Itchin

I think I've always known I was different somehow.
Not in the sense that I was different from everyone else in a bad way, or in the cliched sense where people say they believe they are an original, though their actions don't prove their claims.
No, just different. Set apart. Special.
Somehow I am going to be used as a tool in the hands of an artisan to create something wonderful.

That my pain would somehow bring others pleasure.

Not in a sadistic sort of way, but in that "My soul can feel the knife twist, and its blood will be my ink" sort of way.
 
Though I try to be transparent, my skin is often thicker than I want it to be.
Other times I'm nearly nude, and there is nothing that I can do about it.
Most times I feel there is so much substance to me, I have to intentionally choose to allow my skin to be transparent so that others may see the words written on my heart.
The light streaming from my soul.
The fire caged in my bones.

The skin on my hand looks thin right now. Dry. One day, it will be more than my dry epithelial layer that falls off. I'll dissolve and become one with the soil. My bones will cry out for the flesh that once kept them in order.
But I'll be far away from that ghastly scene.

Can I rise above the way I see things - even myself - as temporary?
It's so easy to tie in my conscious soul - my true self - with this earth suit I'm travelling in.

Indefinite.
Am I definite?
These thoughts sometimes make me sick.
Paralyze me.
Make my work and dreams and existance feel...useless.
This is the cause of my anxiety.

Were we meant to feel useless? Purposeless?
Does nihilllism fill our veins with life, or at the very least, make this trip bearable?


I want to share the history of this journey with someone.
I think that's all we can do here. Share the journey. It validates our existence when someone else remembers the same moments. It makes us more honest. Makes us feel a little less crazy.
Christopher McCandless said, “Happiness only real when shared.”
I suppose I agree.
But what I want to know, whoever this someone is, is that they're willing to leap off a cliff.
The oppressing sun of fear and doubt will always be shining, and we can't always see the water at the bottom of the cliff.
Someone who can believe torrential rain will fall from the sky to cover up the evil, smiling teeth of the jagged canyon floor that whispers we're committing suicide.

Indefinite beings need to be defined by something greater.
Love. Knowledge. Truth.

A truth that's bigger than the any of us, and streams life directly into our veins.

A force that makes us ache for more than this.
Weren't we meant for something more?
Or is it simply our flesh and souls were intended to be impaled, severed, and left to decay on the cruel stalagmites of time and circumstance?

In the eleventh hour, the heavens invariably crack wide for those who choose to leap.
Floodgates for centuries dammed, burst forth for the faithful.
Covering the canyon floor.

Rage

Unplug, un-think, un-feel-at-all,
The nerves are dead,
you leper,
crawl.
An artifice, oh coroner, warm his eyes with wool;
lay back
and sleep
in sloth old man
eat 'til your belly's full.

Rage against your purpose,
and rage against this life.
Knotting fingers into fists
and blacken both your eyes.

For eyes see not the heart within,
nor hear its muted cries
over the glare of tv screen
or blare of spoken lies.
Think not of anything at all,
think not of me, nor them.
For when you wake,
we'll all be gone
and who shall feed you then?

Obligation

Millions sleep tonight for the last time
Hunger eats the stomach of the soul
If he awakes,
ravenous, awry.
I stalwart,
bloodletting,
my veins shrivel and recede;
cooked chicken veins,
empty conduit, elastic bands.
Take of my flesh,
let me be of some use
after you have strung my noose.
Not swift I say, but picasso
For I shall steal my resolve,
Like a great artist;
not mimicking the mimes
I give mine actions lips and tongues
That ceaselessly pollute the air
with blood -
Lest I forget it is on my hands.

Once, we were good.

We were good men once.

We were men of honor, of chivalry.

We were the men that had legacies to leave.

We are the men who loved women with a passion, purity, and protection that wasn’t understood.

We used to protect even our eyes from a sensual image.

But the women that we longed to protect would not even protect themselves.

We were broken in spirit after living a lie.

We were stabbed in the heart, and stared in the eyes of our assailant.

The women of virtue we had imagined did not exist; we were tasked with reclaiming virtue for them.

It was at this point that we lost hope.

We were good men once.

We were good until women told us we didn’t have to be.

We were good men once, back when our ideals blinded us.

Once, we were good.

"Imagine what you want, and then hold onto that thought...

...'cause that's as close as it will ever come."
--Conor Oberst.

Overlooking the city on Sunday night, I was huffing away on a grape cigarillo and thinking.
I'm always thinking or writing.
Sometimes both simultaneously (yes, some guys can multi-task).

With pen scratching furiously away on the paper, I attempted to create something that expressed what my soul felt at that moment.

I read back what was on the page, and somehow, I had missed the connection.
My disconnect is far from intentional.
Old habits die hard, I guess.
I used to separate my feelings from my art, using the former as an inspiration for the latter, rather than simply writing what it is I was feeling and thinking.
Tonight I screwed up.
It wound up moderately contrived, much like the stuff I wrote back when I was 14.
So much of that was drivel.
I was amorous - my head simultaneously in the clouds and up my ass (told you I could multi-task).

I wrote to impress, dazzle, and appear intelligent and mysterious.

I learned words firstly out of an innate interest, secondly to expand my subject matter, and thirdly to impress others with an extensive vocabulary.

These days, society on masse is frighteningly dull when it comes to their choice of verbiage.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, there are nearly a 250,000 different words one could choose from to form sentences and communicate.

And yet sadly a vast majority chooses to misspell what few words they know.

People's love of language has been sacrificed at the altar of speed and convenience.

When did people begin valuing quantity over quality, especially when it comes to the use of language?

I have a dream, a dream deeply rooted in the Martin Luther King Jr. dream (but mine is for diction).


I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.


In other words, I want my words to have a rich depth and meaning that can be savored and cherished like all language should, not one valued for being communicably speedy.

But I digress, it's windy, and I'm going to attempt to steer this ship back on course.

After becoming frustrated at my hackneyed attempt at poetry, I set about returning to my apartment.

When I arrived, I made licorice tea, lit candles, burned vanilla incense, and began my attempt to translate raw emotion to the page.

Whenever I extract the raw feelings and thoughts, I find that I create something that I am proud of.

I am slowly learning to listen to my own advice when picking up a pen.

However, I wouldn't be here today without an endless slough of dross behind me.

I came out of the mines with a couple of gems, and in the process, learned how to express myself.



An open letter to The Puppet Master, (Fate, Karma, God- whomever you are),

Anytime now.
I'm ready.
Can you hear me?

How many times have you heard me say this?
Heard someone else say this?

Astrologists use the stars to console their need for a guide.
Hindus use their lack of good deeds to explain the misfortunes in their lives, calling it Karma.
Buddhists consider themselves as the problem.
Their solution to the ache of dissatisfaction in this life is to seek death.
This as a gateway to a oneness with all that is.

Atheists piss me off.

They seem to think that ignoring/denying the ache's presence will somehow nullify it, and they claim to be strong and self-sufficient because of this.
I honestly wonder if atheists are, as a whole, emotionally dissociative because of their "beliefs."

At the very least, an Agnostic will pursue pleasure - seeking out various fancies in the world to satisfy the dull ache of loneliness - not unlike Solomon did in ancient times.

He attempted to be absolutely certain that there was nothing in this world that could possibly satisfy the ache in his chest before he wrote "Everything is meaningless."

Don't forget, this was a guy who fooled around with a lot of women.

He could have likely wiped his ass with the extraneous money lying around his palace.

The guy had so many skills, he virtually shat gold.

Also involved in politics (He was a king) and real estate (the guy owned tons of property), there was no end to the power, money, and sex Solomon had at his disposal.

Any waking whim would be satisfied (And probably sleeping whim too [There's bound to be a kinky concubine somewhere in the 1000 wives and concubines he had]).

Surely, someone like this could be happy!
But he decided to pick up a pen so that thousands of years later, I might pick up the book his letter was in and read "Everything is meaningless."

He must have been onto something I think.

Later, in Ecclesiastes 3:22, he concludes his thought with this verse:


"So I saw that there is nothing better for a man than to enjoy his work, because that is his lot. For who can bring him to see what will happen after him?"

I think Solomon's pleasure bender was partly due to a yearning for hard facts - facts that would prove a hunch in his heart.

The man was clearly in possession of a copious amount of wisdom when he set out to do this.

I have a hunch of my own - that Solomon desired to be the litmus test to which we all could later refer, and avoid wasting what few years we have on earth chasing our tails.

Unfortunately, wisdom is earned through trying and failing.
Wisdom is earned through humble, honest, self-examination, and knowing the true difference between success and failure.

But history repeats itself, friends.
You and I are no exception.
We are doomed to the same journey, because humans are rebellious and prideful.
Self-discovery, then, becomes a necessity.

The man of the hour also once penned "With much wisdom comes much sorrow." and "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom."

I've feared God for a long time.

Not in a "He's ready to hurl lightning at me," or "If I watch smut, I'll burn in hell," sort of way, but in the "He's an old dude who has seen a lot more than me, and listening to what he says probably isn't a terrible idea," sort of way.

I know he loves me, or He wouldn't have sent his son Jesus to die for my sins.

An instance of déjà vu  caused me to realize I'd seen this skeleton of realization before, I just never kept him around long enough to bother to flesh it out, dress it up, and breathe life into it.

Indeed, I am sorrowful most of the time.

More than likely it's a melancholy, a certain sadness, but a peaceful, restful one, and certainly it's the furthest thing from depression.

I will never be truly satisfied on this earth, and I'm happy with that answer, because I am not permanent.

I know that he placed within me a question, and I know that its answer is a living, breathing being, and it wants me to chase it.

It will continue to run from me all my life, but that is the point of the race.
I must run to keep up with the answer, and at the end, when I cross the finish line, I will finally get to meet the answer.

I will get to personally know the answer to my ache, the answer I've been chasing all my life.

That's all Solomon wanted was to get us running in a straight line.
We're no puppies, that running in circles should amuse us, and yet that's what many of us do our whole lives.
Thank God some of us are given the wisdom to realize that we're truly going nowhere fast.

Do we all not possess an ache in our chests, a yawning void that aches to be filled?

Have you chosen to respond to it?

How?

Never attempt to measure yourself alongside your peers, and whatever they may be frenetically pursuing.

You are individual, and the sooner you sequester yourself off, connect with the hole in your life, and find out what you truly seek, you will wind up chasing your tail, or the tail of your peers, until you've completely lost the inkling as to why you started running in the first place.

So do I want to follow in Solomon's footsteps exactly?

Not particularly. 

I merely want to study his method, and deliver his message in a language my people will understand.

As the old Hollywood adage goes, "Give me the same thing, only different."

I believe my ache is one that yearns to be united with all that is.

Let me rephrase that. 

To be reunited with all that is.

I believe the fear of the LORD Solomon claims cultivates wisdom is actually awareness. 

It's a Zen-like concept of acknowledging that I cannot possess all knowledge, but I know someone who does. 

A trinket of wisdom that both dissatisfies and completes.

A circle that begins, ends, and yet is one.

This is what possessing the beginnings of wisdom feels like.

Simply put, all I can do is be me. 

I can be happy and content by doing what it is I was made to do:
Write.

For now in the bad bits I should cover your eyes...

The day flew on by yesterday.

I suspect it had something to do with me sleeping until 11 a.m.
But I suspect it had more to do with going to bed at 7 a.m.

I went back to my apartment after finishing a ton of homework and ended up writing a song as I watched the sun come up.

Lack of sleep does something amazing to the creative mind. At least, for me, it clears my head in a way that taps me into the creative force of the universe. It's the poor man's pot, and I'm relatively sure it's safer on the braincells.

This has been the week that I got the least sleep of my life, yet I have never felt more creative in my lifetime.

As I surf through some photos of a current crush on Facebook, it hit me how narcissistic our generation is.
How much of our waking hours are spent looking at ourselves? Looking at each other?

Appearance is nine-tenths of the law.

I'm certainly not criticizing humanity, as a part of me loves this brave new world.
How else would I get to drool over her?

And this revealed something about me.

All my life, every girl I said I loved I actually didn't.
I was in love with a thought inside my head.
I was in love with an idea.
I'm elated yet terrified that I hold idealism aloft so much so that few women can exceed the beauty and complexity of my own thought.

I amuse me. And I suppose this is a problem. We amuse ourselves to death.

I think I'll know love when I finally care less about myself than I do about her. What I mean to say is, I will know her when my mind forgoes its idealism and chooses to fixate on her and know her, as she will be more beautiful than the thoughts between my ears.

She will be poetry, music, and wine.

But I write it as an observation to make myself aware of a system of which I daily take part.

For many, time spent with the people is something to be sought after.
People loathe loneliness.


I adore it. Desire is only fun when you're desirous. As soon as a baby gets what it is crying for, it's right back to searching and loneliness. So I have grown fond of this old feeling, because I suspect nothing this side of death is ever going to fully complete me in the way I might want it to.

Is that depressing? Maybe. A lot of things still make me content. Happy, even.
But I have grown this belief in opposition to my nature, which makes me believe I could grow to love just about anyone, which I felt cheapens love.
So loneliness and I have learned to get along.

It helps me to hone who I am, what I am, and who I wish to be.
Time spent with glorious, blissful solitude.
For me, solitude is time spent creating, bleeding thought to paper, tethering ideas to the real world.

Solitude is where I plant the seed of thought that blooms and grows into my life's work.