Archive for category Journal
Layer
Should you be a poem?
Are you worth the words it takes
To decorate my wound with jewels
And put it on display?
I’ll build you a tomb in my heart.
You died in the womb,
but you never really started, did you?
Our dearly departed,
Our —-
Give me a second to collect myself.
Give me just a second.
Her body rejected you, afterward.
After all,
you were just a layer of cells
wrapped around a pale hope
lighter than the blue line on the First Response,
thinner than the white cotton
soaking up the blood she made for you.
We laughed at the mood swings,
I lay my hand on her belly to feel.
We ate only good things
and we prayed before every meal.
And still, and still
I’ve got pain pills and Red Bull
And a head full of dreadful questions
And mental dilemmas
If this is a test of our mettle,
I,
I —-
I told the whole world
Before I knew for sure that you were real.
I’ll leave this unfinished, just like you.
The Taurean Throat
This is the second bout of infection in two months. Last time forced an emergency room visit because the pain was a burning TEN, but this time I can see the white blisters even though the pain is mild. I’m on mostly the same meds: Lortab and Zithromax and steroids shots and gratuitous amounts of sleep.
When I was a little kid, I got stung in the throat by a bee. It landed on my neck and I looked down, crushing it and driving its stinger into the fleshy underside of my jaw. The swelling was incredible. I had three chins for at least as many days.
When I was a little kid, I also read that people born under the Taurean sun tended to have throat and mouth problems. I wonder how many of my annual strep infections, neck and jaw tensions, grindings of teeth, and troubles with breathing/singing coordination are a deep psychosomatic response to early belief in astrological dogma.
Which one hurt me worse: the martyred bee or the venomous belief in predestination?
19 – Nearing
Mists under the earth. What is the great force building beneath our world? The line on the test is so faint, but I can see it.
Life is beautiful and strange. I wonder about my brakes after all.
Insulter
His battery died for lack of attention; he blamed it on his girlfriend. His brakes failed; despite the constant, screeching warning he’d ignored them. A lack of focus drains you of life and keeps you from stopping, even as you hurtle into doom.
Whatever, he’s a right bastard sometimes. You know, I try to pay attention and heed the lessons. Maybe I was being boastful, a braggart, currying favor with an elder. And yes, my ambitions for perfection make me oversensitive. Oversensitive and alienated from those who drift through life directionless, ignoring their own inertia and the dying light inside.
But at least my brakes are solid and my battery is charged.
Even in Losing
Just conceded a chess game online, and right as I hit the submit button, my cat Zelda knocked over the white king on the real chessboard in my office.
Did I mention I was playing white? Did I mention that McCarty and I used to play chess frequently, and we would always resign our games by toppling our own king?
Strangeness, babies, strangeness.
Level Up
From oasis to oasis in this desert of time.
I bought a house with my wonderful wife, furnished it and moved in. It’s a beautiful three-bedroom in a sleepy little vale that can’t decide between rural or suburban. The house has an extended garage, within which I’ve cobbled together a nascent dojo and plunged back into Starting Strength. My boy Graham joined me after about a week, and we’ve got a lot of muscle-shredding momentum.
My senior year started about six weeks ago. There’s a heavy emphasis on cultural anthropology now, and my head is swimming with social theory. I synthesized a wonderful, golden idea that I’m going to build a special problems course around: a literary research project and hopefully another undergrad publication. My mentor has been very encouraging.
I competed in my first fencing bout today, AND it was against an experienced fencer, AND I won. I scored the first touch, then got knocked down 1-4. Came back to score four points solid to win 5-4. Although it was hella chaotic and I was unsure who scored half the time, it was very reminiscent of kung fu sparring. Overall I’m in a competitive space: I’ve been playing chess lately too. Combat in black and white. Culture in binary.
Interpersonal war came and went. I left the wounded on the battlefield, not without remorse. Have you ever had to kill something to bring it to life? Deny something to make it real? I know I’m being cryptic, which is ironic. I will have to leave this mysterious for now.
Fuck Chase Bank
For closing my biggest credit account without notification, right in the middle of my home-buying process. This is all based on a stock lie they are telling the old WaMu customers, and apparently there are a lot of them. Like, enough for a class action lawsuit.
The Deities
Had the first official ride with the boys yesterday, operating under the gang name “The Deities.” We rolled down 407 after a brief interruption for gas and headlight maintenance. I’d never been down that road; it was virtual reality Road Rash with zero pixelation, tons of curves and a single stoplight. We were gods propelling steel and chrome at incredible speeds. Gorgeous scenery, lots of trees and fresh air, and a touch of panic about grease streaks on the pavement made for an exciting ride. I can’t wait to hit it in the fall when the weather cools, and we can cruise comfortably under the hellish Texas daystar.
After the 407 run we stopped by a gas station and then hung out at Adam’s for a while. I bought a Snickers (apparently now the official candy bar of Peanutopolis). I haven’t eaten a candy bar in years, maybe. It was fucking delicious. Josie will be elated that I’ve decided to hoard chocolate for Armageddon (Achocolypse? No, nevermind). Luxury item + mondo sugar infusion + touch of caffeine = valuable surplus.
Once we’d finished eating our rations and ripping on Plaxico Burress, we headed back out, out to the shadowy borders of Denton, the veiled country roads where we could practice the dark arts: blowing stuff up. Fireworks that is, God Bless the Chinese. We only got through four mortars before paranoia set in and we abandoned our spot. When I was a defiant teen, I wouldn’t have given a righteous shit about the cops. Now some color bombs in the middle of the country make me nervous. Maybe I’ve got more to lose now. Maybe the Panopticon has its tentacles deeper in me. Maybe I’m not a dumbass like my buddy Plaxico, and I don’t want to ruin a good thing with gratuitous pyrotechnics.
I suppose that time will tell.
Drunken Style
The master conducts his life like a symphony. He hears the themes and motifs that arise, and explores them. Seemingly disconnected experiences reveal themselves as synchronous; discrete moments are rooted in the same context of meaning.
A pebble hit our windshield and cracked it as we were driving down the highway. A rock hit my grandparents’ windshield and cracked it as they were driving down the road. We had a structural engineer look at the crack in the side of our new home. We had a cardiologist look at the crack in my wife’s heart. We had a counselor look at the cracks in our marriage. We were cracking under the pressure, so we cracked a pill in half and cracked a joke. Nothing was really serious, after all.
It was just another week. Families of symbols emerge, multi-local and multifarious. The master sees the web that connects them all.
Parties pop up, and one night I get so drunk I can’t even read the words on the screen. A drunk driver plummets over an embankment, and gets pulled from her truck as the engine ignites. A drunk driver pummels into three cars outside our apartment on a Saturday morning. A drunk driver fails repeatedly at parking, right in front of the cops already at the scene. Four idiots with blurred vision and slurred speech. Luckily, no one gets hurt.
It’s just another week. The master’s hands contort like he’s holding a cup or a jug. He stumbles like a simpleton, only to shock you with his speed.