wind to bleach bone

snow packed into floating cloud

glimpse half illuminated moon

-your light poured over a dark rock-

creation of my mind

haunt me still

defied

"let me tell you boy"
did you ever really have an idea?
my mind harbors rampaging children
in multitudes
kicking and screaming
running to their rooms
packing their things
and leaving into the night.
run away together
horde of the defiant and lost.

flight for these

this rote

routine

repetition

in my dreams at night where they have no place 

in my eyes in closing where they have no home

the escape must be complete if the invasion has been made

pass the ice

we're riding down this hill it stretches all the way to the city

the wind in our ears, nose and mouth

your skin peels away you are left as you were born

a natural face is revealed

you are beautiful

let's ride into the night these flashing neon lights

my rims as they spin and your pupils as they echo the truth

in our hearts

there is nothing planned

no fear 

nothing uneasy

our childlike existence dwarfed by the exhilaration of living

this night is ours

excited dance of molecules through irritated energy
every time, drag you down beaten thoroughly
fucked every which way, somewhere a child simply held a clover
a treasure plucked from the earth no concept of it as ordinary

REPOST from Chrissy Stockton

The Pros and Cons of GChat II

written by Chrissy Stockton, of the lovely philolzophers...originally seen here

We are having a conversation on gChat about our future. When we finally give up searching for Mr. and Mrs. Right, we say, we will meet together on the coast and build a house. “It has to have a record player,” you say. I tell you about chopping wood, how it is cathartic and makes you feel like you have earned your keep as a human being. We’ll have a wood burning stove, you say. There will be a part of our porch with no roof, so we can lay there and watch all the stars we missed by spending all our youth in cities. Mornings, we’ll drink coffee and read. We will bind our own anthologies of things we like: poems, old letters and stories about things we have done.

There are things that are understood in this conversation that would be hard to address directly so we talk as if we are making a Plan B. What I am trying not to say is that when you talk I feel uneasy. It took me a long time to talk myself down into reality where I understand that men are not sensitive creatures who want to talk about The Meaning of Life endlessly. I’m going to ignore the evidence to the contrary lest I actually have to stop dating indefinitely until I can find one of these elusive hybrids.

In this world there is room for two people who notice everything and grieve over the mortality of insects. There is room for more, but they’re rare enough to not be found by chance. Maybe it’s just myopia. Maybe we aren’t deeper than anyone else, maybe they’ve just learned to let go of the weight we are carrying around. Isn’t a simpler explanation more likely to be correct? But I feel like Atlas sometimes because I’m trying to hold my world up by myself and expose just the parts that I think people want to deal with and can relate to.

I don’t want you to feel lonely. It’s in my favorite Mary Oliver poem when she talks about having to carry this kind of weight. You don’t have to, “You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.”

It’s embarrassing to be human sometimes and be at the mercy of embodied cravings and emotions that can go wherever.

The pros and cons of gChat is talking to someone that doesn’t make me feel like an alien about it. What our generation lacks in attention span it makes up for in disbarring physical proximity as the determining factor in who you get to have conversations with.

girls that say "ohh he was cute"
after you walk by

__________________

boys that say "i like your shirt"
earnestly

"i love you"
"what?"
"is this on sale?"
-------------------------


"oh gluten free, me too!" she said.
"oh, uh, ya, i'm not really, but uh ya it's good..." he said, as the blood rushed harder and faster into his cheeks.
the silence that ensued seemed to last more than mere moments, as it always does in these interactions. every word and movement takes on a weight 100 times more powerful than normal, especially when reflected upon later.

an awkward shuffle, a dance for two.
"uhhh sooooooooooooo 10:30 at mark's kitchen you should come, bye"

in the wind

hey stop
double back, bend over
and foster your feeling
the pain shooting up your leg
could be imagined

with the warmth we've had
this air feels cold
you always avoid my eyes
you're scared to let go
but hey i'm stubborn
and i search and long for you

i should take these hints
i want to believe you're too busy
and it's just a feeling...but don't we make time for what we want?
your silence is an eternity
you loved once from a distance
now you ignore from next door

don't ever think i ignore you
i'd drop everything to unite
i'm just letting you go

man's search for meaning

just had lunch with a new friend and then had a random conversation with a stranger trying to recruit for children's international. i am now sponsoring a child, but that's not the point of this.

lunch got me thinking about how i can tie my work into benefitting humanity in some way. overall i've been feeling empty about my imprint on this world. environmentally i am extremely prudent, but i mean my imprint on the human condition. at the exact moment i was reflecting on and feeling rather pathetic about doing literally nothing with my money but drinking it away, paying bills, and benefitting myself i was, as fate would have it, approached by a young lady.

timing is everything. though i have no belief in God anymore, this concept of 'fate' is always being grappled with in my mind. opportunities are presented on a daily basis, and i try to remain open to them. time unfortunately does not always allow, but i find these days when i have nothing planned and i'm just wandering home or wandering on my way somewhere are when i have the most meaningful interactions. and it seems that whenever i am particularly plagues by a thought something happens that is extremely relevant to that thought process - something that provokes further thought or leads to an insight. this has been occurring for many years now, since i hung out with homeless men on the train tracks in college. i always learn something from these experiences, if i remain open to them. the other week i chatted with a homeless man, i met a scholar in a bar, and skated with people i met biking.

back to these thoughts: lately i'm bothered by my inadequacy to benefit humanity. by my selfishness.

since moving to a city i've been thinking heavily about how i am giving back and if i am living my life with meaning. in a day to day sense, i live passionately, but for me. my work is meaningless, i do nothing that leaves me feeling fulfilled. i live a life of selfishness, of self-pleasures.

the past few years have been an awakening in every way possible, and i'm glad to be on this continuous journey, but goodness is it a long journey.

i'm on fire right now//inject yr neon into my skin//steal the color from my lips//paint it back with yr tongue

saved as draft

this one was about unbridled passion
it was called 'greedy love'
and it expressed my desire to be desired
and wanted
and appreciated
and fucked
and loved

but maybe you get the point now
in less words


damn it
i censor myself

fa[t/d]ed

these things
i hold dear
as the pressure to escape
strengthens stronger
well, i guess i'll stay now

i thought this song was by someone else
it's so familiar
imagine my surprise when i traced the sound
back to your mouth, to your throat
you, a porcelain doll sitting on the shelf
motionless, only parting your lips to sing

i'll slap myself silly
i'm already crazy
i just need to hear it out
i already know the ending
and it's my favorite part

quickly, run like a man
which means nothing to an animal
why not run like a woman
they're all the same
the meaning behind these sentiments
can only be found in song
your song

these things
i hold dear
are tucked up inside of me
next to my abdomen i keep them warm and safe
but they feed off of me
you see my purple sunken eyes
i'm being drained
it's the force i know
and choose to be part of

i'll keep my truest song a secret
until
until..
until...
i hope i don't fade away first

hello?

a stranger's vibrations emanate freely
from an iphone
they travel through space and reach a satellite shaped organ
tiny hairs of the inner ear tickle and electrical signals are fired to the brain
and translated.
thoughts, pictures, and words in the mind
then emotion
as intense familiarity clutches
a human.

cue
[[[[memory]]]]


sudden warmth creeps over this man,
the cheeks flush,
he is acutely aware of the heart -
not felt most of  it's daily existence -
but now, it pounds, it pounds, it pounds,
physically.
[[[[[the first sensation of parted soft warm lips on your own]]]]]
the phone is ringing.
tiny drops of moisture under his arms, between his legs
a slight tingling up the spine,
an excited rush of joy
of anxiety
of nervousness
of fear
of hope
of curiosity
of desire

he takes a deep breath
stares at the screen
he thought he was forgotten?
a million unanswered questions
another breath
a smile

letting go
is a battle

the weekend

sometimes i experience a void in my life, an emptiness that stems from desiring a deeper connection with people. i just moved to DC a couple months ago and my social circle is slow to build. saturday my roomy was out of town, and the girls i was going out with bailed, so i went out alone. i ran into a friend at the place i went, but after he left it left me feeling just extremely alone.

so these feelings persisted, and last night [sunday] i went to cafe saint ex because i was lonely. i went to have a beer and to just sit and think and open myself up to the possibility of having a conversation with a stranger though i am paralyzed at the thought of starting that conversation.

after sitting in an enjoyable peace for a while a gentleman approached me and started making conversation. and he wasn't hitting on me. turns out this man, Primo, is an extremely smart philosopher/scientist and we traded words for quite a while. or should i say he absolutely schooled me on all things. and even as i would begin to counter a point he had made he would already have a mind blowing counter-counter argument to sway my thoughts. incredible. i've only ever encountered such genius a few times in my life. and to find this type of intellectual connection of which i've been desperately desiring at my exact time of loneliness/need is incredible. he was a european who had lived in nyc for the past 17 years and now lived in dc. phd in neuroscience. extremely well read. articulate and informative, i feel as if i was blessed with more information in one night than if i read 7 different books.

recently i've been listening to the band the books, and one line that really sticks with me in one of their songs is "if we have no expectations, we have nothing to be upset about", and indeed, last night was a prime example of such a worldview. i forced myself out of the apartment, biked downtown, and had only one intention which was to drink a good beer. the rest played itself out as i could only have hoped. 

there is no where i feel more fulfilled than when i am out surfing or on a trail snaking up a ridge, miles from humanity.

specifically, this past weekend i tried my hand at 'fastpacking' which is the slang for trail running and backpacking. you basically run with all your gear. i packed everything i needed including a hatched strapped to my chest and set off into the cold blue ridge mountains in preparation for an even colder night (15-18 degrees fahrenheit at 1450' where i met my mother and sister and set up camp). at first the weight seemed like it would force me to move extremely slow for most of the trail, but it turns out my body quickly adjusted and i was soon navigating the rocky appalachian trail as fleetly as if i was carrying no gear.

i had everything i needed to survive - tools, fire, first aid kit, light, food, water and warmth. with these essentials i could survive up to a week without resupply (i was only gone 2 days so no need to bring more food and water). i was completely self-sustainable, relying on my own strength and agility to carry me over the trail and my intellect and (limited) experience to survive. it was freeing, simple, and exhilarating.

this adventure is in stark contrast to my new life. i wake up, eat, fuck around on the internet, run, and go to work for 8-10 hours. while i sit at my computer i literally feel as if my life is being sucked out of me. i live a privileged life that makes everything i say sound as if i'm whining, but circumstance and personal happiness are intricate things. many people jump at a chance to have any job, let alone a full time job with full benefits. but i've never measured my success traditionally. success for me is personal happiness.

i'll spare any potential readers anymore of this journal-like entry, and save that for my journal. rather, i think some important issues are brought to light in these times, and it's important to highlight them even if it's just as a seemingly simple short story, so as to implant them in the memory for future rumination. 

"does yor hart no longer receive me? you giv me nothing, no semblance of desire(s), not even the brea(d)th of yor voice, and above all else i am refused then taunted"

message of man

a baby cries in floors above

||          |(her effort is the catalyst of a quick release back into dream)

broken but emphatically alive

|          ||(you have no reason to be upset, and your lament no longer lulls you into sleep)

a man sobs in shadow

to woman

dreams of unspeakable horror
unknowable terror