a young man and a young woman

Most begin with a brief exposition of their current context; the relevant and irrelevant details of their surroundings (symbolic, setting, mood, and so on), and both temporal and spatial. What function this excercise serves, whether to aid in the task of remembering what to write, or to simply impose an image upon the envelope whose contents the following words will find themselves within, to prepare the recipient in some way for the message they are about to recieve; much like a letterhead, or an establishing long shot in a film..we see the city, then the building, then the room, cut to a medium close up, a man sitting at a table. cut to a close up of a tired looking face, and then, he speaks......I embrace this same desire to elaborate upon unecessary details, the meaning of which will remain illusive and unintelligible to me, for I am living them, they are open for interpretation... In a play.....
A young man sits at a table tucked away in some library stacks side stage, there are three empty tables surrounding his table, each with four empty chairs of there own, his of course only having three left. There is a brown man with white hair and a tiny kind looking face sleeping at a comfortable looking chair at the opposite side of the stage, with his back to the audience. The young man takes a few assessing glances at him to observe his shut eyes and briefly reason that the mean had probably been waiting for the library to open in order to get some sleep in a warm comfortable place; there are others lining the other floors of the library doing the same thing, some even taking there shoes off to show the world how dirty their socks are. There are pretty old buildings seen through a large window at the back of the stage, which functions to shine light in upon the young man's back from behind and cast the slightest of shadows towards the front of the stage; the building look to be downtown apartments, old frameworks filled with bricks; tiny balconies with plants on there last legs of life as the weather becomes less accomodating. On this day, the sky is grey and perpetually pouring rain down; sometimes softly, sometimes hard. The young man seems to enjoy this miserable weather-he conveys this subtly by sneaking glances down toward the ground outside to inwardly record observations of the speckles upon the puddles to insure the rain has not ceased, or to document the force with which it is presently falling. He writes in a navy blue hard covered notebook and the audience is left with nothing more than the sight of him scribbling and sipping on a large paper cup filled with coffee. These past few weeks of my experience, like blank polaroids, whose exposure to light has failed to impose an image of anything with the lack of any image striking enough to leave even a vestige......(except for that one incident) The mundane succesion of days whose uniformity has come accompanied with an intuitively predictable flux of colours which paint the sky and shade the day to day occurences; and here I am writing to you. As aware of the nothingness within me and around me as ever; my desire to create is an expression of my revolt against this nothingness. By pouring words upon this page, I admit a preference for imaginary images to the bleak perceivable appearance of things when existing in this town. These words will provide a new method of interpretation for my existence; a new mood for the movie
As much as it seems I hate this passing of days, I have discovered how frightening it is to have the uniform succession of experience disrupted by something unsuspected...though the discontinuity of this chain is not what instills such fear; it was the incident itself and the following implications which I have been left to dwell upon. I surely will remember this event forever-there is no question. As a result, I no longer walk with the same sense of security towards the consitency which I have taken for granted; so unappreciative to the extent of it actually thoroughly irritating me. I find this so strange, that after a tragedy or a shocking incident, people can easily re-plug themselves back into society to be consumed with arbitray concerns and petty domestic disputes. It isn't so much a choice perhaps, as a result of participating in the day to day humdrum, 'life goes on'.....I know of a man on his deathbed, tumours enclosing upon his heart who 'miraculously' recovered and has returned to good health-grown hair on top of his head again; seemingly the moment he returned to living him and his girlfriend got on with thier childish disagreements-perhaps their games never ceased, even during the worst spells of bad health.....you'd think they'd just be appreciative that one another was alive after him having stood on the edge of the cliff, staring into the fait of oblivion...the irony of life; I expressed this sentiment to the person who told me of them playing jealous games with one another....and later that night I would have my own chance to learn such a lesson.
For, I have now watched a chord come unplugged from a body that was standing perfectly well, right next to me, while both of us were engaged in taking this uniformity, and predictability of experience for granted, for not even our most immediate of foresights would come true. Projections for what was about to ensue could not have been more in error. Standing with assurance of what the two of us were about to enjoy together, her laughter and approvement of my demeanor expressed with every half drunken assesment of my appearance, and her re-assuring words that I had successfully won the hearts of her somewhat simple neighbours with my humour. There we stood, her occasionally clasping my arm, in comfortable glee and joyous anticipation for the music we were about to collectively enjoy, like two unsuspecting flies on a window pane enjoying the warmth of the sun, when one gets swatted by a force unknown to them, whose power comes so swiftly and decisively that it leaves nothing behind but a dirty looking smear on the glass where a life lived in the seconds prior; a life that felt things, flew, and landed with confidence and assurance upon the mere existence of their conciousness of the next few moments-only to have them smacked and sent into oblivion without warning. This is much how the scene transpired for us two flies; us two birds on a branch, feeling love in our ruminating of the present tense, comfortable in the sound of one another's chirps, only to have the blast of a shotgun pierce through the trees, to send one of us birds falling to the leaves beneath instantaneously. In a flash one disappears from the surface. This was her and me. In a moment, her eyes rolling back to her brain and dropping to the ground with only the faintest of warning sounds in the form of the words, 'I think I need some fresh air."
Panic sets in upon watching what was so undeniably alive in one moment, fall to a lifeless blank nothingness in the latter half of the same moment. Gone, I hold the back of her head and her waist up from laying completely on the ground, and reach for whatever hands might be clinging to life within her by calling her name; like reaching down into darkness blindly with hopes of connecting with another set of fingers in order to pull an entire body back into light, to re-awaken her consciouness back into life. Tears upon having the chain of existence broken, but why? ...I assert it was the deepest feelings of sympathy for her unsuspecting innocence which led her right up until that moment without a glimpse of a clue of what was about to happen to her. Dropping to the ground was her body, as her mind surely found itself lost in some imperceicevable darkness; with the sound of my voice calling her name, creeping in through whatever cracks of sound could climb in through. Please allow these words to be heard and to bring her back to the surface. Please God.
As if watching a movie begin to unfold right before my eyes; this is how the sight of the frames that passed in the following moments intuitively struck the pre-reflective consciousness. And I immediately become the sincerest of actors, whose tears need neither reflection nor interpretation to continue to pour freely from my eyes. There she lies, she comes back to the surface momentarilly and I pick her up and begin to walk her out, still so far to go....she collapses again....what the hell is happening?... now up against the wall and cradled in my arms amidst a scene that suddenly reeks of chaos needing organization in order to render it all intelligible, in order to clear a path for her wheelchair to pass through the masses. She is green and grey in the face with an oxygen tube up her nose, and her eyes reflect only a blankness that seems to be experiencing the same dream as I am but in a much more surreal and tranquil way than I; she is weak and unable to move at all by her own volition, while everyone else in the scene with me suddenly seems a mere obstruction in our path; all the onlookers unaffected by everything which has turned my entire being on its head; we are the only two in this entire stadium of people whose sleepy existence has become disturbed by this nightmare.
Surely, the most afraid I have been in my entire life, and the funny thing is, I was not afraid for my own well being at all; for someone else's. I find this funny for the fact that I am aware of how concerned with myself I constantly am...but watching this happen to her, someone more innocent and less reflective than I, someone always so simplistically appreciative of the subtleties which can at times mean very little to a temporally contingent mind like me; I do not say she is stupid, i merely mean that she is clearly more in contact with more sincere emotions than I...for, to me, this night marked merely the opening for me, in a string of adventures to come, I already had the mood and aftertaste of the evening premeditated in my mind. I would act in this way so to insure that everything would go smoothly, that she would be happy, and we would both walk away with this pleasant memory of one another. I merely prepare myself in such a way to ease my nerves.....But all of that speculation was rendered impossible by a swatting of some invisible newspaper; a pellet from a cowardly hunter's gun, who hides in the shrubs so well that he becomes invisible to all around; a dead-eye with a rifle shooting straight for the weak little hearts of pretty, happily chirping, unsuspecting birds.
Tubes up her nose and a pulse reading which tells of weakness in the heart and momentary lapses without beats strong enough to make an impression upon the surrounding veins; cut to outside where she is too weak to move and strapped into a stretcher with tears coming down her cheeks at the thought of my not being able to accompany her to the hospital, and in my thoughts, there is the tugging inclination that this is all too strange to even actually be occurring, though I continuously repeat the word to myself, 'Please, Please...." .....for in a moment without warning, she dropped like a sack of dirt, from off the branch we both were sitting upon with such comfort and ease, such confidence that the next moment in time would bring us the same safety and earth to stand our legs upon. Please....
The scariest experience of my life to date; one which undermines all justifications for feelings of, 'woe is me'. For, nothing compares in strength to the deepest of sympathies which ran through me in the hours of this incident- set into motion by some invisible force; sympathy is an inadequate word to encompass the multiplicity of feelings compounded within my body at that moment-a synthesis of some indescribable shock and sadness all at once. Instincts overtaking a body whose mind is profoundly concerned with ensuring the survival of one so dear to them.
'So dear to them'? Apparently, for in those moments when the reel playing the most comfortable of movies breaks, and the house lights come on full to illuminate the snakes composing the floor beneath your feet... how awakened, how much care, how little one understands what the hell is going on.... how empty was my daydream in the sleepy state leading in to this day; of the humdrum of the passing of my time; the selfishness to my leisurely living which allowed me to take for granted the very root of all things known to me; the strange, illusive quality attached to things still breathing and being; that quality of being 'alive'. The realization that her chord can come unplugged at any moment without warning makes me wish to wrap my arms around her and never release my grip.
This is my illusive way of articulating a sight without presenting the facts objectively as if from the prospective of a reporter. Reading the events of this as seen or collected by the hands of a heartless reporter would render the scene all that much more shocking and surreal to me. Young man and young woman attend concert. He said the girl expressed a desire for fresh air before falling to the floor in what looked to witnesses to be a seizure, but what was later diagnosed by doctors as an irregularity of heart activity. Her head may or may not have hit the ground according to the young man who seemed to still be in shock at the scene and for some hours afterward while standing beside her motionless body as it was carted from floor, to floor after having collapsed again, to a small room filled with St.John's workers whose comments regarding the scene were too retarded for this reporter to consider relevant or useful towards any sort of articulation of what occured, to a stretcher, to an emergency room, to a hallway at the hospital.
"I had plans of leaving the city in a few days; it would perhaps be the one of the last times we went out together...something tells me plans have changed. I stayed the next three days at her side, constantly refreshing my memory of the feeling running through my being, that she might no longer be with me in a second. That she might die right before my eyes and I would be helpless, right here and right now on this floor around all these unconcerned gawkers taking in the show, so unsuspectingly and innocently in a moment of happiness and appreciation for ME... the life from her body stolen with a swift sleight of hand! Appreciating me of all people, one who so easily from to time could take her looks of approval for granted without so much as allowing them to register in any sort of positive way. Prayers said and apologies to God all over again-there certainly strikes a chord of irony within the timing of this whole spectacle, why were you placed at her side at that moment after all of this? And, what would have happened had you not have been there? Are you not meant to ask these questions now; to dwell in guilt upon the previous promises you made to Him if she would only just love you? Is there not something surreal about all of this? You certainly think so now don't you.....Consider that there might be a reason for your presence in this particular envelope in space IN time, in this rather fragile game, placed at her side by your own prayers, do you not now have to face the responsibilities associated with having a wish fulfilled?

Today when I leave the house I will tuck my depression into the inner breast pocket of my grey blazer. It may seem like a strange thing to tuck away, or to even insist on carrying around with me...but surely you do not think I will actually place it there?....I merely mean that I will carry it with me wherever I go, as I always do, as I watch leaves fall to the ground and swirl across the street making scratching sounds. I allowed myself to indulge a little bit just there by thinking about the leaves...articulating a little bit of a scene...as poorly as I may have it was still something other than what I truly wish to talk about, which is myself of course. How my existence seemingly remains somewhat incommensurate with my surroundings; with the faces and frameworks that I perpetually find myself grounded within, while always hanging on to that bitter taste in my mouth, as if I've just swallowed something that wasn't right for me.
Last night it all made no sense....watching my body move in my memories last night fills my heart with shame and anxiety. What my mind instructs my body to do when I have had a few drinks perplexes me; as if I know precisely what the worst possible thing I could be doing is and therefore must do it. I wish to do ugly things to feel the thrill of not being caught...but what if....just what if i did....get caught....how shocked the world around me would be today....how different this morning wake would be as a guilty man, caught in the act with red on his hands? How filled with torment and embarassment would I be today? Oh, how horrible it would be....
I found myself all alone and sneaking through trees to get a closer look at what was going on inside the house. I was even bold enough to stand right beside the window and peak through to see flickerings froma tv screen and to hear four voices...two male, and two female...none of which interested me....so I got back to my initial place of hiding, under a truck!...would you believe that? I wouldn't either unless I had seen it myself. But surely, there I was, with dirt on my hands squirming on my stomach to get a look into a basement window and still remain hidden....but there was nothing going on in there....no party....no people....nothing at all....'what the hell was I doing down here?'...the thought must've occurred to me a million times, and I seemingly laughed it off each time with a sort of sinister little smirk to myself...fully in awareness of the damage I was doing to myself in some strange form or another. Somewhere there were people laughing and finishing off the night with a round of tokes...or beers....or laughs...or whatever...and here I was, either laying under a truck, or hiding against a tree; a few half hearted efforts to slash the tires of a certain somebody's jeep with my keys only to realize that it's not as easy to stab a tire with your keys as you might think. Seriouly, imagine if I had been caught, what if an alarm had gone off and there I was fleeing the scene after having vandalized the property of someone I had always despised; simply for the reason that they had always despised me. Though I hated him. I had not seen him in almost a year and his life had meant nothing to me unless I remain tied to her; she was the one with the ties to this asshole I had always hated. I had always hated everything people like him stood for. So damn stupid and so damn sure of every word they ever spoke. Precisely the opposite of how I envisioned myself; so damn smart and so damn skeptical of every word I ever spoke. I told myself as I told her (probably, not in my finest hour) that I too could have my mother invest in properties for me to oversee to if I really thought it would mean anything to me. I hated his guts for talking about his, 'properties' as if he had some undeniable stake in this life, some positive claim of importance. I could easily do that too if I wasn't so damn sure that nothing like that would ever mean anything to me.....'but what about money?' you say...ahh to hell with it. You're clearly missing the point....
For, I admit that it all doesn't sit right and that is why I'm still sitting here, in bed, typing these little ramblings in this attempt to find a voice of optimisim in what surely looks bad on me in retrospect...how sick and tired I felt standing there last night with my head throbbing, standing alone just hoping for something loud and constant enough to attract everyone's attention away from potentially landing on me. For what would I say?...I do not feel like myself, or upto the challenge today. But rather, quite sick and tired. I'd rather avoid the accusations of being a hypocondriac upon expressing that I've been under the weather for some time....I'd rather just sneak out the back door when noone is looking; and that is precisely what I did. For I could no longer take the feeling that everyone who spoke to was a part of some collective mass that looked upon me either with confusion or sympathy. Surely, all of this was in my head but I could bare it no longer and simply had to leave....none of it was making any sense to me, and I hated all of it. I pin point the core of my soreness to lie at the center of my brain...such sickness extends outward from there-what an ugly human being that sickness can sometimes make me...and I laugh wickedly and embrace the face that I can't even bring myself to look at in the mirror at the bar....who, or where I am in someone, somewhere far away from the surface; and all the kisses on the cheek and shots from the bar mock me, for they fail to sink in to me....I am left wobbling down the streets....to a car.
What's this, keys in my pocket?....might as well go for a spin. Yes, that's it, get behind the wheel though you know you're stone drunk. Drive around like a maniac even! that's it...good going....recall driving around on the grass at her apartment last night? along the walkway?....what a mad man you were and all by yourself?! what we're you thinking...you almost got stuck in the mud; what would've happened then? Ah the embarassment, the shame you narrowly avoided....and don't forget the rest of it all. Carry that ugliness around with you today, allow it to fuel you into something positive, even if that positive thing is only really an expression of everything negative about yourself.

Meaning Construed or Meaning by Storm

He asked himself the question of how meaning occurs from so many different angles; where exactly in the mind does it arise and just how can it be arrived at? How do our realms of context determine the meanings we ascribe?...
For Husserl, the meaning of an object lied solely in one’s judgement upon it; though perception shaped and determined the possibilities for the kinds of meaning we could come to possess...the ultimate meaning we settled upon occurred in one’s judgement of an object. This notion that the meaning of something lies completely in how the individual construes it stems all the way back to Socrates-the idea that, “You are what I make you to be”. This idea has bothered me for a variety of reasons, and as I look over the scribbling lining the pages of notes I’ve taken over the past year I realize the extent to which this idea has plagued me and plunged me into the ground, a shrunken human standing under a daunting night sky, upon realizing how unbearably heavy the weight of freedom becomes upon coming to an awareness of your own ability to paint things as you please, for ones line of thinking when pushed in this direction will lead them to the ultimate conclusion that at the end of the deduction there can lie nothing more than the unsolvable and overwhelming responsibility of having to choose for one’s self how he is to interpret the things closest to him. With regard to the ones we love, this possibility for freedom and at times unbearable responsibility can become rather tragically unnerving and profoundly unsettling.

She was a ship with cracked anchors and peeling paint..rickety old floor boards and ripped sails when I saw her after a month that one night in the winter-but plagued with the belief that how one relates oneself to such a sight is completely contingent upon their own subjectivity, I become rather filled with torment and guilt for settling upon the conclusion of her sight that had pushed me away and the inevitable next thought; that I could no longer stay. For I didn’t have to leave her behind, when perhaps all that was needed was simply an adjustment to my eyes-for it was always in every aspect entirely mine; in changing my mind I could spare her the pain of me leaving again and even allow myself to be happy with everything I already had surrounding me. Determining the perspective on the world outside was always simply a matter of adjusting the blinds.

I toyed with the notion in my writing previously of the oscillation that occurs upon stepping upon deck of an old ship that one has spent many years growing acquainted with, and the possibilities for interpreting the sights and sounds that accompany a life spent captaining her. The world of intelligibility as Derrida would say, represents the universe of possible meanings attached to an object for a specific individual. The realm of meaning becomes more and more pregnant the older we grow and the more we learn; or the direction we learn in you might say. The context within which we acquire knowledge and impregnate our thinking, determines the thoughts which we ascribe to sights around us. To a sailor, a ripped sail would pale in comparison to a brand new one without any tares or flaws; simply for the reason that it would perform its task more sufficiently (presumably, though I am not a sailor). So then, if one is a sailor or simply a pragmatist, very little else matters about an object than how it will function with regard to performing its duty in a specific context of interest. Much about the way mates were chosen in the olden days was pragmatic-when I say the olden days you may fill in the blank of what I mean, whether it was the fifties or the eighteen hundreds; men chose pretty brides and women were paired with those working men who could provide. Perhaps we can’t enter into that sort of talk without making a nod towards the findings of evolutionary psychology; for is the picture they paint not of an entire race filled with pragmatists? A pragmatist species humans are, not unlike all other animals with respect to why we see things the way we do. Value determined pragmatically given our biology. But, we’re a perverse creation; with motives unknowable even to ourselves, thus the value we ascribe to given objects and actions is most of the time unknown to even our deepest levels of consciousness.

Thus, meaning is much more complicated than such sciences wish to admit; and I do believe that acquiring meaning in life is perhaps the most primordial drive for all of us. Frankl’s will-to-meaning merely re-iterated and simplified what so many had already said in order to use philosophy for therapeutic purposes and for that he was a genius. To have meaning in one’s life-what a perplexingly simple statement that never fails to leave one twisted in knots if they actually begin to consider what the word meaning means to their life; and if this line of reasoning is followed and hatched out to the bitter end then it seems difficult to understand how or why happiness tied to temporal things in life can ever seem justified. What do I mean?...simply that I am spiteful towards the ones who still see value in nightly affairs that ask for the same enthusiasm for the exact same conversations and jokes over and over and over again; and in that moment of anger towards empty chatter and the void of unintelligibility that I often find myself trapped within, I recognize that my spite is, to some extent a result of envy. Towards those who never question attaching positive meanings to themselves; who wilfully and gleefully jumped at the opportunity to become something determined, rather than avoid ever becoming anything in particular by slavishly obeying some strange fear of losing out on what may lay down one road upon pursuing one specifically. I pity those who I envy, for they seem simple to the condescending cynic in me; yet another one of the paradoxes within my subjectivity that never fails to baffle me into a state of annoyance with my lack of self understanding. My general resentment towards existence is surely nothing more than a result of feeling like a lone soldier consenting to undertaking a battle of thought that necessarily consents to a pointless struggle of ceaseless defeat the moment he turns his stare towards the glare of the burning sun. Staring at the sun will make one blind when looking around at all that surrounds his social affairs. But, there lies little difference in he who thinks too much and he who does something a lot of his time-one finds meaning in his affairs while the other searches for it somewhere; hopes for it to come falling from the sky, but knows with all his knowledge that such a day will never come.

Kierkegaard’s perpetual becoming towards the infinite, and grounding one’s self in uncertainty elicited the very problem that ultimate meaning could never be attained in life-existence was an endless string of overcoming and losing; trivial victories and arbitrary defeats that amounted to only a fleeting, momentary possession of an illusive brand of happiness that could never actually be attained in the strong sense. Happiness is unlike a graspable object, but like children (as so many have said) we long to grasp everything in our hands, and need to in order to render it intelligible to us. In paradox he posited truth; a resolution in the very fact that there wasn’t one; in uncertainty and need he found his guiding light, which was the acceptance that he would always remain blind and grounded in finite darkness. But in my opinion, Soren was nothing more than a closet nihilist dressed in Christian clothes; filled with the contradiction of the need for the eternal while perpetually grounded in the realm of the temporal. Perpetually conflicted and burning with a need to make sense of everything; yet always in acceptance of a life that offered nothing more than uncertainty. To him, meaning then, with regard to important matters such as love and the infinite relation to God could never simply be construed as we wished for them to be-so we weren’t in a position to control or shape the manner in which we related or determined the meaning of the various objects which were important to us. This idea about meaning overtaking us or coming to us, or sheathing us in a certain kind of shadow beyond our control is precisely the opposite of having complete freedom in choosing how to interpret our lives. This idea appeals to me for it relieves the sense of individual responsibility; though again, this idea of meaning happening to us strikes me as a question that sought a solution and arrived at a truth by allowing matters to be simplified too narrow-mindedly. Meaning finds us and overtakes us; we are thus, free’d from the torment and able to go about our business happily; too easy. We become free’d from the anxiety that accompanies accepting the necessity of uncertainty if we are at our core, a bottomless insatiable void of indescribable syntheses, by embracing openly an inexpressible form by allowing a storm to pour down on ourselves, the individual removes the power from his own hands and places it in the hands of something bigger than himself. For those who do not believe in God, we are left waiting for a storm to come sweeping in, to flood the streets and knock us off our feet; we long to struggle and gasp for air-and in this journey under water we could recognize that here, lies our possession of meaning; though we know not where the waters will lead us, we at least momentarily may recognize the return of meaning to us; one that is free from our determinations and therefore we become free from our anxiety of responsibility and guilt upon placing the power to shape meaning in our own tiny hands.

In that recognition, in our grasping of something, such as a lover, in our determining of them in that moment of recognition which posits the return of meaning to our lives we seemingly lose a little of what we inexpressible embodied prior to placing a frame upon her, or it. Perpetual uncertainty; to embrace her with open arms, this kind of openness is the state which we long to return to. In an unknown, indescribable land in a storm of the likes which we have never known.

Back to what I was saying...to an artist, there lies perfection in imperfection-but anyone attuned to the sensations associated with art knows that there lies no objective way of interpreting a sight-and that those who prefer art which is as easy to understand as an instruction manual will miss out on the richest kinds of meanings that man can experience; such meanings as I have argued in the past can only ever be intuitively embodied and thus never adequately expressed even in our inner monologues. To an artist then, it becomes impossible to ever settle upon one assessment of a sight; for all realms of possible interpretation perpetually leave the door open-thus remain open to an infinite world of possible interpretations; and she, as I saw her, was a painting that refused to allow a frame to be placed upon her so to allow for determination to conclude her, and bring to me that unity I longed for and needed to possess in order to feel a sense of closure on the matter. A need for results gone begging down the dirty streets of uncertainty; she could never mean anything clearly enough to me-for the moment I had moved towards drawing a conclusion via the negation of certain possibilities she would surprise me by saying something so simply sweet. The moment I would move towards affirming something sensitive or soft about her there would be an unconsidered term introduced into the derivation that rendered everything else I had a thought a contradiction and therefore invalid.

So here lies the synthesis of the two schools of thought; in the form of a very unclear synthesis which considers the truth of our ability to construe objects and people in a certain way; for our judgements upon objects most certainly determine the meaning which various objects take on in our lives; though perception has a way of determining the kinds of judgements we ascend towards. To re-word this, in order to render the entire solution more sensible, let us say that perception packs a greater punch than our judgements are capable of expressing in words. Thus, there can be certainty with regard to simple matters, but with regard to love, we must wait in uncertainty and attempt to remain in wait for as long as we can in order to avoid ascending to previous kinds of judgments, for in doing so we allow ourselves to remain open to something greater than our mind’s are capable of understanding and inevitably tarnishing. To remain aware of our mind’s tugging at the sleeve of arriving at a determined meaning in order to remain more open to what can sheathe us in a more profound, inexpressible kind of light.

"My thread of thought is severed in despite,

I sicken, long revolted at all learning;

Then let us quench the pain of passions burning

In the soft depths of sensual delight."

-Goethe

Love is art; art is understanding; understanding is unity; unity is simplification. Love is simplification.

The road chosen by brave burning bandits towards the fires of intellectualism which always inevitably bring about an untimely decline into the depths of an illusive yet unmistakable darkness. Intellectualism as a longing for a grasp upon The systematic totality and a true dialactical conclusiveness which can clarify everything and put an end to our perpetual desert hunts which yield no goods.... Such foolish pursuits will leave you lonely in some dusty old attic, far away from everything regardless of where you are actually standing. In an attic always, in your brain scrolling over philosophies new and old, quotes from geniuses-extracting themes ro categorize and systematize the many ways philosophers and writers consent to leading less fulfilling lives. Into the deep abyss, grey in the face and bearded, how you momentarilly let go of the melancholy dream that simple men sub consciously hold fast to; that youthful hopeful dream of bliss via the arms of another who will make you Whole. Love as simplification; a framing; a placing of a border so to understand that which one is looking at. We can only possess the wholes which we determine with our own hasty need to grasp and to control and to understand. Fools you thought, were all of them, so quick to bait at the plastic bait hanging at the end of a line; only to be captured by some unworthy fisherman and be filled with hopes of being thrown back in.

Digression....

Either/Or is the theme for now that I wish to articulate-specifically for now, the conception with reference to a life choice I have often attempted to explicate which offers at its core only two options. Analagously understandable as being stuck on a rock at the fork of a stream; drfiting down each stream only to always acknowledge an itching nostalgia to turn around, to paddle against the current; always followed by a ceaseless hesitance to commit to any one life upon learning the ins and outs of what lies on either side; thus, perpetually stuck on a rock without the capacity to synthesize.

Every book you read seemingly recycles the same tired theme regarding knowledge and how it will lead to madness and loneliness; this of course is one of the streams. In following this path one keeps in their pocket an ultimately ungrantable wish to return to the simplicity that has been strayed away from due to their initial longing for more and more education-a mistake to assume that words and theories would bring about an illumination to clarify the meaning of our existence......

you were very close to the edge of a waterfall at the end of this stream; close to losing yourself in the depths of angry waters; to the anxiety and trembling hands that accompany the actions of a man who lives within his own inward icy land. Yet before you consented to closing your eyes and saying yes to a falling unto a sickness; a sickness that can only attack the soul of someone who devotes their days to searching for understanding. The kind of Understanding that can only come by acquiring that objective answer, or that system of conceptions which will unify the many pieces he has collected along the way, to paint a coherent picture of the All. Longing for conclusiveness in a Universe which keeps her secrets hidden so well will break any man's heart eventually, even if he can rarely ever feel it anymore. And the relation between breaking and sickness is as causal as any.

But before you consented to a falling unto madness, someone in the crowd took notice of your movements and spoke; her soft voice brought tears to your eyes; for the resonating sound of her voice represented a reason for staying upon a surface you had spent so long drowning in doubts; like a hand reaching down to pull you up from the ground that you only wish to kick away, for the worrisome feeling that your legs had been laying for too long to work any longer you said, "Oh its no use! That kind of life belongs entombed in the lampless clost I call my memories!"; the disappointing sight of a man attempting to stand and try to be human again upon quivering limbs would be oh so comic you thought. You were all too sure that your fall had already begun.

The days of youthful thoughtlessness lost, there would be no more sensual fun-but she ran to you as you let your head fall back to lay yourself open to that unintelligible abyss that had always been all to happy to leave you alone in your quest for answers. And, she wrapped her arms so tightly around your torso and swore she wouldn't let go until you remembered how to feel what living meant. "On the surface lies the answers" she swore to you. "Reawaken your mind to the truth of perception and allow the surface to flow inside through your eyes and fill your soul with delight."

In a strange way, as time passed, you noticed it working; while the sharpness of your thoughts was dulling the ease with which you passed through days was growing. But of course, you came to question what questions your mind was no longer asking, and whether or not simplicity was ever an answer at all; or simply a lack of asking questions so to remove a requirement for answers.

But the questions all over again came to dawn upon you like some storm called rushing in on the sound of thunder on day when forecasts promised sunny skies; your eyes and ears welcomed the sights and sounds that reminded your soul of a past, but unforgotten life. A life spent in solitude in pursuit of something. You remember what it was like to identify with the intellectually inclined/the spiritually condemned.

On days of deep thought your eyes look miles deep into nothing and the context within which girls used to think of you as an answer when in your confused starry eyed state was certainly not

in the context of city streets and swirling tongues and drunkeness-it was lecture halls and libraries.....but has anything really changed? You've kissed more girls in the last week than you can count on one hand and why but yo place your lips on something and close your eyes and if it feels like nice; none of it feels like much though; only when you think of her; the one who seems to have sad thoughts surrounding you; a handsome vestige; immortalized by his willingness to turn hus back of the one that saved him; and his commitment to go without asking whose been lying in her bed; he lets the questions pile up in his head in quietude instead.

For you've always equated true love with gloom. Happiness comes easy to simple people; true sadness implies a degree of thought and depth more profound than one night loves and flirtacious lip curls that seemingly work on any kind of girl so long as you're drunk enough to see value in such ambitions-to allow yourself to loosen up in pursuit of what will only eat a hole in you every time you think of her and what the sight of your hands on someone else's hips would do to her. Tell me I am free; and I'll tell you a million reasons why I could never be

scatterbrained.I have not written anything down in a long time, undoubtedly why I have felt slightly aloof; as if a door has been closed on a room full of reminders and I've forgotten my way around the room-so I resort to just leaning against the wall; letting pretty things pass before my eyes without knowing what to do. A room filled with the very post it notes with directions home, to keep myself from walking into somebody else's bedroom and drunkenliy climbing into bed only to wake someone in a panic and realize I was in the wrong part of town.

Words to keep myself from tripping over my shoes when plagued with some strange and bad case of the prison sickness that comes from roaming 'round this concrete jungle gym full of familiar faces that can never stay far enough away for longer than a day. I wish to think about what it means to have freedom, to be free, the research is only in the beginning stages..for now I merely articulate the symptoms of a youung man feeling sick with some ailment when he's laying in his bed; looking around at walls that have only gotten closer and less meaningful over the past two years. My chestplate feels like the door to the cage of ribs that surround my heart today. Some shadow has been sliding my meals under the door for me for longer than I've been aware; 'How long was I out for?' I wonder; awoken on a shiver with a stale taste on my tongue and an anxiousness that too much time has passed without my even knowing...

There is no mistaking this scent that sticks to my skin everywhere I go; the rotten stench of a man whose spent all of his time trapped like a dirty rat; a smell that sticks to me even after I shower..others can't smell it like I can for it brews from within, its a paranoid stench that lingers in my bones, the world I've breathed in and held deep within me...but in time these eyes of mine start to show the gleam of somebody staring off into the distance; the classic look of prison sickness that stares straight through another's soul as if it weren't a human standing before my eyes. Just a body filled with bones waitin' on time to die. I stroll the sidewalks and cross city lines, like some starving French soldier on a German train watching sweeping planes swoosh by, my body feels giddy from the hum of the ride but I see the blurry sights through sunken eyes and with a hopeless heart; filled with an awareness that I'm on my way to a labour camp; the scenery looks so damn pretty, but what the hell does it mean to the man who hasn't eaten in weeks whose on his way to a loveless place, even further away from the picture of the pretty face placed in his pocket watch.

It's in my power to wake. To blink. To focus my eyes on the passing schoolyard full of waving children without filling my soul with melancholy at the thought of what I've come to think of growing up; the hope of a child, as depressing as that of an ape whose born into the zoo....for there is an innate belief upon birth for all of God's creatures that the world grants wishes; the joy in the baby monkey gets stolen by the beedy eyes of tourists and the flash of the camera from those too ignorant to abide by the signs posted on the doors of their prison window; the baby swings on the swing and runs around all day, slowly he slows down his play over time, while the eyes of the mother sing a thousand sad songs, with lyrics of defeat and a tragic acceptance that there will never be anything more than this, not even for the one she loves...while popcorn eating kids and glazed eyes of drunk parents watch on with smiles-the kind who haven't forgotten how to smile yet and the kind of those who've finally realized that the only way to make sense of anything was to stop trying to make sense of everything; just start swaying softly in the breeze of a self induced coma that's eases the pain of watching our lives turn from kissing pretties to seeing toilet bowls full of blood after every time they take ....,now i stop what i was on. For none of this rambling on will get me closer to feeling free.

Freedom. Those who dare to rebel, how can we do so without changing the way we live outwardly, can I still be a free man in this society? I ask of you to answer me....can I be the overman and only be him within me; while in line at the bank, to get money to pay my bills.....while in line for the bathroom, to find a quiet little corner for me to take my pills..... This feeling of confinement stands before me like the sight of a million soldiers in a line along a shoreline who insist on making me tread water for a lifetime. But how long do i accept what life they've granted me? And, what are my options? I can see what lies beyond them, a mountain, a river, a row of beautfil birds singing songs of longing to be taken in arm by something stranger than the kind of man that devotes his life to standing in a line just to say no to some other man. Their songs echoes across the water at night, we bounce calls off the sky to one another, but there is a way to break through the line...perhaps it is much simpler than I have always assumed, a way without words...but words were always what made sense to me. So with words I build my weapons when nobodies watching and make plans of an escape from this ocean of deep blue water that turns black at night..but the stars are pretty out here, and I start to get used to staying awake only to remain lonely.....and in these moments when I smile to myself, I am free, for I have let go of the hope of ever having another person see what i see...for out here in the ocean, it's only me, I do not think of God, I do not need him to see what I see to feel alive either. This sky is mine I say to myself with a smile and for a second I am completely free, and so to is the mother of the monkey in the moments when she was watches her baby swing from articial tree to artificial tree....not so in the same way at all...only in the momentariness of the feeling of peace despite.... Humbled by the stars, I laugh at the soldiers standing along the shoreline, for nothing on land in the world of time and man has ever meant anything. Out here eternity is everything, and then I allow my lungs to breathe the sea air as deep as I can breathe, for this air is mine and all mine, at least so long as I have it still have the strength within me to take a deep breath. In solitary confinement without hope of release, I learn to accept the constant sight of the walls around me...but why? These walls can be broken down. I need to not adress all the particular reasons I feel confined, for they are all always in my mind in the form of some daunting presence, a wave of the finger at every unfulfilled wish within me, a shh for every scream, a knock on the knuckles for dreaming to do all that you could do, but you would never dare to, so long as these walls promise to surround you. Freedom; a matter of strapping on your shoes and taking what's available to you, regardless of what others are telling you. The subtleties that plague me; i turn my back on the pen, and the disease starts to become me-my skin more permeable than ever to the stream of shit talk and other's ways of walking the walk. None of it matters, for freedom has always been mine, so how can I get rid of this irritating kink at the base of my spine...how can I remove these walls once again from around my mind...articulate, reflect, forget what others don't get, for they never will get a lot of things. That's their burden, that's their curse, it isn't mine. I've got no time. The old man and my drunk uncle taught me how to play poker when I was just a kid. There are certain things you never do when at the table...the etiquette of the game always struck me as silly, and too concerned with remaining gentlemanly..paradoxically occuring during the time when men let their shackles off, a momentary chopping of their strings that keep them attached to women they only loved for a day and mortgages and sons and daughters. "Keep your cards tucked close so no-one else at the table can see." Only a rookie or a dumb drunk would ever slip their elbow off the corner of the table just enough to allow for someone else to look over their shoulder...or an obnoxious drunk to just tell everybody what he's got by flippin' his cards over intentionally just to prove that in some small context he could still make a scene....I was always too young to drink, but old enough to understand the rules...'was always'...bit of a contradiction ain't it....Keep your cards tucked close to your chest. Soon the sun will shine upon the shoreline so bright that a breif moment will present itself for you to make your escape-don't ask for more time, for time is always the one in control-just roll along until the moment is right, for freedom lies on the inside anyway, and silence is strength.

wear your demons on your sleeve, and bite your lip baby-when you're closetalkin' me.

Humility never got anybody anywhere, and I don't care because I never expected anything-a mind that thinks in lyrics and melodies these days; a worlds of conceptualizing laying behind me...a pretty girl on the porch and a nervous beating highschool heart that makes you wonder why you can't ever pool confidence from past lovers-past accomplishments. Come home and take a three hour nap; not because you're tired; but because looking at pictures of her still somehow breaks your heart-sleep out of sadness and barely bring yourself to waking up-like she said, i'm not suicidal, i just can't get outta bed; but I can do anything when there's drinks to be had-arguments you to be argued-wars to be fought-people to be judged.

He starts talkin' like a tape I've heard too many times before, despite the fact I tell him that his story has already been told-talkin' like a tape while his annoying girlfriend innaccurately interprets positions and arguments-all the law school in the world couldn't gift some people with critical reasoning skills. And there's a spark in your eye when you're angry; and people who point it out to you piss you off too. I don't care if I look good tonight; I'll only look ugly when I'm sober anyways. Lately, a lot of birds have been flocking to you and you're too hungry to not spill your servings all over your crotch-she takes your hand and pulls you into the washroom-girls who just want to fuck still rub you the weird way; I tell her I move slower than that, though i'm thinkin about doing nasty things; if only i didn't have to bring her home to take her clothes off.

keep to this weird memory of the golden kid i seemed to be at this time one week ago, where he went and why I made him leave-it was surely some sort of something at it's peak; the way they all flocked to me; I didn't like it then, for I knew that sickness would steal the appeal that had brought everything to me soon-that grey would drain the colour from me all too soon, and the one they all seemed to respect so much would be something I could only be momentarilly; a night at best..and in this rest, and reflection I am so aware of the confidence that is lacking...the search for meaning continues, and without a project to keep my thoughts centred I am lost and losing sight of self-and losing grip on the tiny thread that hold arrogance in its proper place so to let a little bit of narcissism show upon this face....
I long to be seen by you-somewhere bright when I am healthy; the ones I never want to see me always do; and its you I wish to witness me while I stroll by unknowingly-why must she be the one who speaks to me now as I would speak to you; I have never seen the need for scratching my name into a place where so many others have already carved in their ugly shapes-she is a picnic table in a public park, and I long to carve my name in a tree somewhere off in the woods; thats what you sort of seem like to me...but how could I tell this to her without seeming so rude...

Nothing interests me really-there is so much to see through, yet i long for something as shallow as to simply be seen by you; the one I can already see through; perhaps why I don't wish to see you; and only wish to be seen. Without words you might understand how I feel about your presence; only in socializing do I feel so inclined to make you think I think of you, I care for nothing-and the thought of her pressed in the grass under another bothers me little these days. I don't think of sex in the same way; she no longer belongs to me, and I no longer to her-I look for pictures of pretty unknown things and this city has little to offer me.
I roll to the bar as thirsty as ever-as socially uneasy as ever...the blonde bartender waves at me, perhaps only because I'm a regular, but she's always seemed a little sweet on me, and I her, but that's all that will ever come of this, a look in the eye when I leave her her a tip, and quiet 'thank you' unheard amidst the obnoxious chatter of 20 year olds who think the best way to get drunk is to be as grabby and ugly as possible.
We sit at a table, and I listen to older boys make jokes to compensate for their lack of courage-filthy jokes about murdering girls and eating assholes-as if such rancor could prove to somebody the words to remind us all that they still have an active sexlife-blatant oogling that never leaves its seat for anything more than a look up a skirt; it all sort of sickens me and the sitdown humour strikes me as somewhat pathetic when all you'd have to do is just talk to her; tasteless.
I continuously try to return the conversation to matters that interest my sincerity-where people work, projects they're working on, one of them has a 3 and half year old son...and I intentionally return to such matters despite the fact that I know I'm spoiling their fun...I am the serious one at a table of laughing hyenas; I am the world's worst wingman too for I usually just sit by myself and drink drink drink in the dark while others flirt with ugly girls who need to be fucked by something every night-I look for the one who I might have a conversation with; the little sister that speaks about things that interest me but she is nowhere to be found-I by an old aquaintance a birthday round and thank time when it hits two o'clock, another night I hung on 'til the end-somehow I feel gratified as if another day of work is in the book-but this job drains my bank and I am not entirely sure why I give my love for alcohol a straw....perhaps in hopes of being seen in passing by someone I could never care about; then I might be understood in some strange way, and for some reason I long for this as of late-the most unfulfilling of relations; yet it seems more meaningful to me than sitting back in my seat and laughing at jokes...when the truth of the matter is they're all still sitting on their asses; who am I to care or to judge; we all overcompensate for some things I suppose...this goes nowhere and I am scatterbrained. ah well, the sun is shining, the work week begins all over again-unchallenging and as easy as ever for someone who knows all the ins and outs of a simple blue collar job-yet this week i find myself a veteran riding alongside somebody older than me who asks too many annoying questions...i work harder than I have so to make it seem worthwhile, sweat buckets and look skinny and trim-narcissism will be filled to the rim by the end of the week and I will still be disappointed with the looks others sometimes praise of me-all because everything still sort of means nothing to me; without your eyes, whoever you are, I remain invisible.

She said
you have
a certain way
with words
so I don’t trust you..

Well I don’t blame you
I don’t
trust
my self.

/unconsoled, lonely, so much better than I used to be.\

how then, and now, emptiness.
how much more a song can resonate within this body of mine when I've got an aching heart...every word we nod along to as if it were the description of our everyday experience..wanting to scream our anxst out into the night. but there is no way to escape the day that is always gaining on us....still drunk I wake with the sun to roam around this town bordered with beautiful fields for corpses; they save the prettiest lots for the dead, while the rest of the land here gets filled with the saddest looking sorts of structures...asquare feet and barbeques..to live out your days in the same little spot and die in comfort..not for me, not for me, none of this has ever been for me..but where.
I feel that burning in my spine all over again....and I can't help but hold onto your thought, but why do I do this?..I wonder if Augustine was right when he spoke of the perverse sweetness we enjoy when engaged in mourning...do I think of you in this sad way to basque in the poetic beauty that is the tragedy I ascribe to the storybook synthesis of memories of you and me?...am I merely a selfish, self-proclaimed protagonist enjoying the sound of his own story as the words bounce off the walls of his skull.....
Do I talk to myself, and say 'I love you' to a ghost for the sheer strange pleasure of embracing sadness to the fullest...glorifying my suffering?....NO.
I do not...there is simply too much fire in this heart of mine, words upon words pile up on top of one another as the day rolls onward and as we drive around these familiar frameworks...I miss you; what you used to mean to me..and I resent the world so bad baby. It's real and I am alone..burning and more alive I suppose....I do not glow though, for without your eyes I am invisible...
unrequited love is tough-to devote a life to one who wishes not to reciprocate-this choice becomes a scam for words the moment the hurting man picks up his pen to embark upon a life of creation....tapping into the most obvious of painful situations to bring about emotional creativity...this option is foolish-even cowardly...cliche....what hurts more is loving someone you force yourself to let go of only to remind yourself that they would've loved you forever.

The sun is shining and the heart of this city is singing...but I can only bring myself to embrace the sombre nostalgia that surrounds thoughts of Hannah. I listen to songs that confirm the sorrow that accompanies the enslaught of emotion that arises upon riding through this park-On a day as beautiful as this, around this time last year I first met her...afraid of what I saw; afraid of children for my inability to not relate to all as adults.....overwhelmed with the home my heart had chosen I was a nervous wreck.....and here I am a year later; all alone once again as if nothing had changed or happened at all in the in between days.

This is the bittersweet feeling when one can't help but open the book of memories; for only the most beautiful and meaningful are placed inside-but all photos represent moments that have past and thus moments that can never again be grasped. Thoughts of Hannah I allow myself to think today-perhaps it was this very day last year that I first met you..I do not recall the specific dates...thinking of her as I see all the little girls throwing bread crumbs at the birds..or spinning in circles...running around the trees....I think they all might be her for a split second; and there are tears; I would only want to pick her up and squeeze her; but I would have no right to even stop to say hello if I saw her-but she would say hi to me-of this I am sure....thoughts of her.. feel like looking upon photos of someone loved who is no longer alive'.... but even this description is inadequate for articulting the well of sadness that subsumes memories of our happiest moments together. How pretty the world is painted in the book of memories; it all looks so perfect from where this lonely beast stands today.
I read you stories and you leaned your head on my shoulder; how meaningless this must've been to someone still so innocent..but undoubtedly my heart was softened; days in the park when you could not contain your excitement upon seeing me...I do not know why you liked me so much; perhaps because I tried so hard...I will never pick you up again and spin you around the room; nor will I be there to hide everytime you leave the room...Cordelia said you cried for me when you were sick...I can only imagine how sad it must make her to hear you say my name....all of this seems so tragic some days. You will grow-and I will never know you again. And Cordelia-sweet Cordelia, how I feel your ache today.

I find myself in the shadow of the past that follows my present tense around. I sit in the pocket and recount all that has occured-and it is here where I wish to remain for now, tucked away in the wake of my mistakes. I feel my body underneath my skin-watching landscapes pass without focusing my eyes on any particular sights-merely taking in the green and brown; the branches that line lonely lots in long stretches of farm towns. I settle beneath and allow the surface to come to me. And there is my past, reachably embodied within me.

On these roads there is no one following, and one feels that past lives in different cities can be left behind.

one must always keep in mind
what it is they're leaving behind
in order to fully embrace their new surroundings.

love is hell, hell is love

My toes combing the cold sands of desolate lands in search of pretty sea shells to fill my tiny pockets; a pursuit as futile as filling a cracked bucket with water. the pockets on this bathing suit of mine are so small that they're only good for momentarilly possessing that which strikes the kid in me as interesting; but everything eventually gets dropped along the way. Childlike is the enthusiasm for possession that brings a boy to steal every pretty thing that catches his eye; so too is the tragic forgetfullness that accompanies time for he becomes a spoiled boy with too many toys-so he shall remain for as long as he allows himself to succumb to the temptation of leading a burning life; a life led perpetually spinning round and round on a carousel at some sombre carnival; sad organ music and always raining all the time.
Loneliness lies beneath the surface of every sigh this city tries to keep unnoticed-its everywhere and underneath everything; much like the inexpressible awareness one has when in a different city-what it means to feel the frameworks which surround us; one can never capture in an expression what the big meanings mean, yet we possess the complexity of these meanings by embodying them in our deepest pits prior to intelligibility and expressibilty...loneliness has no skeleton so I let her share mine with me.
The face of my summer starts to show its shadow in a deeper shade of black-working hard will make a man out of you, but now I know I won't have a real job..does that mean that I'll become the monster that love will always makes out of me; or born anew into some new place. But these streets have seen the advertisements for this face for years now, after the show's many finales with cast and crew re-dispersing out and into the atmosphere without even the flyers having ever been looked upon; covered alsmot immediately by somebody else with a need to shine. I foresee what the months that stretch ahead of me will look like-if working hard will make a man out of you and loving will make a monster out of me, then what does loneliness make of you?...As I walk along the sidewalk, I reach into my back pocket and grasp what feels like the ridges of a seashell; a half smile comes to my lips in sadness in thoughts of the day that Hannah spent on the beach and she came back with presents specifically for me-"Here! Take this with you and I'll see you tomorrow!..? Will we?!" Cordelia and Hannah, the angels of my soul that the devil in me had to drown; I kill you only to miss you with every step; every present tense in awareness of your infinite absence-you are gone, the sombre carousel rolls along. I take the shell from my back pocket and present it before my eyes to see the green of nothing other than a beer cap; this is the life I choose to lead my Cordelia; I do not know why exactly, but perhaps its really just some small part of me that can never commit to a future of adult living,
I will always remain a kid cramming shells into his tiny pockets despite how useless I know this treasure hunt to be when this basket of mine can only hold so little-its the only kind of striving thats ever made sense to me; so thats who I am always; the one who wished for love and lost his mind upon having his heart broken-perpetually searching for flowers in the cracks of the rocks that stretch out and into the water at the beach; flowers to bring to a beloved that has long since passed or had never even loved me back; heartbroken and insane over some one and only he never even knew. When a man passes to tell me that the flowers do not bloom in these parts anymore and that they haven't for years-I hear his words but laugh at his distrust for mother nature-tragic is the faith of the mad man who believes in his heart that soon he will possess the impossible in his hands.

an answer for the evening

Awoken on a shiver after having slept the entire winter, only to find that I could not recall any of my dreams. The light creeps through the blinds and I lift the window to let a little air in. slowly, glimpses of the life I’ve led begin to present themselves to me; in fragments, like torn photographs....my memories scattered about on the lowest stratum of my unconscious...they take flight towards the surface of my mind in momentary leaps powered by the subtlest gusts of spring winds. And then I can not help but wonder if there's something wrong with the way I perceive time; with the way my mind experiences temporal living. For this feeling of displacement and disconnection from the months in my recent past is much stronger than its ever been. Perhaps this is merely one of the perks of maturation….the complacency just seems strange when I reflect upon it...I try to not let the implications of it sadden me.
I look in the mirror to a see an unkempt beard and two grey eyes staring back at me. Sunken eyes that with every day I look a little older, recognize me less. For I am always a boy in the deepest pits of who I am. Not quite as determined as Freud would like to believe; not merely some mechanistic robot responding to drives that have been affected by previous lives of mine. But there I am always as a boy behind my eyes, and in my mind-in the field with a baseball glove in hand and a beating heart; and in those thoughts the sun is most definitely shining. But there I stand today, reflected in a mirror in a dimly lit bathroom in a basement at a university I've spent five years attending with only seconds left 'til my last departure. There I am now; looking a little less enthused and a lot more tired. Cliche to say we are always children; but the very proof lies perhaps in the testimony that so many have felt the need to present this articulation...explaining this tragedy as a child whose locked inside some decaying vessel...
I am ridden with shame once again today. For the recognition of my inability to live a non-contradictory existence. I am alone in myself, and its deeper than ever. But I frolic in these fields of mine while the fire scorches the earth around me and soars into the night sky. Here in this burning-I am mine. It’s the rest of it that hurts me so-the time when the world is grabbing at me that I feel my skin being pulled in every different direction. For, there she is with her needs, and here I am with mine. This is the greatest paradox of them all perhaps; though aren’t they all quite great!...a joke it may seem, but of course, every comedy is a tragedy at heart; I don’t know any other way out but to ground myself in this ugly piece of art as some pathos filled clown.

I told her I once lived for the possession of pretty memories and that living that way led to anxiety and a feeling of hollowness. That over the past year I had forgotten to live like that; she took this as a compliment; rightfully so. Finally there was meaning in the present tense, and for the first time in a long time, he recognized that he was at least capable of momentarily being swept away with the tide. No longer completely leading a life concerned only with leaving an impression of himself upon others that he could accept upon reflection; perhaps the avoidance of the feeling of regret was truly the fear he initially obeyed. But either way, he had arrived at a place where there was nothing staring back at him when he held his eyes open wide.... for the thought that it would all become some broken memory laying on a basement floor had stolen the meaning in the feeling of the present right out from under him. He recognized, sitting there across from her that he was alive in these moments in a way that time had never allowed him to be-.....but as I begin to allow myself to articulate what I am thinking I begin to worry about losing possession of the inexpressible meaning that accompanies only immediate experience. When I start to walk in this direction towards reflective possession-the world begins to assume a familiar shade of grey that I have not lived within in a while. Its funny though for I am happy in the saddest of ways when my brain is actively processing and grabbing at my surroundings as a memory making machine....Making things my own; it is the will to do this that I wish to overcome-maybe the maker will show me the movie for what he meant by it.

--

But then, like some divine test of my ability to keep promises I once made to God- I stay late to finish my work. Perhaps in honesty, not why I truly stayed at all and perhaps I was seeking sin from the very first moment she popped into my perception last October-then she was a girl with a boy; an argument ensuing outside of our class and I overheard her say the words, "Just stay!"...A tall kid with brown hair upset opted to leave....from this sight the theif within me became intrigued. ...tonight, I stayed to work on a paper...probably for more for than anything, in acknowledgement of the underlying awareness that strickens me that her and I could never walk home together with only one set of keys. Here I am sitting at a desk I thought-after having used her again like some heartless man… And there sitting, of all people; the one who sat so proudly in that chair I had labeled in my mind many months ago. Did I know this would be the case, that she would be sitting there…. But so late on a Friday night? Still at the library. And oh, what luck struck upon me to see them walking over to me with a smile on their face. Asking me the question I hadn't the nerve to approach them to ask... when I had seen them there thinking away without noticing me. Oh, how kind of you to come walking over to me....
If two people stand aloof then the point is simple-nothing will ever take place but unjustified heart ache. And now, look at the two of us dancing around in my memory, what a pretty scene to me the two of us tightrope walking my bones, with a dangerous future that only I have had the pleasure to foresee and hold. There you are in mind, and I can only wonder if I am at all in yours-and today there was nothing to constitute a 'we' between you and me. Seeking this unity is the only drive I know how to care about now…..But, time plays funny tricks, like a magician of today who waves his hanker over our hands while were holding our most prized possessions, to laugh wickedly while he sends them vanishing into the oblivion of yesterday. Days later your image shall fade and the outline of your face shall become but a vestigial tracing at best….yet I’ll long to look upon the shape that memory renders a mystery within me-for my heart’s anxiety will be the only assurance for me that you remain an interesting and intelligent angel…

Clementine-the contradiction that I am; this is life. I can only say I am sorry for being human. For not a year ago I cursed my perspective that needed to remember and hold pretty thoughts in his head instead of pretty things in his hands in order to feel that he was truly grasping them. And, tonight I am tempted to return to the land from which my wish to abandon has already been granted. And you were the angel who granted me my divine wish; I even prayed for you once....and here I am now; longing to return to a lonely world of memories of pretty things....and then there you are. the one my body knows how to love, staring back at me. What can I do but wonder now what you think of me.

I wish to return to a critique that I briefly proposed in the first short paper assignment, so I suppose I am simultaneously using this email to inquire if a more developed explanation on that critique would be alright by you as well:
The problem I had with the 'meaning-intention to meaning-intuition' topic was the idea that I believed there to exist an expressionless-formless layer of meaning to lie deeper than the stratum of conscious intentionality. We discussed in class how passive synthesis, the hyletics were always re-arranging and re-settling in a way that was constantly under the surface and perpetually informing the noetic acts of trans.consciousness. So I am grappling with how to formulate what it is I am thinking and how it meshes with what Husserl says. This idea of the passive synthesis interests me a lot and seems to speak to the idea that I wish to elaborate upon further in discussing acts of meaning that arise prior to expressive acts of consciousness. Meditation four seems crucial in undertaking this task-the idea of 'active grasping' seems to be where I might disagree with Husserl-for it seems that he believes 'reason' to bare far too much significance in the possession of meaning-I wish to articulate the idea that cogitatum (controversial term in this context?) need not need be 'actively' grasped via reason in order to bare meaning. I might only be saying then, that the passive synthesis are constantly informing us in the nexus that is our constitutive synthesis. My critique might amount to simply asserting then that attempts to explicate embodied formless meanings via eidetic reduction-which explicates into only the essential parts so to render them rationally understandable, oversimplifies the richness of activity that constitutes a meaningful experience in existence. I believe this oversimplification to lie in Husserl's need to aquire universalizable results-in longing for that which is essential, he oversimplifies the richness of meaningful experience.
Another direction I might go with an interest in hyletics would be to provide a more intensive exploration upon the conception of habitual apperceptions affecting us and motivating our activities as a result of the passive synthesis' response to various 'objects'. The idea of a 'developed' ego encountering apperceived objects we've become aquainted with seemingly calls for a more developed explanation. So, here I would want to play out what it means to have our conscious acts motivated by habituated passive synthesis, or in other words; the way our emotions and our passions have grown accustomed to activating upon the presence of kinds of apperceptions and how this internal passional activation determines our choices of action. Our Egos develop and thicken and become aquainted with apperceptions. Our emotions inform the Ego. It seems that if our passive synthesis are motivating us in this sense-that they can have a sort of embodied memory capacity-which means that the way we respond to almost all situations in life would be determined to some degree by the events surrounding apperceptions which led to the thickening process to occur in a particular way. Various events would have left their mark on the strata of sub-conscious passivity-this arises two questions: Does Husserl give passions and conditioned emotions an accurate portrayol in our constitutive synthesis? And, what would it mean if our bodies had a limited capacity for thickening with regard to ways our emotions respond to apperceptions. As I think of this it obviously strikes me that this is the kind of story that psycho-analytics tells which may be disuading from embarking upon it.
Well I've said a lot here; as you can see I'm sort of stuck with a pile of possible ideas-I've written a bit in each direction now but could use a little feedback as to what you think of either of these approaches (whether or not there's any point in pursuing them further and if so... any tips?)

I want to look at her-
But, the longer I stare
the less I care.

There is nothing more worthy of desire than the relative end that is a pretty face. The only thing worthy of a striving for, is the love of a female. Its what ignites one's bones; 'but the chase is all we know-the portraits of a future unreachab;e are never as perfect upon reaching the future.
the true paradox in my opinion, that of eternal aspirations and the temporal tumbling down that I equate with the reality of it....this is the true disappointment that I involuntarily (perhaps voluntarily-a choice to live within truth; the only truth that matters to me.) ground myself within;. I know for certain that this is the contradiciton I find my truthfulness within. In this parenthesis of sadness and refusing-to-believe while needing to find her; here I find my shell.
I get dressed in the morning in the borrowed clothes of someone who still pretends she is waiting-this taste of time tightens the skin on this face though, and I am unable to disguise at times the scolded shape the blowing of the wind has brought upon the bones on this face.

I wish to hold onto the memory of her looking at the books while knowing that I'd soon be coming up the stairs, and that she would be in my view upon coming around the corner. On that day she was till something to me; the mind I intuited to lie behind her eyes before I had spoken to her on more than one occasion. Ah love, truly the cruelest contradiction of them all; a need to believe aligned with an understanding of impossibility-this is the paradox that can weaken one into strength. This is the truth within which I ground my feet. the walls of this bubble encapsulating me all wherever I am; its' air i need to breathe no matter how tired of the taste I've become.

The car is falling apart; black ice sends this death box into a slide right through a stop sign- I coulda killed somebody; I curse thoughtlessness. I curse poverty for imposing itself upon the periphery of my life and demanding to enter as a permanent citizen. Like some glee club choir boy growing up in a nice neighbourhood beside the projects; he fears the market might crash; that pretty soon the bad neighbourhood will be encroaching upon is once pristine front lawn. Some glee club kid who wishes he'd never had faith in something his brain knew to be a tragic endeavour all along-an aspiration that some passion for someone could conquer the conflict that arises within his understanding upon speculating mere moments ahead into the future, should he allow the car to continue to follow continue sliding through stop signs.
The brakes barely work on this thing anymore, soon we'll be sent sliding into some city filled with skinny shadows and echoes of maniacal laughter. That's when you turn to me passionlessly to tell me we've arrived home.

A project of artful deception he thought; he'd show the life you could never keep-enjoy the present tense and never allow the voice of foresight to speak.,,,had to learn the hard way, that when you don't want time to turn, the clock ticks even faster. The feeling like the time for embracing the present tense has long since turned to the past. He thought, 'leave it to an assasin like me to break your heart without blinking an eye....to show her what a broken heart would really feel like...'
I learned a trick from a few guys who lived a few hundred years before me- a method of keeping my outward self completely disconnected from the state of my interiority. Not such a great trick really, for, though the assasin never blinks, only he and he alone can ever know the pain that lies at his lowest layer of sediment. When the sun shines upon his skin-he may be drowning within. Not because he can't swim...or because no others allow themselves to be subsumed by the sea...but only because he feels he owes it to the shiip to at least go down with it.
Simplicity had always sickened him-it was a childish ambition to embark upon a task that the man in him knew would always be an impossibility. The Absolute paradox, in honesty, means nothing to me, yet I know the suffering that lies within embodying a contradiction. With every step I take towards wherever I'm going-a part of my gut lies in the gutter-this is living in the certainty of uncertainty. This is living in the reality that extends about the orchard when a child has learned that an apple only rots upon its being plucked from the tree. He wishes to pluck the prettiest of apples; he longs to taste apples with everything within him; but even as he takes steps closer to the trees, he sees the wormholes, he sees the blemishes-his taste buds leak as his heart grows weak. "Musn't pluck that apple from the tree-musn't pluck that apple from the tree." 'Worse than rotting-is what happens to things I eat.'
He didn't need God- but he desperately sought an eternity for the one true baby. I know this trip necessarilly is an impossibility given the nature of the two seperate hearts that lie at the centers of you and me. Cruelty is the paradox that speaks of eternity in temporality. Even crueler is the contradiction that speaks of pairing two lovers who, in order to attain purity, need to a achieve a subjective monadic unity- when always condemned to the context of humanity.

Last year it was those cheekbones-this year its those translucent eyes I can barely see they're so blue; so light that one thinks her eyes may be completely translucent to allow for another to peer right into her thoughts. But to love is to judge, and the moment I tried to sneak a peak through, I realized that I never should've told myself I loved you.

Let the bubble of negativity sheathe me with the cold knowledge of knowing what I can never hold. That is precisely the tragic hope of love; it is a splitting thread that one needs to sew their entire world together with. That is the contradiction within my soul-the infinite interestedness in interesting eyes; the opening of book only to read it from cover to cover each and every time.

days later-
... someone who knows how the night time works and secretly loathes the currency of appearances of indifference and the 'who's fucked who', as much as I do. It would take years for you to understand her in the way that I do-the night time has been my lover for so long; I anxiously laugh at those who still find her appealing enough to fall in love. Surround myself with those still pretending to buy into her seductive tricks. The thought of you entering into a relationship with her in the spots that her and I still flirt....only to watch you be thoughtlessly subsumed in the current of loud beats and self-promotional pretentiousness; i worry you'd respond with awe as you once did me; this thought makes me laugh, and at that very moment of laughter I find myself filled with the most confusing passion I've always empathically imagined was felt by a protaganist in a tragic comedy, upon realizing that all love built upon a framework of frailty.

a million to land is two years for man
[Apr. 11th, 200811:48 am]
The chariot's got two beautful wheels, but this horse grows tired too easily. There's a heavy load and this horse seems to know, that he is to feeble to pull the load. ----------------------------------------------------------------------written into the weather; god wakes you with a slam, and you are to thank him for letting you know how this story will unfold. So many irrational ways to justify one's inclinations and feeling of entitlement. Im doing my best not to think about how things appear to you; how things are for you, because it bothers me. Anxiety. You are a part of me, and I refuse to think of anything as bitterly. It's really just anxiety; only today does it really become clear to me-a very large source of this pain is the way things are painted by your brain- all I want is to be able to do things my own way.Like a thousand people trying to walk through a door at the same time. Not people, but ideas-mostly representations of people granted-but images of mind- all trying to walk through a door at the same time. Sit by the river and cry. He's got laboured breathing, lighteheadedness when standing too fast, has to sit down and I am too fragile to even ask; the old man never sleeps and I make him consent to me. Don't say goodbye when you leave. Everybody wants something from me and I can't give anyone what they need. When you go it will change; let the pieces seperate naturally I suppose-like two human continents who break away and exist in a much faster time and space; a million to land is 2 years for man.There won' be much, all that will remain is a feeling that things were never that great to anyone else for longer than a a day-anxiety; what renders me afraid? having a lack of freedom; not being able to do things my own way-it's like a thousand people trying to walk through a door at the same time-the door is located at the center of my chest. I am blocked and at the back of the line-waiting for everyone else to fit comfortably inside.

(no subject)
[Apr. 16th, 200811:37 am]
There’s this idea that makes quite a bit of sense to me, I jokingly call this idea the idea of fifteen feelings. That we only get fifteen feelings in life. Fifteen feelings. The first fifteen feelings you have will be the ones that stick with you for the rest of your life; the appropriate feeling will present itself in a situation similar to the last time you experienced the feeling, you’ve got this list within you of just fifteen feelings. There’s this function within you that scrolls the list to pick the one that best suits the present context. I’m not a psychologist, and there are clearly a lot of philosophical problems in this proposition, but I’m not looking for certainty or perfect form. I’m just talking about an idea that sometimes makes sense to me. I probabl pick the number fifteen out of some natural inclination towards alliteration anyway; Im a sucker for the cheap tricks. Nonetheless, it does make sense.
Like this morning when I woke up and read your essay about me. I think you’re dumb and naïve, and you can say nice things way too easily. You’ve got some skewed picture of me, one that clearly didn’t take into account the fact that I find it impossible to believe anything good that anyone says about me. I allow the negative to soak in, and this is the way it’s been for a while now. I could talk about how I justify this mindset but the point Im sticking to for now is all about the fifteen feelings.
Another way of thinking about it…it not JUST the first fifteen, because there are certain contexts which have their own lists. There are specific spaces within you waiting to be filled with feelings.
The feelings I acquired in my first serious relationship are the ones that make me the asshole that I am today when dealing with you. The fact that I use the word ‘dealing’ is so telling of the feelings my body tells me to feel for you. I can feel them already wanting to scream when you tell me there’s people sleeping in your bed, and that you’re still drunk…I suppress the feelings of anxiety and jealousy that three specific occurrences have instilled within me. The night when it all cracked was the night that I swear those last few spaces got filled with the most terrible of feelings. Such feelings that were so strong at first that they ignored the cues…didn’t ever wait to be called upon…they just spoke out of turn snd jumped into the forefront whenever any feelings were to get involved. For an entire year there was nothing else to feel but those last few feelings of misery. It’s not your fault. It’s not even mine. It’s the way my limited little body was made, so that when you say those good things, it’s hard for me to feel. Therapist said something about spending years in situations your body gets sued to feeling certain things. Perhaps my body got too used to feeling like shit from spending years in a place that I was never really happy about in the first place. Like some bird in a cage, who had to have his wings clipped just to be able to accept the limitations of his little world. Just accept these walls and accept that your so small that you can fit inside. And when you say those things that aren’t even all that bad, I just want to start accusing and telling you to fuck off because I’m still angry about being this bird in a cage. It’s not a reasonable reaction, for that’s just what it is, a reaction….a feeling invoked, a feeling recalled from some other time in my life. Feelings that I felt for someone else. There are many striking similarities though in the way this story is starting to unfold: I’m not all that committal, in fact I’m trying to avoid making this happen…I don’t give you anything to go on. I don’t really even like you all that much sometimes….but precisely that is what draws me to you sometimes… the fact that Im annoyed that somebody Im trying to stay away from can bother me so much when she tells me the things that she does. I know she’s trying to make me jealous…but it works.
I’ve made two promises to myself that I haven’t yet kept. The first was that I would never kiss you out jealousy; that I would recognize when my arms wanted to hold simly because I wanted you to be closer to me than the other boys in the room. That I wouldn’t wrap my arms around you to control you, and protect myself. Jealousy made me make my move though.
I also made a promise that I would never kiss you out of empathy. Then when it looked as if you were going to cry, I wouldn’t bend and break to soothe your ache. But one of the feelings I’ve got within me is one that just wants to do whatever it is that will make things okay for you. You looked like you were going to cy the other day and before I knew it, my promise had been broken. My feelings lack the foresight to realize that

tearing away will hurt that much more the longer I leave the bandage on for.

So you see, it isn’t me that can’t be with you necessarily, it’s just this weak little body of mine and the fifteen feelings I’ve found, and let slip onto my list. It’s really just the last few that are preventing me from getting closer to you. They are far too strong to ignore, the fact that your baby has a dad, and that he’s over all the time. I’m so much better than you, and it’s situations like that that will render me weak all over again. I will not allow these wings to be clipped again. But now I am sure that you are an amazing girl, and I am but half of a man. I need things for my own and to only be mine. I hate the way this mind forms thoughts; I hate the roads that my mind always feels inclined to follow. I would do anything to just be beside you now but to not feel so hollow. Wit poured from his lips and he found himself the life of the party at times-he left feeling so miserable, dreamt of death-and woke in despair. Oh what despair plagues us all, a word that get's used to explain it all....this isn't about the fifteen feelings...these last few sentences have been added when this was written a while ago. Despair-what is behind your despair that you are so afraid to face?...what lied behind his suffering when he seemed to have a better grasp on things than everyone else in the place. What renders you so afraid. A capacity for vivid memories and images in the mind-I've always been a collector, never thought it would render me useless and alone in this horrible isloated place. I have memories and images. I never should've let my tongue slip, I never should've said those things to you. I never should've written about you, I should've waited 'til you were fully mine to reflect upon how amazing of a time we have. Despair. The road blows dirt in his face and his hair is flying all over the place; buys a cheap drink at the variety store and avoid the place he steals from. Feels bad about all sorts of things. Can't get a grasp upon anything. What is it that leaves him in despair. Afraid. So bloody afraid of everything. So bloody annoyed by everyone else's easygoingness, when he is stuck up in some tangled mess. How do they all seem to understand it so much easier. How do they all just go with everything. He is a fool. A rememberer, a collector of feelings. He is afraid to move forward. He is afraid of failure, of letting love die for a second time. Overzealous soccer moms live for their children's success, forget to consider themselves. There is no pleasure that I can feel, I only want the best for you and it prevents me from doing anything good for you for any longer than a day; I am not alive, I am a collector needed to be saved. Look at where I am right now, still young with a life ahead of me, but in such a way I cannot see. I see the number twenty three clicking over to twenty four, like the digits on an old alarm clock, minutes are years in life, why I just want you to be my wife. why I can only think about the amazing things as things I need for me and only me. I am no-one though, I am insignificant and hiding while others are out there nightly writing and riding the wave. It is the lack of consideration that paints me into this cave....my insistent judgments upon the subtleties of other's easy loving needy ways. I could never watch them drool on you in the way that others seem to be okay with. Violations-fifteen feelings. I want a new list...one that takes into consideration a human's need for happiness. I am grounded in despair and will never escape so long as I keep thinking of you as the one that will save me. I need to save myself, live for myself, and do things for my own fulfillment. There a thousand things happening all around me that I am understanding far too clearly....when what I need to be understanding is what will allow me to live freely and far from this anxiety.
You make it well known, and though you say things that nobody has ever said to me before, I wonder why, and how you can possibly feel these things for me when I’m not even sure that there’s anything inside.

like some bratty kid brother who insists on tagging along and never shuts up, my brain constantly telling annoying stories and asking to many questions. It's the memories, the faces, the way things work in other's lives that lead to this reflection, like a thousand knives gently poking at my chest without fully stabbing in just yet. Can't make it to the bus stop without my obsessions screaming at me from all directions. I hate that she calls me half asleep. I hate that I am in such dire need. God, is there any way you could allow me to continue to just breathe? I know when I was at an all time low I prayed that you would grant but a few more years of life for me. Those years have seemingly passed now-seems to me that I was only granted one year anyway.Must refrain for letting these emotions soak into my brain-you can turn up the music and write contrived words of pain if you please. But, if you are someone who is in true need, all you'll ever really want is to just be able to breathe.

27

27
[Aug. 29th, 200808:50 pm]
Once again i find myself in a dimly lit coffee shop, huddled over the glow of this screen; a bike ride in the wind, the night is navy blue and the air is moist with a cold mist that tells me that my twenty fourth fall is officially upon me. I ride alone; an adventure back to a place the spring within me wanted to forver leave behind...yet I can't stop myself from returning; the parenthesis of melancholy madness beckoning me to climb back into my bubble of sadness. I wonder if it's just the spirit of the season that makes one long for sickness or merely some primordial willing within me to stand in the sadness I need to soak my feet in in order to feel like myself. I need to return to this place in order to figure out what this silent illness beneath my summer skin consists of, what the source of this pain is that resides within me still.
I need to put the hot lamp in the culprit's face and make him sweat under the light until he confessess to all the ways he's been condemning my soul to plight.

There's an animal within all of us, a criminal within all of us, there's a poet within all of us, there's a lover within all of us. we simple minded humans dichotomize the identities within our individual selves, to be accurate in our classification we would need to recognize the reality that accompanies any pursuit of accurately identifying the multiude of selves withint our bones and skin...for it would truly be an idiot's mission to set out to finally catch up with infinity.Hesse saw two voices, two beings in himself; the wolf and the sad lonely man, only to realize what a fool he was for assuming his insides could be so simply dichotomized, a wolf, and a man; mere words to label, feeble attempts to conceptualize the conflicting people we are from moment to moment, that lead to inward battles that seemingly will never cease so long as we're still striving starvers.

I ask myself why I can love her some mornings, some nights, and why her aches and pains can mean nothing to me when I hold her tightly while she screams; all the different ways her presence has felt to me.... some days I am hollow and empty, and on these days the achievements that amaze me when I am intellectual seem like impossible feats. I ask myself why I can't bring myself to love her in the morning; I ask myself why I can't bring myself to speak to her on the phone in the same loving tone that she's grown accustomed to..at least on days when my heart has her say, days when her voice is louder than any of the other savages' screams within me. Freud saw that there were three motivational forces within us, three beings; the animal, the conformist, and the manager. Schopenhauer saw that there was only one true thing within us; the will, that which desires, that which desires not; the voice of need, the yearning, the bunring desire to hold or to avoid...to him then, it was pretty simple, there are stimulus, there are situations, and the will knows what it wants, it either says yes or no to cetain things...i want, or I don't want.....you feel it in the morning when you force yourself to wake from sleep and are grumpy...that's the will's way of saying, 'dammit man let me sleep!'....But the smarter we get, the more rational and moral we become, the less connected we become with our true voice, our true yearning....we become interpreter's of a foreign language, relying on emotion and feeling mostly to signify what path the truth within us really has in mind.So then, what can I learn from these men in my current plight?...well, absolutely nothing. i am dealing with my own real life. If I am to understand...which is a meaningless, tragic pursuit anyway (understanding that is), that never fails to leave one in a state of isolation; understanding is loneliness. Loving with the heart is happiness...but happiness gets boring, and you start to wonder what it is that your brain has been ignoring in pursuit of simpler pleasures, more bodily pleasures.

I begin to dissect the urges within me when she tells me she just wants me to believe that I belong, when she tells me that she just wants to be able to stay close to me. I being to listen closely to the voices arguing inside the walls, streteched out skin over a framework of bones., I press my ear to the wall and listen to the urges in an attempt to decipher the various aching animals and intellectuals trapped within my soul. I then begin to label the beings as they appear to me in an attempt to paint the picture of the civil war constantly occurring within me; a thousand individual's crammed into a one bedroom apartment located in the center of my chest.

Anyone who's ever cared enough to think about why they feel, or what it is that they feel and ultimately believe in will know the difficulty of attempting to hear what the voices are saying when their constantly talking over top of one another and interupting eachother.I shall call my body's meanest little ugly cell dweller, the Ego, for I know the sound of his angry voice which rings with entitlement as it echoes of these little walls. His biggest foe is my heart.... the war is always occuring between him and her, the two of them like one time lovers who had too many children before they had the means to provide for all of them. Now they just argue in their little crowded apartment, despising their existence with each new day which destroys all hope for resolution upon the very moment they wake from sleep into their little hell of conflicting ideals. Oh my female heart; female, stereotypically only, for the way she is so eager to love and to hold, to give everything away to and to nurture all that feels pure. The ego refuses to overlook that which she would gladly turn a blind eye to if it meant she could just bring a child to laughter, or hold onto the one she loved for as long as she wanted to. The civil war within; leaves me breathless and speechless,.....
My attempts to articulate to her the suffering of this struggle could never suffice to bring about clarity. I just want to run and hide from her, walk over the bridge and let her watch me die, then my heart says no no no, she will cry. To think, that the ego, so proud, so hurt and wounded from his wife doesn't even see, would be willing to burn down the very building he calls his home. And what can she do to calm him down? And what can she do to make this ending happy for him?...She can do nothing. He can do nothing. The state of things shall remain. Things are the way they are, thus, he is left to dwell in his own little hell for as long as she continues to tell him she loves him, for as long as he continues to wish that he could believe her. Me and her that is, not the talk between my tiny voices.
What makes it so hard, so impossibile for me to feel like I can have you? even as I type it out... the ego within me wishes to write, 'it is a foolish question to even ask since it is blatantly clear that her heart is never anything you could fully possess';... despite her insistence on the devoted nature of her love for me. The ego within me refuses to believe, all the while my heart, she tugs on the ego's sleeve from pant from her knees, too weak and wobbly with loneliness to stand she pleads for him to allow her to escape this hell that they'll surely share with one another until the day the body they both reside within will die. 'Please' she pleads, 'I swear this one means every word she speaks', he says 'no, regardless of the beauty she can sometimes speak, I refuse to let my baby bleed, not for someone who has already given her life away to another man.' He is such a proud man the ego, an alcoholic who loves his own story too much to let it be taken over by a picture he has laughed at others for painting themselves into. He insists on not allowing me to be a fool like we have thought those others to be... he tells me to look at the road I'm on with honest rational eyes, to cover my ears the next time I'm within range of her passional loving cries,...he tells me , 'close your eyes when she lets you inside her house and tries to trap you in her gaze until the moments leading up have unified the both of you. The proud ego and the lonely heart have a friend; the perceiver who sees...yesterday he saw the source of the shadow that's been sheathing this body in a sorrow since he met her, since the heart decided to love her; there on the grass, a real life body carting around the one they'll forever share with one another. The baby that ties her closer to another man, so the ego within me will apparantly always believe; He will never allow me to forgive her fully for her ties to another man, for even the heart's most persuasive arguments can only temporarilly sway the jury within my ego, for the contradictions that such a life she argues for ensure the impossibility of ever silencing the members given their rudimentary principles, their rules of integrity so to speak....... freedom, pride, desire, rationality, independence above all else. The jury within my ego, they always ultimately return with the same verdict....return to your slow burning in solitude; grow a beard as testament to the lack of feelings you hold for social fires...as testament to your lack of suitability for any normal role within this city you see when you roam these streets....one day you will die, but at least the fire of loneliness and lovelessness will have hung inside right until the bitter end....My heart cries, 'but what about her?'...can she not come with us, she is a true friend....' The ego pounds down with his wooden hammer, and sternly sentences my heart to die, on a day undetermined in the not to distant future....'It is with me and only me that you will ever find yourself in company!....She will trick you foolish heart....she will destroy our house and home; our family name will go down in shame....a sulky stepfather who'll swear to love another's child in order to remain close to the one that you claim to love! YOU foolish heart have grown so accustomed to need her in every way, to long for her ears to hear the words we say, without her we no longer see the purpose in anything!...oh what a fool you have tried to make of me!...Of this home we share!!... Loving and longing for her body with such an infantile dependency!....look what she has made of this place we share.....A step father?...is that not where this road will lead?....an unappreciated sucker who protects other treasures and swears he will shine another man's shoes...and for what?....all because of your love....should we place your love above everything else?....FOOLISH HEART....I sentence you to death.'