A Writer’s Dilemma

I write to give voice to parts of me that are otherwise silent. These most passionate, private, precious parts ooze and fester within me until they form character of their own. These new creatures take nest in a fanciful world somewhere between wonderland and neverland; encouraging me simultaneously to grow up and be young in rancorous distain of nonchalance. These personifications congregate into factions of ideas, both of those virtuous and maleficent.

Oft times I relegate my locus into their control and find a rhythmic step in which to operate, giving life to the efficiently mundane orthodoxy. My faces implore for my entire abdication, for my giving in to the romance of an ego vacuum in which being is human and doing is subliminal. And just before I embrace the egolessness, I am pulled against. Perhaps by myself or by some force without, I know not, but the pull is curt, and crude, and crass. The phantom of wholeness wrenches my spine, pulling my back across the chasm to is from would be. The ether is squelched into vesicles of imagination and pressed like dead flowers between the pages of dead trees, vainly trying to capture the vibrancy of being into the stunting viscosity of operation. The carcasses are tossed about by fingertips and tongues, exhumed at will and without motive beyond the muse of pain. A lust for intimacy or the numbing of discontent drives the plebian jollity into the bed of death, foolishly fumbling through forces long since lost, but retaining their titillating potency.

The illusion of sustenance drives the reader to a death of his own, a death in which his personal experience is lived for him, despite of him, and without him. Should he escape the whispered wisping whirling of these clever demons, the experience would prove to exhilarating so as to render my blandness unfulfilling. His boredom is my boredom, and together we wish for a better me.

The parts of me that are otherwise silent silence me. I write to give them voice because I too, am in need of plebian jollity. I too lust for intimacy, suffer from numbing discontent. I sustain myself to death in titillating potency. My personal experience is lived for me, despite of me, and without me.

Can I, therefore, stop this cycling serpent? Do I sterilize my tissues into an embrace of nonchalance, giving breath to the efficiently mundane orthodoxy? It seems I must. For others know only what they read in my faces. I should resolve to live anew, to make a new writing. I should write to give voice to the part of me that has been silenced.

And even still I write, not to express me, but to express the face that wears a black ribbon tie and billowy silk, the face with tasseled hair and wine in the eyes. He knows me well and uses his own hand to pen my woes. I’ll never have his courage to waste away at the side of a table, cursing at the pleas that bludgeon his anger. Through this face, I do not find myself, but instead, the contraries from which I shy away. I find the constancy of form that one such as I could never achieve. I write about the completeness of my failures and the horrors of my crimes. I write to find purgation, to find escape from the tempest of my dullness. I write to hide my sheer wastefulness from my own loftiness. I write to describe the inescapable severance of self. Should I fail to write, the inner cavities of my being would be vacant to the nothingness which I would produce. I must write so that I can purge that which builds me.

Though I hate it so, I must write. Though I strangle my only hopes at pleasantness by so doing, I must. It is a life-giving poison, an on-going suicide note, dissonance waiting for resolution. I write to petition myself onto greatness that I will never know. I write in desperation, in hopes that I will write the answers to my unknown questions. I write so that I can read myself, and then having read myself, can realize how little I know of myself.

Influence, Involvement, Intensity

Influence

Involvement

Intensity

Sisters 753-4174 to Nellene

Mental Health Center 752-0730

Crisis Line 797-8888

I hear screaming me me’s and freight trains

This will be the last time, just like last time

I missed you, but it wasn’t your fault

Maybe I’ll join you, maybe you will join me

At least December is over, cock about this you crow

And speaking of, they’ve all been counted

All those bitter tears are cried

I relive the growing pains that brought you to me

Leave Michael’s

TSC, Transfer Funds

560 N.

Smith’s Deli/Rx

Chinese King

Library

Utah

Tabernacle

Wells Fargo/Zions

Best Western

Michael’s (:11)

Transit Center

Ramen Albertson’s

She Doesn’t Fit Her Face

She would curse her face

if she didn’t love her temple.

Her face will never bear the scars

that she inwardly treats at night.

Her smiling stone wall

wishes for a safe passage gate…but not yet.

She needs a man that doesn’t want

and a woman that doesn’t compliment her greenly

She loves her family without reservation—

it is the only love she can give safely.

Her sunshine is wasted, only shining strangers

while her darkness overpowers familiar flames.

She keeps her distance;

she has no closeness to keep.

She knows why she cries—

mostly on accident.

She knows why she should smile, and so does it often—

mostly on purpose.

She hopes people will see past her shine inherited

jealous of the sparkle earned.

She will someday love a flesh-filled statue

because he will know her.

She will forget her face, just as it begins to fade.

Made Up

Someday, you’re going to make some man think he’s so happy. 

That’s when you will learn what real love is.

You will let your true self out

And you will be amazed that he stays with you.

But he will just call it engagement jitters.

He will look forward to the you that he fell in love with

In the first place.

The other you; the spurious you.

By the time he realizes that he didn’t want to marry you

But rather, the catalogue of you,

It will be too late.

He’ll be stuck with the real you; the atrophied you.

You’ll never feel rejection like this.

It will hurt you every night and with every kiss.

You won’t be able to cover that up with make-up,

But you will die trying.

Friends

Every Sunday at 12:01, I see her.  I imagine that she leaves for the same reason I do—but I can’t be sure.  Friends don’t talk about that kind of thing.

Before we were friends, we would have the most wonderful discussions.  She discussed philosophy with me.  She would give assertions followed by confirmations and disconfirmations.  She would ask questions that were so thought provoking that I would actually have to think to answer them.  She was not the usual female stimulus/response model that I was used to feeding questions through.

Before we were friends, she was an elegant cynic.  She hated all the right things for all the right reasons.  Beauty was so much more that aesthetics and she knew it.  She lived it.  She could heckle high art not because she didn’t get it, but because she understood it better than the hack that created it.  She could twist her voice into a low registered giggle that thumped with intelligence.

Before we were friends, I failed to compliment her on her wardrobe.  It was so very plain that there were no punctuation marks to arouse my voice.  She wore a monotone of fashion that focused all of her beauty where it belongs.  Her eyes, her smile, her mind.

As we started to become friends, I could tell her that she looked nice.  Of course, these were the times when I could tell that she had made an effort to pretend to be someone else.  I was feeding the beauty lie because that’s what she was supposed to want.  I was saying, “There is only one kind of beauty and you are approaching it.”  I imagine that she hated hearing it as much as I hated saying it—but I can’t be sure.  Friends don’t talk about that kind of thing.

What I wanted to say was, “You are beautiful.  Why aren’t more girls beautiful like you?”  After all, she is the kind of beautiful that she can’t rub off by falling asleep on a corduroyed couch cushion.  She isn’t two faced in appearance, juggling wake-up face with make-up face.  Even when she has a cold, she is breathtaking.  Even when she limps, she is graceful.

Then, the idea that I had heard thousands of times rang true for the first time.  “Men are idiots.”  How could I not be an idiot to have this pinnacle of form wandering off in my periphery?  Why was I not treasuring her?  I must indeed be an idiot.

She did not deserve an idiot.  She deserved something salient and potent.  So I made every effort to pretend to be someone else.  I gave in to the beauty lie because that’s what she was supposed to want.  I was saying, “There is only one kind of beauty and I’m approaching it.”  I don’t have to imagine that she hated seeing it as much as I hated being it—I’m sure.  She told me.

She also told me that she wanted to be friends.  This is, of course, a code.  ‘Friends’ means not friends.  Like telling someone that you love the Christmas sweater; ‘I love it’ is code for I hate it.  It is so very difficult to say such things that only the opposite can come out.  The phrase “But I’d love to keep going out” actually means “I don’t want to go out anymore.”

Now that we are friends, I don’t keep tabs on what interests her.  I don’t try to remember what flavor is her favorite or what country she wants to visit someday.  I don’t call her to tell her that today coincided with what we talked about yesterday.  I don’t get her take on something I have been thinking about.  That’s not what friends do.

Friends ignore each other.  Friends hope that the phone won’t ring.  Friends get on with their lives and look back on what they learned.

Now that we are friends, we don’t go out anymore.  Not to movies, or parties, or strolls.  We don’t even talk anymore.  There is no more philosophy or assertions.  We rehearse the empty dialogues about the weather and how nice church was.  She asks me how I am and I do my best to change the subject.  How can I tell her that I am more enamored by her than I have ever been?  How do I tell her that she is standard against which all other women are held?  How can I tell her that I will never be fine in her presence again?

Now that we’re friends, I imagine that she is more comfortable—but I can’t be sure.  Friends don’t talk about that kind of thing.

 

Fleeting

.

I’ve got that feeling.  The feeling that I can walk out into traffic and no car will hit me; not out of luck, but out of genuine respect for how great I am. 

I am a genius again. 

I am a justified narcissist. 

I am the guy to know; I am the man to desire. 

It must be September.    

I’ve got that feeling.  The feeling that I can walk out into traffic and no car will hit me; they’d better not, they owe me. 

I am the wasted genius again. 

The world doesn’t deserve me, but they are too stupid to know that. 

The guys laugh at me; the man to be admired at a distance. 

It must be December.    

I’ve got that feeling.  The feeling that I can walk out into traffic and no car will hit me; but, oh, how I wish it would. 

Maybe I’m just a retard with delusions of grandeur.

They didn’t even care that I was here.

They will recognize me in a restaurant some day, but they won’t say hello.

It must be May.    

I’ve got that feeling.  I hate all this traffic. 

Maybe I should just run my car into that Wal-Mart truck; do the world two favors that they wouldn’t appreciate even once.

I should build a bomb that would flip them off before destroying them.

Principles are for chumps like me; they’d like me if I bought riches and beauty.

It must be July.