Torch

“Would you accept it like a torch?”

I would, and light my way
through caverns dark and deep.

I would, and know this tiny lighter’s flame
can’t keep me from bumbling
through paths, self-same,

that I have tried again and over
to refrain from striding down.

I would accept it like a torch,

holding still until the glow unstows no certainty

and charred bitter ends leave darkness

blackening my fingertips –

and then I’d, after wiping ashen fingers

on my apron’s hips,

reach a digit out to mark your bottom lip.

I would accept it if you told me to,

Pausing not for chivalry

Or wasting breath to ask –

Characters

I should have been a pair of ragged claws - Underbelly

In the blue tone of light scattering throughout the club, I stood completely still. Enraptured. I was captured by the spoken words of black voices, passionate and articulate, commanding my full attention from the first harshly uttered sentence. I wish I had had the presence of mind to take pictures but I was too busy trying to absorb every single detail that I could.

I had wandered in alone, but you left our friends to check on me. Your arm snaked around me from my right shoulder to rest your hand on my left, large and masculine and safe; glistening gold. I wanted you to know that you were welcome there, touching me in that way that resonates with love and adoration, a simple gesture vibrating the very air around us. My cheek rested against your skin and my lips brushed against your wrist. I sighed, happy and deep. The very picture of simple bliss in the form of two people, not now or ever in a relationship together, still coming together with love.

I can’t express it quite well enough, the happiness thrumming peacefully through my heart. It could have been the fact that my eyes were artificially dilated and I was feeling very happy about everything surrounding me but I felt it deep down in that second just how sublime I feel to have a friend like you, to have the love and affection of someone like you, a wild man with mountain music flowing from your fingers.

I count myself lucky to have you among the characters I keep. I count myself lucky to know so many characters - intelligent hillbillies, country music singers, and washed up artists; poets in waistcoats and dreadheads with fiddles. Glassblowing professors and tall men in beanies, twinky anime angels with a ghetto flavor.
 I love every single hair on every one of these heads. 

Ataraxia

6-2

I’ve never found a way to be angry over misplaced drops of scalding hot coffee - even as it explodes outward into the fabric of my denim shorts and sneaks close to warm my skin - and I don’t know if I am more enlightened or if maybe everyone else has more sensitivity in certain neural matter than I do.

Another incident that points me in the same conclusory direction is the sound of my voice trying to convey the feeling of whole and perfect bliss found in sweeping leaves off a dear friend’s porch and woefully falling short. But how am I supposed to explain the glow of acceptance welling in my heart from performing someone else’s household chores alongside them - what closer access is there to the inside than to help polish the rocks into the gems put on display? To see the start AND the middle, to witness bickerings and making-ups, forehead kisses and shared jokes... to take a baby on a walk around the block, her parents at home taking advantage of the free time.

...and that to stand in the golden hour with broom in hand is to feel the welcomed weight of trust, the realizations of mutual respect and love. To look at growing blisters on my hands with fondness and a feeling of accomplishment, to skip over “dread” at doing chores and relish each moment. To give my full attention to what I am doing and cherish the task, and at the same time allow my brain the freedom to skip the scene entirely to float along and think about anything. Oh, to find joy in work.

It is my goal to let people discover, if they pay attention, the depths of my immediate affection.

That I delight in helping with chores because seeing them happy makes me happy, that my involvement in these domestic team sports means they want me in a jersey with my own spot on their field.

Oh, to have a collection of jerseys in my closet, hanging still and safe for access at any time.

VIP passes into a family for a day.

Oh, to have a pack.

But imagine the disconnect when I try to explain that cleaning up a septic tank’s worth of labrador diarrhea was actually not that bad, just something I had to do, because my brother and sister in law trusted me enough to grant me entry into their home to watch their dog and key to their car to drive while they were gone. Can you understand that thought process? Bent over, trying not to retch, feeling more love for my adopted family and concern for their pet than disgust or anger at the task before me. 

Even if I had the time or off-the-cuff eloquence there is simply no way I can speak an entire essay anytime someone asks me what I did this weekend so I say, smiling proudly, that I swept a porch. That I cleaned up dog shit. 
That I am an invited member, present for day to day minutiae, and that the thought of my membership makes me beam with pride.

I just want it known that the clear Epicurean happiness I feel when I’m working side by side with people I deeply respect is easily the most profound and fulfilling sensation I have ever felt.

Mostly manufactured

Behind the Morocco Shrine Temple

I worry that each measured step of painstakingly learned efficiency that drags me away from the terrifyingly free days of my early twenties is one step closer to the calculating coldness of the perfect Adult©. Every time I perfect one of the tiny tasks that has always for some reason eluded me, from oil changes to learning that keeping track of important paperwork now will save time later, I get this image of Carolyn Burnham, the mom from American Beauty, and I fret.

The war wages on and I feel split apart, pulled to pieces, 

tendon from ligament from slippery sinew.

How is it possible to hold on to anything good 

when the illusions dissipate and run from you?

 

Everything we want is nothing like it initially seems and the happiness dims as soon as we grasp for it, ruining everything beautiful like grubby little child hands smearing the life dust from diaphanous butterfly wings.

But is that just the way it is?

The faint rumble of rebellion rolls around my guts like faraway thunder and I can’t help but feel the urge to exclaim “Tis I can buck the system!” because it’s difficult for me to give up in resignation, with Failure dancing around menacingly and laughing in my face- and yet it’s difficult for me to shut the dreaming factory down. My dreams roll all over the place in winding circles of contradiction as almost every dream I have rules out the possibility of any other dream.

I have no choice but to give in and endure the wonderfully painful lashes of each branch of future lives raining down upon my flesh, giving myself over to a masochism I’ve really mostly manufactured

and I wonder if anyone else can see these scars of futures forsaken

Done.

Building new facades: University and Old St. Augustine - Jacksonville, FL

  

On my mind: How marriages don’t always end in happiness, and how we (oh. duh.) only hurt the ones we love.

How the happiest of people can only sustain for so long. How, like the needling tingles of a mild withdrawal, even the sensations that are supposed to be pleasurable start to slow into annoyance. Get away from me, don’t touch me, but don’t worry I’ll be back in the morning.

Until one day it takes an extra day to get back to normal, to regain perspective and remember that you love this person occupying your bed.. until the moment you pause and consider that the action of remembering implies the action of forgetting. Implying the terrifying realization that sometimes, however infrequently, you forget to be in love with this person standing next to you.

And how I, in all of my obsessive self analyzation, can catch these damaging thoughts in their tracks, can reason my way out of this terror, introducing the idea that my partner has melded into me and obviously will bear the brunt of my self loathing from time to time. That there are days where I hate myself, with toxic little hate droplets oozing out onto whatever is closest to me, as if not only I am to blame for this unrest but you are too and it’s all our fault and I hate everything but of course that feeling diminishes. Because it has to, right? Because I can look that feeling in the face and tell it to shove off, and then next thing I know you’re saying something cute and my funk bubbles away and I know that I was just being silly so let’s go listen to music and be silly together.

But right now it is the opposite scenario that hangs heavy on my shoulders.

The one where he forgot that the ooze is impermanent and let it spill over everything, watching with Hamlet’s eyes as the black poured a seamless cover onto all of the things he used to love, hiding the light that used to gleam back and forth. A thousand tiny mistakes lead to ruin and a thousand tiny bubbles of seething resentment turn into the kind of slow irrational hatred that becomes impossible to outrun.

Done. With a capital D.

Just like the water

I become something different in the water. 

My arms are stronger, capable of pulling the combined weight of me and my watercraft. 

My senses are sharper, tuned in to the sights and sounds around me.

My soul becomes visible again- if only slightly discernible through drops of water falling from my paddle.

And as the flask of whiskey is passed around, 

followed by the heady scent of earthy smoke,

my body warms and whirs to back life.

On my mind

 - the bass line before the drum kicks in

 - the crack in the sidewalk with the green grass splitting the concrete

 - the compilation of loops on a page that you call words

 - primal urge in its finest, most basic element

 - indecision at the XXX adult store

 - a red cup filled with intoxicants

 - an enlightened theory, scoffed at by all

 - a retro junkie at its most literal

 - the kings of civilizations and empires past, who names you don’t recall

 - a hushed whisper, right next to your ear

 - the head you clutch to your chest

Hearts of Palm

2-21

Suppose I asked you if you would have done anything differently and you said “yes.”

You, who have been my adopted mentor for about longer than I’ve been a functioning human and I realize even now how wholly I would accept your teachings, granting “words of wisdom” as a tag to any that you’ve thrown my way.

Explain the pang I feel then, being outside looking in, watching your sidekick scribble by flashlight as the music surrounds us, drawing us together. I can clutch the hand of my sweetheart but yours is at home, and I presume you are separated by the mundanities of adulthood that can now only be escaped one at a time, with someone always left behind to shoulder the load.

Do you wish for full escape?

I wonder if you are here only halfheartedly, the residue of responsibility ever simmering on your back burners, making your time here bittersweet.

Or, perhaps, this is everything you’ve dreamed.

Perhaps the dancing ponytail of a ten year old girl was the perfect date,
the fulfillment of twinkling eyes now by your side for Thursday night blues rock shows.
I do like to think you’ve always been meant for old houses filled with guitars,
the loudness of happy children, dusty books of poetry
with spines bent and bent again.

I’d be lying if I said that same arrangement didn’t lay heavy on my mind.
A halcyon dream, a vision that once filled my skin with excitement, the blood lust for a baby of my own... but now I wonder when I place my lips against my lover’s if one day our union will cause the same separation, that these pockets of weeknight outings will be experienced alone.

Your date dances with the apathy
of youthfully ignorant bliss,
but I wonder if you’d rather kiss
a lover’s lips.

Valentine

Sometimes I think I purposely avoid writing about important things that occur, in all of their many-splendored levels of absurdities, because these moments don’t even feel like they belong to me. As if during these moments I am living someone else's life in some other era.


 

I guess that’s what happens when I encounter situations that half of me, greedy and instant, hungers to be a part of and signs on enthusiastically only for the other half to cower in fear at these brazen occurrences that rip me out of my comfort zone.

I am a toddler edging closer to the laughing edge of the water with only the dim recognition that at any point the waves might surge and, well, take me.

I am afraid of the water... but I am more afraid of missing the wholesome warmth of sun on skin, of smiling seagulls cawing after the crusts of sandwich lunches, the freest of feelings.

So as my car pulls up to driveways and my hand hesitates on the gearshaft with a clear and immediate “what the fuck are you doing right now,” I try my hardest to think of cool pink lemonade on salty lips. If I can just imagine the feel of sand between toes then I can gather myself up from the beat up Kia and go knock on a stranger’s door.
 

Hustler, Baby

   

I must admit, as I look on the things I have seen and done this weekend, that I must be an abnormal person.

Surely a normal person would get upset at being charged twelve dollars for two thin hot dogs and then watching as the Canal Street vendor tried to shortchange me, “just another tourist,” but I can’t. I can’t be mad that I got to participate in such a swindle as even that interaction feels so beautiful, felt so beautiful as the parade floats rounding the corner turned the street into a chaos of color and sound, casting glows onto the dark weathered face of my hot dog vendor. 

Perhaps I was just intoxicated on revelry and merriment but I stared him in the eye, waiting for him to divvy up the rest of my change, watching this schooled hustler’s face for any sign of disappointment, watching how quickly he recovered saying “oh you handed me a 20, that’s right that’s right.” How could I be mad at such a skillful artist? 

I stood there with a grin on my face, imagining all of the stumbling-slurring fools that ended up paying 15-20 dollars for a hot dog that was already marked up to a ridiculous margin...

Porch Swing

2-10

I have to try to do this justice.

I don’t know for certain how long this house has been here, this renovated New Orleans farmhouse, but the thin long lines of wood flooring on this porch look as if they have been here before brick buildings and planned city grid lines though I know they are incapable of having such an age. I feel as if they have watched as the creatures of the swamp pooled together and rose, forming such a city as this - watched as the neon-colored bulbs of smoky jazz clubs gave way to the hollow glow of so many LED lights, as the alligators slunk back into the mist and the sorority girls claimed the streets to roam at night. 

I feel just as old as this house, awake unreasonably early and settled into a porch swing, listening to music and setting myself adrift. Everyone else is sleeping, cloistered off in solitary pockets of unconsciousness, and I am here staring at the way these roses wrap through the old wood balustrades painted white with a hint of seemingly-intentional dirt and grunge.

Spoken Word

1-24

The first wobbly step outside of my comfort zone has been taken - not just reading my words in front of a group of people that I know, but reading in front of one of my adopted mentors in writing...

It always takes me off guard when my physical reactions are completely out of sync with my emotional status - take, for instance, the heart of mine that began to pound against the walls of my chest in excitement and panic and no small element of “what the fuck are you doing on stage in a fur coat right now?!”

But, like I know would be,
I was proud as shit of myself, and inspired.

my one picture from that night

 

 

 

Me mid-sentence: taken by GM Palmer

my friend Alex: taken by GM Palmer

Mental Richochets

1-19

But where to start?
And how should I begin?

This has been a week of revelations, of spiritual visions and verbal revisions.
I’m not sure which I should address first.
The problem is that all of it seems so far away in comparison to this moment of morning-coffee peace.
The smell of toasting bread and sweet rolls tantalizes me but I will resist the temptation and choose instead to focus.

So basically I let my spirit fly the other night, through meditation.
I dug deep and was taken over by spirals of abstract thought,
letting vibrations of light and sound carry me as far as they could take me... and then some.

I keep continually coming back to this Saul Williams line:
“Through meditation I program my heart to beat breakbeats
and hum bass lines on exhalation...”

That line has resonated throughout the caverns within me from the first time I heard it and every time I have come back to it since, gaining new waves of meaning for my life with each visit and revisit.

In the darkness of the brilliantly patterned light, voices of mine sprung up from the deep.
I never knew I had such fear hidden away, such clear and perfect fear.

“I’m never going to be able to communicate all of this, to anyone.”

For a split second I was terrified that all of the beautiful thoughts and all of the mental ricochets therein would be trapped, forever. That I would never speak again, that I had gone too deep and lost my voice forever because in the time it takes for a second to split, to light sparks with flint, I had already bounded off into the ethereal..

I haven’t decided quite yet what to do with this revelation. Obviously my voice came back to me after I was done floating up amongst the constellations, after I remembered to breathe - after I remembered that breathing exists - and settled back down a smidge. I regained my voice and retained as clear a memory I could of what it felt like when I thought that no one would even know I used to speak.

Up until that moment, when my identity and honestly my existence was lifted off of my shoulders, when I came face to face with the pure and distilled essence of my personality and all of my hopes and feelings, I had no idea just how much it means to me to write.

Apparently it means a whole fuckton.