It Feels So Disingenuous And False To Be Writing A Personal Statement About How I Wanted To Save The

Have you ever watched the death of a soul? 

I’m not talking physical death, I mean knowing someone and falling madly in love with their passion and then realizing that passion has left when you see them again 

Their eyes are flat and dull 

the spark is gone

When exhaustion overcomes ingenuity 

when that which you had loved has faded 

The Red Backpack

Time slipped away

        We knew, had known, will know

She had years, then months then days, then none.

She went first

Skipped into death like she had been waiting for it all her life and I suppose in some ways she had,

I couldn’t handle it

I sold the business, the house, the car, I lived out of my backpack                       She loved books so I hitchhiked from library to library always picking up ones we loved. Then we’d sit down at one of the tables, two old coots living out of a beat-up red backpack and read and talk about everything

We got some odd glances often funny stares. I didn’t care I had my beloved back then I’d come back to myself and realize that I was once again just a lonely old man talking to an empty chair

Then I’d pick up that old red backpack once more and search for her in the next dusty corner of the next dusty library in the next dusty town

Stars

And as she sailed across the plain,

The men awestruck stared at her wake.

The beauty of her grace so sweet,

Forever gone from his embrace.

The king so sad, destroyed was he,

Her life was once his great escape.

The prince distraught, his mother gone

He’d miss her touch tender yet strong.

The star she was shined brightly through.

The years she spent on earth now done.

The blessings of her days endure

While she ascends to take her place

Her place among the stars awaits.

It's hot but it's not too hot it's hot in that summer, carnal, sweet sweat and hard work smelling strong of sawdust and body odor way

And you only get it from working in the sun, sweat doesnt smell the same if it's a hike or just sitting outside or a workout indoors in the winter

There's some . . . Visceral about hard work sweat in the summer

It's original sin

A wet hot American summer

Adam eating "the apple" under a blazing sun feeling the sweat bead under his curls at the back of his neck at the same moment that sticky savory juice graced his lips changing forever how he saw the world

It's what the pope fears more than anything

Raw

Humanity

Unfiltered

Un fettered

Animals running flat out across a grassland under golden rays

Laying in the shade of trees older than their speech

All their warts and beauty on display for anyone to see

Drops of it, stories encased in wet salt hit the ground and color it dark in a silent plea for rain

Nightmares Part 2

When I awoke there were 3 men in the room. They all looked very different: the one closest to the bed had skin like muddy water with eyes the color of a blood moon and longish hair the color of the evil night, he was dressed in a white long-sleeved shirt with a tweed jacket over it, and a pair of bloodstained trousers were barely hanging onto his muscular legs, he had no shoes on, he could not have fit them over his massive paws he had human hands and lupine paws; and a collar that barely fit his huge neck. He was by far the most normal of the three.

The man closest to the doctor had bleached skin as if he was already dead blood was running freely from his eye and nose he had numerous brands on his chest and upper arms his fingertips were claws he wore no shirt and his disproportionate muscles were left for all to see. His pants had gaping holes in them where raw wounds were seeping through the gaps in the material. He wore a belt that was a chain and ran right through his body, held by an unseen force that kept him still as death. He wore shoes but they had holes in them where fur and claw peeked through the stained leather. A dark force surrounded him. The one nearest the door was the most frightening. He wore only a blood-stained loincloth. The parts of his body that were visible under the blood were covered in black, dusty, foggy scales. He had no face, but where it should’ve been was a mask of dripping red liquid that was too thick to be blood but thin enough to drip down to the floor he had no hair and claws for nails he was barely humanoid with no neck and bumps in awkward places. The doctor herself was the strangest person I had ever seen. She had ashy skin and long gray hair it looked like she had turned into ash there was no color in her entire body except for her blood red eyes. She was the most terrifying of the three because it was as if she was a black hole sucking up all life, hope and all things good in this world she was the darkest being I had ever seen. She was alive and not alive she was dead yet she was animated and walking around. She was a terrible puzzle a calamity if you will a person, yet a beast, someone who literally killed the mood and made her own sinister presence felt.

When they approached the bed it felt as if an eternity had passed when in reality it had only been a couple of minutes. The muddy-skin man spoke first; it was as if some of his speech had been removed his voice was a mix of gravel and an avalanche. Then the doctor spoke her voice was lilting and deceivingly contradictory to the words coming out of her mouth

“If you do not cooperate you will be scheduled for immediate termination. I do not care how valuable you are I will; kill you if you decide to rebel.”

I did not reply not wanting to talk to the horrible doctor, not wanting to obey but afraid of rebellion. As they moved closer, the doctor with a journal in hand, a sinister looking device became visible. When the men carried it into view I, at last, realized what it was, it was a suspension device, it was for keeping heavy things in the air for extended amounts of time and often used for torture.

Musing on “Adult Life”

The Phrase “Well that sounds like Adult Life” accompanied by the indicative chuckle as if I am nothing but a lowly child instead of a full-fledged adult who pays their own bills and holds a degree in a field you can barely pronounce, much less understand. 

You have no interest in anything except your own personal gain and whatever you are interested in that moment, which has been the same topic since you were literally 14. 

I refuse to apologize for having ambition, 

I refuse to apologize for expecting others to do their damn jobs so that I could do mine 

I refuse to apologize for being me 

“What would you have me do? O Great and Powerful Man?” 

nothing, I would have you do naught but that which you wish 

“What would you have me be?” 

nothing, I only want what you are, I have no desire for you to be anything but what you will 

“So, what’s the catch? Why do you seek this?” 

beloved, you ask the wrong questions, 

“What then should I ask?” 

what will I do for you? 

“Fine, my darling, beloved, he who knows my soul, what would you do for the one who has laid claim to your heart?” 

I would thread flowers in your hair and worship you as you lay in fields of golden grain, I would remove all barriers before you and watch as you fly chasing the breeze. I would be your wings. I would be your home. I would put the universe in your hands because I want to see you tear it down and rebuild it in your image. I would see you become all that you could be, terrifying and powerful. I would tremble at your sight, but not with fear. I would love you and all that you are were and shalt be. 

A speech spoken over the body of an enemy

There are things they don't tell you when you are a young bright rebel,

With the taste of wrath in your mouth, a rally cry in your ears, and a mission in your heart.

They didn't warn you of how blood bounces on snow when you are chomping at the bit for action against inaction.

They're stories of glory, not of sweat evaporating before it leaves your skin, never of the smell of blood in a forest cooling on the damp ground. Or the look of an empty battlefield.

But there are good things.

The satisfaction of a job well done, the knowledge that you're saving lives and times, like now, when one finally beheads one of the true evils.

The rush of relief in knowing that the broken bloody mass at your feet will never again cause pain like he once had and that his last moments were ones of misery, misery that you meted out as recompense for his crimes.

They send you out with a sword and a promise that your anger can be used for good and it's moments like this that make good on that promise.

Our righteous anger bubbles like lava, biting at injustice and growling at inaction.

We, the young and restless vibrantly bash against the rocks of tradition. Slowly changing the world, an inevitable tide never coming in fast enough for our liking.

We longed for change, we would burn the world and remake it in our image.

We would kill

We would bite and scratch and tear to protect what we love and seek truth and justice for all.

I walked amongst these thorns along a dangerous road, but I do not walk alone.

We stood and will stand together against conformity, relentless and strange, enigma on a cliff waiting for wings.

Light

I saw the light of day begin to dawn

I watched the final rays of moonlight die

I’ve seen the end of life

And birth begin

I know when my frail breath will leave my lungs

Oblivion

there is no such thing as oblivion. We are enduring we have souls that live on after our corporeal bodies run out of reasons to endure. We are eternal. We were created, yes created; to live on forever in some form whether life or death we do endure souls are forever things not just here and now things. Oblivion is a myth. Oblivion is impossible unless you don’t exist. Because, as Newton said, every ACTION has an equal and opposite reaction; living is an action, an action that creates another action that creates another action that creates many more actions that never end unless an outside force acts upon it and an action as powerful as beginning eternity would need an action as powerful as a beginning to bring oblivion about. And besides that, we are remembered.

We are remembered by people and then when those people die we are remembered by the people who were told about us and even if we become a legend where events are altered and names are changed and no one can recall who exactly who I was the places I was will remember me. My footsteps will haunt the places I’ve walked. The mountains will remember when my eyes looked upon them. The trees will whisper to each other and say “I remember the girl who stroked our branches and caressed our leaves.” The rocks will say “I remember the girl who cried out to the creator alongside us.” The wind has memorized the shape of my face, the sky holds the color of my eyes, and the stars know the whims and whispers of my heart; the earth will remember me. The earth will remember you. Hallways know every foot that has touched them. Walls can recollect every mark made on them by hands big and small. Cars know who has been pushed up against them and kissed like their life depended on it. Bleachers know who has sat upon them and who has stood in front of them but rarely sat because they were too excited about the event happening. Every single thing you touch with your fingers you leave a piece of yourself behind when you pick your finger up.

Life is like that as well. You leave cells everywhere, you leave pieces of yourself everywhere for others to unknowingly pick up and carry with them until their days run out then someone else will pick up their cells and your cells together. You see? We have all connected through so many bonds that it is impossible to break them.  The way we talk, eat cereal, walk, read, write, type, poop, sleep, shower, love, feel. All of these things each and every person does in a perfectly unique way so if nothing else you will be remembered by the universe for being the only person to do things exactly the way you do them so that no one else will do ANYTHING exactly like you. Ever. End of story.