Archive for December, 2007
A Fit of Hilarium
Sometimes other people just say it better…let it roll for a bit, it gets hilarious.
The Makers of Men and Myth
This recent Christmas was extremely special to me. In so many ways, it was like the first one that I have ever had. Sure, there were young sleepless nights, spent tossing and turning while St. Nicholas flew from home to home. But this one was my first Christmas as a true, unwavering, and comfortable Christian. The joy is unequal…the pleasure overflowing.
For so long Christmas had a strict commercial meaning to me, and I’m sure many of you experience it all the same. I was constantly caught up in the giving and receiving, paying little attention to the ultimate act of giving that we celebrate on that day. This year was the perfect storm. I was so completely busy with life and work that I never had any chance to focus on the material and I was in desperate need of replenishment, as my soul was so dry and devoid of love or hope.
On Christmas Eve I sat in mass with my mother, discussing my life–failures and accomplishments, goals and aspirations. We sat, in the most beautiful of sanctuaries, as the people flowed in. We were early; we’re always early. I felt so incredibly thankful and at peace, a true calm I have not experienced in so long that I cannot recall. Half way through our discussion I fell silent, inadvertedly ignoring my mother. But I was captivated. I realized that this was the first Vigil Mass that I had sat as a true believer, without doubt and fear. But as a simple citizen. Yes, my flaws as a practicing Christian are blatant, as are the flagrant fouls I commit at work and in my personal life, but that is what I love: redemption, replenishment, and a chance to begin anew.
I felt as though I were the only person on Earth. I looked up at the man collapsed, yet nailed, to a wooden cross and I thought…thank you, thank you for every pebble you laid before me to form the path.
I am constantly stricken with the burden of logic and the desire for faith. I used to find the two incompatible on so many levels, but I believe now that logic itself is based largely upon faith. Faith that what you know will always hold true; faith that what you have been told about the world and its systems will not change or alter; faith that there is no reason to hold onto faith… My world paradigms no longer conflict, but form a tranquil and expansive wave that crashes over the oceans of my mind. Where I find no solid answer, I find solace in the faith of the unknown…where the faith of the unknown scares me, I cling to that which I believe to know and let it carry me through the day.
A harmony. A conscious synergy.
I am not perfect. Sitting with my mother I knew too well of my failures, as she was clear to elucidate them. But I am in no need for perfection–merely the perfect understanding that I am a whim, a will, a body, and a soul…and one day I will transcend this world, never shall I die, and I will meet the Myth Maker himself.
And we will smile, or something akin to that. Together, forever, or maybe simply for a moment…I do not think I will care…and certainly neither will He. For the oceans of my mind will become all that I am, where faith and logic meet and all that is left is the raw humanity from which I began, a primordial soup of love and hate, of yin and yang, of everything and nothing at all…
Truth Or Dare
Three friends sit outside. It’s cold. The scene is a small bar tucked neatly west of the highway, but its patronage is plentiful. Upon the somehow sheik picnic benches, they sit and shiver, sharing pitchers of colder brew and memories of warmer times. It’s simple, as all true friendships are.
Three universes loosely sharing a moment, all alone in thought but together in the most random of conversations. They have plans for the rest of night, and none are too terribly enthused. It is something to do, something to break the mold of the mundane life they are sharing: work, sleep, rinse, repeat.
And then their multiverse collides with the force of the unknown. A girl plops down in the open seat, sitting next to the man least interested in her–based solely upon definition and things as predetermined as chromosomes. She’s cute…the only word to describe her. Short and well-dressed…her makeup betrays the existence of a regular nightlife–dark and dramatic, sexy and sassy.
The friend who sits directly across from her pulls a long drag from his cigarette and exhales above her head. Welcome to his world–yellow teeth and dried curses. She tells them that she is fulfilling a dare, and in this particular case the most unfortunate of dares. Her friends, a montage of twenty-somethings who look as interesting as cardboard, have put her up to the most risky of tasks: sit and talk with a table of complete strangers. Yeah…
The one who sits across from her isn’t entertained, but annoyed. He thinks that this will indeed be fun. The invader upon a good night; the sex and sass they did not need. The men break their silence. The one who sits across says dryly…
“Hello…my name is Elijah.”
Oh yes, the name is contrived, and so is his story. He tells her that they are in a band, having a drink before their show downtown. Club Emo’s. 1 o’clock. Her dark smoky eyes light up. A piqued interest, indeed. Yes, they are playing tonight…sharing a drink before dimmer lights and looser women–looser only perhaps. The leader of this most expansive of lies is in total character, yet his friends smirk and cover muffled laughs. Rookies.
Their band is called Xander & The Screaming Queens, he goes on. In between drags of a cigarette, which one can assume is nothing but a Virginia Slim as the shoe would certainly fit, she asks leading questions…
“What kind of music do you play?”
“We’re a cover band.”
This Elijah goes on to list their best songs, which they are of course playing tonight: Tom Sawyer by Rush, Dani California by Red Hot Chili Peppers, Say it Ain’t So by Weezer… drawing a blank he turns to his cohorts asking what else they’re playing tonight. He finds no aid, just smiles. Big friendly smiles.
She loves Rush. Who’d have thunk it.
Putting out his cigarette, Elijah pulls another from his pack…”Ever seen a bumper stick that simply reads ‘XSQ.’ in Times New Roman font?–” He lights it. “–That’s us.”
“Oh my god, no!” She seemed to say half expecting to have seen one…
The lie grew without control. In little time, they were opening for Cobra Starship and Metro Station on February 3rd. Elijah had given up teaching high school, her very profession, to live the rock and roll dream. Xander…well that came from the middle name of the disinterested male to her right. It was his middle name. His aid would be nearly all the help Elijah would have in his most contrived life from his friends…
She asked how many people were in their group. Holding up four fingers, Elijah says five. The only slip. Quickly recovering, he blames the alcohol. “Xander’s our lead singer…” Pointing to their most silent of compatriots, “He’s on guitar.”
“And you?” she asked leadingly.
“Drums.” Exhaling another hot drag. “We have a bassist and a keytarist, but they’re downtown setting up.”
And then the silent friend speaks, “Keytarist?! Please!”
Elijah quickly defends their imaginary bandmate: “Hey, you leave her alone! She tries very hard!” The defense of those who do not exist only adding ethos to their tale.
They sit there, members of the perfect lie. An invader given a story. Not a friend made, but an enemy kept out of the city walls, for these times are for the innocent moments of brothers. And her…the willful consumer of all that was never true…
Oh, but there was truth. Elijah in faux jealousy stamps out a cigarette, the physical manifestation of his anger, and tells her that Xander is in fact gay and the main attraction of their female fans. Xander’s disinterest throughout the twenty minute conversation rooted in a taste her dramatic makeup and highlighted hair could not satisfy. She is instantly taken aback, proclaiming, “No! No way!” He looks good, fit for the lead singer of a hot band of rockers and sex addicts. Xander defends the only truth they’ve shared throughout the night with little success, while Elijah drones on about how tiring it is to pull the groupies off of Xander in order to satisfy that which does turn him on, dramatic makeup and highlighted hair.
She refuses to believe it–the only true thing they’ve said. Maybe she was attracted to him, maybe her brain was simply incapable of truth after the copious amounts of bullshit they had fed her…
Killing his glass of beer, Elijah stands. He tells his XSQ brethren that they need to leave and get ready for the gig. Without batting an eye in her general direction, he walks by leaving her with one piece of love, “1 o’clock…Emo’s…downtown…be there or be square.”
And they all walk off. Members of the perfect lie. Members of the perfect band, they who never miss a note or never struggle for the love of the crowd–but rock and roll all night long.
Why did I lie to this girl?
Why…I lie to every girl, especially those who came to know me based solely upon a dare. Truth or Dare never seemed so perfect. And maybe she showed up…looking for the band she’ll never hear, that no one will ever hear…
And then she’ll remember us forever. Living on in infamy within her mind, forever. The guys who lied. The girl who believed. And it goes on and on and on…
A Question Between Friends
A friend of mine recently married a lifelong friend and more recent partner. They married after his return from Iraq. I found out on Facebook.
Have I failed you?
His marriage was not the first that I discovered only because of our digital disease. And these are not casual friends, but people I would not hesitate to invite to my day of union with the woman I love. People who I have grown close to and shared such wondrous moments.
Not a phone call, letter, or even an email…Have I failed these people?
I sit back and ponder as to why they would not want me to be there…or simply to even know. From the girl who has written me completely from her history, to the best friend who took her heart from me, to a dear friend returning from the pits of hell–I have been left behind so completely.
In many ways I believe that it is my fault. I am a low-maintenance friend. You do not need to call me, no need to check in. I am alive and burning ahead. This particular mindset is reflexive, for I do not call to check on them. They are alive, burning ahead in their own direction. Simply knowing that the people I care about are out there, doing whatever it is they are doing, is more than enough for me. I know it hurts people, how cold and insensitive I must appear. I hardly pick up the phone, and even more rarely call back. But I am living my life, the here and now of things is preeminent. This moment is preeminent.
I think I push away a lot of people without even trying. My ability to completely disconnect from places and people must seem callous. But I do not ever truly disconnect. My mind constantly replaying the moments of my life…
Like the time my estranged girlfriend of three years cooked me an amazing Valentine’s Day dinner and served a dessert that succinctly read, “Will you be mine?”
Like the time when I finally decided to fight the kid who made the first three years of my high school career miserable, and after twenty minutes of waiting outside it was discovered that he had passed out in a closet.
Or the time that I gave you that Dorothy Parker anthology and your eyes grew so unbelievably wet, as if you had never received a more perfect gift.
I relive all of you every day. I just do not need to hear your voice. I know it sounds terrible. But when we see one another, we will pick up right where we left off–good times and better drinks. I care so much about you, but you would never know by the way I act. I think that is the great secret I possess and have alluded to on this page previously: I am a loner at heart. There are two of me. The guy you know and the guy I hide. The guy who smiles and the guy who wishes he knew how to cry. The life of the party and the one who never wanted to come in the first place.
I struggle with these aspects of my personality. I show so few people this real side of me. I expose it here so openly because I like to believe that no one reads it. The first time I wrote like this I was in character the entire time; the social butterfly and the comedian dominating the words written. I wanted people to laugh…many, many people. Now I write as the man at the core; the lonely and complex philosopher. I want no one to laugh…because I like to think no one reads it.
I feed off the people that surround me. They help hide the darkness and draw from me the energies I have no will to expend. But once they leave, I am alone in my world once more. And I do not want to call them. I do not want to pick up when they call. The mask will return…I cannot show you the truth because you will not understand it.
And this is my repentance. Friends, who I believed to be so close, moving on without me. It is fair. Believe me. How many times did I want to spend him a package in Iraq, and how many times did I opt out of it… Money was never the issue. I didn’t want to send him simple things when my heart was always there with him. Nothing seemed important enough. Nothing seemed to express the fear I possessed everyday for him. The prayers I made for him. Selfish? Maybe not. But it appears so completely so, because I do not believe in the material–but its the world we live in. I know silly things like that don’t matter, but I wanted to show him I cared, and I did not.
And her–the girl who “forgot” a complete year of her life with me. Reading her marriage announcement in the newspaper, my only source, sickened me. The story of how they met reached back into the ages, claiming that her burgeoning marriage spanned across the entire year we shared together and into the present. I guess I deserved it. I only gave her my best friend–forever.
There are so many others. Others that have moved on. Marriage is only a symbol in this particular story, because it is so deeply personal and magnificent. I only wished to know…to know you were making an amazing choice and to give you what I could on your new journey.
Who I am at my core is imperfect and flawed, and I hurt people. Not overtly, but subtly and over time…the calls go unanswered, the phone never rings. I am sorry for what you think, but this is who I am…a monster of the temporal, a master of the moment. Do not doubt for a second I ever left any of you. To him, I remember our times…our kinship and respect. How inseparable we were…how no one could harm you with me beside you. To her, I remember our times…a freeze-framed kiss…my first. How inseparable we were…how nothing meant more to me than you. How you’d creep me out by signing your name with my last name. How I spent my sixteenth birthday with you…
These people, nameless, are symbols too. They represent a question between friends: Have I failed you? Has my parsimony caused you pain? Do you believe me when I say that I never ever left..?
I think I’ll find out his address and send him a belated wedding gift. An envelope containing only a check. And in the memo it will read, “To a new life.”
Because maybe he has begun one without me…
On the Nature of Love…
Love…what an unimaginative word. As a child the mere thought of love would melt me…I wanted to love so badly. I would write in journals, scribbling out the angst and loneliness to an audience of no one. Poems and prose dedicated to that imaginary someone who would command my heart and share in my world their deepest and most personal fears and pleasures. I wanted it so badly. I still want it so badly…
But love means nothing. The word itself has been reduced to little more than a hallmark expression. Our popular culture has reduced it to nothing more than game shows and diamonds–materialism and property. Children grow up on The Bachelor and I Love New York, truly believing that a random assortment of twenty-something people could possibly contain your soul mate. Our magazines have transformed sensuality into sexuality; our news broadcasting celebrity hookups and flings as meaningful while people starve and die for high ideas and lesser evils.
Love…what a pathetically inept word. Anyone can love; everyone does love. Or so we willfully believe. We are so convinced and confused as a populace on the true nature of the word, and more directly the feeling behind the word, that we throw the word around as casually as we possibly can. We blind ourselves to what it means to truly sacrifice for someone and have blurred the line between temporal euphoria and everlasting kinship.
God loves you. Your mom loves you. Your friends love you. Who doesn’t love you? I know the sinister answer: everybody. Because few people truly know what it means to love you. See how many times I’ve used the word in this paragraph alone…worthless. Utterly worthless.
Do we honestly sit around and wonder why this nation suffers from a staggering divorce rate? How can you question something so painfully obvious: our culture has redefined “love” to whatever feels good at the moment. Replacing the young poet’s angst with physicality and ignorance. Love is more than good times and hot sex. Love is more than game shows. It is about loving someone so purely that the mere thought of them suffering brings you to tears; it is about tolerance and acceptance, steady hands and softer tongues.
I love one person. I truly love one single person. I could not imagine her suffering. I cannot breathe. I am vapid. I grow still, a lump so large forms in my throat that I cannot swallow the words that I wish to scream. I would give anything for her. I would die for her. Do you know how easy it is to say that: I. would. die. for. her. Without any question or hesitation.
And isn’t that the test? Does your life and your possessions mean more to you than that person? And more importantly than my own willingness to submit for her, I do not know if she would do the same. I truly do not. And I am completely comfortable with that. I want her to feel my sacrifice…see my blood, pouring out bright red–life escaping in an intoxicating glee, having died for her.
Love is abused. The word is completely inept. Such a proud and magnificent word–reduced to playground crushes and physical desires. I cringe every time I hear some moronic girl talk about how much she “loves” her friends, while she sleeps alone at night–unless she surrenders herself and her body to the man of the night. Call me sexist–women know so much less of love than they think. They abuse the word so willfully. So quickly. So insanely. These girls love everyone, but no one in particular. Men are no better. Mistaking the physical for affection–the warmth of flesh for the radiance of passion. Pathetic. Trite.
I want you to love someone like I love someone. I want you to quit misusing one of the greatest words we have.
I went on a date with a girl recently who told me that she had never loved anyone in her life. I was instantly taken aback, but I respected her so much more. Is she incapable of love? Hardly. But I believe she completely understands it. I am so lucky to truly love even one person. The child who scribbled in notebooks would envy the man I have become–because I have her, even if I truly do not.
You know that you truly love someone when the thought of even using the word to describe your feelings bothers you. When the word isn’t enough; when the emotion is greater than the symbols you possess to express it. True love is heavy…it weighs on you. True love makes an Atlas out of the common man–destined to never fail, determined to never shrug. Shouldering the weight of an entirely independent universe on your back–accepting it for everything that it is, and everything that it fails to achieve. And when that load is not heavy, yet easy to bear, then you have found it–the word beyond the word. The love beyond “love.”
If you take anything from this entry take this: reevaluate the way you use this single word, and what it means to you. If you invest yourself in one other person, without care for reward or redemption, then you understand what I feel.
As for me and my love…
Well…
I do not believe I can ever fully give myself to anyone, until I attempt to give myself to her.
The clock is ticking. I only pray I do not die before I have the chance to tell her everything I never have…
A True Vagrant’s Story
Within the walls of this city there is a great secret. A transient and hungry secret. It is everywhere–street corners and corner stores. While the city sleeps, within warm homes and warmer arms…it sleeps alone. They sleep alone.
This secret is a true vagrant’s story.
The homeless in Austin are plentiful. Bountiful in their gimmicks, sparse in their commodities…they roam the streets while the city sleeps. I have never experienced this before moving here. I have never really known the homeless. It brings perspective to this ill-defined life right now.
Each night I leave my apartment, the coward’s journey to friends’ houses, and I stop at the same red light. It doesn’t matter the time, nor the weather, they are always there. Sometimes they have roses in hand, sometimes a simple sign…
“I don’t bite. I just want a bite.”
I drive with my window down. Always. An open invitation into my world, they must presume. I cannot look at them. My eyes look passed them, above them, anywhere but at them. I cannot look into their eyes, for I fear that their great secret will be shared with me–pain, loneliness, destitution. And I tell myself that I don’t care. A life of bad decisions. A youth gone wrong. Not my problem.
But their eyes haunt me.
I know that their eyes will tell me something different. Their eyes will beg me to pay them mind, and pay them in kind. Their eyes expose not only their pathetic weakness, but my own. I cannot look at them. I have tried. I have tried so hard, but my body will not follow my will. I find things to play with. I rearrange my music, I shuffle trash, I avoid them at all costs.
In the most pure sense, I do not feel bad for them. I am the product of a typical American blue collar family. A work ethic was instilled in me…a sense of duty to God, country, and family. A sense of responsibility. These damned “gifts” are the only reason I am still here. I had a handful of cash and a hankering to move overseas after graduation, but my family and their sense of tradition kept me here. I could not leave them or their ideal life for me.
Cursed as it may be…I was given these gifts in goodwill. These derelicts…vagabonds with wayward souls…were obviously not so fortunate, or worse yet…they cast aside similar gifts in the name of drugs, alcohol, and circumstance. How cold am I…a humanist debasing the most base of my brothers…? But I cannot help it. I hate their eyes, windows into a soul of need. Windows that expose the true nature of myself–a loving person who wants only to help, but is equally selfish and judgmental.
I offer them cigarettes often…a consolation prize. Oh no, you will not eat on my dime, but smoke up and die. It is the smokers’ creed–the communion of our disease, partake and be happy. For your belly is empty, but your lungs are full–full of hot death rolled just for you.
Their secret is no secret at all. My mind constantly fights my heart. It tells me that these zombies are not people, but a life of bad decisions–a story penned by one mistake after another. My mind doesn’t ask if they are hungry, but how in the hell they got that bouquet of flowers? I puzzle myself with anything but their plight. I know they are cold right now…outside the walls and arms of warmth that I enjoy.
I feel so fortunate to simply not be them. To drive. To own anything. The city’s great secret–peddle pushers and gypsies who want and want and give nothing back. Maybe one day I’ll be able to take them in, from head to toe, and our eyes will meet. I do not know what I’ll see in them, but I am sure I know what they will see in me…
Thankfulness. Fear. Pity. And hate.
And tonight, I will lay and wonder about where they are…what they’re doing…how they got through the day…then I will sleep and surrender the streets to them. Yes, while the city sleeps, they roam the streets…
Good night and good luck–you will get little more than that from me.
A Vagrant Story
Moving to a city has meant a lot of things to me. I have never been in a place so big…so available. In so many ways I am finding myself a citizen of the most ordinary proportions. No longer am I the biggest fish in the humblest of ponds, but an everyman, simply trying to get through the day.
I graduated with a little over forty students–most of which entered into kindergarten with me. People came and went in handfuls, but at the core of my youngest life, I experienced the same people for so long. I dated every girl, loved and hated every guy. We were closer in some ways than family. In our unified experience, that of growing up and growing old, we bonded on a lot of levels. From the quainter times of playground soccer to the battlefields of Friday Night Lights, we lived through one another. Our girlfriends were lifelong partners; our friends as close as siblings. It may be the most beautiful thing I will ever know. Seeing girls grow from children into women, seeing boys evolve into the beasts of men…and knowing them as completely as you can throughout it all.
A nest, a cove, of beautiful friendship. Eternal and everlasting. Unchanging and undefinable.
I moved from that life to reaches of East Texas, garnering an education from the most modest of universities. Driven to this place by things as petty as money I instantly hated it. I felt my mind was being wasted. I felt that I had been forsaken by my parents. But its simplicity grew on me. It reminded me of home. Old money and older grudges–a history rich and self-concerned, for in these peoples’ minds nothing existed outside the piney fortress which protected them. Protected them from this, where I live now. The hustle and coldness of city life.
And I bonded. I bonded with so many people from all walks of life. And in time they too became family–brothers and sisters in a life that was so basic, so distilled, so pure.
I find myself now alone. Alone in a city of a million. The Friday Night Lights glow without me…the dissidents protest without my leadership. Alone…and without a greater purpose.
I think back to those days as a child. Taking the field with brothers…holding hands and staring deep into each other’s eyes. I am constantly reminded of a moment I shared with one of them. We walked hand-in-hand as men, as leaders, to the field. We were seniors. We bore the weight of a season’s expectations together. And he looked into my eyes, with his unbelievably blue pools of stoic intensity, and he told me that this was it. There was no one else to fall back on. It was our time, and no one else’s.
And we won.
I think back to those days as a young man, on the floor of the Student Senate, sitting amongst a caucus of like-minded allies. Flirting with the Senate secretary with only my eyes and a wry smile. I longed to stand at the podium beside her and lead this respected body. In the back of my mind, I knew it would always happen. I would will it into existence. Her smile back invited my future company. And in a matter of weeks, I stood beside her. Gavel in hand. King. More appropriately…Speaker.
The biggest fish in the smallest of ponds. Again.
These moments, however isolated, represent something bigger. They represent purpose. They represent direction and meaning…however trite and uninspiring they may be. Now I lack that sense. Where am I going? What is my purpose here, in the city of a million strangers? Who can I lead? Where is my flock…for I must attend to them…
A leader lost. A story not yet written. The writer’s block of my life.
I have and always will believe that every human being has a story, and their choices are their pen. For so long I wrote with such deep and dedicated conviction. I penned a fantasy of love, victories, conquests, and unforgiving will. Now I sit wondering…where does this story go from here..?
Wandering the circles of my mind I find little peace. I find that my current surroundings are perhaps unfitting for me. I always longed to get lost in the world, to be absorbed by its grandeur and become the everyman I am today. But not here, not now…I want to do more. I want to give more. I want to create more. I want to be more.
A stupid salesman in a city of a million strangers. A bachelor’s degree in history hanging on my wall–the consummate reminder of everything I’ve done and everything I am no longer achieving.
History…maybe that’s all I am.
Maybe the greatest of those isolated moments will pale in comparison to the future…but through the rows of cubicles and headsets I see little light. Not here. Not now.
What is the reason that I am here…in a city of a million strangers…?
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Self-Revelation is Annihilation of Self
Download LinkJedi Mind Tricks - Razorblade Salvation
My last entry was selfish. Reading it the next day I felt extremely sick. I was completely disgusted with myself. I started this page again with one rule: this time it cannot be about me. And I broke that rule horribly.
The first time I wrote like this I was a senior in high school. Each entry focused on the base minutiae of my trite American life. I explained my entire life away. I named names and worse. I touched no one. It was selfish. I told myself that no matter what happened this time I would transcend the patheticisms of my daily routine, that I would write about my world in a way that touched your own.
And with my last entry I failed.
Many people sent me messages telling how much that entry meant to them. Their empathy did me no good. I knew I had failed myself, violating the only purpose I had laid out before me.
It took a good friend to help me realize that. After work I went out for drinks with friends. It was like old times. Bushmills on the backs of Camels, carrying me to land of Jollys and deep sleep. A girl I had taken out on a few dates was conveniently sat next to our table. Our eyes met only once. I smiled–a deep wicked smile. It was the kind of night I was in desperate need of.
After we were done, I followed a friend home to sleep at her place. I did not, do not, feel safe at my apartment. Even now I worry about my car, sitting vulnerably outside my apartment. The hunter’s prey. We arrived at her place and retired to sleep. I collapsed on her bed completely spent–the previous week of overtime and random hostilities weighing heavily on me. She changed and crawled into bed, insisting that I strip down to get more comfortable.
After a few objections, I complied. We laid there and talked. At first about nothing–raunchy jokes and innuendos. And soon we settled into the most platonic of positions, spooning. Innocence. There was no tension, just good friends who happen to differ by one chromosome. The X and Y of our lives. For some reason the closeness of the situation pushed our conversation to intimate levels. We discussed life, religion, love, relationships…
She opened up and I realized she was stricken with many of the same questions that I was. She was pained by her inability to commit, to connect, to love, to care, to simply coexist with someone of interest. She was plagued by questions surrounding her own humanity…our purpose. And I laid there, mostly listening, stroking the one piece of flesh which escaped from the bottom of her shirt. And I thought…
I thought how my last entry was so entirely selfish.
Yes, the last few months have been painful. Yes, I have been tested and tried more than most. But my problems are entirely American and petty: broken windows and computer errors. The children of the world who do not eat tonight would envy my most favorable of woes. Everyone hurts and everyone needs; I am no different. I am truly fortunate that my life is as good as it is. My loved ones are alive, well even. My own body a biological work of genius–breathing without thought, beating without effort, trillions of chemical reactions occurring silently. My mind, although tormented, is sharp and agile–clever does not even begin to describe me.
As I laid with her I realized how similar she was to me. She’s different, so very different. But at our core we both longed for the same things–happiness, harmony, and peace. And is she so different from you? Am I? No. My problems are nothing. My questions unoriginal. My curse uninspiring. We are all trying to get through the day–alone and together.
It was nice. Lying with someone without anticipation or worry. Simply enjoying the feel of skin without fear, and seeing yourself in them, even with your eyes closed.
At one point I stated on this page that I am not a person, but an idea. And I was right then. I lost sight of that. I do not exist in the most traditional sense. I transcended the flesh so long ago. Self-revelation is the annihilation of self. God-consciousness. Zen. Samsara. Whatever you call it…the principle is the same; the idea lives on. And that idea is universal: the recognition of human suffering and kinship with all people. I became selfish and my rage was turned on the very people I longed to help. I lost sight…
I am sorry on some levels. And for what I do not know. I am sorry that I claimed that I had fallen. I was born the Fallen. We all were. That is our story. That is our great commission: to find what has been lost, and gained, and lost again and again and again…
I am sorry that I forgot about what is important. I made it about me, but it is and always should be about you. I do not deserve to be so fortunate. People die every second.
Someone just died.
And again.
And again.
Every second.
Again.
But people are also born. Now. Now. And now.
The cycle of life and death…a macrocosm of microcosm me. And you. We are the Fallen. It took the soft skin and softer tongue of a good friend to help me realize that. I know she did not mean to inspire me, and in some ways that is the most beautiful part. Our night together illuminated the gift of our collective curse so brilliantly. Even with eyes closed…for we do not need eyes to see, only vision, which she granted me so sweetly.
I am Elliott James Griffin.
I am an idea. Nothing more.
And I am sorry for losing sight of that.
A Killer Is Born
Evicted. The notice on my door. For my greatest sin…paying my rent.
Is this the “real” world the elders spoke of? Is this reality beyond the walls of family homes, beyond the walls of East Texas pines? Is this how it is?
I am mad. Not angry. I have gone mad. A Killer has been born. I want to destroy everything. I want you to die. I want to die. I am filled with rage. A rage so steady it is frightening. A rage so pure that I understand the murderer’s glee. I understand the pleasure they must feel as the knife falls once, twice, thrice…
This is my magnum opus. My confession. I cannot catch a break, so I will break it all. I want a weapon. I want a gun. Fuck it. I am a weapon; I am deadly. And this pain will be poured upon the earth tonight. Oh it will be wondrous…a scream so loud that you will think the earth is crying, and she is. She is crying tonight. And the rain makes it worse.
It feeds me. Nourishes me in its gloom. And the rage builds. I smoke. Yes, I fucking said it. I smoke. My mouth an ashtray of dried curses. Spitting them out for all ears to hear. In between drags of god’s brown earth I will curse everything. I want to set fire to this world. The Shepherd is so far from me…I am only the Destroyer.
What is wrong with this world? What the hell is going on? Why is this happening? Again. Again. Again. Am I too weak for it all? No. Lesser men would’ve already crumbled. I stand. Completely drunk off of the rage that builds inside of me. Robbed-twice. Identify theft. Police entanglements. Eviction.
And what is my great sin? I cannot pinpoint it. I used to see providence in everything. Now I see disease. The plague of this “real” world rotting my insides and killing me slowly. Lesser men would’ve of crumbled already, but I am crumbling now. I find my legs unsteady; my hands tight with anticipation…my heart races…my mind spins…and hate, fucking beautiful hate, flows through me.
I hate you. I hate all of you. Hate me back, please. Hate everything I stand for, everything I say, everything stupid piece of dribble that drips from my barren lips. Because why not? I hate this world. I always have. The great fraud…a smile that has always hid the pain. A laugh that conceals a question. A personality of misdirection. I am dead. When I finally awoke, truly awoke, as a young man I realized the great truth…
There is nothing to this world. There is emptiness. There is anger. There is pain. Love, friendship, and everything that we believe keeps us together is a farce. Love me? Why? I am rotten to the core and if I could end everything I would. I would rob you of your greatest pleasures to insure that no man ever envies those treasures again. I want global communion in the form of complete dissipation.
This universe is not for me. This “world” is not for me. I am crumbling. I have fallen. I am a legend, I’m told. No. I’m a legend untold. And I tell the world this story. These hands will craft the great truth and deliver it to the world. One bullet. One refusal. One end. One day.
I have fallen. The mighty hath fallen.