Sunday, July 30, 2006

Philosophy of the Monster

I ponder writing something big, something new. The genuine hope in Stitches and The Amber Eye doesn't apply anymore. I found the Monster; he's not in death or sin, evil or danger, or the entrails of a lost love that never was and never could be. I found him in every moment I spent at the tip of a fist, crying while you pointed, the unrehearsed laugh I know is a popular joke, my smile, crooked or straight, always misplaced and never returned in any exaggeration of the truth, and the lies you tell me to protect me from too much knowledge. I can bring souls to my poet, and make his words sweet, but not even the ambivalence of our friendships that I never let tear no matter how much you hate me can stretch wide enough to cover the Philosophy of the Monster.

Monday, July 24, 2006

Songs

I sit in my room and listen to Johnny Cash sing sad songs. When that album is done, I'll probably switch to Nirvana. I hear the pain in their voices. I feel like I'm not alone; I feel fellowship. Of course, I know this can't be true. Not only did neither one even know my name before they went to God, the reaction of the rest of you to my words just can't compare. This most-important aspect of my personality seems to eternally fall short of the arrogant jackass that most people who know my name associate with it. Getting people to read is like pulling teeth; I believe my words are even less pleasant than the dentist. I send sweet words out to find a similar taste on the tip of a kindred tongue; intentions matter little. My poems don't pass through lips or ears; at best they pierce the eyes like Jocasta's Brooches. None of you will see me after reading them. Someday, I'll throw in with Prester Bane and the rest; at least they'll talk to me. Being an opinionated jerk that no one likes feels better than a melancholy madman that no one even knows.

Don't tell me Jesus loves me; he can't hear me from here. I can't pray because Prester Bane won't let me. He runs interference, and speaks out of turn. Prester bane laughs at pain and stares my problems in the face before spitting in my teary eyes. Happy now? My religion is a joke that hides out around larger and larger stacks of pill bottles. Most days, the only words Prester Bane lets through ask the Lord to bring me home. Until today, I thought those words never get through the haze that blurs most of my life; I know now that I am home, and I always will be. Faith is a thought. The Bible is meant to be understood. Moses brought Hebrews words, books, and even guilt. Christ brings not peace, but a sword. That sword severs those bits of us not meant for hellfire: at the root, it's a cure for original sin. However, I'm a stranger to most of that. My sins are not the kind you find beneath fig leaves or spare paint to cover Michelangelo's pure vision. I don't know what the hell is going on right now. I just know it hurts, and I find no comfort from introspection, words I seem to never understand, or any of you.

David is a favorite. Jacob is a favorite. I don't kill a man to be with his wife, and I don't extort money from my starving brother; no amount of good behavior or applied morality can save me from myself. Psalms lie beyond my reach, and I only find comfort in reading Job, a book I don't understand. I don't know if my problems are caused by not understanding a reasonable code through my lack or reason, or simply being who I am. There is no herd of pigs for my Legions, and I should probably stop asking for one.

Wednesday, July 19, 2006

Happiness

Happiness for me is a fool's errand. Even when I'm happiest, I'm still profoundly insane. What am I supposed to do with that? If a woman were to love me, I would still be schizophrenic. I will still slip.

Every day, I would wake up happy, look at her, and tell her how much I love her. I don't think that would ever change. What would change is the rest of me. She would have to wake up in the morning, deal with staring me in the face, and still want to be near me. The whole time, she would know that me today is better than me tomorrow. I'm getting worse; how many people do you know who could love me as I fall? How many can live with a man who is less himself every morning, and every evening changes for the worse?

Everything is going at a faster rate all the time. My thoughts betray me at every step: I can't reign them in any more. As the life trickles out of me in little droplets, my tomorrow becomes obviously harder than tonight. There is no time table for improvement. There's no certain end to my suffering. I just get to watch myself become less and less of who I was. I can't ask anyone to be in here with my pain: it's selfish. Another person's misery is not an acceptable loss to gain my own happiness. Nothing pains me more then this: I will be alone, and that's the best thing I can do for the people around me. Before you try to feed me a line about love or happiness, just ask yourself a few questions. Can you talk to me every day as a friend? Can you stand being close to me for more than an hour at a time? Would you answer a call from me at two in the morning, and be happy to speak with me? I know it's hard to even be my friend, so I also know that it would be impossible for someone to be more.

If someone says she loves me, I know better now than to believe her. "I love you" becomes "I know." "I know" becomes "you're just my friend." "you're just my friend" becomes "I'll call you next week." When next week comes, all the words in the world become silence. Silence becomes misery. Misery becomes a realization: I am alone. Friends are ephemeral; love is a lie.

Look at the comments on this blog. I've lost you all, haven't I? Don't comment right away just to be contrary. Think it through. Do you want me around, or do you just want to not feel like an insensitive, empty tundra? Every word counts.

Monday, July 17, 2006

Pointless

This is pointless. I drift from moment to moment, person to person, and ideal to ideal searching for peace, love, and understanding, but I find none of the three. As sure as the tides roll on the beaches of Void, I come to you as a monster: I'm ugly, melancholy, and sicker every day.

I have friends that write, and friends that speak. I love my letters, and I love my friends who know me through correspondence; you vastly outnumber the ones who actually speak with me. However, for reasons I don't understand, I yearn for good conversation and a friend who can actually look me in the eye and hear my voice. My pen flows in beautiful circles that link together to span the gap between bystander and madman. You can all read me, know me, and not flinch in this format; it's my best side.

When we talk, everything changes. The last time someone called me without implications in odd-shaped dice and a gaming table was over a month ago. I'm very alone and surely lonely. However, I don't blame you for not wanting to talk with me, or see my face. If I had a choice, I wouldn't contact me, either. I would hang Prester Bane out to dry, read as few badly orchestrated, pathetic poems as possible, and deal with me as indifferently as I possibly could without feeling insensitive. My phone is always on for friends, but it might as well be off with a voice mail message consisting of curse words and taking the Lord's name in vain. It's not like anyone hears the damn thing, anyway.

Don't worry, I won't do anything stupid, and this isn't a cry for help. I already know your reactions. This post is nothing I haven't said before, and nothing I won't reapeat again and again. This post is the situation as I see it; I'm left with no other choice of interpretations. This is ugly. This is boring. This is predictable. This is pathetic. This is pointless.

Friday, July 14, 2006

Someone New

For what seems like an eternity, from my hospital stay in 1998 until now, save those few months I dated Jaime, I intermittently wrote to a "Someone New." The faces changed, and I thought I changed with them. I was wrong. Even though the bulk of my work between 1998 and 2003 was dedicated to Christine, I always knew the pointless and vain nature of my writing. Christine wasn't a person, just as I am not a person. She's a lie I tell myself, and I'm the monster who believes it. I look around, and see a sea of people, with none willing to walk alongside me. Little notes with tiny verses dedicated to only moments were my hopes and prayers (That's back before Prester Bane shut down my ability and opportunity to pray). In the middle, for nearly six months, I wrote a large quantity of bad poetry to Jaime, and a few very good portions of what I thought would be my third long-form poem: "Princess Black and Yellow". That was beautiful poetry, but I burned and purged it all. I wasn't going to finish something so unwanted by everyone else but me. For the time since then, I've gone back to writing for a Someone New. Like before, the faces change, but I stay the same. Identities don't matter for these pipe dreams of mine. Everything is pain, but sometimes I'm distracted enough in the moment to not notice the sting. I still write to a someone, but it seems that a someone doesn't write to me.

THANK YOU SOMEONE NEW

Thank you someone new.
Thank you if you listen.
I put myself before you
Against my better judgment.

I string together words
To craft myself relief
From all my time alone;
I'm touched but never touching

The tremors in your belly,
The tremble on your hips.
I watch but never feel;
I soar and hope to fall

In love with all the virtues
I speak upon your eyes
The pupils are dilating.
I ramble, mumble, fade

Deep in the hazy distance
Across my blank expression.
"I love you" never works;
The words are long and slow.

Your eyes begin to shudder,
And taunt me with their blinds;
You'd recognize the face
If I were still the same.

Demosthenes the Modern
A Poet to myself
Be one with those before me
Ignored by those to come

But lately, things have changed.
I never would have guessed
That everything I've found
Is right here, right now,

And I might have a way
To leave it all behind:
Escape into the present
And hold you like I want to.

So make me into bread!
Put me down like a dog
And save me with a Luger
Or an arrow, or a blade

Just maybe take compassion
On this old lonely soul
With old wounds left injured
Whose spirit rages on

Into a pair of eyes
I hope belong to you
So I can write their verses
In silence like before.

When you were someone different,
And all I wrote was pointless,
I tried. For her, I tried.
For you, I know I've failed.

I see it in your eyes
Closed down against my tempest.
No part of me you want;
This poem goes one way.

Like everything I do,
These words I string together
Are old beyond their years
Unwanted, save to pity.

But I am not afraid
To lay down prosody,
To hold you in my heart
Like I still hold myself,

Until I'm toothless, and tongueless, and bare

Tuesday, July 11, 2006

Dreaded Pills

I'm up too late again. I dread my medication, but I have no choice.

Monday, July 10, 2006

Poems I Wish I Never Wrote - Vol. I

These are two poems I wrote for two different people. I'm proud of neither poem. They aren't badly crafted, for the most part, they just show the delusions I chose to live by for altogether too much time. The first one, which I wrote in Italian, shows how long I hold on to words and phrases I could never utter when they were relevant, and it shows the delusion that somehow if I made the perfect poem, the result would almost be the same as saying words before it was obviously too late. I'm not Ezra Pound, so I'll provide a translation. The second poem shows how stupid and gullible I am when I love someone. I write little lines stuck together with misplaced hope; in those lines I rush perfection when I should wait six months so the perfect vision of hindsight reveals how inevitably little my love means.


Poem #1

Per il bell tramonto

Per il bell tramonto
é caduto molti anni fa
Nel tutto mio pensiero
Cogli suoi capelli lunghi rossi
E cogli occhi blue
Adesso dormo forse sognare
Sulla tua bella faccia
Per la tutta sera
Quand il mio angelo leonesco
Andra nel tuo pensiero
Che odioso del mio
Occhio sinestro marrone
Ma io sono troppo timido
Per ti dico t'amo


For the beautiful Sunset

For the beautiful sunset
which fell many years ago
with your long red hair
and your blue eyes.
Now I sleep perchance to dream
on your beautiful face
for the whole evening
while my leonine angel
hates my left brown eye,
but I am too shy
to tell you I love you.



Poem #2

AFTERGLOW

Inside the afterglow
The near-forgotten themes
Enmesh upon my conscience
And grow within my heart.
With one step every day
I take time as it comes,
With new anticipation
Disjointed from my past.
So pave the road ahead
With these sweet words and kisses!
Come take my weary hand
And lead me through tonight.
With every step, I measure
My feet set down in verse.
Recorded in sweet nothings,
My lines become more terse
Where once I limped away,
I Accelerate.
Escaping in
Afterglow,
I’m free.
Run.

Sunday, July 09, 2006

Hemorrhage

I hurt. It's time for me to lean back, but no one solid will spot me. I create worlds, sympathy, symbols, and muses with my pen as the blueprint for understanding and recovery. Some of you find my word-children beautiful, and cherish their existence. More of you find me stilted and boring.

Writing comes easily to me, however, I cannot conquer, explore or master the social interactions most of you seem to handle so easily: I'm losing friends. When I try to discover what drives the rest of you, I find only more questions. Every day is a struggle, and I find less of you each day.

As my friends flow away from me like blood from a wound, the slow trickle of a trivial cut becomes a torrid hemorrhage behind my eyes. Tears mix with blood, and I cry into unconsciousness. I see you with red: the sunrise of pain.

I hear from few, mean little to more, and fall as I lean on the phantoms of my dreams. Prester Bane knows me; sometimes he's the only one who will listen. More often, he's the only one around when the rest of you ignore me. I lost friends, but I never lose my pain.

Friday, July 07, 2006

Why I Don't Publish

The cold, hard truth is that suicide dominates my thoughts, and I'd rather go quickly and disappear as if I never had a name. The same reason dominates the flow of entries on this blog. Sometimes anonymity can liberate me from the expectations of society in general. I don't want to wake up in the morning, and nobody reads this garbage anyway.

Tuesday, July 04, 2006

Unwilling to Swim

To get to me, you have to cross the sea of madness, and pass the lonely depths of my crowded solitude. Old forms, new forms, it doesn't make a difference. I am still here alone. As the hours of my isolation pack on top of each other, I lose track of everything. New thoughts are just as vulnerable as old ones. When I fall, I fall pretty damn hard. A long time ago, I told my best friend at the time that the reason I'm always there for my friends to lean on is because when it's my turn to lean, I can lean back hard. I don't know why I bothered. I'm alone again, and my problems are many, for our name is Legion. I've gone beyond wondering where the hell my herd of pigs is; there's no relenting. I don't suspect I'll hear anything from my friends; it's time for me to lean back. They all know how to reach me, but most are just simply unwilling to swim. My deep water could be an oil-slicked puddle in a parking lot: most still wouldn't wade in to help me.

Sunday, July 02, 2006

Farce

I fall fast. When you don't hear from me, odds are I'm not well. My quiet moments fill themselves with whatever's available. In the recent past, I looked for comfort in distractions and games instead of writing. Neither holds me for long. I can write up a frenzy, or roll pounds of dice; I still struggle with sleep and Prester Bane. I just leave myself with the certainty of future loneliness. I cover it well for those observing me: no one can stay with my profound melancholy and irritating nature. The rest is an act, a farce. If you don't believe me, talk with me every day. You won't last two weeks before you decide it's just not worth the effort. If I stay in Deep Water, locked in this cage we made for me, I can still pretend the farce is what keeps me here. We all know the monster doesn't have claws. He has words too compelling to ignore, and too intensely sad to claim with love. I stay inside my cage to fulfill a silent agreement: I won't bother you, and you won't talk to me.

Tranquilizers bring sleep. Sweet dreams.