I have a shifting sense of self,
an unsteady self concept.
I’m in transition between
places I was never fully in
and places fear hides from me.
I have no map,
no mentor
no faith.
Just a bit of hope…
and a heart beat.
So this is thirty. On first impression it feels much like the loneliness of 29; or 19 for that matter. And when the loneliness subsides the boredom sets in. But this is nothing new, nothing I haven’t learnt how to deal with – with long walks, sad songs, or stupid amounts of alcohol.
And I’ve grown used to this.
Nothing is worth having if it wasn’t hard to get. So I keep my contentment dangling on a string. Just beyond my grasp; in all my hopes of an abstract freedom, in all my dreams of traveling to find it.
One thing is new, at this tender age of thirty. I find myself facing the abyss, hearing the call to arms. If I don’t find my way now will I spend another twenty years looking? And the terror of a middle-aged man with the dreams of a teenager keeps me frozen to my bed – struggling with the angst of my inaction and my inactions.
But in the end nothing’s new.
These thoughts are so familiar, this lethargy reminiscent. I’ve had half my life to learn how to hone my coping skills. I can now trap these thoughts between fourty-seven layers of paint, or in the half-tones that form between the automatic cross-hatched strokes in the contours of a nude woman. Or I can whisper some conscious constructions as my fingers stroke emotions my guitar’s voice isn’t too weak to sing.
And the emotions I trap in my art crystallize. Turn to diamonds that sparkle in the dreams I have where my mythologies make me king. But the diamonds loose their glitter because of the tiny fissures formed by pressure from within. And in that half sleep – when light is no longer reflected – I find my self twitching. Running. Running away from fractured diamonds. Or towards the next ones I will create.
So here I am again, with you, my sweetest friend – reciting more half-truths of perfect abstractions and then burning the energy it gives me until I’m pale, lethargic and depressed.
Fortified supplements of enriched uranium. I feel you seeping through me. Tell me where you’re standing and I’ll come find you. Tell me what you see.
Tell me what you see.
(I’ve seen this five hundred million times and it still looks dead to me)
I’m in a vacuum; when I scream I make no sound and my sense of smell… what the hell is it for. I travel at the speed of light until I collide with myself. And when I do, I fall out of existence. Annihilation is a weak description. I want to feel your weak nuclear force.
but my desires are automatic and they tend towards chaos.
If I categorize the things I know their absolute value becomes unknown; and I’m told the root of my square is negative.
But that’s ok because I cast no shadow and as I travel I displace only temptation; and sometimes time. My inspiration comes from you, but I am not free, nor radical.
My psyche succumbs to you and my psychology dreams in colors inspired by you. But that’s not who I am, that’s just my body playing tricks on me.
If I was to really take apart my physiology I’d find the proteins I’d inhaled while standing near you; And I smell them now, though I’m still in this vacuum.
I twiddle my thumbs as I contemplate infinity and I shake my head so slow it’s hard to see. If you could only find the time, you’d solve many of life’s mysteries. Like why it’s hard to find the time to solve life’s mysteries. And when you do you’d be ironing out my sense of irony.
Life cannot exist in a vacuum, yet here I am. I have no future, only a destiny; it’s pre-determined by my determination and completely dependent on my independence.
And from a distance, your quanta affect me.
monkeys are monkeys, they can’t help it.
but you,
you are the universe.
infinitely maleable,
and infinitely glorious.
you’re at once an infinitely bright light,
and a million orange flowers.
you’re a field of green grass,
and the fresh air it creates.
and all this fights off the monkeys,
and the aligators,
and the angst of the new moon.
I hate the way the sun peers through my blinds in the morning.
I hate the way my body reacts to stress.
I hate the cars that rumble in the streets.
I hate fluctuations in temperature.
I hate the way mirrors are so confusing.
I hate the way my girlfriend doesn’t understand me.
I hate the blood that in my veins.
I hate the hair that’s on my body.
I draw things and they don’t look normal, I hate that.
I feel things and I ache, I hate that.
I find beauty in complication, I hate that.
I don’t remember names, I hate that.
I hate the way people think I’m negative.
I hate the way I hate what people think.
I hate the way I hurt when people stab me.
I hate the way my memory distorts things.
I hate mornings after breakups.
I hate mornings after parties.
I hate when I lose my motivation.
I do things because I have to, I hate that.
I take things I don’t need, I hate that.
I have trouble expressing my feelings, I hate that.
I dramatize my pain, I hate that.
I hate the way things fall out of calibration.
I hate the timing people have.
I hate windows in the winter.
I hate testosterone, and estrogen.
I hate the drawing I did of you.
I hate that I never took a picture.
I hate that I distort the way you loved me.
I hate that you loved me so distorted.
I run faster in my dreams, I hate that.
I take pills when my head hurts, I hate that.
I do things half assed half the time, I hate that.
I do things well when I don’t try, I hate that.
Your power will not evacuate this wretchedness inside me.
A foul sight and a putrid smell.
You chose this, one way to view the world.
Tell me what I feel I’m slowly dying for. This life and this life’s luxuries. I feel nothing but noise. Vibrations in the hollow of my bones and in the chasm in my chest. My eyes vibrate. My head tumbles. My thoughts; my thoughts have nothing to do with this. I can breathe deeply to the beat of silence but my breaths are shallow and empty. A vacuum pump pumping out the air while making a cavernous roar that sounds like an angry whisper.
It’s not my angry whisper,
though I’m angry
and I whisper.
And the thunderous clapping of the shoes; like women in empty hallways; like a covered bridge and hooves. This noise chamber has enveloped my home but my home is in my head. And my head is hollow. And it vibrates.
Unsound waves. Ample. Amplified.
A curse, karma. Self inflicted, self deprecating, self loathing, self annihilating, self elaborated and self fulfilling. I should have seen this coming.