Tuesday, March 27, 2007

I Think I'm an Alcoholic

Productive
They walk by me
Do they see me?
Do they recognize me?
A fallen friend, classmate or colleague
Drinking
Alone
In the middle of the day
Again
What would they say?
Would I care to hear it?
Creative
I strive to recreate the world
As I see it
As I want it
Do they look at me strange?
Or with some sort of pleasure?
Morbid or otherwise
I finish my drink
The first
But certainly not last
Of the day
My world beginning to take shape
With each sip

Impotence

Perhaps what holds my pen
Steadfastly to the floor,
Beside its notebook, laid bare—
Its empty lines calling for their lover
To embrace and kiss them
With thoughts, questions, exclamations, declarations and prose—
Is perhaps not a lack of kisses
But a reason with which to deliver them
There is no love—there is no motivation
With idle time comes idle thoughts
Too many hours in the day
Or too many devoted to the wrong pursuits
The pen and notebook, the lovers
One is impotent, the other barren
Thus what was there before
All that passion, desire, drive
Has been lost to time
Too much, and yet not enough
There, sitting still, suspended for how long
His fire is extinguished

Chasm

He stands eight feet away from me
But in that eight feet
A chasm rises
Or sinks
Whatever chasms tend to do;
He seems so far away now
Beyond reach of my voice, or longing gaze
Yet, at the same time, I can feel the heat of
His eyes upon me, my heart starts to beat ever quicker
Should I crane my neck, would he be looking back?
If so, what would be the harm?
What would I say—
‘Say hi’
But then what?
‘Maybe comment on the weather?’
Come now, what else?
There is nothing else
I can only think how I want to tell him
How I love him and have been waiting for him
Though I’ve only now seen him…
People don’t say those things
No, not in real life
Not before at least saying ‘hi’
Dare I speak, but what if I should offend him?
‘No, not in real life…’
Best not risk it
As we are neighbors, despite this rising,
Or sinking chasm
But, then again
What if the heat I feel is not a tender gaze, but rather
A harsh stare
Or, even worse
It is
Nothing
At
All?
Should I turn my neck
And he would be paying me no mind at all…
I think it might be too devastating
And frustrating I should put so much
Weight on one or two words
Shouted across a rising,
Or sinking
Chasm
Instead, I turn my key, averting my eyes,
Rush into my apartment,
Throw myself on the bed
And listen
To hear him through the wall
Maybe thinking about me, or even listening
Just to hear me say
‘I wish we both weren’t a chasm away’

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Like

I am bruised with longing
While cursed with a tongue
And a disposition
Prone towards coy discretion;
What I’m stumbling to say
What that has possessed me
To attempt to gush with such flowery abandon
So very far above my head
Is terribly simple:
I like you
Like like you, like you;
Pretensions be damned,
I wish to say as eloquently
And precisely as possible
That I completely, devotedly
To the point of obsessively
Like you like you;
It’s so simple but makes me feel
So complicated
I have beaten myself up over this
So that I am now
Bruised with longing
It hurts so I wish I could
Just like you
Instead

Wednesday, March 07, 2007

Ramble: Meaning

I know everyone thinks I’m full of shit when I start talking about my art and being an “artist”. Maybe they think I’m just some weird as shit motherfucker who refuses to accept reality. But they don’t understand. And all one can hope for is to be understood. It is the crowning achievement of an artist’s career when someone, anyone fully understands what went into creating a work of art and what you as the artist was trying to say. Yesterday I had a moment of clarity that took my breath away. It was as if I was looking directly at my life’s path set in front of me, all disjointed and broken, then suddenly, magically, it all lined up and made perfect sense. I know what I want to do and I have a vague notion of how to do it. I have to be clear. I want to translate life. We all feel emotions and go through experiences, but it is how we describe them that makes for great writing. It’s fine to be happy, but what kind of happiness is it? Where could it have come from? Was there a moment in childhood that reminds you of this happiness now and does it scare you, excite you, make you nervous to feel that unguarded again? Is the joy real or is it an attempt to cover the layers of sadness and withered hope you held onto for so long before burying it along with that old childhood self? What does it feel like in the moment and does it matter if it will last forever or for the next few seconds? Or if a character is feeling sad, is it that hopeless sadness that feels like it might never end lest you end it yourself, physically, dramatically, permanently? Does it overtake you so that even the slightest provocation leads to tears, and even the funniest joke can bring to life the laugh that is so familiar to your own ears? Are you someone else completely when you’re depressed, or is it just a natural state? I want to write to open people’s eyes to who I am, and by extension, who they are. I want to be able to touch someone’s heart and send that feeling of unknown energy, fuzzy and electric that seems to shift the way you see for a split second, making everything brighter and richer, to make the heart race with excitement. I want to articulate everything I feel to the best of my abilities. To write with passion and urgency, as if there was nothing else in the world at that moment but me and these words flowing from my heart and mind into my fingers darting quickly over the keyboard and onto a white piece of electronic paper. Here it can become something more than just what I’m feeling, some private suffering. Out in the world, on this white sheet, it becomes real, not just for me, but for whomever chooses to read it. and when they read it, maybe they’ll find some connection with those words and they will retreat into their heads to become something private for them. That’s as close to love as we can ever hope to come.