Transcommute...

view through my windshield
painted on the sky
leaving me staggered
shattered
broken down on the side of the road
never saw it coming
awe-struck dumb and stunned
by the sheer magnitude
of the natural beauty displayed
arrayed through that pane of tempered glass
watercolor pastel palette
a cloud for every hue
soft sunset rays filtered just so
just right
backlighting the backdrop
layer upon layer of clouds
of every shape and size
clouds upon clouds upon clouds
the depth was astounding
as if seeing all three dimensions for the very first time
hundreds of miles away
yet it looked like I could run my fingers through it
and smear it all over

something about that scene
something snapped in me
so suddenly my eyes were filled with salt
so I could no longer see
the glory that had overtaken me
and that I had lost this wondrous sight
only pained me all the more
and I had to stop and sit and stare
because I could not let it go
I couldn't simply pass it by
without a chance to drink it in
and quench my thirst of it
until I had let it wring out of me
every last drop of poison

Exercise #3...

NO

STOP

YOU CAN'T

YOU CAN'T DO THAT TO ME

THAT'S NOT FAIR

I DESERVE BETTER

YOU DON'T GET TO TREAT ME LIKE THAT

YOU'RE WRONG

THAT'S SO WRONG

THAT HURTS

THAT'S NOT GOOD ENOUGH

HOW COULD YOU

HOW DARE YOU

WHY WOULD YOU

WHY

THAT'S NOT RIGHT

DON'T

DON'T EVER

NEVER AGAIN

NEVER

STOP.

And Back Again...

many dreams last night
          strange and powerful
          and so brightly lit
a luxury hotel in the sky
bioshock performance for the crowd
          at a gangsters' award ceremony
sipping whiskey
          and smoking cigarettes
          naked
          in the hotel pool on the rooftop
          with the young playboy billionaire
glass of warmed milk
          waiting for me in my room
          atop a hand-scrawled note
          pleading for mercy
gently lifting the tiny girl from the floor
          where she had fallen
          and laying her down
          on her silk bed
stabbing her with the needle
          to deliver the potion
          that will still her seizures
making passionate
          desperate
          affectionate love
          with my wife
          for hours
in the living room
          in the bright sunlight
          in front of everyone
and back in the bedroom
          in the soft lamplight
          all by ourselves
          just for us

woke this morning
lifted high from Dreaming
back to earth
to the bright sound
through my window
of the first birdsong
of the New Spring
and a new day
and another Me

Missing...

those walls you've built?
those thick stone walls you surround yourself with
to keep you safe
to keep out the pain?
how are they working out?
are you comfortable in that tower all alone?
do you feel safe?
are you free from the hurt?
or does the pain seep in anyways
as cold creeps through cracks
in the mortar?
loneliness an ache in your bones
and a shiver down your spine.
are those walls keeping the pain out?
or are they holding it in?

Life Is Pain, precious.

there is no avoiding that.
not for anyone.
and sacrificing everything
that makes Life worth living
in a futile attempt to avoid
the inevitable
is the worst pain there is.

Climb down, precious.

leave that pointless, pitiful prison you've built for yourself
and don't look back.
don't hide yourself away forever
like some fragile little snowflake.
you'll hurt either way
so why go through it all alone?
there's nothing to be afraid of.
and you have nothing to lose.

Come out and play with us.

Checking In, Clocking Out...

Another wasted post.  Spent my creative time today writing a poem, but then couldn't bring myself to post it.  And now it's time for me to go, and I'm tapped out.  It was hard enough writing that one.  I've got a couple ideas for journal-type posts, but they'd take way too long to write.

Sorry, folks, I fucked up, and now I'm all out of time, energy, and ideas.  I got nothin' left.  Maybe better luck tomorrow.  We'll see how it goes.

It's Almost Later Now...

I've noticed recently that, the closer I get to my one-year-sober anniversary, the more I'm craving a drink.

I haven't had a chance to discuss it here yet, but I am planning to let myself have a drink that day, and see what happens.  If anything.  (Hopefully, nothing will.)  I've always said that I made the decision to be sober for "at least a year," because I didn't want to set a hard-and-fast deadline for it.  I wanted to play it by ear, and do it for as long as I felt it was necessary, and not as long as some arbitrary date I thought was a good idea before I'd even started.  But I also always knew somehow that, by the time I got to this point, unless there was a really compelling reason to extend it, then it was just going to be a year.  Because the fact is, after making it one year, I'm very proud of myself, and I feel that is a really significant accomplishment.  Enough so that I don't feel the need to keep it going indefinitely.  I'm satisfied, for now.  And the other side of that coin, is that it's been difficult, and unpleasant, and I'm really just tired of it, and ready to see what change, if any, this year has bought me.  And the only way to see what effect it has had is to experiment, and see what happens.  So, that's the plan for Walpurgisnacht, 2013.

Anyway, that's a topic that deserves its own entire post, and I've been wanting to get to that for some time now.  But I had to at least mention it here for this post to make sense.  Because as I've been thinking about this upcoming Witches' Night, and planning out what I'm going to do, and how, and why, I've found myself getting really excited.  Wow, it's been almost an entire year!  Only one month to go.  Then I finally get to have a Guinness and a bourbon again.  I can't believe it!  And the more I think about it, and the more excited I get, the more I start to crave it.  Crave it in a way that I haven't craved it for almost the entire year I've been sober.

I don't want to say this year has been easy, but it also hasn't been especially difficult.  There have definitely been some very difficult moments, where I really wanted a drink and had to try really hard to avoid it.  But, by-and-large, on any given day, I haven't had to think about it.  I certainly haven't had to deal with resisting strong cravings on a regular basis.  But as the anniversary day approaches, I'm finding myself doing exactly that.  Knowing that I'm going to finally get to have some again so soon is making me really want some right now.  I'm like a kid at the beginning of December, counting down the days with my advent calendar.  And every day I'm getting a little more excited, a little more anxious, and it's a little harder to resist, and I'm wishing harder and harder that it could just be Christmas already!  

Until recently, the end of this period has always been in some half-formed "future."  Whenever I wanted a drink, I'd just tell myself, "Not now; I'll have one later."  And I didn't have to think about when "later" was.  It was just "later."  But now I can see that "later" quite clearly.  So instead of telling myself, "Not now; I'll have one later," it's become, "Not now; I'll have one in five weeks."  And pretty soon that's going to be, "Not now; I'll have one in a month."  And so on.  And the smaller that number gets, the louder and more insistently some part of me says, "Fuck it!  Close enough."  And then the more energy I need to expend shutting that voice up.  (Because there's no such thing as "close enough."  I'm going to see this through.  I didn't work this hard and this long only to fuck it up right here at the end.)

I didn't anticipate how much simply defining that "later" was going to effect me.  But as soon as it went from Vague to Specific, everything changed.  Such a minute distinction, but it apparently made all the difference.

Lesson learned.

Equal Night...

Twice a year
once for Yin
and once for Yang
We pass the Balancing Point
and hover there for just a moment
hanging in the Black
perfectly perpendicular
aligned with Our Star
Day lasts as long as Night
and Night no longer than Day
We pass this point
and balance on this edge
just as We begin to explode with verdant Life
and then again We balance here
at the other side of Our Revolution
just as We begin to grow cold and die
These Equal Nights are the doorways to Our Two Worlds
light and dark
Life and Death
Yin and Yang
back and forth from one extreme to the other
in Our Endless Revolutions
but always passing through the same
points of Perfect Balance
in one door and out the other
We live and die all the while
swaying to this Eternal Rhythm
and it shapes us
molds us into Who We Are
What We Have Become
And so We hold these Equal Nights as Sacred
Special
Holy
or Magickal
examples of those brief ineffable moments
of Alignment
and Balance
and Perfection
these Equal Nights guide us to seek those moments
within Ourselves
and without
We feel this rhythm
and We see this balance
return again and again
We see it in Our World
and We feel it within Our Selves
and We strive to achieve that perfection
And so do We accomplish
all Our many
Great Things

Wanting...

why don't you want me?
why don't you want me
the way that i want you?
why can't you feel for me
what i feel for you?
is it chemical?
just an accident of genetics?
or is it me?
is it the pills?
or is it me?
Is it something in our environment?
Or is it Me?
Is it the hormones?
Or is it Me?
Is it something in the way you perceive yourself?
Or is it Me?
Is it pathology?
OR IS IT ME?
Is it just a lack of empathy?
OR IS IT ME?
Is it the drugs?
OR IS IT ME?
IS IT SOMETHING ABOUT US?
OR IS IT JUST ME?
IS IT SOMETHING I DID?
OR IS IT JUST ME?
IS IT JUST A FACT OF GETTING OLDER?
OR IS IT ME?
IS IT JUST A MATTER OF TIME?
OR IS IT ME?
IS THERE ANYTHING I CAN DO?
OR IS IT JUST ME?
IS IT ME?
OR IS IT ME?
IS IT ME??
OR IS IT JUST ME?!!



please don't say
it's not you
again
i can't hear it anymore
because it is me
I am the thing
that you
don't want
not like that
not in that way

not so close

always at arms' length

no closer

because that is where

you want me

Band-aid Blurble...

Still crazy busy.  It's rare that I'm actually tired after a day of work; even when I've got a lot to do, my job just isn't that difficult for me.  But I'm working really hard, and really fast, and I can feel that's taken it out of me today.  And I'm not even one-tenth of the way through this task yet.

Don't look up the hill.  Just keep your head down and keep climbing.

I'm going to need to find some time to write soon here, though, or I'm going to start getting depressed.  It hasn't started to bother me yet, but I know it will, and that makes me anxious.  Every day I don't write feels like I'm doing something wrong; like I'm doing something bad that I know will make me sick if I keep it up.

Saying that here helps, but it's a band-aid, at best.  It's not a cure.

Selling My Time...

No time to write today, but at least it wasn't my fault this time.  Got assigned to a project that needs a lot of work done but doesn't have a lot of money, so they need me to do everything ASAP and without charging a bunch of hours, or else they'll go over-budget.  So I need to just put my head down and concentrate on doing this work as quickly and efficiently as possible to avoid fucking up the entire project.  And that doesn't leave me time for a lot of other things like surfing the web or checking email; or writing bad poetry.

Coming Home Again...

That sound
that instantly unforgettable sound
so alien in this setting
the garden in front of my home
but absolutely unmistakable
like hooks in my ears
pulling me toward it
no resistance
couldn't if I tried
half grunt
half moan
all hot need
rhythmic
repetitive
Uhh... uhh... uhhhh!
warm Spring day
one of the first of the season
her windows open
she doesn't care
or maybe she likes knowing
her naked lust echoes across the courtyard
for anyone to hear
oh, gods the things she is saying!
screaming out her climax
crying out for his
telling him where she wants it
telling him where to put it
I'm suddenly dizzy
losing my grip on the earth
heart racing too fast
palms beginning to sweat
mouth going dry
overwhelmed
overcome
pummeled by emotions from every direction at once
lust of the voyeur certainly
but also anxiety
          this is wrong
and fear
          what if someone sees me
and shame
and guilt

And jealousy
and sadness
I wish I could have what she has
I wish I could be him
and I know that will never happen
not for me
not anymore
those days are long dead
cold ash in the ground

As her hot screams
soften to moist sighs
and my lust sours into grief
the hooks evaporate
forgotten
and I turn my back to the strangers' intimate sounds
and crawl home

Alone In The Bathhouse...

alone in the bathhouse

i have the pools

hot cold warm herbal

all to myself

lying in the warm pool

water just about body temp

ninety-eight point six

i lay myself down

and let myself drown

a moment

lost in the gentle un-feeling of wet

ninety-eight point six

as it was in the beginning

only to rise again

back to the surface

through the membrane

into the light

into new life

and float

free

and gone

no sensation

weightless

perfectly balanced

only sound the muted

th-thump

th-thump

th-thump

of my slowed heart beating

in my drowned ears

the dull steady rhythm of life

eyes closed

floating

lost in dark nothing

lulled away by the pulse of creation

floating forever free

gone

gone

gone beyond

gone utterly beyond

form and function left behind

anchors in the warm water

tethering me to some distant memory of existence in

ninety-eight point six

letting go

letting it all go

drifting away

Neighbors...

Walking home from my appointment at dusk.  Walking down my street, in my neighborhood, on my block.  Group of kids in front of me, walking slowly, taking up the sidewalk.  I walk around them, between the parking meters and the parked cars.  Passing the tiny girl up front, she yells at me, "You best say 'escuse me!'  I got kids here!  An' you don't say 'escuse me??'"  I hadn't bumped into her.  Hadn't touched her at all.  Her kids, a boy and girl about five or six years old, were on the other side of her from me; I was nowhere near them.  She hadn't had to so much as move an inch to avoid me at all.  I had simply walked around her.  And now she's angrily demanding an apology from me, as if I had done something inexcusably rude.  Never in my life has anyone ever said "excuse me" for simply walking past me.  For bumping into me, or getting in my way, certainly.  But not for simply walking by.  Nor has anyone in my entire life ever expected me to excuse myself or apologize simply for walking around them.  She's deliberately provoking me.  And I don't understand why.  I haven't done anything wrong.  But I'm suddenly very aware that each of these kids is black, and I am white.  And this confrontation we're having is our neighborhood, to the core.  This is our home.

I've lived in my neighborhood for over fifteen years now.  This girl staring me down with angry eyes looks to only be about twenty, give or take five years.  It's possible that I was living here before she was even born.  I went to school in this neighborhood when I was a child.  I feel like this is as much my home as hers.  But she has no way of knowing this.  This has been a traditionally black neighborhood for over a hundred and fifty years.  Back then, it was the Freemen's quarter; the first people to settle on this particular piece of ground were freed slaves.  This has been a black neighborhood from the very first brick.  But a few years ago, it started to get very, very gentrified.  Rich, white developers came in and swooped up cheap properties, fixed them up with marble counter-tops and hardwood floors and halogen track lights.  Sold them to rich, white hipsters who wanted to live close to the burgeoning downtown bar scene.  Back then, I was the only white person living in my apartment complex.  Developers bought it and turned it into a condo.  We all got letters saying we needed to buy our apartments or find someplace else to live.  I bought mine.  Everyone else left.  And since then the neighborhood has been this uneasy mix of poor black living side-by-side with rich white.  And I've seen it.  Seen exactly this happening before.  But this is the first time I've experienced it myself.  She doesn't know me anymore than I know her.  We're both making assumptions about each other.  She has no way of knowing that I went to school around the corner, or that I've lived on this block my entire adult life.  All she sees is another doughy white, nerdy-looking hipster who had the fucking nerve to walk too close to her without showing her proper respect.

Things escalate very quickly.  "I'm sorry, I wasn't trying to be rude.  I just walked around you."  "You best watch who you talkin' to 'for I smack yo' fat ass!"  There's no good way to respond here.  What am I supposed to do?  Fight these kids?  Let them beat me up?  Why?  So they can feel better about themselves?  So I can feel better about feeling better than them?  And there's clearly no reasoning with someone who, within a matter of seconds, is willing to resort to threats of physical violence with someone twice her size for something as minor as stepping around them.  Talking about it any further is clearly pointless.  There's no reasoning with a bully.  I learned that lesson the hard way, long ago.  No choice but to simply end this as quickly and quietly as possible.  I turn and walk away.  To more taunts and threats thrown at my back.  Victory cheers for having driven out the interloper, the outsider.  For having proved her strength and dominance to the rest of the tribe.  For having earned back the respect I somehow stripped her of by walking past her.  I'm instantly ten years old again.  On the playground again.  Having my dignity stolen by a pack of fifth grade delinquents again.  Being called "fat ass" again.  Feeling like an outcast again.  Feeling scared again.  For the first time in fifteen years, I feel scared in my own neighborhood.  For the first time ever, I feel like this isn't my home, and never will be.  I will never be welcome here.  I let them make me feel like an outsider in my own neighborhood.  I let these kids make me feel scared in my own home.  I don't feel like I had any choice.  And there's some part of me that feels I deserve it.

Quitting Time...

Time got away from me today.  Too much to do on a shortened day.  Now I have to leave early to make an appointment back home.  Wish I'd made time to write something.  Feel like I fucked up.  Feel like I wasn't paying attention, and ended up accidentally hurting myself as a result.

Aged...

I dreamt of drinking whiskey
first sip
favorite brand
dry for a year
now wet again
felt the weight of the glass in my hand
heard the ice tink against the sides
as it sloshed around in warm amber glow
held it under my nose and
inhaaaaaled
noseful of vapor burn
so wonderful
so familiar
comforting as a favorite old t-shirt
woodsmoke and caramel and corn
county fair
harvest festival
excited heart racing
time to do it
break the seal
break the spell
I cast on these lips last Witches' Night
ember sparks the tip of my tounge
and fire spreads down
my throat
and out
to my limbs
and through
my whole being
dopamine rush of
ohmyfuckinggods
and I know this is the single greatest thing
I have ever put in my mouth
and I know I was born to do this
and I wake up
thirsty

Exercise #2...

Let me in
Let me inside
I need to get inside of you
It hurts so much out here
Feels too much out here
Outside of you
Inside of myself
All by myself
Everything would be okay again
And I would know my place again
If you would just let me in
Let me inside of you
Let me sleep inside of you
Let me dream inside of you
Let me lose myself
And find myself
And remake myself inside of you
Where everything is warm
And everything is Love
Where all I am is gone
And all we are is one
Where everything began
And all my futures end
Where all that's broken now
Does our motion gently mend
Where we are all we need
And nothing matters more
Where all I have I give to you
And whispered wishes roar
It's not too late
Please seal my fate
My doom in you
Don't hesitate
Just let me in
Invite me in
To live and die
And forever abide
Inside
Inside

Winter? What Winter?...

I took the day off
for a storm that never came
Fucking weathermen


I'm too tired to write a poem today, unfortunately.  That's the best I could do.  Sorry.

For three days now, the local media has been nothing but coverage of this huge Winter storm we were supposed to get yesterday.  Up to a foot of snow was forecast.  It felt too warm for snow to me, but what did I know?  All the meteorologists were saying the same thing:  expect a huge, crippling snowstorm on Wednesday.

I was looking forward to it, honestly.  We've only had two tiny snowfalls this year, adding up to less than two inches, total.  It always felt like Winter was just around the corner, almost here, any day now.  And then, all of a sudden it was March, and the weather was warm and wet and smelling like the beginnings of new life, and I realized that Winter had never really arrived at all.  And that made me sad; I like Winter.  Just last Saturday night, I said to Her, "I wouldn't mind one more, big snowfall."  And now it seemed that just a few days later, Mother Nature was granting my wish.  So we prepared to take the day off work and hunker down together to have a relaxing, romantic snow-day.

But it never happened.  Twelve hours after the snow started to fall, we had about two inches on the roofs of houses, but that's it.  It wasn't even sticking to the parked cars, much less the sidewalks, much less the roads.  But the forecasters were still saying to expect up to ten inches in our area before the storm tapered off sometime that night.  And then the snow stopped altogether.  But the forecast didn't change.  Then it started to rain, and the little bit of snow that had accumulated on the rooftops began to melt.  But the experts were still saying we would be getting six inches before it was all said and done.  And once all the snow had melted, even the rain stopped.  And then the storm passed over, hours before "they" said it would, and we got a peek of sunset, just before it got dark.

Ever since, the local media has been filled with explanations and excuses for how they could've gotten it so wrong.  The entire region, including large portions of the federal government, shut down yesterday, not because of a crippling snowstorm, but because of the promise of a crippling snowstorm.  A storm that never came.

I was really disappointed.  I still am.  I felt cheated.  I was really looking forward to that experience.  And I feel like I've been waiting for it for years now.  Two years ago we had three major snowstorms, two of them blizzards.  Ten times the amount of snow we usually get.  But we've barely had any snow at all since then; only about three inches total over the last two years.  Which is ten times less than the amount we usually get.  I haven't even gotten my winter coat out of storage the last two Winters; I haven't needed it.  Where the hell has my Winter gone?  When will it come back?  Will it come back?!  I miss it.  I miss the snow.  And I'm tired of waiting for it.  I'm tired of expecting it and never getting it.  I'm tired of Winter disappointments.

Wah wah wah.  Sorry.  Spring's almost here, though, and that's always wonderful.  I'll start trying to look forward to that, instead.

In preparation for Spring, I shaved off my beard and mustache.  I was getting bored with the look, and annoyed by having all that hair on my face.  But now I don't recognize this moon-faced twenty-year old I see in the mirror, and it keeps freaking me out.  I always find that experience rather exhilarating.

Another thing I've been very aware of lately, is that the coming of Spring means hitting my one-year-sober anniversary.  It's less than two months away now.  That's really exciting, for a lot of reasons.  It's also scary for a lot of reasons.

But that topic is a whole post (and probably a few poems) in-and-of-itself, and this one is long enough as it is.  Maybe next time.

A Meadow In March...

Early Spring snowfall
dusts late Winter bloom
crystalline fractals piling gently
all around
to rest upon vibrant petal
leaf
stem
and ground
The field now
a riot of pixelated color
struggling to be seen under
blank canvas tarp of
Winter's last throes
Portrait of Nature's perfect balance
Yin meeting Yang
flowing together
each becoming the other
flower melts snow into water flowing into flower
demonstration of Tao
in this limbo-time between the seasons
that is no longer Winter
and not yet Spring
when the Universe gives lessons
to remind us that
there is no such thing as 
"impossible"

Other Words...

I love this song
but I want it to leave my brain
Go away!
Get the fuck out!
Leave me in peace!
Be quiet!
For fuck's sake
I have something I need to say
but I can't say it
with this song in the way
The same fifty words
the same catchy beat
over and over
looping through my mind on an
endless rotation
I'm feeling something slightly
complicated
that I need to express
to try and get out of me
but I can't find the words
beyond the lyrical wall blocking my path
And even if I could
even if I knew the words
I couldn't lay them out
couldn't string them together
couldn't find the flow or the rhythm
because all I can feel is the beat
that someone else created
pounding in my head
I'm infected
and I need to get clean
Someone else's art is interrupting mine
and I need to banish it
to wherever lost art goes
so that I can find myself again
hear myself again
so that the voice echoing through my mind
will be mine again

Thaw...

the air touching my skin was noticeably warmer this week

and today is the First of March

and people are beginning to talk about Daylight Savings Time

and there's that familiar excitement in my chest again

the Spring butterflies returning to my stomach

every time I smell the electric ozone scent of

growth

energy

power

life

carried in the warm, wet breeze blowing from the west

it's the chill down my spine

and the recurring gooseflesh

anxiously awaiting all the unknown

possibilities

opportunities

drifting in on the wind

every day it seems the Sun changes color a little more

shading from the hazy white-blue hue of Winter

toward the bright hot yellow-orange fireball of Summer

and I swear I can taste that color shift with my skin

licking it up

cat bath of photons

drinking it down

sunlight pouring straight into me as

endorphin

serotonin

dopamine

adrenaline

altering my basic chemical makeup

transforming

regrowing

my Self

coming back to life

waking the fuck up

waking the world up

I can feel it

I know it's time to move again

time to run again

time to drift again

time to dance again

time to fuck again

time to kiss again 

time to drink again

time to feel again

feel these things again

feel awake and excited and anxious and nervous and alive again

I can feel all of it beginning right now

with every new sensation when I step outside

I feel the familiar twitch of that little seed growing in the center of me

stronger each day

getting ready to burst