Find Yourself

Take life by the horns said the babe to the sky
Don't look back to anything
Run with the wind so the problems don't catch up

Stop and listen to the soft patter of the stream
Elope yourself with the unknown
Open your mind to a cold, bitter winter morning
Don't say the pool is cold before you jump in

Buy yourself a ticket to a place you've never been
Have a glass of wine with a ghost
Talk to a man who doesn't want to listen
Say hello to a pretty lady whose saying good bye

Put the phone away for a minute
That artificial light is making your face dim
Go an hour without an update
Play some scrabble for a change

Call that person you've been meaning to call
Lose yourself in front of a crowd
Find your penny in the fountain
That water doesn't deserve your dreams

Walk around past the glazed eyes and the motors
Feel the brittle wall around your knowledge
Call to say happy birthday
Knock on the door to ask for flour

Act like you can't lose
Everybody will think you won
Wear your emotions with pride
Try to hike the trail no one's been on

Take the offer
Buy the drink
See the lights
Feel the earth

Don't make excuses
Throw seriousness out the window
Invite recklessness for dinner
Tell them shyness can't come

Never talk about what should have happened
Do what you feel
See the needle in the haystack
Find a heart in a black canyon

Be free

Intro to A Western

Sweat trickled out of the brim of his dusty hat as the sun glared on the horizon. Another day in a paradise that only allowed him to walk dead. The horse in front of him was a brown mare formerly of the women he had loved and now of the girl he loved. His dark hazel eyes contracted at the thought of her but a smile escaped his gloom as he looked upon the spitting image of his wife in front of him. They had named her Annabel mere minutes after she had come into this world. It had been the last words his wife had uttered as she laid down for the last time on that hot mid summer day. It seemed he had been sweating ever since. He kicked his brown stallion a little harder; to get closer to Anna. It was the only place his sweat every went; into the place at the center of his heart that was purely dedicated to protecting her and giving her the life she deserved. Poor girl had already had a mother taken away and she didn't need anymore else to happen.

"Let the horse know whose boss, Anna. I'd like to get there before those clouds start moving in," Lester said; setting beside her.

She was eleven, he remembered. Tall for her age and pretty enough to stop the boys from playing gun fights on the towns they past through. Brown hair that curled when it got thick. Blue eyes like her Mom's and a slender body that fit the three dresses that he had been able to procure before they had set out. Today it was the red polka dot dress; not meant for riding but she preferred it. She always wanted to look her best.

"I don't want to hurt Jenny now, Pa. We've been riding hard; she needs her rest," Anna said; high pitched.

"They'll be plenty of rest when we get to Tombstone Anna. Don't doubt that horse till you pushed her, now. She'll respect you more for it and you'll know that when you need her she'll come through. Now, get up!" He yelled; trailing back and giving the horse a good smack.

"Ah...Pa!!!" Anna yelled as the horse jolted up and steadied out to a faster pace.

The smile settled wider on Lester's face and a little laugh left his belly. He took in the landscape after seeing the horse slow and he wondered who would live in a place like this. Montana had been green; rolling hills all around and great brown buffalo you couldn't see anywhere else. This place had mesquite trees as the locals called them. Lester thought it was a far stretch calling them trees. More like bushes with ends that would prick your sides and sweat your eyes. It was better then the grotesque prickly sons of a bitches that he had tried to get water from the other day. Water wasn't even worth enough to have twenty of those invisible pricks stuck in your hand.

Besides the plants it was a tan dullness that eloped all around Lester; with solid rocks of all shapes and sizes kicking up under his horse. Every now and then they passed over make shift train tracks hulling lumber, food, and other necessities out to the barren lands. Lester hadn't seen any other houses since the ranch that had feed and bedded them for two evenings.

"Tombstone needs some use for cattle and hired hands for the building works. If there's one place to find work in this land its there. Watch your valuables, though...especially the little one," the ranch owner had said...."Its a place for men but suspect for children. The west is hard..." he had said. Luckily Anna hadn't been in the room when Lester had heard this; the smallest things scared the girl off.

Lester knew it wasn't the most ideal and it would require some white lies to her but he felt it was the best. He needed the work but most of all he needed the money; to earn and save. He needed to give up the whiskey and not make Tombstone like the seven towns before. It was about time they stopped moving and found a place to call their own. A place where he could find the strength to fill the hole in his heart that the whiskey kept getting poured into and leaking out of.

"Come on Pa. I see a sign ahead. Its got to be as tall as Mr. Wallace from back home. I'd race you to it but, I don't want to dirty my dress," Anna yelled back.

"You jus' don't want to lose now Anna. Slow down now, rein up on her," Lester said; kicking into the muscle, urging the beast forward.

His eyes were still sharp as he caught up with Anna and peered forward. The hazy horizon gave way and the sun blinked out and the sign read Tombstone.

"There she is Anna, Tombstone," Lester said with a hint of confidence and the smile slightly fading.

What is Love?

When do you know about the one? I’m not talking about an answer or a philosophical rendering of finding an idea but of finding a soul to share everything with; to completely be yourself with. Yes, I’m talking about the one thing that no one has really pinned down; the idea of love. Some couples “just know”, others are good friends first. What does it really mean, love? When I was growing up it seemed the word had lost its aura; it’s meaning. When girls would write notes to middle school sweethearts they would often end it in “lots of love”. When a girl was thanking a guy friend for setting up some shelves or something she might throw out an “I love you”.

I was always taken aback by it because I had only ever said that word to people of great importance to me. Family mostly; never to a friend of a couple of months. I couldn’t grasp how you could throw a word that seemed so deep and all encompassing into the most mundane of tasks; “I love this food..” even seemed a little too over the top for me. I thought that the word had lost its luster or maybe I’m just an archaic version of a gentleman. But, as you sit back and look at something else you begin to see other things related to the topic.

I found myself thinking of defining the word love. “Passionate and tender devotion”; “to make love”….I thought; if we use it in something to describe the act of sex is it really something that should be reserved or in treasured usage? Or is it different to say, “I had sex” instead of saying, “we made love”. Is there a point where your devotion transcends the physicality of sex and, the act itself, no longer becomes sex but enters a whole new realm of definition? Just like this paragraph my thoughts swirled and the word “love” seemed even more out of context then before. I couldn’t believe, for a second, that love could be associated with just “sex”. Sex is so common spread this day and age; it happens spontaneous sometimes and nothing of the souls needs to be known. It is often an act of lust. Is this it? When it is no longer about lust but more about the connection of two souls does sex become love? WHAT IS LOVE?????

I haven’t had a relationship that I can pin down as being close to what I think is love.  All I can say is that love seems too poetic of a word to just encompass the physical. A kindred, universal idea is what is needed to encompass the definition of love. WHAT IS LOVE????

When you find someone that completes the puzzle of your mood. This someone is always the missing piece and, it seems, when you look back on it; there was no other soul that could have fit into the puzzle. You and the other person come together as naturally as the fact that “the body needs water” or “one plus one is two”. Love is unexplainable when it is not there but it is the most natural feeling you will ever have when it comes along. Nothing will ever feel so right then love. 

Morning Routine

The worst days were when he woke up early; he woke up about 10 minutes early; at 5:50 am instead of his set alarm of 6:00 am. It was the most bitter sweet moment of the day; on one hand there was enough time to slip back into the sweet slumber where everything was blocked out, raging beauties flocked over him(most of the time he didn’t even recognize their faces, better that way), his punches could vanquish any asshole he had come across the past week(those fight dreams were always the weirdest; he didn’t know whether or not to feel good or horrified at himself), the monsters never caught him and he sometimes got to say he knew how it felt to get shot. He told off his dick friends that he would never have the courage to even think horrible things about and he yelled at his boss; serenading him with outrageous comments about his horrible ties, bad jokes, and inability to even sound mildly interesting. The whole dream was as sweet as cookie dough, the cake frosting tins with the fat little Michelin man on it, the 100,000 calorie chocolate triple Decker, die upon ingestion chocolate cake.

Ya, this helpless prick was living in dreams; dreams where his prick was the happiest and Obama had paid for everything; ya, one of those fantasies. The bitter, though, was filled with the sour taste of priests fondling helpless kids, degenerative politicians webcaming pricks to 30-something year old mother’s of three(the word mother is used loosely), dickless Fox newscasters telling the wives of 9/11 heroes to piss off. Well, maybe not that bad but the bitter outweighed the sweet.

The bitter swayed over him, bringing back the tasks of a new day; the dullness of the Monday morning script around the coffee pot; the lunch hour haziness of badly rehearsed small talk.  He had more interesting conversations with the corpses at the DMV.  All he wanted to do was roll through the day with a broken ore; wanting to do his thing without having to fake a smile or act interested that they had puppies for sale. God, to think that he had loved the idea of working, of having a career; those mad folk who had said college was going to be the best time of his life might have been right. BEEP! BEEP! The morning set in.

You might think that this man is a helpless soul caught in between a trash can and a dog pissing on his newspaper in some back alley your mom always told you not to go down. Instead, this is Robert Evans as mentioned earlier in a touching eulogy that some kid wrote with a skeleton talking and smoking a pack in the background. It is the same Robert that might or might not blow his brains out in a couple of week’s time. A couple of week’s times that preceded from this morning which started off like any other; with a hazy walk to the scale and the bathroom in a one bedroom, modestly decorated apartment. Small apartments make for hazy mornings.

It took at least five weighs to get it right because you had to play with the averages of a Sunbeam, 15 dollar scale. Not bad, 5’10 and 150; a good muscle from a workout program that had been passing the time in the evenings and getting Brittany off his back. Brittany was his friend, girlfriend, maybe acquaintance. There wasn’t really a classification for it on Facebook so Robert didn’t think it warranted a classification. He might have to figure that out soon, he thought, turning the knob most over used in an effort to find that perfect temperature that never woke you up in the morning in the shower. A number of scratches took place, making sure everything was still there, before the water swept over him and 20 percent of his needed energy for the morning came back.

No snooze, so no need to rush the temperature of relaxation; it never woke you up it just put you back to sleep.  It would be so easy; turn the knob, dry off, and slip back into the coma, the only place that had seemed to offer the needed level of unpredictability in his life. The thought of the blessed period of five days from now; the greatest day of weeks used and used again, the day of unpredictability because it offered the thought of free days; the thought of Friday entered his mind. Robert’s thoughts ran wild in the forest of discontinuity until some small over used little geek student on his shoulder told him that the necessaries were done and it was time to move to get out of the shower.

He hadn’t planned on shaving that morning but the promptness of the awakening, the non snooze, presented the opportunity to go clean shaven. A clean shaven face showed some people you cared or it garnered eyes from all of the so-called non-conformists who showed up to work in Steve Jobs remembrance wear and laughed at people who even mentioned or tried to wear something they wouldn’t wear to pick up their to-go meals from Applebees.  Robert had been fed the food of intuition, of “dress right, step right” thought his whole life; it was tough to kick brain wash. Maybe that’s what the Nazi’s had said too. Was he becoming a Nazi? Don’t think too much; you got to get out of here in thirty the little geek said.

Shaving was always so tedious; down with the grain, tap at the sink, insert short breath if needed and repeat. When he had been a kid, the first sights of facial hair produced oohs and ahs from all of his envious friends. Now, it was ludicrous to think of shaving as a broadway play but only instead in as a shallow, hard Jack on the rocks at six in the evening on a Monday. It became necessary to keep up appearances in front of the mirror you were trying to impress; to conform to invisible rules that some drunk conservative had wrote down 100 years back.

Sit up straight, eat your veggies, call your Mom once a week, and always open the door for your date. It was amazing, though, how strangely good it felt to stroke the smooth skin and feel like a square peg in a square hole; fitting in just barely.  He didn’t want it to feel good; he wanted to express to himself the discontent of the mundane and live in a moment where he was man enough to throw it all the way and feel the rustic scruff. But, before he could, the water had drained and the tinge of disappointment that accompanied him through the morning routine had decreased.

His blue eyes turned to the mirror, a slight smile poked though and his eyes redirected to the gel; to gel or not too, it was always the question. The brown hair hadn’t been cut in a month’s time and the shaggy look sometimes didn’t sit well with gel. He would probably wear head phones later too, so what was the point? He shouldn’t have spent so much on the gel, he never used it; he was always a sucker for cute Asian hair stylists. She had been right, though, those gels didn’t always go on sale damnit, and he jump on it. He had said he had to because he didn’t know what was going to happen tomorrow but wasn’t surprised when the mornings were the same.  She had played right into his paralyzed advertisement warped ‘90’s kid mind. So, no gel this morning, as he removed the towel and swung into the closet; hearing the beeping of the coffee pot awaken the child in him. Almost as good as getting socks on a Christmas morning.

Because Brittany had said he looked good in bright colors he went with one this morning; a short sleeve baby blue to pique the interest of anyone walking by. The black slacks would soften the eyes when they ventured below or above if you went off the notion that the first thing you should look at in a man was the shoes. Buttoning the shirt, though, made him not want to wear it; just because Brittany said it was good. He needs to be more open but a little more distant. He has to keep her close but keep her interested. What was this thinking in riddles? He shouldn’t have to think to think. Baby blue, ya, it looked real good.

The pants were a little loose due to the weight loss. A good problem to have but one that always made him skeptical of committing to any new pair of jeans.  His body just couldn’t figure itself out and jeans were always complicated. He sounded like a damn women; man up and have some black coffee, he thought. The morning was turning to the homestretch; to a point where he would share his sorrows with a few lucky souls of the working force; until he remembered the broken coffee pot that had been on his to do list since he had had a to do list.  The coffee pot was leaking some brown substance that could be mistaken for coffee but was just brown water and it was holding back all the good stuff for itself.

He stepped over the puddle to get to the paper towels; he hadn’t forgot those on his to do list.  The mess was all gone but the machine had won another regrettable morning and had led him to the door marked “10 Minutes to Go and Still have to eat Breakfast”. Maybe sub-consciously he didn’t want to lose weight so that pair of jeans that fit just right would continue to fit right. If that happened, though, everything would be suspended in this one moment that he had now forgotten he had ever despised. He had to start changing the little things so the whole circus tent would become a little more nuts. Circus tent; like it was even nuts to begin with? Or was it just his dullness that made him think it was ever nuts? He had to have that calorie packed toaster strudel; the guilty pleasure that he had hid away ever since the whole food, non-dairy, Brittany invasion of his pantry had taken place. A blitzkerg of epic proportions that had been less tough then he had initially thought. But, the strudel had survived the onslaught; the little refugee that could.

Seven minutes to go; and the whole apartment smelled like burnt toast. Just flip the toaster over and let those little specks go into the trash can. God, you little piece of shit, clean your apartment, it’s not that tough. His mom didn’t really get it though; it was that tough. God, don’t even think about your mom this early in the morning and enjoy the strudel. Optimism, optimism; any person who calls himself a piece of shit is either insane or the sanest man in the room. You got to write that one down. POP! The strudel had just the right tinge of brown on the edges; enough to nimble away at before the best part of the warm filling came out. That might have been the gayest thing he had ever thought.

Munching on the strudel he went down the mental list; remembering what he might have missed. Notepad, no lunch on account of laziness, wallet, cell phone, and enough money for a crappy lunch. He didn’t need gas money; that came at the end of the week. It was that precious time; the last two to three minutes before he got the call and thought about not picking it up; just for a second. Where, again, that tinge of forgetfulness, uselessness, and mediocrity came back  and all the things he had just done in the 30 to 45 minutes odd minutes made the most and least sense. His mind had enough in the front to keep munching but the rest went outward; all over the place. What could he do today; just lie around and do nothing and have the best day he had had in years? What was more pathetic; the thought or the sad truth that he was right? No, no, no….. his mantra now needed to come forth. The same thing he had been saying to himself this past year; the year these thoughts had come into his mind, stirring the pot of what he thought was his career.

“This is your life, you are in control. It’s all okay if you’re in the norm. You’re 24, its all ahead of you. You’re getting paid and sometimes getting laid; so put your chin up and go seize the day. Cause you got to take it day by day and remember that you sometimes got to ride the train to get to where you want to be. Never lose sight of your goals and grab life by the horns and direct the bull.”

Ting-da-ting; the phone went off and the day got a little cheerier. 

Morning After

The morning calls
Past the desolate noise of incomprehensible
Through living for the weekend minds
Out as bullshit facts
Exchanged for falling in line

Standing up tall to stick out
Only to remain the same height
Smart ass words known to clowns
Putting on the mask to make the paycheck

Meeting costumes in the dead of night
Never how you are only how you were
Screaming at the top of your lungs
Only to never be heard by the pretty faces

Drain the wallet to get a pity talk
Long for more
Enhancing your short term memory
Another excuse to party

Lights dancing on your heart
Paying your mind off
With concussions of mindlessness
It was never enough to be sane

Prelude to the Conclude

Let it not be said that ignorance breeds without harvest but let it be said that it breeds from an environment; a stew ripe with the necessary ingredients. It breeds in a cycle that will not conclude with the wave of a wand or the deposit of a dollar. Maybe an idea, yes an idea can break the cycle. At first it is not always recognized; often it is met with force. The idea encompasses the rage of many in society’s womb and forces the originator out of favor.  The bottle sometimes drives the originated to the grave or gives the originated a grieving soul reeked with debt. A sad price to pay for an idea; an idea that will only be recognized in whole after the death of the originator.  Only at the beginning will a small fraction of people see him or her as a prophet or a martyr.

            Does that martyr think it’s worth it? When their sitting there in a pool of their own filth; a run down one bedroom apartment; getting enough scratch off an editorial on the local 10^th annual bazaar to get the next bottle or the next piece of skin? Maybe they do; maybe the conviction is strong enough to where they would rather destroy their own body and life then see the world go on without accepting their idea; their work. It may sound like a genius destroyed by his or her own arrogance; it may even sound childish. It is with this childish attitude, though, that comes the best quality of these, what some might call “intellectuals”. The childish feelings of endless possibility; of inquisitive speculation and of innocence.

            With this they can see in different wave lengths then others; along different paths. This is where they often become accustomed to dwelling; in their own company with only their ideas to comfort them. They do not feel suffering through this like some would expect. Normal measures of society that rule others lives…money, relationships, careers….are not how they measure their lives. It is how they touch society through their ideas that they are measured; they want to make a difference and show the world how they think. Most of the time these intellectuals think they’re right but, this forces a deadly trap.

            Most people don’t mind ignorance; they feel they can teach and grow out of it; arrogance on the other hand is a different beast. It is, most of the time, these intellectuals distinguishing quality and paints them into their most accustomed spot; alone. It is odd that these intellectuals believe they can force their ideas upon a society their not apart of. Occasional society comes to the intellectual; when the knights wander to the forest to see the old, wise wizard…..often depicted as crazy and speaking in riddles. The wizard is out of sight and out of touch with society so much that they look at others as tools; underlings to their mind and puppeteer hands.  A trap that often leads back to where they were before; only they’re now dependent on the vices of society.

            Now, with some of the rambling out of the way, it comes back to the original; was it all worth it for the intellectual to suffer while their idea went unappreciated? To go out like they did; to see the world only through their eyes and to relay only on their ideas; their ideas to make their life worthwhile; to somehow let them fit into society. If most could see the end result; could see the many years down the road when their idea was finally recognized…well…yes, they would say it was worth it. Now, in the present, with the last breath it seems to not be worth it. No one ended up listening; they were left to only dwell in the perceived sunshine of their own self righteousness. 

            But, as is life, a speckle in the universe that is evolving; changing. It is the hope that our speckle can shine the brightest; can change the world in that what we believe is the universe. Is that hope enough; to justify a lost life; a life lived alone; with only ideas?

Conversation 1

"It is if you're buying the next one," the women replied; stopping the stirring and turning her head; shining her bright, heavenly smile.

"But its not what you're drinking now? Maybe you just want a martini."

"You should play harder to get; its almost a given that you're going to buy me a drink. Catch up junior, I do this all the time."

"Well, its just as easy to say no," John replied; taken aback but rolling with it. It was so much easier to be unlike yourself around people you didn't know.

"You can't say no to me; you couldn't say no to me the moment you saw me from across the bar. I'm surprised you even came over. Usually I come to a bar like this if I don't want to get hit on."

"What, you don';t like the occasional stare from the 60 odd year old?"

"Is that who usually hangs out here? Looks like we're both out of place. Now, let me get even more...hi my name is Ginger. It is for now at least," she said; extending her hand in the fish like manner that all women had somehow been taught was the right way to shack hands.

"Is it going to change at midnight?"

"No, that's when my pumpkin rolls in front to pick me up. If you're lucky it may change by the end of the night. You have to be real lucky though John....John. That's plain isn't it? What does plain John do for a living?"

John squinted his eyes and watched her face tilt back in an odd manner; her hand returning to her straw.

"You don't like that I called you plain? My apologizes, really. I sometimes take men aback by being too forward or...too...how do they say it in English movies? Forthcoming. Sometimes, though, I just do it to make men annoyed with me. It seems men don't like it when girls talk too much about interesting things; they can't zone out than and they end up finding an excuse for why they shouldn't talk to the girl. You think that's what I'm doing with you?" she said; returning her eyes up; her other hand grabbing her sliver, heart necklace.

"No, I think you would have just been a bitch because sometimes people expect that out of attractive women."

"Honest John; not plain John. No, its not that. I want to talk to you because, just now, I've realized what I wanted to talk to you about this whole time. I want to talk to you about going out for a drink. Why do you go out to a bar, generally and, then, why did you go out tonight?" she said; finishing the rest of her drink.

"Did you want a martini?" John asked; looking to the other side to see the bartender occupied.

"Yes dear; after you answer my question."

"What if I don't want to?"

"You don't want to talk to me John? Am I that boring and just better to look at from across the bar?"

"No, its not that....I just don't know whats in it for me Ginger? You know where this is going," John said; feeling comfort smooth over him and, at this moment, totally content with just talking to this vixen and temptress of words.

"If I like you John I will give you my number. If not, I'll at least stick around to get one more drink out of you," she said; smiling again, crossing her legs, and still playing with the necklace.

"I go out to drink to get away from things every once in a while. Usually if I'm alone I'll go out to drink for that soul purpose. Only lately have I been going out alone just to try to meet women."

"Oh, you need a wingman?"

"Its a comfort thing, ya. But, I go out to drink to mainly have fun."

"The fun involves hitting on women?"

"Sometimes, ya. But, some nights, you just don't feel like doing it you know. You're just go out to have fun and get away."

"You think I can ever do that?"

"What, go out and have fun? Ya, why you wouldn't you? Hell, I think its easier for women. You can just sit wherever and be beautiful, drink, and party. Its all up to the men to make the first move. Hell, to see the contrast in talking between a group of guys and a group of girls at a bar. The girls are having fun; all the time. They might be thinking about certain guys, ya...but....they don't have their friends saying anything to them; pestering them to go and try to get laid. With guys, well....I'll stop. What do you think of that? Is it easier for women to go out?"

"If you're a seven, ya. If you're a ten....sometimes it all gets boring. Women aren't pictured as doing this; drinking alone at some bar. You say its societal acceptance for men to make the first move but...its almost societal acceptance for women to entertain any dork that walks up to them and tries to make a go at it. I mean...its not polite to just tell them to fuck off; you have to sit there, smile and try to very awkwardly show them that you're disinterested. Now, I used to do that. Now I'm forthcoming because I believe any human being should be able to disavow themselves to a bar to not be bugged by societal paradigms.

That's why if I didn't have the slightest interest in you I would have told you, straight up...not tonight. But, you continue to surprise Plain John."

John laughed and smiled at her. Where did they grow women like this?