Separation

It's autumn in the USA, and the year is evenly divisible by two. Elections are on everyone's mind. My effort in this blog is to reveal my poetry and my thoughts. I live just North of D.C. in Maryland, so I'm assaulted by politics every day of my life. For the most part, I'm perfectly willing to strike back with my own rhetoric. I haven't met a poet yet who even comes close to my side. It's frustrating, but that's life.

My main objection lies in separation. Lots of poets love to separate Trotsky from Stalin and Lenin. All three are in the same boat to me. I think the idea of Trotskyism as a clean form of Communism is a lie. I'm a poet and a dreamer, but I'm no one's fool. I write freely, and with only artistic constraints. I don't want a dictator, a theocracy, or an oligarchy telling me that I must write for them or not write at all. "If the Revolution has the right to destroy bridges and art monuments whenever necessary, it will stop still less from laying its hand on any tendency in art which, no matter how great its achievement in form, threatens to disintegrate the revolutionary environment or to arouse the internal forces of the Revolution, that is, the proletariat, the peasantry and the intelligentsia, to a hostile opposition to one another. Our standard is, clearly, political, imperative and intolerant." That's Trotsky for you. I wish liberal poets at large would hold Communism to the same standards as Nazism. They would scoff at anyone who would seek to separate Ernst Roehm from his Nazi buddies. I like a system where I'm allowed to write what I want, and others are free to tell me what they think about my words in public.

I saw a young man at the airport wearing a hat with a hammer and sickle on it, and a shirt with some leftist attempt at wit. I was upset, but my father was furious. I guided his shoulders and mine away and intellectually reminded us both that we're supposed to turn the other cheek. He can wear whatever hat he wants to wear, but I think we should hold him to his choice. We should all be upset with such conduct, just as we should all be upset with some jerk wearing a swastika hat and a shirt with some racist attempt at wit.


This photo says it all. The symbols of red farm implements and broken crosses speak the same words to me.

Check this guy out, I think he's pretty cool. He owns his words, and doesn't mince them. I like to imagine myself as a man in his corner. Andrew Jackson's not my man. I'm not in a political party, and I don't want to be handcuffed to any particular group of idiots with a philosophy that pretends to know how to better run my life than I do.

My family got out of the Europe business in 1776, and I'm happy about it: Don't call me a European American. I think an honest mistake is better than a dishonest victory. If you wait around for a threat to appear, you've waited too long: wolves don't politely warn shepherds before taking a lamb. The laws of war only apply to soldiers. I think people should own their own statements, and not hide behind alcohol. Don't get lecture me on honor if you're an adulterer; if you break those vows, you don't have any honor left. You've got to start from scratch. Deion Sanders and Alexander Hamilton are good examples for a start. Jimmy Swaggart and Gary Hart are not.

Give me freedom to write and freedom to drive where I want. The state of Maryland denies me the latter. I want Christ in my life as I see him. I want transubstantiation and adult baptism by immersion. Give me public confession and the freedom to teeter between faith and works. I don't have a problem with saying "under God," but I respect people that genuinely do. I don't think we should outlaw flag-burning; it's a good way to figure out who's an ungrateful piece of garbage and who's not. I have an enormous personal problem with people who burn our Flag, and their supporters: art should be free, and so should art's critics. A ballistic missile program is an aerospace program is a ballistic missile program; those secrets are worth more than any campaign donation. Don't pardon your buddies because they lied for you. If a football player and his posse step into an alley to confront another group, and someone from that group winds up dead, stabbed to death by the posse, the football player and his posse are all murderers. Scale is important, especially when you're dealing with blood; therefore I'm more upset with Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and Tojo than the Baltimore Ravens.

Separation is the subject at hand. We can't separate liars, traitors, adulterers, murderers, and all other assorted scum from the ideas they create and spread. That includes me, the previous paragraph, and my pride. I own my poems, and I hold everyone to that standard. I'll bend, break, and throw myself aside for Christ, but everyone else save Enoch and Elijah gets to struggle with me.

The credit for the awesome t-shirt shot goes to http://www.mondophoto.net/south-east-asia/singapore/singapore09.html

Pull and Blood

The pull is strong tonight. Every breath shows fangs. Every doorknob, key, cell phone, and clump of pillow I clutch in my long, sharp claws. I want to walk into the night, like I did before. Not only do I want to walk, I can't close my eyes. Anything longer than a blink accelerates me into a hunt for people in my life. Stalking, hunting, prowling after you comes in waves shunted only by my open eyelids and a split second when I'm covered in blood.

Again

I'm up late again with problems. I don't want a tranq to fix it, either; I want a cure. I don't want to sleep perchance to dream and wake up in a pool of sweat throwing punches at phantoms just to erase my nightmares. Sleep makes time go by. It's not pleasant, but I don't remember anything from it. Deep slumber doesn't make my life less painful, it just makes my memories of each day smaller.

I forgot to take my meds on Saturday night until around this time Sunday morning. I barely made my way to Church, and almost fell over twice during services. I was so out of it, I think I missed the body of Christ in the Eucharist. During Sunday school (which doesn't stop at adulthood for Baptists), I was a zombie for almost all the class. I only snapped out of it long enough to argue that God's creation is imperfect, and that our existence is his primary mistake.

Global warming, acid rain, many mass extinctions, deforestation, pollution and a large bit of erosion are results of our activities that put the entire balance of his creation in jeopardy. All of that is a direct result of Noah's covenant with God. The Lord promised not to strike again with a flood, but we've done some awful things to Creation on our own, and perfectly fit them in Noah's covenant. When we exercise our free will, we don't just aggravate social ills that many see as Religion's purpose to cure, we do physical, and I fear irreversible harm to the very core of Creation.

Women

I write this post to explain a specific few things to a specific few people, but it's good info for anyone wanting to understand me. Aside from temporary shines and fancies, I've only ever wanted to be with two women: Christine and Jaime. It's rare for me to fall. If you're not one of those two women, odds are I never even thought of you. I probably would feel more love if I weren't so familiar with my monstrosity, and the certainty of all results stemming from that monstrosity. My life and my psyche revolve around my psychosis, my medication, and very little else. I have a small cadre of friends and family; they are very dear to me. I don't fall for strangers, either. I only have eight people on my myspace friend list for a reason. If you're a recently deleted friend off myspace, it's because you've angred or saddened one of my true friends, and I don't want anything to do with you. That should take care of the specifics.

Old Poems Once Treasured, Now Trash

I wrote too much on one person. She was important, but not as important as the time I spent writing her. Like everything else in my writing, she became something completely different than reality. I thought I'd ended that style late in 2003. I thought my writing graduated from its infancy. I was wrong. This is her:

ODE TO A RISING SUN

My days are spent deceiving
A love I couldn't be
A brightness that revealed
The light I cannot see

I knew that you were watching
Your eyes were wan with tears
A path to you was open
But blocked by petty fears

Regretting all that's given
With eyes not made to hate
A starboard wreckage plundered
A leap that came too late

In flying towards the answer,
The answer's turned away
I wrestled with my devils
And lost you in the fray

To love, to love my monster
While raging at the night
I wrestle with the wicked
Who struggle with the light

My nature has betrayed me
I howl at the moon
In high school, when I knew you
I dreaded every June

When waiting for September,
The summer Sun was grey
I cried July and August
To drown my days away

I know I knew I nothing
In wanting not but you
Whose soulful eyes avoided
The wickedness I knew

I smell my thoughts inside me
The residents in mind
The logic of the mad
The visions of the blind

I rage without protection
From time I let slip past
My anger buys me nothing
But memories at last

With tears of mercury
Reflecting on myfire
Of cinnabar and roses
Immortal in the mire

I thought I had more time
To deal with my madness
I see you with my visions
Through all my hate and sadness

With my own pen I scribble
The truth that I avoided
Our time was swept away
My cowardice destroyed it

I raged within my tempest
My eyes, I drowned in dew
I sat alone withdrawn
Away from what is true

I tried to pen a line
To dawning over lea
The way I wish I acted
And what I want to be

In iambs I have wandered
In rhymes I took a drink
Of time that I have squandered
Not knowing what you think

I wanted to approach
And rend my eyes to view
I lost my soul to fighting
And found it next to you

I want to know I loved you
But now I'm not so sure
I've squandered all my thinking
And thrown away the cure

I thought if I retained
The sorrow of our parting
I'd never be without
The madness that was starting

With thoughts that I could reach you
With thougths that we could fly
But reason in my wingtips
Absconded to the sky

In shame I had to crawl
Inside my own debris
A leap across the water
A drowning in the sea

The thoughts of light persisted
Unbreaking solar form
So blinding was your virtue
Unchanging in the storm

My view to you was fading
Inside my cage of pride
I stared into the ocean
And turned away the tide

I loved you in the morning
When I could see the dawn
I wished to crack the bars
Instead I sat withdrawn

I loved you in the evening
But strength was on the wane
I wandered in the grasses
While lost inside my pain

The bonds were cracked with feeling
I shed them with my blood
In taking up my armor
I swam into the flood

I caught you by the shoulder
Your face was bathed in light
The time was ripe for movement
And soon there would be night

I gathered up my anger
And set away my pride
I sat by you intently
And waited for the tide

I saw the new wind coming
And blowing towards the west
I knew that you'd be leaving
And never would I rest...

Goodbye my love forever



Bare sentiment can't hide my flaws as a writer and a person. Over a hundred lines of drivel, and all anyone can find out is that I can't write. What I thought was special was common. What I thought was exalting was simply pedestrian, and chiefly useless. I turned her into the object of two modestly sized epic poems: one I named The Amber Eye (go figure), the other I named Stitches. Stitches works, but it's a later work. I know my feelings are garbage now in Stitches. I've adjusted it similarly. I can't quite pull the trigger on a purge of my first epic: it has some gems in there. I fear my feelings will be largely garbage no matter who is the apple of my eye. My love inspires lies about the quality of my work, and the qualities of requitement. The pursuit of happiness for me seems to end up with me alone, typing cantos, correspondence, and this blog to an audience that will eventually see my flaws, and only my flaws. I know people get sick of me quickly, but I still have virtues. I'm faithful, kind, honest, and truthful. Truth is above all virtues to me. I'm also persistent and patient: I keep writing this type of post and this type of poem. All the posts are the same, and so are all the poems. All words from my pen only differ in proximity and scale. Only two questions remain. Who will spark my heart next? How long after the certain end will I hold on?

So I took another look at the fight

Toney over Peter 114-113. I don't know what fight the two judges with 116-111 saw, but it wasn't this one. I looked hard at the twelfth round especially; it was a critical round. I counted punches, and examined the match; Peter did not win that fight. However, that should be moot. Toney took too many punches: way more than I've ever seen him take. He's a lion and a fighter, but he's spent too much time in the ring. I love James "Lights Out" Toney, but I can't watch him fight any more. I prefer to remember him at his best during the Jirov fight. He's the last of the truly great boxers.

In many ways, the Holyfield-Toney fight was the last clash of skilled heavyweights. I also think it's fitting that James Toney won that fight. The rest of the new heavyweights rely on weight to carry their huge frames over smaller fighters. Something's wrong with any weight class system that allows for fifty pounds of difference between legitimate competitors. I'm quickly becoming a fan of boxing outside of the heavyweight division. It's not even the fighters' fault most of the time: it's just damn hard to beat someone fifty pounds heavier in pure fisticuffs.

MMA is a little different: small guys can submit huge guys given appropriate circumstances. However, now that Pride gives out penalties for grappling for a stalemate, and the UFC is breaking stalemate grappling by standing the fighters up, the big men turn over more and more wins over smaller opposition, just like the huge boxers. Vitali Klitchko, Lennox Lewis, and Tim Sylvia always had more brawn than skill. Even a novice fan can see that. After about 205 lbs, sport fighting is fast becoming a yardstick and a scale more than a competition of courage, strength, and skill.

Stitches

"Stitches" is back in revision. I don't know why I feel I must make it shine. I polish and polish again; every revision makes it prettier. The last time I messed with it, I created a fourth and fifth character to help populate the book. Now, I polish what they say, and I fix a section that's irritated me for years. "Stitches" was halfway written in a single sitting; that was over six years ago. The story and theme stay with me through all artistic ebb and flow in my thoughts. Something about the black tower calls me back, just like it called back Stitches. I need to forget the struggles of the patchwork Stitches for another project. I like the appeal of The Philosophy of the Monster. I strain to express myself, no matter how unsuccessful effort after effort proves to be.

Play Golf Without A Driver

Play golf without a driver;
Just try it and you'll see.
The virtues of the iron
My Uncle taught to me.

A ball played off the fairway
Is better than the water.
A straight ball gives much more
Than ten more yards can offer.

Don't get me wrong, he owns one
And curses at the thing.
Don't play if it's not fun,
Or overthink your swing.

So next time when you hook one
With a driver in yourhand,
Remember straight beats distance,
And try to miss the sand.

My Uncle is straightforward:
He uses friendly tools.
A lower score is better;
The rest is for the fools.

Book Shopping

I just went book shopping with my cousins here in Bellingham, Washington. We had a good ole time at a nearby used book store. Sixty dollars later, we had quite a few books for one of my cousins, a few nonfiction books with lots of pictures for a younger cousin, and some Aristotle for the last cousin. If you want to succeed at an essay test, know a bit of the subject matter at hand and a lot of Aristotle; you'll be all set to write well in a pleasing, academic style. Aristotle is demonstrably wrong about many of his conclusions, but his approach to making those conclusions is still potent and worth studying.

Gone to Washington State

I'm off visiting my Uncle Bubba in Washington State for a week.

Barbeque Bigot

Some people like to call me a bigot. I've even heard it from a few people I call friends. I contend that the only bigotry in my psyche is over barbeque. I like Texas style. Grilling and charcoal don't count. I like my grilled meats, but I love my Barbeque. Texas style barbeque is beef brisket, beef sausage, and pork ribs in that order of importance. The key to Texas barbeque is the smoke. In Texas, when you want some barbeque, you go to the local barbeque joint where it's served on butcher paper with white bread or crackers. Some of the joints have sides and some don't. Basically, you take inedibly tough meat like brisket or shoulder, or maybe some meat that's questionably old, and you smoke it for twelve hours or so. What's left at the end is Texas barbeque. Some people like sauce, and some people don't. Personally, I prefer to not rely on sauce; it's more challenging to cook meat without it. If the barbeque isn't very good, pass me the sauce!

A quick note on sauce: I'll eat it if I like it. Vinegar, tomato, sweet, I don't really care what it is, so long as it's good. Kraft counts as good sometimes. It's better than most other brands; I add extra heat. Barbeque isn't about sauce, it's about meat.

If Texas style barbeque sounds like a meat market more than a restaurant, that's because it is. Restaurants serve steaks. Barbecue joints serve brisket. Up here in Maryland, you can't get good barbeque. It's all grilling, saucing, faux 'que. It's ok, I guess, but I tend to smother it with sauce. Some restaurants serve real smoked meat in the beginning, but by the time the restaurant catches on, they start cooking it in higher heat for faster preparation. They'll insist that the meat is smoked, and maybe it is. However, they don't tell you that it's smoked in an hour or less. Now, I just get fried fish and brunswick stew. I like fish. I like brunswick stew. It's not barbeque, but at least it's better than white ribs cooked too damn quick. I've even come to the point where I rate the restaurants around here on their brunswick stew. I still long for butcher paper and good, slow brisket.

Maryland has an interesting custom for eating crabs. They're served on butcher paper and in crates, and eaten with fingers and wooden mallets. I respect the crab; it's a lot like home. Unfortunately, they won't take the same care with the beef, and I'm not a big fan of crab.

For now, I get whatever is around. If I resign myself to catfish and brunswick stew, I don't get too upset with what they serve me. I need to go back to Austin sometime, if only for the meat.

Writing More

I'm trying to write more. That includes correspondance and this blog. Raising one's daily word count is good for all developing writers. For a while, I put everything on what I call the Keats scale. It took him ten years to develop as a poet: that's the fastest I know for any major English poet. I'm hopelessly behind right now, but I have ambitions to close the gap between myself and the Keats Scale. The only way to pursue those ambitions is to simply write more, and write more vigorously.

I'm going to see a singer and songwriter I met last week sing later on today. Check her out at www.karenscuderi.com; her songs are great, and her voice fits her songs nicely. I've always envied singers; I can't carry a tune in a bucket, but that's another story for another day. Expect more out of this blog, and be sure I'm writing more aside from it, too.

200th Post

Why do I repeat myself? I can everything. Most of my remarks and my speech are pre-prepared to meet future occasions. Believe it or not, I would repeat myself even more if I didn't try to mix it up beforehand. I don't have the memory that I used to; my disease and my medications changed all that. I find myself in similar situations all the time, so my anecdotes become circular. I don't like the way my mind works anymore; I do my best to replicate what I was before, but I just keep failing miserably. I tried being more spontaneous, but all that ends up doing for me is guaranteeing silence out of my voice, and even less socialization than I manage now. If I can't speak, the choir just sings louder, and Prester Bane finds more opportunities to instruct me. Needless to say, I don't want that.

So I'm left with very few options. The most genuine would be to remain quiet, but that leaves me with no companionship aside from the Choir and Prester Bane. The other major option is to manufacture statements ahead of time and practice them. It's hard to be a Monster full-time, so I often resort to the canned, smiling jackass familiar to the few of you who know me outside the written word. Don't feed me a line of bull about how much you genuinely like me. Everyone who knows the Monster prefers the jackass; that's the truth.

There's nothing I want more than to establish myself in the written word. It gives me the time and the opportunity to say things as I wish them to be said. I wish I could touch people with this blog and my poems, but I know that option is closed. I type to a brick wall. My options are the Monster and the smiling, loudmouthed jackass; there is no third.

Done

Take Honesty away
And put it with good taste.
The end is the beginning
And nothing ever changes.

Does it?

Too many smiles for you
Never answered in truth.
Can't you see me struggle
With open arms and closed eyes

To shout?

Every moment was yours!
Every whisper of you,
Every line screamed my love!
Every rhyme was a promise!

I lost

To Time. Bad fortune swept
Too quickly over levees
I made out of doubt.
I thought that I was safe.

I wasn't.

So now as I return,
Those doubting levees stress
Beneath the weight of Hope
I never want to lose.

So what?

I grapple with decisions
As days, they pass me by.
But this . . . this moment means
That I have changed somehow

With time.

I saw that I don't want
Your sparkle in my sight.
My new hope isn't yours
I finally decided

I'm done.

Let Hope spring from the ground
In someone I just met:
Someone else to shine
The Apple of My Eye

Today.

The Beast From The East or The Siberian Paper Tiger?

In a little more than a month, we'll get to see Nicolay Valuev fight on American television for the first time. All we have to go by right now is his impressive record of 44 wins, no losses, but only 32 knockouts. How a seven foot tall, three hundred twenty-five pound fighter can't end all his fights with anything less than a medical emergency is beyond me. This guy is massive muscles and not much else. For example, the smaller fighter below, John Ruiz, weighs 240 pounds.


Some fighters just can't punch. The same 240 pound fighter above was knocked out in 19 seconds by David Tua. Valuev managed to prod and lean on Ruiz for a hometown, majority decision. For now, I'll lean towards Paper Tiger; he has to show me something on October 7 if he wants more esteem.

EDIT

I apologize for misrepresenting John Ruiz's record; he's only been stopped once, and never fought Michael Moorer. I've deleted the erroneous comments.

Church

I've gone to Church for a few weeks. I don't fit in well there, but it's closer than most other places. I started going to a small group meeting Friday nights, but I attended the past two Sundays' services. I even got the Eucharist. The Church I attend allows each individual believer to decide the meaning of both forms; I'm a Transubstantiation guy. So far, the small group puts up with me. A few months observing my monstrosity is usually enough for anyone, so we'll see how long the good will lasts. I leave a good first impression on most people, but when I let them into the deep waters of my life for an extended period of time, everyone drowns. I will cling and struggle to hold on, but I will eventually wind up alone at the bottom of my watery lair. That might not sound fair to those that know me, but there's enough evidence to support the Philosophy of The Monster in this blog alone. Count the words between flurries of responses. Count the friends that no longer speak to me. Think of our last communication; no one lasts six months. Don't give me garbage about a self-fulfilling prophecy; the truth is undeniable. The facts speak for themselves, just like this silence. I'm not alone in torture, but I'm alone in mine.

Bazooka

Quartey won that fight. I'm beside myself. I hate it when judges steal a fight, especially when it looks like favoritism for the American fighter. This isn't Germany; I hope we stop with the bogus decisions. We don't need a Sven Otthke in the U.S.A. Sure, Vernon Forrest threw a lot of punches, but he didn't land hardly any. I'm disgusted. Tonight, Ghana should celebrate, and we should hang our heads.

Prowling With The Monster

I'm prowling with The Monster
To make my large sounds small.
With footsteps barely heard,
No prey can know our presence.
Every Midnight shocks me
Although each night's the same.
I own my poet's toolbox;
My letters form old stories.
But verses, oh, my verses,
They love the Monster's tale
As flies surround each stanza
To ponder on my motives.
I can't give up an answer,
But answers often dodge
The questions that come easy:
Like "How?" and "why?" and "when?"
Rough estimates for each
Arrive while we escape.
I bludgeon out the poems:
Each line is hammered fingers;
The Monster shows me how.
My words crave years to heal,
But pain arrives each day;
The Monster shows me why.
So chances are, we're prowling
With answers in our knives;
The Monster shows me when.
A midnight in disguise
Hides prowlers in the sounds
Made sweet though plainly sour
With hope that's plainly false
For ears quite plainly deaf
By me, quite plainly mute.
A Monster no one knows
Stays in pursuit of silence.

Pricing A Soul

I don't venture into politics much on this blog, but I do speak on Religion quite often. Until a few minutes ago, I was watching "Quite Frankly," a show on ESPN2. It came on after boxing, so I gave it a shot to gain my viewership. On the show were four analysts, and the host, Stephen A. Smith; Two of the analysts called black atheletes slaves because they work for largely white owners and coaches. When one of the analysts on "Quite Frankly" started throwing around the scriptures, I turned off the TV.

It would be nice to see more equity in sports management. However, the way I look at the situation is quite simple: anyone can take or redistribute all the money in the world, but the price is your soul. From card sharks, bookies, insider traders, confidence men, legislators for sale, sycophants in corporate America, all the way to professional atheletes who must conform to a coach's plan and say the right thing to the media. Even so-called socially conscious artists that gain fame are usually in it for a buck or a good review, and will do most anything to get either. Everyone is beholden to someone with different values, and we're all beholden to God. No man can serve God and Mammon (Matt 6:24). That's everyone: black, white, sane, schizophrenic, rock star in a "commie" hat, rapper with a mission, me, everyone. Someone could have made my point later in the discussion on "Quite Frankly," but I didn't give any of them a chance.

Texan Bards and Cosmopolitan Reviewers

I wrote the following poem a little over a year ago while I was in Austin for the Austin International Poetry Festival. I was in the car on the way to a poetry reading, and decided to break my silence on politics after hearing on the previous day a poem written describing one man's jubilation over the deaths in the Pentagon during the 9/11 attacks. The audience gave the poet a standing ovation. So for my part, I decided to insult an entire room of so-called poets, many of whom were at the previous day's reading celebrating the terrorists' successes. I gave no preface for my poem and just started with the title. I don't think they listened past that point; the bastards in the audience didn't even have the sense to boo me. My friend Nii Parkes had a good laugh; he understood my intentions. The audience full of vacant stares and even more vacant thoughts thoroughly disappointed me when I got a standing ovation.

I got the title for this post from Lord Byron; read and enjoy.

An Ode to Stupid Americans

Americans are stupid,
But not the ones you think.
The Stupid American isn't familiar
With barbed wire and trenches,
The beaches of Anzio,
Or even the Sunken Road and Pittsburgh Landing.

Americans are stupid on suffering.
We don't like to bleed,
Especially here.
We consider it so inappropriate
That even your great granddaddy
Didn't fight here.

Americans are unsafe elsewhere
Because we defend America elsewhere.
No American wants to be dead
Outside his own house,
But much of the world
Would love nothing better than
An American notch on every AK-47.

Stupid Americans are the ingrates:
Those who don't know danger,
Are unwilling to bleed,
And hate those that bleed for them.
They remain blissfully, willingly
Ignorant of elsewhere.

Burn

I had a poetry professor in college who wanted to join Randall Jarrell's class when she was sixteen. She went to his house bearing a cake box full of poems, all of her poems. The great man read many of them, and agreed to let my professor into his class, but on one condition: she burns all her poems in that cake box right away. My professor burned those poems, and never looked back. Nothing beats a purge to get rid of poems that don't deserve further attention. I took Randall Jarrell's advice to my teacher to heart. I purged and burned everything but one copy from my youth. It was liberating, and let me move on from so many bad little learning lessons. Sometimes extreme results demand extreme measures. (EDIT: I purged the poems of my youth over five years ago, so don't worry about anything recent or anything of quality being lost.)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Dreaded Pills

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I got this E-Card on Red Stripe's website. I'm not a big advocate of alcohol consumption, but I love those Red Stripe beer ads on TV.

When I was a little kid, I tripped over a door frame and fell on a brick mouth-first. I curbstomped myself. My gums got infected and they needed to do a root canal; I was allergic to novocaine. The pain from that root canal started my own extreme tolerance for pain. My Dad held my hand, and I didn't cry, not even one tear. It hurt like hell; now I compare all pain to that experience. Every act of violence or hurt against me since then hurt from shifts in power. I couldn't care less about the pain: it's always been about the power.

I'm not up early, I'm up late

Sleep evades me again. It's too late to try a tranq. Orlando, Tracey, Patmos, and Tonya: I felt ok most of Saturday and all of today, but things turn in seconds sometimes; I haven't forgotten you. Sometimes this affliction can consume everything I try to put into my life. I'll read; that's a promise.

Roll With Ten

Usually, I take ten pills per night: three sets of antipsyhcotics, a big set of prozac, and another pill, the same one they use to treat parkinson's disease, to fight the side effects of the antipsychotics. I hate them all. I also have a prescription for tranquilizers to help me sleep. The pills wear me down. I want to stop, but I know that can never happen. Every day, I lose little bits of myself to the disease and to the treatments. Medication isn't the answer, but it's the only weapon I have.

I roll into the battlefields of midnight with ten bullets. I use them against the forces that block my slumber. Sleep is why I fight. I put holes in the shadow lancers, and use the sounds of the struggle to reckon with the choir. As the shadows drop, and the choir fades in and out of consciousness, I make my move to sleep. I don't remember my dreams; that's a victory. Sometimes I wake up screaming, but I never remember why.

Often, the terrors of my waking hours stalk me. My usual escape is sleep. Tonight, I need more bullets; I roll with twelve.

Thunder

The judges robbed Winky Wright again. He landed more jabs, landed more power punches, with better defense. That fight was not a draw. I know a draw when I see one. I'm beside myself.

I know this post is the first one in a while for my blog: this week was rough for me. The visions are back in a new form: lancers riding in shadows. Their throats are silent, but the hooves of their horses thunder. Maybe I'll feel better in the morning, assuming the lancers let me sleep.

Verses From a Long Time Ago

John Hancock or lack thereof
September 17, 2002
revised
June 13, 2006

INSIDE THE CAGE WE MADE FOR ME
or
the 800th poem about how depressed and misunderstood I am.

I live inside a cage
Where sometimes I'm a jester
But mostly I'm a freak:
A part set off alone

Against the passing clatter
Of unattended giggles
Left cold and unexplained
When none of you quite trust me,

I open up myself.
I lay myself in words
Directly and with zeal;
I'm jealous of success.

Secured in my habit,
Still wretched in self-pity,
I open up again,
And all I find are bowels

I spread across the floor.
I tried to make more sense
Of truth in my position;
I'm unprepared as always.

You hear, but never listen,
And still refuse to read me.
It's easy to be blind,
To rule with lady justice.

Her cold and crooked scale,
That now ignores the past,
And then ignored the future
Weighs whispers against pain.

I've been in here before
With people once called "friends."
I just defend my honor.
Please tell me what is wrong!

I'm not allowed to face
The people that accuse me
Before an honest jury.
It's easier this way.

Assume my lack of sense.
Assume I will explode.
Assume my lurking fury
Will break my self-restraint.

I tried to write for you
Then tell you what I am,
But none of you would listen
Past "Shit" and "Bitch" and "Legion."

You don't want me inspired.
You don't want me at peace.
I'll stay inside this cage
And entertain forever:

No mate inside my bars,
A jester and a freak
No Act of Faith awaits me.
I'm pitied, cursed at, blamed.

If prison makes you safe
In truth made from your fiction,
I'll keep my pen well-fed,
And publish from the inside.

I'll keep the pretty verses
I write for your critique.
I wish for only candor
In everything you say.

I'll give you what you want:
I'll walk off with myself,
Shut out and then shut up,
deliberate and graceful.

You all deserve that much,
And I will give it freely.
Avoid the Act Of Faith:
Don't burn me like the rest

Or pack me in cold towels.
Ice is for bruises,
Sedation for sleep,
Never are they Justice.

I choose the basest ending:
A grand goodbye with smiles.
Most of you feign friendship,
But bid me leave with silence.

True Beauty

I wrote "Heartstrings" and "Gravelman" about Robert Johnson. That's a different story for a different day. Today, I write about true beauty.

I write a lot about it; I don't think our society has a positive take on beauty. We have iron rules of shape and color that leave too many women feeling inadequate and repulsive. Personally, pin up girls like Britney Spears and Playboy bunnies look ordinary and predictable to me: of course, men are supposed to like perky blondes with trim bodies. Those men have common and ordinary opinions. When does individuality become important? What distingishes an individual as beautiful above all others? Beauty, to me, is not in looking the same as other women, but in looking different from the normal, the common, and the obvious.

Phantoms behind irises engage me most. Have you ever seen someone recognize you from across a crowded room? I watch eyes; those recognizing glances are some of the few things that don't change in my memories. That look, that depth is what inspires me. True beauty, to me, is the part of a woman that loves me back. I doubt I've ever seen true beauty. I imagine true beauty in my quiet moments, in my dreams and in my nightmares. The perception of love decieves me most. I write reams, boxes, and cantos to those deceptive perceptions. Pusruit of that deception, even if only for a short time, keeps me looking for, and keeps me believing in the underlying importance of individuals.

Heartstrings

Barefoot on asphalt,
Another rainy night,
An empty cup, a fitting song,
I played for passers-by.

"It's midnight at the crossroads,
A six string by my side.
Come listen to the heartstrings
I play to ease my mind."

I wanted better songs.
I wanted better strings.
I begged and I received
A lesson from the master.

She came, and tapped my shoulder.
Three times she tapped. I stopped.
I gave her the guitar
And then, she gave to me

The heartstrings of the world
My fretboard strained to carry,
Put magic in my voice,
And fever in my fingers.

I couldn't keep it all
The tunes were way too much.
I played what I remembered
To more and more applause.

I got The fame and money
So fast, I thought it endless,
But one song's not enough
To keep applause forever.

And then I played for whisky.
My stage was three AM,
Where ugly women danced
For men with too much money.

In strip clubs and arenas
I saw the same blank faces;
Where once they came to listen
They come capture hope

With music of their youth,
But they won't find that here.
They'll only find their past
Reflecting on their future.

With a little less glamor
And a lot less cash,
They try to find the love
That music gave so freely.

They'll only find the harlot
Who taught me how to play.
I helped her raise the prices
and made the bounty less.

I'm now a little wiser.
I'd like to play for whisky;
It's cold, my jar is empty,
No money left for shine

I still play all the songs,
But no one likes the hits
They've heard a thousand times.
They all want something new.

I give them what they want:
A song they haven't heard,
The music of my youth
That sometimes pays for liquor

"It's midnight at the crossroads
A six string by my side
Come listen to the heartstrings
I play to ease my mind."

Gravelman

scattered like gravel
emotions, words, esteem
meaningless alone
trod upon in whole
little bits of me
taken, broken, ignored
impossible to gather
or capture in my eye
with outstretched arms
i wait . . .
She’s never here
i’m standing at the crossroads
scattered in the gravel.

Distractions

Today was horrible, but I placated myself with distractions. Warhammer continues to be a good outlet for me. I glue. I paint. I play.

Promises

I promise too much. I guess I'm gullible to dispensers of kind words. When people pretend to care just long enough to hear about my struggle, I assume too much of them. To start out with, it's all kind words and curiosity. I'm so eager to make new friends, that I lose sight of the realities of my situation: I'm not getting better, and nobody gives a shit.

Once you've heard the grim details, you do what everyone does: you avoid me. I understand how difficult it must be to know me well. I'm a nice guy most of the time, and it's hard to say to me exactly how you feel. Once you satisfy your curiosity about me, how many of you follow up with a phone call or an email? Emails trickle in on occasion, but those slow to a halt after a short time. Phone calls are rarities. My struggle changes for no man, and if you've heard it once, you've heard it a thousand times. Who wants to hear a mantra from Prester Bane's mouth? Who wants to read a poem that revisits the same trials over and over again? Most importantly, who would stand with me against the weight on my shoulders?

I'm an easy person to read, but I'm not an easy person to know in the flesh. It's got to feel terrible to tell me exactly how you feel. I can see it in your eyes. The relentless assault is too much for me to bear alone, and you're not a fool for wanting to stay away. When every day's torment is the same as the next's, the truth comes out in your eyes, and says one thing no one wants to admit:

"I'm not your friend; I just don't want to feel like an asshole."

Car Accident

I just found out that my eight-mile-away friend was in a car wreck; she's out of the hospital now, so I can't drive there myself. I might go visit her later if I can bum a ride off my parents or someone else. I wish her a speedy recovery.

Daily

Every damn day, they hound me. They turn around in seconds; no moment is safe. There's no crime or cosmic injustice behind them; they simply are. I can't explain them to you. They sing only for me. I try to capture them in words and verses, but their patterns remain puzzles to everyone else. From Legion to lycanthropy to teenage angst to psychiatric diagnosis, they remain the same. Your reactions changed, but your understanding hasn't. Some of the burn is out of the Auto Da Fe, but that's why we have suicide by cop. Authority must engage us at some point, most of the trouble is in deciding where. I'm bitter about my driver's license, but it's better than inhaling smoke to avoid the worst horrors of an Act Of Faith. Some days are better than others, but every night leaves me more confused: how much of them is in me? How much of me is gone? Those are two questions that don't deserve answers, but I know I change. Sometimes, all I can hear is the laughter of the people I've loved, stronger every day in my ear, but not in the air.

No Wheels

As many of you know, Maryland restricted my driver's license to a five mile radius. I can't go see my friend eight miles away in Germantown, MD, but she stays in touch. More distressing to me are the friends that live closer than five miles, but don't talk to me now that I don't have a set of wheels. Prester Bane calls me a chauffeur. He's usually right.

I wanted to go see my Brother come back from Cancun, but it doesn't look like I'll be able to. Two months ago, I could've driven him from the airport to his house, but that can't happen now. This state is run by a bunch of power-tripping thugs.

Jose Luis Castillo Disgraces Himself

I'm sure you are all sick to death of my boxing-related posts, but I like them. I see parallels between my struggle in life and a boxer's struggle in the ring. As long as I behave how a fighter is supposed to behave, I'll be ok. There's no shame in getting knocked out by the better man; Everyone loses, except Rocky Marciano. The shame is in quitting on the stool. You are my corner; you're not there to help me quit, you're there to help me fight. Fight, I shall.

I'm watching boxing right now. It's a good featherweight fight. Both fighters made weight, and are there to fight. Castillo, on the other hand, is a disgrace to the sport of boxing. He signed to fight Diego Corrales at 135 lbs., the lightweight limit. The lazy ass showed up at the scale at 140 for a 135 lb. World title fight, and this is not the first time. Last October, he didn't make weight, either: Corrales' titles weren't up for grabs because of his opponent's weight, and he was knocked out in four rounds by the blatantly overweight Castillo. I want Castillo's license suspended; he cheated every boxing fan, not just his opponent.

I signed for one weight class, and got another. I'm not going to quit on my stool, but my overweight opponent has a clear advantage. Still, I'm not here to quit, I'm here to fight. It's not fair, but there are other schizophrenics out there with even more inequity. I must behave how a fighter is supposed to behave: I must fight, no matter how unfair my life is. There's no shame in losing to a monster like schizophrenia, unless I quit.

Three Today and An Unknown Tomorrow

My memories caught up with me. I can evade them for a few days, at best. However, they always find me. Every moment I spend in dread of a thought, a vision, or a phantom voice is spent digging through my memories. They always follow.

I understand why you avoid me. I know why you don't call, and why you shuffle off messenger as soon as I come on. Knowing me is like knowing an asbestos blanket lined with lead. I can extinguish fires, but I lay heavy, and suffocate anyone stupid enough to get too close. This is the way I've always been.

Gaming helps, but it can't be everything to me. At some point, I want a life away from the pewter, plastic, paint, and odd-shaped dice. The trouble seems to me to be that life away from the games shop doesn't want me around. I can struggle with words to say things other ways, but in the end, I'm right, aren't I?

I'm sending out poems to literary magazines and other outlets. It seems like the thing to do: they will know me by my writing, and not by my voice. It should work out just greatly, just as long as they don't hear me speak.

I try to live happily, but they always find me. There's no where for me to hide: I have no refuge from myself in here. When I'm around people, things get better for me; as much as I feel better, I see the rest of you feeling frustrated, exhausted, tired, and short of breath. It's obvious.

Every night, I stare down a lethal dose. It's close now, and I feel the tug. Why do I stay? I stay because I promised a whole bunch of people, most of whom avoid me now, and my mom that I wouldn't go until time takes me. I keep my word.

Before I end this post, and take my medication, let me ask you a question: if you had two minutes to spare, a bottle of Jack Daniels, and a phone right in front of you, would you drink the whiskey or talk to me? It's ok to drink; if I were sane and had those options, I'd probably take the whiskey and be on my way, too.

Gaming

I love gaming. D&D, Warhammer, Warmachine, and a few others are my favorites. Most of my friends from gaming break the usual rules for knowing me. My gaming friends can hear my voice and not avoid me. I don't know if it's the competitive atmosphere, a prowess for the game, or just the kind of people that congregate at the friendly local gaming store (Other Realms). For reasons I don't understand, I fit in fairly well there. I like to get up there every day I can drive; it's within five miles of my house. Lately, those days have been few and far between. I want to go there tomorrow or Saturday, so I'll be eager for a good day. Gaming helps keep my sanity.

Revisit

My problems with weddings persist. On Saturday, my brother got married; I was his best man. We weren't five minutes into the ceremony before I saw the Many Armed Knight outside a church window. His robes crept into the sanctuary through the seams of the glass windows, the eyes of the Pastor, and out of my tuxedo's cuffs. I'm sure I flexed my left hand as I often do during a hallucination. My choir drowned out the ceremony, but oddly enough not the singers in the church, and sang only a single high note. I couldn't hear the preacher clearly, and much of the audience was covered in the long, black robes of the Many Armed Knight. Needless to say, it would be a disaster of a wedding if I showed obvious signs of distress, so I bottled everything up, and tried to keep up my end of my brother's matrimonies. The rings were tied together, and I had a hard time picking apart the knots; I kept missing the strings that I tried to grab. The ringbearer was a little kid, so I couldn't let him see my eyes: I didn't want to frighten him. The last thing an eight year old needs to see is the eyes of a madman; they rarely understand mine.

I'm too strange for most of you to understand. You might protest, citing my ability to write of my experiences, but how many of you that read, listen, and how many of you that listen, read? There are two types of people in my life: those who read me, and feel sympathy for reasons they don't understand completely, and those that have only listened to me, who avoid me for very good reasons. Mixing the two never works out quite right. If you don't believe me, just think of the last time you heard my voice. If your answer is never, you probably think I'm ok. If you've heard me within the past month, odds are that you probably avoid me on purpose. Don't think that I don't notice. There are a few exceptions, but most of them spend vastly more time reading me than talking with me.

It seems I revisit the same hallucinations every time I'm in or near a wedding. I burn over it; I'm not sure if it's the happiness evident in the bride and groom's eyes, the desperation of my own situation, or my psychosis tearing open a period of profound silence. Regardless of causation, I don't think I'm cut out for normal social interaction, especially weddings.

Self-Centered

Yeah, I'm arrogant. I walk a fine line between brazen arrogance and extreme humility. Writers and especially poets need to think their thoughts are somehow better than everyone else's; why should anyone read your poems if they don't express something both unique and important? This hubris must be accompanied by another: writers must suspect, even fear their work is garbage. Without this trepidation, we never see the flaws of our work; poets are especially vulnerable to bad writing because we're often considered above literary convention and rules. Personally, I believe poets should break any rule they wish, but should know that rule and have a reason to break it. The rules exist for good reasons.

On a very deep level, I fear my readers. I don't write this stuff for my own personal gratification; that would be pointless. I write for you. I must express myself to you, and I must do it well. Without readers, my writing becomes just another set of emporer's new clothes.

When I review other peoples' writing, I treat it with the severity I love to hear of my own work. If I don't like someone's writing, and I know they just want blanket praise without the intention to improve, I'll say something like "Nice Write" and leave them alone until they decide to be serious. Even if I do like something someone brings me to read, I'll often give cursory comments if the author doesn't want to hear anything but praise. If I give lots of comments, and nit-pick, it's because I like the writer enough to assist the learning process. Any reader is a good reader; I don't write my stuff for a rigidly limited audience. I want anyone and everyone to pick up one of my poems, read it, and like it. I don't exclude anyone from my desired reader pool. My ideal reader reads, thinks, and comments.

My poems are boring, long-winded, and over-stylized. I also have problems with browbeating my readers, preaching, repeating myself unneccessarily, and writing didactically: I have all of these issues with my voice and social interraction. People tend to have a higher tolerance for them in writing.

Talk to me! Negative comments are as welcome as positive ones.

Last Night is This Morning

Last night is this morning. I can't shake the voices. The Choir chants loudly in a language I do not understand. I went to a Church gathering on Friday night. It was ok, but I still felt out of place. Nowhere seems to fit right, at least to me. I'm still consumed by what could have been me instead of consuming myself in who I am. Every night I remember my glances at the summit. I was close, so close I could smell the moss gathering at the very tip of the very highest spire. I felt like I'd climbed Jacob's ladder, but I just felt the slip instead. I watched myself go from Demosthenes the Modern to a stuttering, fixated, obsessive, paranoid joke. My pen is the last option I have to explain myself. Furthermore, it is the only part of me worth explaining anymore. I cling to it; it's all I have left of who I was. I know it can't save my ideas, though. The pieces, be they poems, blog entries, or essays, always take on a life of their own. I meant for this entry to be about who I was before, but I've forgotten so much that I can only expose what I am now. I don't know why I think someone willing to share with me can make me better, even if I'm happier. Every impulse tells me that I am alone. We'll see.

Sleep

Sleep beckons like a long lost love. She cherishes your memory, if only in the fiction of your desires. There's nothing I want more, but she evades me. Perceptions change in slumber: all things are possible. As soon as I wake up, things are as they will be, regardless of my desires. The morning promises little except a few hours of a journey that never approaches the promises so sure in sleep.

Karyatid Nike

My karyatid angel
Now gone for quite some time
Still haunts the quiet moments
While stalking prayers and dreams.

For each day spent alone,
For all hours and seasons,
I miss a gentle touch.
I miss the warmth now cold.

The strength I thought she gave me
Is fiction, like the rest.
I hold my temple's roof
On very weary shoulders.

The fiction drives my questions:
Will there be another?
Can any pillar last?
Is weight like this attractive?

Suspicions outweigh hope.
I think my solitude
Reserves the weight for me.
No Karyatid Nike

Will help me,
Love me,
Wait.

Wednesday

I didn't write on Wednesday because I had a good day for the first time in a long time. I hoped today would follow suit, it hasn't. I slept a lot; yesterday's optimism helped. Still remembering yesterday's feel, I hope I can string together a good week; my brother gets married soon. I don't get much respite from the Choir and the rest. Today they've been on-and-off, not the constant din I've come to expect. I miss yesterday already. It's like a distant memory only several hours old.

Boxing Villains

I like boxing villains. My favorite heavyweight fighters are Larry Holmes and Jack Johnson. Both, I believe, are far better fighters than the public assumes.

Jack Johnson's history with villainy is storied. I love the way he fought; no matter how old he got, even sixty years old in his last fight, no one could lay a glove on him. My favorite part of Jack Johnson is his sheer defiance of a racist world that hated him, and most other Blacks. The whole world, despite raising a worldwide search for a white fighter to beat the Galveston Giant, threw every white boy fighter they could find at him for seven years. Jack Johnson beat them all. It took a huge Kansan fighter named Jess Willard to knock out the great Jack Johnson. Jack Johnson won the first twenty five rounds, but finally succumbed to fatigue in the twenty sixth. Another Black fighter wouldn't be allowed to fight for the Heavyweight crown until the Brown Bomber Joe Louis won the title won the belts twenty two years later.

Larry Holmes fought Gerry Cooney, a white Irish-American fighter with heavy hands and a smaller skill set than Larry Holmes. A still racist America largely supported Cooney. Larry Holmes beat Gerry Cooney, and nineteen other fighters in the greatest heavyweight championship reign since the aforementioned Joe Louis. The American public hated every minute of it. The boxing powers that be didn't like it either. Larry Holmes never lost to Michael Spinks in my observation. He beat that guy up for thirty rounds, and didn't get either decision. After his second loss, Larry Holmes callously said that Rocky Marciano couldn't carry his jock strap. That's not a fair statement taken out of context, and it made Larry Holmes an even more hated fighter. However, consider that the champ has just lost two obviously terrible decisions with no real purpose behind them than to deny the black Larry Holmes the white Maricano's 49-0 record. After the Cooney debacle, if I were Larry Holmes, I would hate American boxing fans, too. Personally, I think a prime Marciano versus a prime Larry Holmes would be an awesome fight; I think Holmes would win a close decision with his incredible jab, the best I've ever seen.

Larry Holmes became a villain largely because he knocked out Muhammad Ali. Muhammad Ali wasn't a villain, but he played one on TV. Jack Johnson was a Black heavyweight champion first. Joe Louis captured the imaginations of American fight fans of both races first. Come to think of it, he wasn't the first of anything except for the first guy to beat George Foreman. He also wasn't the last of anything. He wasn't the last Black champion to irk a racist American fight fandom in public. Larry Holmes upset white American fight fans when he fought Gerry Cooney long after Ali retired. I put Ali number two behind Jack Johnson on my greatest of all time heavyweight list largely on the opinions of others; I know when my judgment is clouded by emotions. However, Ali was never invincible. He had losses, a lot of them, in the prime of his career. He also received bogus decisions, an accommodation never given to Larry Holmes. I don't think Ali ever beat Ken Norton. He most certainly never did so decisively. Ali also lost to Joe Frazier, Leon Spinks, and Ken Norton. I think the reason I dislike Ali so intently is the image he fabricated for himself. He got away with saying horrible things to Joe Frazier, and draft-dodging because people were afraid to say anything against him, or were so enamored of his image that they'd follow it into defeat in the ring and worse. If a whole country loves you enough to give you decisions in fights you don't deserve, cheers for your every word, no matter how ridiculous, and unquestionable admiration after your last meaningful win in almost thirty years, you are not a villain. You're a popular fighter with too many fans.

If you don't believe me, post a comment on this blog explaining how much you loved Larry Holmes. Post a comment on how your great grandfather cheered for Jack Johnson in Reno against Jim Jeffries. Count those before you post a comment on how much you love Muhammad Ali.

Top Five

My top five most important people in history:

1) Christ: He changed the way people see religion worldwide. I'm a Christian, so he has special meaning to me, but he's important enough to be at the top for secular reasons.

2) Alexander the Great: He changed the world; without him there are no conquerors spreading ideas as well as tax collectors.

3) Aristotle: Alexander's tutor and the man who separated religion from academics. People still seek his wisdom on how to argue and how to think.

4) Muhammad: He changed religion again. He mixes Alexander and Christ in an intoxicating mix of promises, power, and prayers.

5) Charlemagne: His grandfather stopped Muhammad's followers from taking Europe, but he and his progeny were the glue that held Europe together against the Muslims from without, and the chaotic barbarians from within. Like it or not, Europe became the most important continent; none of Europe's success would hold without the secular and religious alliance of the Holy Roman Empire.

Honorable Mentions:

Napoleon
Shi Huang Di
Julius Caesar
George Washington
Martin Luther
Khufu
Rameses II
Moses
Ghengis Khan

There are more, but those are my top five; don't ask me to rate the others.

Lucid

I'm going to take a lucid moment today to thank all my supporters, especially the ones who comment on my blog. I feel great when people read the words I write, and find them compelling enough to reply. I've got great friends, and a great family. I want you to know that I appreciate you even in my darkest hours of doubt, psychosis, and depression. Much of my life is not worth living, but the hours I find that shine, only shine because you provide the illumination. Thank you for keeping things straight and clear, especially when I cannot.

Paranoia

I set out to write this entry about something with merit. Instead, all I can manage are thoughts centered around the friends and family who seem to be avoiding me. I keep telling myself that it's all in my head: they're fabrications from somewhere inside me.

I doubt as much as Thomas the Apostle. I need to see things to believe or disbelieve them. Please help me.

Haiku

I don't read, write, or speak Japanese. I think the idea of Haiku in English is quite silly; do Japanese people write poems imitating Shakespeare's sonnets? We have plenty of good poetic forms and guidelines native to the English language without trying to imitate the poetic modes of a people quite alien to ourselves. Could the same be said for my Petrarchan sonnets? Perhaps, but English borrows heavily from Romance languages through the Roman and Norman connections. A Japanese Daimyo never conquered England in 1066 or built a wall to separate the civilized world and the barbarians in England.

So why do English poets write Haiku? I partially blame Ezra Pound. However, I think the blame is best distributed on Free Verse poets who like to pretend they're writing in forms. Seventeen syllables in three lines has no prescribed rhythmn, no rhyme, and no shape aside from extreme brevity. I'd rather see a quatrain in Iambic Tetrameter than a so-called "Haiku" in English.

Once upon a time, I was required to write five Haiku for a creative writing class in college. The results follow:

Haiku

I.
wasted thought, life, breath
with the amber eye open
but the good eye closed

II.
the phantom fumbling
through the silken silence
night falls on madness

III.
twisting the sharp knife
against tablature of ribs
played like a guitar

IV.
horsemen fall westward
like lightning through a thick cloud
a tempest in their hooves

V.
thoughts without logic
twisting with the lover’s wind
nothing but questions



I wrote them half as a joke. Unfortunately, no one saw the humor. There are two ways to look at Haiku in English:

1) This guy has the right idea, but is a bit dismissive

2) For the more serious writer, this explication should serve as a warning to all people crossing vast cultural lines in a very culture-specific field like good poetry.

Write a sonnet, or a quatrain, or even a limerick. We borrow a lot in the English language, but I think Haiku are best left to the Japanese.

Bubbles in the Water

Bubbles rise to the surface of my watery lair. When the hours add up during a day, they unleash sometimes worst at night. I'm trying to sleep and pray, but it's not working. I never wanted this, and most of me can't continue. There's no imminent danger, but my suffering continues. A problem in your reality would be easier to explain; you don't live in here with me. I doubt anyone could. I know one thing: I could use a friend.

Tuesday's Gone

The events described in this post happened a long time ago. Too long for me to remember them as vividly as I do, but that's me now isn't it?

My life doesn't go as planned. When I was in high school, I became enamored of a woman. I used that as a spring board to verses: high verses. Epics, cantos, quatrains I wrote to what I called love. I didn't even know the meaning of the word. For too many years, I held on to that idea and never let it go. I almost gave up on the idea of love for me to the near-monastic nature of my poetry. Everything seemed set, and I thought I had something real in my poetry to show for it. Every line traced into every other line; I wrote and I wrote beautifully. It takes a long time to get someone so down that good poetry comes of it. Even Mr. Keats struggled with his Fanny Brawne poems in the beginning. I wrote in that tradition. I aspired to Petrarch and his punning with Laura. In Italian, that name shares a sound with the wind and gold. The name of my object of near worship didn't have a pun, but it was surrounded with sunrises, fire, milk, and bright blue like the ocean I'd never seen.

Then everything changed. Someone I've known for quite a while and I got together. The feeling of love that I had was not equal to my poems' aspirations, it even surpassed them. How stupid am I? I didn't consider that putting someone in here with me could hurt, but it did. I can't stand it alone in here, why would putting someone else there make for happiness? The thought never crossed my mind that I was no more able to love than the lonely Petrarch I so long imitated. He and I shared our first love's motivation to write. With our firsts, it was almost totally without lust. Petrarch and I were in a lonely fraternity of poets and artists who let the art get ahead of everything else. We both wrote to the exclusion of life in general.

For a while I wrote her badly. It takes time and practice even for the most important things to get the poetry to work. Near the end, I developed a way to write her beautifully, but like I said, it was near the end. It turned out that she never loved me. I fell hard for her. For years, I'd given up on love for me. I thought it would never visit upon me, and I would be alone. I would be alone with my poems to someone I invented that never resembled the person I wrote for and to. While everything changed, I developed a taste for her and a taste for love. Not the kind of lustless love Petrarch and I came so close to perfecting, but real love. Love with human features and contact ruled my imagination. I couldn't go on without thinking contact is essential for love. I loved holding her, kissing her, embracing and caressing her. Every ounce of my being said "Yes!" from every corner of my writing to every spire of my dreams. Those were my dreams, and my being. She never wanted to be with me for me, or for any other reason I can see.

Now that I have a taste of it, I can't let it go. I go from dream to nightmare to hallucination to poetry to prose to this blog and everywhere else my words can travel, and I can't stop wanting love anymore. I came so close to a perfect and balanced monastic life. I would write, and write more, all with the determination to see myself as something, someone worthwhile. Now I know the truth of it. I live as the worst of my doubts insisted. The same arrogant loudmouth I used to cover me for so many years could continue, but the little guy with his poetry became untenable. He was, is, and will always be alone. He sees his early work as pointless, and his later words as absolute failures. He writes this now, knowing that he might garner a reader and a comment or two, but most likely none of either. Petrarch finally failed me, but the demons in my head always said he would.

I can't go back. I can't erase the things I've seen, or forget the quivering, shaking fascination of every touch. I want to, but I can't. I want so badly go back to my room and write for hours on beauty as I wrote for so long, but all seems pointless. Why should I write? The old ways mean less to me. I mean less to the people of the present. I go ever onward into irreversible madness, and the stigma that goes with it. How many women are looking for a madman with the urge to write that can't even drive more than five miles away from his home?

So I fade. Every day, I get closer to total madness. My relapses are longer now, with less time in between. Happiness and love were there for me once, even if it was only in my own head. Now, those memories of happiness are distant. They've acquired their own mythology. But the memories of touch are as close now as they were then. Every day, I find a reason to go on without that touch, but those reasons are becoming as scarce as my sanity. Every day there's a little less to pull for inspiration, and a little more to lament. I don't think it would bother me as much as it does if I didn't stare into the eyes of finality every time I think about love. Knowing what I know now, there's little reason to love me. Actually, I see none. Sometimes people wonder if I had it all to do over again, would I stay with Petrarch, and make my life monastic? To them I can only say that my life would feel as incomplete without the heartache of knowing that I will never be loved as it would feel with only verses to the distant past in sympathy with Petrarch.

Love is worth the efforts of life. Madness is not. I don't want to go away into the Void and never come back. Unfortunately, I seem to have no choice.

No Complaining

Nothing like that will be in today's entry. I have a friend going through a rough time, and that friend doesn't need to hear my crap. I usually try to hold onto all my friends because I value them highly, especially this one. I'm not going to bring anyone down, or complain about my condition. Sure, life still hurts, but I've got different priorities today that don't center around me.

Under the Wire

Looks like I just made today. Tomorrow doesn't promise much.

Spent

I don't know why I try. Some things will never change. Words don't do a damn thing, and they're all I have left. Madness follows me wherever I go, and it doesn't matter what I say on my way there. I wish for happiness at the end of my verses, but I can't seem to even put together tonight. Every ounce of my energy is spent tonight, and I'm tired. I'm tired of writing. All I get out of it is heartache and misunderstanding. My verses drive me, but I don't know where to take them. I want my weapon back; maybe then I could do what I want.

I'm dead to most of you anyway. What the hell does the rest matter? Life is pain; is it so damn wrong to want some relief?

Lurk

I lurk in water. Drowning, swimming, what's the difference? I drown; I live. I swim; I drown. Every moment is suffering in a world with no danger. That's the best way I can explain it. I am grateful to you all. I don't suffer from want, but I suffer none-the-less. Everything comes from within. It seems like the only way I can find happiness is to inflict myself on everyone around me. My struggle will get more dire; nothing holds it in place. The best chance for me is to distract myself as much as I can, and try to feel useful for the moments in between. There's no end in sight, and no way out of the water. My life is pain; I can only live it. I shouldn't make you watch, but hope springs from this blog and my writing. Solitude hurts me, but I don't know why. If I was alone, bang: no hesitation. Every moment asks it of me. In a world filled with those questions, I deny them as well as I can by lurking in the water.

Heart and Head

My heart and head often serve cross-purposes. Tonight, my heart chooses Oscar de La Hoya over Ricardo Mayorga. Mayorga is disrespectful of Oscar, and a whiner about his money. If the contracts say two million, you get two million, no matter how much your promoter promised you. However, my head thinks Oscar lost a step. He looked horrible against Hopkins and worse against Felix Sturm. Intellectually, I have to go with Mayorga by late knockout.

In my own struggle, my heart and head differ also. My heart yearns for peace, love, and understanding. I keep writing this blog at my heart's behest: I don't want that piece of me to die. However, my intellect says that nothing will come of my writing, or this blog. My head keeps telling me to take it logically and notice inevitable patterns: I will stay alone, loveless, and at war with my own reality.

Tonight, we'll see about the boxing. I don't think anything will change with my struggle, though. Perhaps I'll just stay consistent: I'll see more patterns and feel a little less.

It Doesn't Matter Anyway

Sorry about the last post. Everything caves in on me. I can't stand it anymore. Someday soon, I'll take the only steps to end this damn thing, but I have to make sure I'm right first. I'm too damn blue to write more.

Long and Lonely Walk Through Hell

Every step is pain. It would be better if I thought someone out there reads my stuff and understands, even empathizes. Happiness seems tied to others with me. I can't be happy on my own. If I had no one, I'd off myself in the soonest possible moment. As it stands, I have my Mom, my Brother, and my Dad. I encounter a few others with sympathy on this long and lonely walk through hell, but I still feel like I'm being carried. The people that beat me in my childhood, ruining my youth, have everything I want: success, love, understanding, and dignity. I've lost success in this murky haze I call perception. Requited love seems more distant than even my early past. Dignity is still in the balance; I'm a second class citizen, now, so I expect for that to collapse; most everything in my life goes down anyway.

This is my hell. I'd ask some of you to walk it with me, but I don't think anyone with sense should stick around. I'm too down. I'm too blue. I'm too much the same no matter what happens. I can't inflict myself on any of you in good conscience. It's not fair to you. I only write this as you carry me from round to round, beating me to within an inch of my life, because it helps you gauge your fists.a

Normally, I'd pray for guidance. However, if I kneel, the Many Armed Knight will attack. It doesn't matter anyway. Any thoughts I'd put out would garner responses to protect you more than help me. Tomorrow is another round. Keep carrying me, it seems like good sport to most of you.

Tired

I was surprised that I haven't used this title yet. All my posts have different titles; usually I think it's to give a fresh look every time. Perhaps because so much of my problems are the same as when I set out on this blog, I can't admit to myself that all I do is repeat myself. I might say some things that would seem out of character, but I'm too damn tired to care.

I'm pissed off. Call it fate. Call it fatigue. Call it the inevitable conclusion of twelve years of paranoia and misery. Or you could call it the unpleasant truth. I'm pissed off at myself. In a world that's brought me so much freedom and food, I can't feel grateful. All I feel is hatred for what brought me here. I look back at twelve years of this, and I wonder what the hell did I do wrongly? The pain of not knowing has me ground to powder beneath my fractured knuckles.

When I was in fourth grade, and time to time from there, the popular crowd chided me for reading my Bible during lunch. I turned the other cheek. Pastor Updike baptized me when I was twelve; that was a long time ago. We've barely exchanged words since then. I prayed through seventh grade, then had a major crisis of faith: I hated the laughter and derision that came with being the little budding Bible boy. That mindset lasted for a while. I decided to give true Christianity another try in tenth grade; I was reborn. Chapter and verse seemed familiar again. It was like returning to an old friend, and a friend it was. I read Matthew, and thought I understood. I loved the Lord, and I thought the Lord loved me. Through years of madness, forty two consecutive voluntary days at a mental institution, heartache, longing, and writing, I persevered. I determined that I would feel better about myself and my surroundings if I believed, so that's exactly what I did. I didn't do it thinking the world would change around me, but that I would change around the rest of you, and find comfort. I was wrong.

The one circumstance in recent memory that brought me happiness discarded me for all the right reasons. I'm unreliable. I repeat myself constantly. I have more passion in my writing than in the quiet moments alone with my favorite person. For a while, I believed she discarded me and avoids me because of my condition: the first two words out of her mouth were "Your disease." That seemed reasonable enough. Prester Bane ruined things for me in my past, and I wasn't surprised that he caused me to lose my happiness. I was upset, but not nearly as upset as I would become. Slowly, I learned that the illness was not an issue. I found out about my inconsistency and outright failure in life. I found out about the constant string of repeated language that comes out of my mouth, even when I intend to say something new. I found out about my perceived lack of interest in the physical side of love. That made me blue. I found out that Prester Bane wasn't my problem with love, quite the opposite; he is the loved one. I'm the Monster from deep water. My kind of clinching, annoying attention will never work, but that's all I seem capable of doing at any given time. Even when I set out to not think that way, it always comes back to the same.

Then came the death blow: I found out that the worst part about me was my faith. The faith I maintained, despite mental intimidation and emotional exclusion from the rest of you, closed love off to me. I even took savage beatings from my Dad and another close to me to maintain the facade of a good, Christian household. Many years before I took the Smith and Wesson to myself, I heard a voice the night I loaded the Smith and Wesson, lifted the barrel, and thought only of ending the injustice by killing both of them. What the voice said was actually right. I thought it might have been divine intervention for my benefit, to save myself from worldly punishment. However, the motives as I see them now are much clearer. Hindsight is always 20/20. If I had killed Gary, there would be no Gary to complete Quinne, his fiancee; there is no such bond anywhere near in sight for me. If I had killed Dad, I would have made my Mom's extended hospital stay after her heart arrest in 2000 impossible. So, the goal wasn't to save me, it was to save them, so they can complete the lives of the people around them. God has favorites: Jacob now Israel, David, Enoch, Elijah, and a few others. Circumstances evolve favoring his favorites, including the notorious actions of David: He killed a man just so he could marry the widow. Still, David wrote psalms, better than any of my poetry, and led the life of a King to remember.

Perhaps my crime was the crisis of faith. A few isolated years in a sea of faith are still absent of faith. David never doubted God's existence, his authority, or challenged God's supremacy to himself. If I'd done the same, would the outcome still be this endless, maddened misery?

So I've lost love and happiness to my religion. For religion, I lost understanding from those who might try by posting these thoughts so far away from acceptable Christian behavior. Peace hasn't been an option in over twelve years, Prester Bane argues loudest when I pray. The faith doesn't seem to help me. Sure, I'm alive and there are plenty of times I shouldn't be, but it feels right now as if He's carrying me. Just like Jim Jeffries versus Jack Johnson, He's hurting me badly at every opportunity, but not enough to knock me out. I feel like I'm being carried for the audience. Nobody wants to see a first round knockout by quitting; people want to see drama! They like to hear little, day-by-day Improvements, and eventually, a knockout in the twelfth round as time expires. I can't punch, so my fall is what entertains. If I'm destined to be forever cursed with this affliction, is it a little bit too much to ask for an ounce of happiness to go with it? The answer, it seems, is yes.

Just Another Post

I forgot to take my meds last night. Therefore, I felt tired, nauseated, and weak all day. I'm on way too much, but less is not an option. I won't make the same mistake two days in a row.

Monstrous

Am I the monster that I fear? Is every day spent in denying what cannot be described as untrue? I feel like the struggles that I take upon myself by not ending what should be done are just as useless as my unread thoughts strewn about the bits of paper in my typhoon of life. I can't stand being like this anymore; every day is a little worse. When I scream at the night with the words "I am not mute!," how many hear me? Better yet, how many care or should care? My voice is loud, but it seems no one hears me. Sometimes I marvel at the sheer inconsequence of the feelings that I must let others feel through my pen. I never find what I seek, and what I seek never finds me. I'm worse than Palomindes and his Questing Beast; I suspect I'm deep water a monster who will end up at the tip of society's sword.

When this started, it seemed ok. I thought I could handle it. Twelve years later, that idea is obsolete. I can't control the input, and I can barely control my once-free will. It's a contest for prominence: the two camps divide me. I know what Prester Bane and his camp can do: they provide my indifference, my crooked smile, my pride, and my strength. They don't know the meaning of the word quit, and won't stop until they have it all. What I don't know is the poet. The words provide my ambivalence, my true smile, my compassion, and the small bit of me that thinks it knows love. The poet wants an end: love can be found at the bottom of an empty inkwell. Is that love requited? Prester Bane says never, and bids me follow back to the ranks of the loud, infamous and hated. The poet says not now, and bids me follow down another row of seemingly failed verses that leads to more uncertainty and pain. I want to know whether those uncertain verses can end in what I want, or will I always be alone with only Prester Bane and the rest to keep me company? Right now, I only hear from two friends who doesn't know me well enough to stop talking with me, so if you do answer, please answer my questions honestly. Will you be there? Are my words as ugly as me? Am I worth knowing well? Is love out of the question? How much more hurt should I take?