Wednesday, April 30, 2008

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The majority of my art lies within IM windows and in emails. Here. I want art in the rest of my life. I want to roll down the hall and paint for no single good reason.

Photo - N
Words - S
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You should go through every day looking for the secret messages that the world has left for us. Folks sang Supremes songs through the fog and strangers divined shared futures amongst the penny candy. And maybe there won't be any signs that strong again. But the signs are fun when they come, because now, they aren't so scary. I welcome prophecy. I take every opportunity to believe in secret messages.

Photo - N
Words - S

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

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I'm serious. Pack up the car. Grab the crab flavored potato chips. Let's put wheels to road and watch this cold, gray world disappear in the rearview window. We have no idea where we will go or how we will get there or if we will even make it. And it doesn't matter. Because I can't do this. I can't wait for meetings. I try and write every day like the fate of the world depends on it and it's all wasted on people whose attention disorder leads to me smashing my fist into any available fist smashing place. I don't ever want to set an alarm again. I don't ever want to have to be anywhere at any time every again. I don't want the phone to ring and wake me up on Sunday morning. I just want to not care what city I am in, why I am there or what I will do. This is all we have, you know. I don't think there is anything after this life. And every day I sit here, I am wasting one more day of the who knows how few I have left.

Photo - N
Words - S
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It was pixels on a screen. Or dreams in your head. Or mine. We were more apt to put our belief in the living dead than we were in romantic comedy. I wonder who plays us in the movie of our lives? I hope that when they make that movie, it doesn't have anyone next big thing in it. I want character actors, I want hard lived in lined faces, dirt stained grit shot of whiskey without flinching. The music should be the soundtracks of secrets that we have made for ourselves, whispers of cicadas in the moonlight breeze, the sound that pirate ships make when they cut their way through choppy seas, the shifting of sand filled with glitter and bright pieces of paper strewn with hidden meanings I will never read. I want the kind of dialog that gets quoted by people who cry their hearts out because love doesn't exist any more like it does in the movies. I want black and white full color THX sound in your face action adventure.

Photo - N
Words - S
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"I don't want the world. I only want what I deserve," she screamed into the hot sweaty sounds of the crowded club, blared from speakers into your ears. Body heat transfers, elbows act like elbows, beer gets spilled, pool gets played. The cracks in her voice as she screams reach into my heart and slowly worms it's way inside.

Photo - N
Words - S
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Festivals and bazaars and food events are all almost here. I am like the summertime ghost of Tom Joad.

In every food on a stick, I will be there. Wherever small mirrors of bands are won with balloons, you'll see me. Anywhere there is cotton candy, fresh squeezed lemonade, elephant ears and fried vegetables, you will see me. Look for me on the dangerous rides, in the smile of the sideshow barker, in the exasperated sigh of your ticket taker. I am in all these things.

Photo - N
Words - S
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In all the bars in all the wood grain in all the mugs in every song on the jukebox in every inhalation of smoke tendrils up my noses in every line for every bathroom in every staggering step home.

Photo - N
Words - S
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Sitting in my grandmother's lawn, pulling petals from flowers. She loves me, she loves me not, I didn't even know what love was back then. I just knew that things could go awry when there weren't enough petals.

Photo - N
Words - S
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I fear the road next to my house. We were walking through the yard the other day and a bunny crawled into it, head filled with blood and gasping. I covered my dog's eyes and ran. When we came back, the rabbit was gone.

Photo - S
Words - S

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Mix Tapes Are A Dying Breed

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She sang, "There's nothing like living in a bottle and nothing like ending it all for the world." Impossible. Unlikely. But that's all it's for. To be out of place, as the next song attests. So end the mix with this: "Look around ain't no R.I.P. signs here. We don't rest in peace. We just disappear."

Photo - S
Words - S
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I can remember the first time I had a dream that I realized, mid-dream, that it was not true. It was all about someone giving me a Flash Gordon stamp set. I woke up and realized that it was something that wasn't even made. This dream, however, was much better than the dream I had last week. Someone made me lucky charms, and I really wanted lucky charms. I mean, by making them, they poured a bowl. They were not made from scratch. That would be ridiculous. They poured the cereal into a living monkey head. The monkey begged me not to kill it to taste the delicious green clovers and purple diamonds. I woke up screaming.

Photo - N
Words - S
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Words on phone pixel screen as I try my best to get through the distance to get to somewhere. Let's not let it happen. Not any more. Type back and try and avoid hitting medians. Sing along: "There is this old man. Who spent so much of his life sleeping, that he is able to keep awake for the rest of his years." I hate these miles. These 7 miles. There is nothing here but nothing.

Photo - N
Words - S

Monday, April 21, 2008

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From the small porch, cigarette smoke curls into my nostrils. Barefoot on a school night, they compared hidden lines they made themselves and shared with no one else. Collisions and combustion and thrashing and bruises. And then falling back to earth through flames and fire and splashdown. In those moments, when everything hasn't gone wrong again, yet. Tar mouthed and whiskey sweat. Hold on tight. Just please. Hold on tight.

Photo - S
Words - S
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All the crumpled packs litter the streets, each one laughing at me in their own way. You'll never come here again.

Photo - N
Words - S
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Someday we will forget where we are. What town it is. What time it is. What day it is. What we have to do. Where we have to be. Nothing will matter and everything will matter, all at once. We'll dance through the rain strewn street to the stereo music in our heads and laugh at the people laughing at us. You will pull me through the neon playground of a city that I have never been in or will ever be again.

Photo - N
Words - S
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Even in my moments of sin, you seek fit to mock me from windows of strangers, dead eyes following me. I'm sorry. I can't any more. I just can't.

Photo - S
Words - S

Write It on a Postcard

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I used to roll in and be happy at the blanket that was in front of me and now, I see it's covered with layers of failure and hollow eyes. This is not the kind of place to be, this is the kind of place to get the fuck away from. I forgot the lessons that I learned half a lifetime ago. Every time I get away, I can feel the silly putty like ectoplasm hands grasping me dragging me back to oxycotin and swingers clubs and lies and fake families and ghost haunted houses. I hate driving past the houses of dead friends and never were lovers and fields of rotting cars. Someday, I'm just gonna set out in a direction of no one's choosing and drive until I run out of gas, set my car on fire and escape into the night.

Photo - S
Words - S

You were young darlin'

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I have closets full of iPods filled with songs that I can never listen to ever again.

I miss making mix tapes when you had to wind them by hand so that it synched up just right.

I miss all the hidden messages that you can put inside someone else's songs.

I really do understand.

Photo - N
Words - S

Saturday, April 19, 2008

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Ciphers. That's who they are. You try and can never capture their eyes, like Tom Waits sang. But you try. And you try. And I try. And you watch the steps into the distance and you try and see people through the crowd but the truth is even when some people are right next to you, they were never there to begin with. I know there was a time that I was far away when I was right next. Now I see myself in that crowd, walking and blending and I try and yell for me to turn around, I want to rush and grab myself but I am now content to watch the sea of people open it's maw and the last thing I see is me fade into them.

Photo - N
Words - S
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Time and emotions stand still in the flash of light, always keeping things just as they were in that second and keeping things always as they should have been. Our reality moves on and makes things hard to look at, but its not the flash of light and pinhole's fault. They just document your life. They can't help that your life is your life.

Photo - N
Words - S
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Before white flags, soldiers would hold their shields above their heads to surrender. This generally meant that they would be killed. A white flag was easier because it would allow them to keep protecting themselves while surrendering. I would like to say I can't imagine lifting your shield and saying I give up and still getting speared, but, you know, yeah.

Photo - N
Words - S
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I used to be obsessed with time capsules. With leaving something behind so that the next generation can learn from me. It was only when I got older that I realized I did not want anyone to learn anything from me.

Photo - N
Words - S
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Each time, I clean my house less and less. It all becomes a dance, a game, a silly get you through the week. It used to be everything but now it's as much a distraction as using my TV to fall asleep. Each person used to matter and now I muster the feelings of recognition and that will be as far as I get.

Photo - S
Words - S

Friday, April 18, 2008

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There is nobody home.
The lights are on.
But the lights are lying to you.

Take your Grimm and your King James and throw them out the window as the car drives by.
Watch the pages float into the air, like birds looking to evade the hunter's shells.
Their words pointless and unnecessary.

There comes a time when you realize that the presents under the tree were in the closet since November.

Did you know that in some special forces they give you a bunny? The bunny is your responsibility. You are in charge of it. It becomes your only friend. And then, when you get your last training mission, your mission is to kill that bunny. What became the only thing in your life, you have to destroy, because it will eliminate the last weakness inside you and show that you will do anything and that nothing matters to you. You will follow any order now.

All of the conspiracies I believe are just bullshit to dissuade me from the fact that the only conspiracy that matters is the one of me against myself. I am the crack head junkie who cleans up and goes right past the crack house and inside the first day home.

James Dean's car was cursed. It broke bones. It ruined lives. Hell, it killed James Dean. That should have been the first clue it was cursed.

They say that the Majestic 12 were shown a hologram of Jesus being crucified to prove that the aliens created all of our religions.

Or maybe chupacabra came out of the UFO like the alien's pet. Or it's a demon. Or hell is full. The dead will soon walk the earth.

No they won't. The dead already walk the earth. They are all around us. Claw your way away, but you can't escape them. They don't even moan when they rise from their graves.

Under the river the bomber's cargo is hidden. Crash landings wait for no one.

Inside my city are the relics of every saint, bones, teeth, clothes, all inside one church, all waiting for you to pray to them.

Above the highway is a church on the hill where everyone prays for you to be safe.

One night, nine lights rose and we watched them dance.

One night, I saw a truck flashing and several of the same cars with the same twins inside following it.

I am tired of being confronted by the unknown world. I turn my back on it.

Photo - S
Words - S

Pirate skulls and bones sticks and stones and weed and bombs

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At the end of paper airplanes, there is a note of feedback that trails through the end of the song. I am going to run away and live inside that note. It is warm and open and welcoming and I always wanted to live inside sound, as part of the loop, as part of the decibels, awake and alive forever inside the noise stuck in your head.

Photo - S
Words - S

Thursday, April 17, 2008

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There used to be UFOs behind the ice cream place. Now, there are Mormons across the street.

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Words - S

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

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I sat here and wondered, do you have a drink that can make time go fast? Do you have a drink that can fix everything wrong with me? Do you have any love potions? Do you maybe have something that will cause me to be smarter and better looking? Maybe.

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Words - S
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Angelo's dad was killed by a bus. That's why he hates them. That's what he told me, anyways.

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Words - S
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I didn't grow up prepared for the buffeting winds, nor the rain, the heat released when moist air rises and the water vapor it contains condenses. No, I grew up worrying about tornadoes. I never learned how to board up my basement or lash myself to anything. So sometimes I get pulled under and my mouth is filled with brine, my eyes are closed and I just want to sink to the bottom, but something keeps me swimming.

Photo - S
Words - S

Monday, April 14, 2008

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The rest of this is just waiting around.
Just waiting for the end of the movie.
The end of the concert.
The end of the song.

Photo - S
Words - S
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More of a confessional than a story.

I wrap my wrists before I fight. When I was growing up, I saw Terry Funk doing it and it always stuck with me that I should wrap up my fists. The idea is that when your fists are taped, it protects them and allows you to hit harder. It looks cool, really, and I can pretend that I am Terry Funk. As Mick and Terry told me once, I really wish you had better heroes than us growing up. You'd be able to walk today if you did. Well, I can walk, but with a limp. I am fully aware that sooner or later I will have to get an operation on my knees and back. I am just trying to hold off the inevitable handicapped sticker as long as I can.

But I am here today to talk about wrist tape. Not me. Well, me. But in metaphor through wrist tape.

My first fight, I had no wrist tape. And I had to change in a room with no doors. There was a toilet in the middle of the room and I was so nervous that I had to go a hundred times, in front of everyone. Then, I screwed up the first move.

I learned to spend a lot of time on my tape. Intricate colors. Fancy wraps. It's hard to do yourself because it rips all your forearm hair off. Sometimes, it is too tight and you can't even move your hands. I am good enough now, after 13 years, that I can just do it without even thinking about it.

It can be functional. Unfortunately, I got the reputation for throwing myself into shit. Over shit. Through shit. Don't ask. It all goes back to the childhood heroes I picked. The other night, I got thrown out of the ring and was doing a perfect handstand above the ropes. Now, any normal person would look down and realize that they are going to fall 12 feet into concrete. No mats. No stop. And like I've said before, in those moments, it's the only time I am in control and do not worry. Life makes sense when death and you share a shot. That's how I look at it. Chance. If I was sane in those moments, if I was me, not the other me, I would be afraid. Very, very afraid. But the other me laughs. He laughs out loud, symbols all over his face.

People tell me, don't just ask me, all the time to quit. The truth is, it's a drug. The best drug ever. Once I hear my music, once I get my energy, everything that is me is gone, for once. I get a vacation from me. I wish I could do it more.

I started painting my face a year in and its my armor. I close my eyes when I am done and tell myself that I have to go away and allow the other me out. To not be rational or care any more. To abandon any and all self preservation and niceness. This is my lizard primal brain and he only lives for that 10 minutes he gets let out every once in awhile. Usually, I put an X on my forehead. People always ask me why. I tell them it's to block out my third eye so that I can properly limit my ability to worry about safety. Maybe. I wear lipstick, well, use it as paint. Black lips. A line through my eyes that I always wanted to tattoo on my face. Sometimes it symbolizes Lucifer falling to Hell after God threw him away. Other times, it's just the scars that you can't see. And sometimes, it means absolutely nothing.

For such a manly sport, I wear a lot of makeup.

Was this about wrist tape? Oh yes.

I realized Saturday night that I absentmindedly write on my tape before I go out. Some kind of talisman. Protection. My friend used to write the people who had died that he loved on his. My fake brother writes the names of wrestlers that he loves. On my wrists, I always write the same thing. I have for years now. No, I won't tell you what it is. Sometimes it makes me happy to write it. Other times, it makes me sad.

So why do I write it?

In those last fleeting moments of sanity, I want to leave something behind. A message. If I don't make it, it is written on me. I remember the first time I realized I had that fear that this time is it. That this time, I won't walk away. So when it happens, if it happens, I want to leave behind something so that my message gets to the right person. Kind of like, well, I don't have a will any more. So, this is as close to a will as I will get. I find wills fatalistic.

So why? Again. Why?

Because in the face of my lack of faith, my self destructiveness, my black and white view of the world, my put upon outward nonchalance, the secret message that I have written on my wrist for the last few years is the only truth in my life. And that's the truth I want to leave behind if all my gambles don't pay off.

Photo - S
Words - S

King of the socks

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He sits on my towel in the morning and screams. Then I find him here. High above the barking yelping chasing. Alone, in peace, here in his socks. Burrowed. Hiding. Enjoying the silence.

Photo - S
Words - S

Thursday, April 10, 2008

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I have learned how to shoot guns.
I am learning about cars.
I am training my dog to get mental powers.
I know 9 ways to kill a zombie.
I have plans.

But still, I was not ready for my own personal apocalypse.
My idea of dealing with things is...
Well, I'm like the US Army in Vietnam when it comes to relationships.
I'm in enemy territory and there are people hiding in the trees using sniper rifles.
So instead of being patient and trying to work things out...
I call in an air strike and scorch the earth.
And then I try and atone for it.

I don't want to burn the village to save it.
Please.

Photo - S
Words - S

Wednesday, April 02, 2008

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I never told anyone about that time I laid on cold linoleum and listened to haggard snoring and rasping and wished with all my heart I was miles away. But really, where I wanted to be was miles away and had already found a place to go. For a few seconds, anyway.

I never told anyone that I wanted to see what it would be like to send my car through the edge of a bridge and test the metal, to test God and see if it would hold me and if I deserved to live.

I never told anyone that I told everyone too much. And now I don't really feel like I have much to say and not much to write and not much inclination to make the experiences that will allow me to write the things I write. Because the things I write make my hair white. And the things I write make my hands shake. And when I cough, I cough hard. Sometimes I cough so hard that the world floats away and I try and float away with it, hoping that this time I can float far enough away that I'll end up floating to where the blackness is, where I can understand that it isn't really entropy I seek but just a nap. A really, really long nap.

I never told anyone why I never sleep. Why I am forced to sift through carpet fibers and debate existential idealism and creations of process with myself.

I never told anyone that the shakes didn't go away. They just went inside me and hands sometimes keep the shakes at bay. And sometimes you can breathe and say, hey, I'm home. But you are never home. You will never really belong anywhere. You will always carry some kind of hatred inside you. Always carry a chip on your shoulder, even when you knew that you made that chip and you grafted it to your shoulder and you show it to the world.

I never told anyone that you can't spit in the world's face and hand them an umbrella and hope they get the joke.

I never told anyone that the neon lights and clack clack clack and closed eyes and dream sounds all made me feel like I was Magellan coming home. But we all know he didn't come home, don't we? That he ate leather to live and still got scurvy. For want of citrus, you know? The great explorers all died. But they weren't that great, anyways, unless you are into people subjugating the world.

Everything has been discovered. And beneath the ice, the hidden secrets freeze themselves and die so that no one can know their true names. Their candles burn many hues under the floes, the water not dimming their incandescent spark. I want to swim through the graveyard of ash and dust and brine.

Photo - S
Words - S
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When I was young I prayed every night.
One, that the aliens would not get me.
And second, that the aliens would come and get me.

All I have ever wanted was to leave. Even before I got here.
I wanted to close that door and watch the world.
Get small. Float away little world.

I don't know if I could have breathed the air on my new world.
Maybe they would have made gills.
On my throat. Or on my thigh.

I'm sure eventually I would have grown tired of my adopted world.
And then I would dream of the cool blue waters and round shores.
And wish that I could walk in gravity again.

But then I knew it would be too late.
My new gills would never allow me to breathe oxygen again.
And my eyes couldn't cry anymore because, well...

They had to hollow them out to make the new ways for me to survive.
They took pieces of my valves and ventricles.
They went inside my nose and pulled all the metal out.

I just want to float here in space, loose from my tether.
The orbit and gravity let me go and now,
Re-entry is singeing every hair on my body.

I am the prayer that small children make
to comets that really are
their father's burning corpses.

Photo - S
Words - S

Confetti Icewater Kisses

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Really perfectly, as any online fairy
to I and you and me and whatever other word makes sense for you.
See them? They knew it.
They knew it and even tried to tell you.

I am the tales.
I am the words about people.
I am the wordless.
I am the carpet under my heels.

Because then I, you, me, whatever word you want to use for you...
Have as I never even have been.
I change with honest.
Shake hands with whispers.

Despise and despite empty miles.
And now those miles you walk on heels.
Or drive, I wasn't sure.

Throw never never away and...
End your again. Again.
Name you, your away throwing of your make it stop
Make it stop, right?
End end away hear to stop nothing.

Photo - S
Words - S

sungold prayers

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Darkness heart, goodbye.
Say, "For say alive day."
Or last, alive, me.
Goodbye my away away today.
My forever darkness is goodbye.
What we say in darkness, is that
"This is the last forever day."
From now on, we will only be
waving darkness to darkness.

Photo - S
Words - S