes me angry,

Which leads to want to fight someone,

Which scares me again,

Which…you get the point.

Where does the rabbit hole end? Hopefully with the end of ignorance. Freud believed that labeling the problem can dissolve it. Freud believed a lot of crazy shit, but I’m willing to follow him out on a limb on this one.

So for now, all I can do is focus on what I can control. Maybe I’ll miss the bus again, watch another circle of people become BFFs and not be on the inside of that. There’ll be more. There are six billion people in the world. There are definitely more. People or no people, my life still rocks.

Here’s to hoping the anger drains away. Until then: breathe in, breathe out, screw up my wrists on the punching bag some more, and if need-be I’ll try the ol scream-into-a-full-sink method. There’s enough water in Seattle where I won’t feel wasteful.

-

There’s no oil to be had. Thoughts are left to collide in clouds; blood in water. Invading my memory are pictures of things that never really happen.

But I could have sworn…
Reality is a tricky thing to pin when your dreams can be tasted and touched.

Sitting in a pew I watched a stained glass melt away
I watched the green, red, gold, run together around my feet, 
dripping free from bare iron bars.  
And through the shining skeleton I saw paradise. 
I’ll find my way there someday.

-

There’s no rhyme or meter to him.
The metronome shocks like gunshots in the morning. His heart goes faster, but the fingers won’t match up. Lungs push the air out, but whispered hymns may as well not be music at all.
All the brushes dry out on dusty shelves.
The water in the cup has transmuted to vapor, leaving blue-green rings on the glass. Still the canvas wait for the artist to get his shit together. He hits in the corner holding his breathe, like an ostrich in the sand.

-

 I believe that there are invisible strings that sew our mouths shut, if we let them. Silence is a virtue, but if you get too good at it, you might forget how to talk at all.
I remember lying on a park bench on the California beach. I watched a hundred-thousand sunsets over a hundred-million grains of sand.
“We should have been friends.” We are. Somewhere. Tucked away in my mind behind…something else.
You’re a puppet with cut strings. We’re all waiting for someone to rig you back up someday; but I like to believe you’ll walk on your own. 
“We should have been lovers.” Maybe someday when gag’s taken out. I tried. But you don’t have time to wait for the meek. Ninety miles an hour and you don’t even know where you are.

-

He just woke up. It’s been six damn years. His wrists are the size of pencils, but the flesh will return in time. Chances are, he’ll have to re-learn everything: how to walk, how to eat, but right now he can smell flowers out the window and it’s enough. Sun shines through the window and gilds white hospital sheets. It’s a brave new world.
It’s fearsome.
It’s beautiful.
And when his legs work, he’ll run.
And when his heart works, he’ll fly.

Maybe we all will, someday.
 

—-It’s been a while, hopefully this will lead to greater and more coherent things. The pump has been primed; stagnation isn’t permanent. 
DISCLAIMER: For the record, I don’t smoke, snort, shoot, or generally consume any illicit substances. Just thought you should know

You saw me walking on metaphysical train tracks.

One bare foot before the other, balanced on cold steel. The setting sun lengthened my shadow over brown grass. A lot can be read of man from the dark he leaves in his wake.

And that’s why I noticed you. Not from the shadow you left, but the lack of it. I saw you there, smiling as you stood on among gravel and ties. Your white coats highlighted how exposed I was.

“It’s cold,” you said. 
No shit. I’d been freezing for the past fifteen miles. Not that I could say that (and I didn’t). You were still smiling, ecstatic, you wanted to give me something.

I caved. “Then if you must. Give me one of coats to get me through the night. It was warmer at daybreak.”

“It’s late,” you said.
The last golden rays were fading to green behind the ridge. My shadow was inhumanly long in, fusing into the dark of nearby trees.

“Well, if you must, give me a light. I used to find my way be the stars before they went out.” 

“You’re barely holding yourself up. You’re feet are blistered and bleeding.”

“Just give me some shoes and I’ll be alright.” 

You’d caught on to the game I tried to play you with. You stopped my wandering gaze, forcing my eyes to look into yours. Forcing me to remain fixed on your face. Luminous. Warm. Welcoming. Everything this goddamn road wasn’t. “I could give you so much more.”

For one second, I collapsed into your arms.
“The ground did not cut me so in Eden.
This shattered world tears at me with every step.
I don’t know if it’s the starts going out,
Or my eyes that fail me. The world fades
As it grows dark. Night’s veil is all but here
And there is nowhere I can go.
I just want to go back to paradise
Even though I know…”

I don’t even remember if I actually said it, but you heard it none the less.
“…paradise wasn’t ever there.”

“Follow me.” It was outlandish. “Come home with me. We can wait till dawn…”
Images began to dance in my mind. A fire, a warm bed, staring out over a sea of trees from behind sheltering glass. 
“…then I’ll lead you to heaven.”
All that I wanted. Everything. I believed you.

I let it linger. Allowed this brief moment of piece to hang in the frozen air.

Then I broke the embrace.
I was proud and arrogant.
You’d cornered me. 

Whether or not I’d meant for it be, this was my road. 

The shoes feel good. The coat keeps me warm.
I keep the lamp lit at night, so I’m not stuck wondering why I can’t see the stars anymore. 

I still dream of you. Of meeting you again.

Sometimes I want to wait. To see if you’ll come. To stop and call your name. But most days I just keep walking. Hoping maybe to find you. Still looking for your face, hoping I’ll find you somewhere among the cracked asphalt deserts and twisted rebar jungles of this broken world.

“Huh.” I kind of stared at it for a little while. The bottles had been a gift to all the employees and I’d used mine heavily since then: in an effort to be healthy by staying hydrated. “And how about Nalgenes?” I asked, seeing as my family has about eight of them.

“Oh! Those are the worst.” She talked a little more about the effects of Nalgene bottles on hormones and about it causing male PMS. “…so I went ahead and bought a stainless steel bottle.” I’d read an article on those once: apparently they cause Alzheimer’s. As for the mechanical pencil in my hand at the time: who knows what toxic goodies it had to offer.

Ever notice how pretty much everything we’ve done to make life easier is bad for us? 

I think we’re starting to see that cutting corners in life is not good. We (being humanity) do whatever we can to accomplish things faster, with less labor, to ensure a lifestyle with less toil and more security. But is it worth it? Sure, it may have a shelf-life of eight thousand years but that’s because it’s not even natural anymore. Sure, it may taste like sugar and have zero calories, but it also gives us cancer (fact: tumors weigh more than fat). Sure, it may cause rapid weight loss, but a good bit of that is from muscle mass (and the gonads).

Sure, it, whatever it is, may make life a little easier, but what does it cost?

I probably sound pretty preachy right about now: so I’ll upfront about the fact that I’m a hypocrite. I’d rather drive than walk most of the time, and I’m an avid user of Testosterone-leeching water bottles…my list of sins goes on. But it’s all got me thinking; and I kind of want to throw myself at the feet of the next dreadlocked hippie I see and yell: “How do you do it!?”

But for now, I have to go get ready to drive to Denver tomorrow…in my car…with the polyester upholstery that’s probably going to give me narcolepsy over time.

A silver ribbon of water raged through the rocky valley, splitting it down the center. The sun had long since begun to set, bathing one side in golden light. Gilded cottonwoods as the shining seeds that fell from them floated in the air.

The other bank was now in darkness; everything dulled and tinted deep blue. It was cold on that shore. I knew, because this was where I was standing, sandaled feet perched among the smooth stones as I stared out over the gold country whose boundaries were only yards away. The campground lay behind me; I could hear people talking around me, milling around along the stream. Not a soul could be seen across the stream.

No one had braved the torrent. My legs were cold and my feet were throbbing from the cold, and bleeding from the treacherous rocks: I’d tried to get across. Now I stood, battered and wet on the shadowed shore. There I was, there we were, watching time go by in the light: painfully aware of the river, and which side we were on.

Truly, home is where the heart is.

(as well as three additional pairs of underwear and five additional pairs of socks)

Little life update as of 5/31/08 - 

“This Side of Heaven” should be completed and posted by 6/6/08. It’ll be the first in a four part (maybe more) series of essays I plan to write before moving to Seattle.