Crystallized citrus Christ-blood: orange jellybean Messiah. Maple-tombed and dust-embalmed beneath shadows, shoes, and appliance-cords for many more than three days. Shred and torn; enjoyed upon twenty-eight ivory crucifixes. Cavity-savior.
This is eating leftover Easter candy found under my desk.
April 29th
There is a platform within me. Stomach-circle balanced between sun-glow and sun-glare, petal-dropping dogwoods deposit documents of determination; certificates of confident creativity collect on currents of a calm consciousness. Stability; spring dampness in grass, loosening summer heat and support in stenchless asphalt pathways. The presence of a populace without its pollution.
There are times I fall from the finite edges of the plateau, to pits of petals and paper saturated with rot and spent dew; dwell with doubt and the denizens of my bowels. Sweat-salve sheets and stained sleep. Collapse. Judging hands to catch tumbling structure-stones of the self; funeral-carriers down ever-dark catacomb-intestines.
This is the faltering of my medication.
There are times I fall from the finite edges of the plateau, to pits of petals and paper saturated with rot and spent dew; dwell with doubt and the denizens of my bowels. Sweat-salve sheets and stained sleep. Collapse. Judging hands to catch tumbling structure-stones of the self; funeral-carriers down ever-dark catacomb-intestines.
This is the faltering of my medication.
April 28th
Channeling the submersion of Atlantis, sunken society seeping through skin. Ancient architecture reconstructed in arc of back. Drops of ever-sought history and legend wiped away. Reemergence and subsequent sweltering evaporation. King's crown beaded on brow.
This is sweating after a two-mile run during a ninety-degree afternoon.
This is sweating after a two-mile run during a ninety-degree afternoon.
April 22nd
Gratuity and reasonable customers, flawless service-giving after last week's generosity to barber and bartender. One hundred and twenty dollars.
This is the great balancing of deeds.
This is the great balancing of deeds.
April 21st
Rushing home along Route 3, skies no longer depthless, infinite blue. Riding into ominous black-wall rain-ravagers, thunder-smashers. Storm's path.
This is epic.
This is epic.
April 20th
Husband and wife, elderly, enter restaurant through wind and rain. Drip with water and longevity, dew of timelessness. She, hunched and clinging. He seats her, helps her into booth and pulls comb from pocket, reworking gust-gashed hair with smoothness and streaks of steadfastness.
"Well, I think we made it."
He looks over personal data assistant at a woman who can no longer speak, who can only stare pleadingly at their waiter as he brings Kendall Jackson and cranberry juice to the table. She is lost but not unreachable; distant, not gone.
And that is why wordless conversations over tilapia and watershow displays of parking lot puddles are enough.
This is loyalty.
"Well, I think we made it."
He looks over personal data assistant at a woman who can no longer speak, who can only stare pleadingly at their waiter as he brings Kendall Jackson and cranberry juice to the table. She is lost but not unreachable; distant, not gone.
And that is why wordless conversations over tilapia and watershow displays of parking lot puddles are enough.
This is loyalty.
April 18th
I am Odysseus-on-land. No knowledge of my homecoming, no augury of its arrival. Sun-skewered on raft-shaped patio slab, sighing at stagnant skies and slack-sail, sweat-sprayed shirt. Unreachable cell phone peals carried on wind that smells like sea and Ithaca.
This is being locked out of my apartment.
Strained pine tree sapling, displaced nest and destroyed bird bloodline. Perilous climb; splinters from rot-flimsy, ornamental plasterboard. Desperate friction opens closed windows, smudges and fingerprints as lockpicks and keys. A tumbling return to throne and kingdom. Pine needles in bed; evergreen mistresses.
This is breaking into my own apartment.
This is being locked out of my apartment.
Strained pine tree sapling, displaced nest and destroyed bird bloodline. Perilous climb; splinters from rot-flimsy, ornamental plasterboard. Desperate friction opens closed windows, smudges and fingerprints as lockpicks and keys. A tumbling return to throne and kingdom. Pine needles in bed; evergreen mistresses.
This is breaking into my own apartment.
April 17th
One-fifty-one rum. Gold-toned cirrhosis, liver's leper-liquid. Bottled beer bellies and deformation, defamation. Bartenders and bar-standers, unfit and concerned with the Corona-tion of amber alter-egos and cigarette simulacrums. Colony of alcoholics and an unsettled neophyte; a shrine of age etched in wood panels.
This is unwanted.
This is unwanted.
April 16th
Rose, rummaged through menial occurrences and unevents, retired.
This is the failure of imagination.
This is the failure of imagination.
April 15th
Seated, corner-hidden between outside night and inside dim-lit lights. Waiting, watching, stealing the company's time and money. Cushions coax work-weariness, while the bar bustles with celebrations of matrimony. Core-clustering. The rest of the restaurant's tables are unseated; vacant satellites.
A child sprints away from the group. Runs the wrong way down the aisle; escapes groom and flower girls. Her mother pursues, an attractive aged-wine woman. Livened loins. The kid stops, close, and stares ceilingward. Sights spirits in display lights. Spins. Shouts.
This is vision.
A child sprints away from the group. Runs the wrong way down the aisle; escapes groom and flower girls. Her mother pursues, an attractive aged-wine woman. Livened loins. The kid stops, close, and stares ceilingward. Sights spirits in display lights. Spins. Shouts.
This is vision.
April 14th
Impromptu haircut; unplanned, spontaneous shearing of the hair.
For me, this is bravery.
The symmetry, the odd evenness, the decimal-free perfection of a federal tax refund of four-hundred, seventy-five dollars destroyed by a fee of thirteen dollars and seventy-five cents for electronic filing of state income taxes.
475 - 13.75 = 461.25.
No good. (The ugliness of numbers.)
This is the price of laziness.
For me, this is bravery.
The symmetry, the odd evenness, the decimal-free perfection of a federal tax refund of four-hundred, seventy-five dollars destroyed by a fee of thirteen dollars and seventy-five cents for electronic filing of state income taxes.
475 - 13.75 = 461.25.
No good. (The ugliness of numbers.)
This is the price of laziness.
April 13th
Floor. Fan blowing over body, infinite breath sounding. Ankle on ice. Light behind blinds like the afterlife. No need to go towards it right now.
This is chill.
This is chill.
April 12th
Sunglasses and sleek-chassis speeding. Unturned turn signals; weaving without patience. Jerks: graceless drivers and motions.
This is arrogance.
Half-eaten familial cuisine; leftovers brought home. Ham. Souffle. Stringbeans. Jellybeans.
This is a feast for kings.
This is arrogance.
Half-eaten familial cuisine; leftovers brought home. Ham. Souffle. Stringbeans. Jellybeans.
This is a feast for kings.
April 11th
Unknown, unremembered injuries emerging. Hip and aching Achilles' heel. Pangs of pressure and stress, pressing, but refused.
This is recovery.
This is recovery.
April 10th
Roused and stumbling, still drunk. Word associations and shouting during an inconsistent, hot-cold-hot shower. Sobering secondhand memories and memories of secondhand smoke, told by companions while serving shrimp and beer. Running mouths' regrets rekindled by overreaction and pierced privacy. Further relationships ruined. Frustrations. Fatigue. Hangover.
This is control regained, painfully.
This is control regained, painfully.
April 9th
Fly-corpses in fluorescent purgatory, garrisoned in glass panes in the ceiling. Courageous crow-- unafraid dark eagle-- chips at crusts on asphalt, beside stilled car and tire. Running mouths' regrets.
This is black.
Below standards, below steel, sheen, and structures, below expectations. Drunken politics and political incorrectness over pints and dregs. Underbelly society. Smoke and beats, vibrations. Shouts as whispers, philosopher pressed close to the eager, intoxicated impressionability of a writer.
"Self-identify. You are that motherfucker."
This is wisdom found underneath.
Chewed cigarettes. Counted floorboards. Fingerprints dried in throw up. Soapless handwashing. Filth in foyers and hallways. Finished, unfilled rum bottles in unfilled, unfinished refrigerators. Pleasure-providing before passing out.
This is control lost.
This is black.
Below standards, below steel, sheen, and structures, below expectations. Drunken politics and political incorrectness over pints and dregs. Underbelly society. Smoke and beats, vibrations. Shouts as whispers, philosopher pressed close to the eager, intoxicated impressionability of a writer.
"Self-identify. You are that motherfucker."
This is wisdom found underneath.
Chewed cigarettes. Counted floorboards. Fingerprints dried in throw up. Soapless handwashing. Filth in foyers and hallways. Finished, unfilled rum bottles in unfilled, unfinished refrigerators. Pleasure-providing before passing out.
This is control lost.
April 8th
Anticipation. Shots of rum and vodka. Running mouths with removed shirts and tongues to plug them up. Frantic grips on bare backs. Spit and vomit next to sperm stains. Surprise satisfaction. Gibberish dawn.
This is half-remembered insanity.
This is half-remembered insanity.
April 7th
Empty pill container. Skeletal back. Winter-light over cloud-cliffs, dropping snow in spring. Poems of an unknown against the violin of one hailed and lauded.
This is doubt.
This is doubt.
April 6th
I earn my wages as a waiter. People pay me to enter into a brief form of quasi-slavery, to let them treat me poorly, to serve and satiate them. The tips they give me are my only income, so every cent I make each day goes directly towards purchasing necessities. Food, car parts, clothes. It's almost as if the people I wait on give me the things I need... literally. So why don't they? Instead of having to exchange funds, why not hand me a loaf of bread, Resident Evil 5, or a gallon of gas?
It'd be so much easier.
"Need change, sir?"
"It's exact, so no. But I did hear that one of your windshield wipers broke the other day, so... here, take this one. It's all yours."
Of course, it'd be all the more crushing to receive a bad tip. Rack up a huge bill, but instead of a month's worth of electricity, you're rewarded with a tube of toothpaste.
This is an idea best left to theory.
It'd be so much easier.
"Need change, sir?"
"It's exact, so no. But I did hear that one of your windshield wipers broke the other day, so... here, take this one. It's all yours."
Of course, it'd be all the more crushing to receive a bad tip. Rack up a huge bill, but instead of a month's worth of electricity, you're rewarded with a tube of toothpaste.
This is an idea best left to theory.
April 5th
A bird saddles a stoplight over the highway, calling out, chirping in time and tune to the horns and engines of the vehicles below. Drops feces in the wind that fall by me, panting and hunched. Other avians clutch cables and phone lines against gusts of road-wind. They regard the rubber, metal, and asphalt as soil, bark, and leaf.
This is the natural turning the unnatural into nature.
No voice, no work. For two straight days.
This is still the best affliction ever.
This is the natural turning the unnatural into nature.
No voice, no work. For two straight days.
This is still the best affliction ever.
April 4th
Laryngitis and a lack of voice. Sometimes, during a sentence, I hit a point of annunciation, articulation, or frequency that my afflicted vocal cords can vibrate at, but everything else is just incomprehensible, hoarse shit. Something along the lines of:
"Hey, --- you ge- me - --ass -- --er?"
("Hey, can you get me a glass of water?")
And no one can understand what I'm trying to say to them.
This is too amusing of an illness.
"Hey, --- you ge- me - --ass -- --er?"
("Hey, can you get me a glass of water?")
And no one can understand what I'm trying to say to them.
This is too amusing of an illness.
April 3rd
Storming. Drenched before I even start my run. Warm, kept cool by clinging clothes and my wetness. Pouring rain, pumping muscles. Trying to dodge drowning earthworms and that dead cat from days ago. Sweat and sky-water; soaked and satisfied. Touched by the enormity and purity of the event.
This is excellent.
Another stilted conversation with Olivia. Still has yet to ask me how the medication is going.
This is friendship?
This is excellent.
Another stilted conversation with Olivia. Still has yet to ask me how the medication is going.
This is friendship?
April 2nd
Can't get anything out of Olivia anymore except half-hearted, contrived conversations and inconsistent behavior. No replies, no call-backs. For someone who claims I'm important to her, I don't understand why I'm such a low priority. And The Office apparently isn't on tonight.
This is frustrating and disappointing.
Joe worked up the effort to actually make himself (and me) food. He's in possession of the ability to create amazing pizza.
This is surprising.
This is frustrating and disappointing.
Joe worked up the effort to actually make himself (and me) food. He's in possession of the ability to create amazing pizza.
This is surprising.
March 31st
Woke up missing one of my socks; found one along the road while running. What if I sleepwalked last night and left it there? Also found a dead cat, and made eleven dollars at work.
This is good...?
This is good...?
March 30th
Post-workout tightness, post-shower calm. Relaxed fatigue, gentle perspiration. Opeth's acoustic guitars and death metal growls to my left, fan to my right. Spring sunset behind me, slipping through closed blinds like Midas' fingertips. Just gold-drifting air and sweat.
This is sublime.
This is sublime.
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