Thursday, November 4, 2004

Take those fucking stitches off your eyes and read.

Be openminded, or else don't comment.

---

When I was three, my parents divorced. I've never known my real father. I remember one time when I was ten or even younger, my real father called me. He asked me how my grades were, and other things. . .and then he asked me if I wanted to get a blood test, to see if he really was my biological father. I didn't know it then but I know now that he wanted it because he didn't want to pay our child support.

Right now, my step father and my mother are undergoing a divorce. They've been married for some twenty-odd years, and now my mother is going to move out of the house, and I'll probably just live here. I'll be going to college next year anyway, at Dickinson, a city a ways away from here.

I personally don't believe in love nor marriage because of these events which have happened in my life. I find love and marriage are definitely not what our society as a whole has brought them to seem as. I also doubt I'll ever get married.

Thus, I think sex before marriage is fine. I have no volitions against it. Sex is a natural thing, marriage is not. I also believe people should do as they wish - do whatever they want - as long as they know the consequences of their actions and can fess up to them. So, if someone has sex, use protection, unless you want to have a baby.

On abortion I am prochoice. I say let a mother do whatever she wants with her baby - it's her baby, after all. Still, a woman should be unignorant enough to understand that if they engage in sex, they may have a baby if they don't use protection. If this were so, we'd have a lot less abortions. But, people can do as they wish, and if they accidently get pregnant and want to get rid of their child, let them. Adoption still would be a better choice when you put everything involved into play.

I'm for gay marriage. Marriage is no longer some "sacred" or "holy" thing at all. That's just what the Catholics would like you to think.

Marriage is about two people who love each other. It's not about sexuality. Not about it being "sacred" or "holy.”

Obviously, a large percentage of Americans believe same-sex marriage is wrong. I hope in my lifetime, this changes. Because, it's a deeply held bias.

It's discrimination, when you get down to it. It's what the blacks had to suffer through - to a worser extent - what immigrants face and have faced - what the Japanese have faced, during internment in WW II - it's what minorities have faced over and over again in this country's history. And it's wrong. It says in the opening lines of our constitution that "all men are created equal." This "men" doesn't have the modifier of "white" men on it. And it in fact isn't even referencing man, but it's talking about women, too, and all races of people, and all different types of people.

It's hypocritical to live in this country, a democracy, talking all about freedom, when there's always been some group of people segregated from the rest in some way. It's heavily ironic. That's what this country's built on, yet again and again we discriminate, we prejudice against people just because they are different in ways that deviate from the status quo. People need to open their eyes and realize there's nothing wrong with gay marriage whatsoever, that there's nothing wrong with them being gay in the first place. We are who we are in this world and as a country focusing on freedom, all peoples should have all rights that are given out to the people of the nation, including gays.

The blacks got most of their rights, although they are still mistreated nonetheless - and the same shall happen for the gays some day. Some day people won't have this inherent bias towards them. And I hope that day comes within my lifetime, or I'll be sorely disappointed.

Religion-wise, I have no religion. I am agnostic, I have decided. I used to label myself as Atheist but have since decided I'm agnostic.

Something had to create all that's here, but that something still remains beyond us as humans. That's what being agnostic means - a belief that our understanding of god at this point is beyond us. I neither believe there isn't a god nor do I believe there is a god. I stand on middle ground, and I won't lean either way until I see some valid and factual facts pointing me in whichever direction. I look at it like scientist - the two main characteristics to have as one are skepticism and humility. And I've had that in me, inbred, my whole life.

All that religion is at this point is a set of moral standards which you shouldn't deviate from, and some god figure saying it's wrong, and some reward offered from not deviating from them. And I'm not going to buy into it - it's just more of someone else telling you what to do and think because you're too stupid to think for yourself. And so many people are like this, and blindly believe.

And what's with all the monotheistic beliefs of so many religions, anyway? What's there that makes it that there could've only been one god that made all this, if there is a god? To me, it would be more than one.

To me, since there's only one god, according to Catholicism, it shows how we are. In the US, we're bred to look after ourselves. We learn to only care for ourselves. We learn to fend for ourselves. We learn to be one person, and we strive to be a leader - the one leader of everyone else. This shows our westernized view of god - as one omnipotent, omniscient entity, just like we see and try to be ourselves.

I mean, have you really sat down, questioned yourself? Questioned your belief in god? Well, I have, and being agnostic is where I've come to stand. I'm one of those sciencey people who don't believe something until I see it, until it's proven - until in some way it's become real to me. And just because I'm agnostic doesn't mean you can't have a relationship with god - I just choose not to, because I don't even know if there's a god, and I really don't care at this point if there is, because I'll never know in my lifetime. Just think about it hard, really think it over, really put every side of it into perspective and don't think just as a Christian, but try to understand where I'm coming from and someone else being Atheist comes from. . .why would we think this way? What is it that drives our beliefs? Maybe you'd come to understand better and maybe you'd even change in your beliefs.
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Wednesday, November 3, 2004

Woo

America really is this stupid.

Four more years.
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^

I need to stop eating these carrots, but they're so good. For some reason, carrots are good after you've ran 2 miles at 8.2 MPH. I don't know why. I guess it makes it all worth it.

I feel so masochistic after running those 2 miles. It was painful, but Marilyn Manson's "Coma White" helped me through it. . .until my iPod stopped working as it's wont to do whilst running.

Running on a treadmill takes a lot more out of you than running outside. The treadmill is a machine which never slows down its pace, unless you put it down yourself, so the whole time you have to run at a steady pace.

I also found out that what I've been benching is in fact seventy-five pounds, and I did about 10 or so reps. I also can now do 3 pull ups. Go me.

I love how I keep popping online and wasting time when I do have things to do. The thing is that these things I have to do I'd rather not do.

I'm such a lazy bastard.

I'm going to Barnes and Noble with Austin Fay and Colin Cahill at or around 7. I haven't a clue what we're doing there, but sounds good.

Okay. That's it.

I'm so sloppy with my writing. So lazy with it on here right now. Woo.

Tonight I try to write something other than some stupid boring english paper.

Speaking of AP English, the Hamlet test was a blowout. I got a D -. And English is what I'd consider my best subject - I've always been amazing at it. The test was just really fucking hard, you haven't the idea of it till you see it. It didn't even really measure your understand of Hamlet, but instead, it gave you parts of quotes - most being insignificant quotes - to match up with the rest of the quote. That was hard. And then it gave you all these other quotes where you had to tell which character said it.

Noose me. So. Sick. Of. School.
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Monday, November 1, 2004

Hilarity ensues like a scouring warlord upon the battlements having scars upon his cheeks and mouthing defeat with dead stutter of tongue.

Maarii88: you horny bastard. *thwacks with halloween bag full of goodies *
machineofbones: With your breasts?
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Sunday, October 31, 2004

Somewhere Out There, cont.

VII

It’s later the same day, at night. I’m at this party I was invited to. They’re all passing around the beer, taking it in like no tomorrow. I have to be the only one here not having any. Not getting plastered. Not getting wasted. Not getting inebriated by alcohol. Not letting this depressant of the central nervous system enter my body.

In our society, it’s okay to drink. You can socially drink. You can do whatever you want with the stuff. But me, I don’t touch it.

Some women, they’re all tippy. They’re stripping off clothes. You can see some firm tits here. You can see some perky breasts here. You can see some nice ass. Some nice poochies. To some, it’d be going to heaven and dying. For me, I suppose it is.

The women are coming onto all the guys here. Most are too plastered to really even know what’s going on. They mutter in their slurred garble, and it’s impossible to make out what they’re saying. Soon enough, you suppose there’ll be a big orgy here. It will smell and sex will storm an affront all over this house. Whose house it is, I don’t know. Their parents live here for all I know. What’d be great is, if their parents came in here after this was all over – everyone on the ground, naked, snoring. Waking up as this person’s parents yell, everyone having extreme hangovers.

I’m standing in this corner, just watching. Some music is blaring. The women, all tippy, are kissing some guys, are wrapping their arms around some. They’re trying to pull of the guys’ shirts and pants, boxers, briefs. But having trouble since they’re so drunk, so they just kind of swoon all over the place, stumble around, yank and yank but can’t get off the shirts without a long trial at it.

I have to stop myself from laughing at the things people will do to themselves, the lengths they’ll go to to not feel the real world. But, what am I saying? I do something of the same thing. But not to this extent. Or so I, the crazy bastard, think.

All I’m doing, is thinking about the night with Laurice again. How I’d like to be with her right now, if I could.

She wasn’t home when I called her earlier, so I decided to go here. Nothing better to do. Besides, it’s kind of entertaining to watch people make idiots of themselves. Watch them go around in a stupor, doing the main thing that’s on everyone’s mind. Doing what comes naturally. Being the gene machines they are. Completing their purpose.

People can be so funny when they’re drunk. They can be so sad when they’re drunk. So angry. With a drunk, it could be any brim of emotion, you never really know.

While I’m standing there, this woman swoons over. I know her from class. Trincy Simmons. She’s this pretty attractive girl. She has brown hair, a nice look.

She says something to me all slurred. It’s impossible to make out just what she’s saying. She’s got this rough look on her face. She says another thing all slurred, I can’t make it out. There’s anger in her voice this time, her voice is rising. All I can do is stand there and wonder what’s going on For all I know maybe she’s going to kill me.

Then she says, “Wuhy’dyouhdewthat,” and I say, “What?” “What?” I say.

She looks at me even harsher, red washing her face. She says, “Iwusjustuhlillkihd!”

I say, “I didn’t do it.”

Then she passes out in my arms, this girl. Just leans in. It sounded like she was talking about something that happened in her past. Then she passes out, like that.

I kept tapping this girl, telling her to wake up. I poured water on her face.

She wakes up eventually, and me, I’m just looking at her. Our eyes meet, and her lips bloom open for a kiss. She comes in on me and I can do nothing else but just take it in. I figure I might as well have some fun.

We end up in the bedroom, and we stradle each other, but while we’re at it she passes out again – just in the middle of it. Me, I don’t have a clue what to do. By this time, it’s late. I should be going home.

I put on my clothes, and I walk into the main room, leave her in the bedroom, and see what you’d think I’d see.

There’s all these naked people lying, in each other’s arms, there’s puke next to some, there’s snoring, there’s the smell of sweaty alcoholic bodies. I’m sure someone here’s gotten pregnant. I’m sure here, someone’s done their point in life. There’s probably the next Shakespeare here. The next Newton. The next Barney the Dinosaur. Maybe even the next Albert Einstein.

I figure all this sex has to have a consequence. I’m sure all these drunkards didn’t have the innate sense to put on a condom, in their intoxicated states.

I open the front door, it creaks, I step out into the night. Again there’s the crickets. The sound of night. I breathe in the air, cold and dark. The stars twinkle in a semi-cloudy sky. The streetlamps blaze dully. The moon presents its face-looking sphere to me.

I drive home and sleep. I don’t check the message that’s blinking on my answering machine. Not yet.

VIII

In Laurice’s room we’re dancing, dancing, dancing, singing sweet music and in each other’s arms falling all over the place, here and there, letting our bodies move in random subtleties, letting our bodies rock and rack whichever way they want, and we feel free as free could ever possibly be, we have nothing on our minds and our bodies just moving at their own volition. No care, no worry, no issue no anything no nothing, fast-paced all over dancing, dancing, dancing, feet moving hands flying hither and thither, thighs going hither and hither, her breasts flinging around wildly in a rash of blurring movement uncatchable with my slow human movement.

In this endless twisting this endless sputter, this endless dancing, this endless endlessness of expending of energy, we’re making something more alive than alive is considered in this pointless, monochrome, urbane, affable existence. For once, we’re not living a lie, we’re not being actors, we’re just doing whatever the hell we’re doing, nothing’s controlling, and the music is being the catalyst.

There’s a huff huff from both of us and we’re out of breath, our hearts are trying to pump blood fast as they can to keep our bodies oxygenated, our muscles are trying to keep doing what they’re doing, they’re trying to keep us alive so we can keep being alive for a longer amount of time. I put my arms around her and grasp harshly her back and we’re still dancing, swooning all over the place, the music is still blaring playing on us making us jiving mad and alive with the power, with the endless animosity in the core of every human being.

This is catharsis, this is living, this is creating, this is above all alive, livid, vivacious.

I smooth in for a kiss, and her lips part around my lips and our tongues tangle and wrestle with each other like writhing bodies moshing all over the place, flying bloodily all around with no sense of anything but being. Her mouth tastes tinged with toothpaste, which she brushed them with before I came over. Her tongue is fluid and moving, stroking the upper reaches of my mouth inside, taming the new-found land. My tongue is in her mouth doing the same, we’re still dancing, although with more constraint since we’re kissing now, sweat is pouring from my shirt, I can feel the elastic band of her bra, sweaty, in my hand as I still hold her back, I can feel her harsh breaths, sputtering, desperate, passionate, I can feel the sensation of her lips on my lips, I can feel strands of her black hair strawing out at me, touching my face, my forearms.

Still dancing she tries to take off my blank white t-shirt I’m wearing but she’s having trouble kissing, dancing, all at once, but after a while she gets it off and I’m standing there without a shirt, and I go to rip off the tight violet shirt she’s wearing and then we’re standing there both shirtless, she’s in her black bra me in my pants and then we keep kissing and I run my hands through her hair and we’re still dancing, and we’re starting to feel pretty infirm, stampeding around about ready to fall over as if we cannot support what we’re doing anymore.

She goes to unbutton my pants hastily, with impatience, with lust, and I go at her jeans she’s wearing, and we fall and stumble on the floor trying to get each other’s pants off with a loud thud and look to the door, wondering if anyone in the house heard that even over the loud blare of the music playing endlessly, like a tightly-held entrance to a new world where we’re at right now.

We writhe with each other on the floor, we get our jeans off and we’re still trying to dance, we’re unrestrained, we’re not being held down by anything, we’re wild as any animal can be, we’re moving all over the place, not stopping, my legs are kicking like a horse, her breasts are pillowing all over the place with no stopping, her arms are fondling all over the air as she reaches over for me and pulls me closer, and we’re moving all over with just me in boring monochrome boxers her in black panties and a black bra. We’re sweating and we’re kissing and we’re touching each other all over and writing all over and moving and not stopping, and eventually I go to take her bra off, get it off, and I see her pretty nice breasts, small but nice, and she goes to take off my boxers, and there’s my penis erectile and firm, and then I take off her panties and there’s her vagina, there’s her pubic hair, a wild tangle just like us, tangling all over the place wildly, brashly, purposely but so alive.

I’m on the bottom she’s on top of me the music’s still blaring she rides me and stradles me and we go in and out in and out in and out, we open the door then leave it and enter it again and we pull open the window and go outside then go inside again and we heave and pulse and push and writhe and coalesce and lavish and writhe, and I’m touching her all over she’s touching me all over we’re naked on the floor still dancing however we can but interdicted from her having the be on top of me me having to be on the floor.

Sweating, pouring out from every pore, we keep going, then she makes a wild cry, her hair all over the place, me grabbing it, her taking the harshest breaths ever, me taking harsh breaths, the feel of my penis getting that hard to push back feeling, and then I explode into her, it’s like a heaven for a second and then the euphoric feeling disappears like it didn’t ever want to come.

She falls into my arms, I fall into hers, we lift each other up, struggle ourselves to her bed, and lie atop it, naked, and fall asleep in each other’s arms to the loud music sweaty, breathing harsh puff puffs of air, our stomachs going up and down, her hair all over the place.

IX
The loud music’s still playing when I wake up. She’s still sound asleep, lying there, naked. She looks beautiful. Her breasts. Her face. Her arms, her chest, the pubic hair lining her vagina, her legs. Her shut eyes. The way her body moves almost solemnly up and down, heaving light, as she’s asleep. I sit there, and just watch her, for a while.

Then I get my clothes on, and I hop out her window. It’s best her parents don’t see me. While I’m doing this, my thoughts are straining in my head. They’re brimming out.

I’m thinking women are so beautiful. Laurice is so beautiful.

I’m thinking women are like the new gods when god’s been dead for the longest time. They’re gods because they can create life. They can have children. And men can’t.

I get in my car. I drive home. The sun’s embedded with a large station of clouds. It’s still this ball of fire through all the clouds.

Last night was so good. It’s all I can think of as I step in my house, and get into the shower. I smell all sweaty. I feel all sticky.

The water washes away. Torrents.

X

Throughout the continuum of history, the question that’s always recurred in an endless abundance is that old whiner of, “Who am I?” It’s something that never ceases to keep coming up, and coming up, and coming up.

The answer is, you’re no one.

You’re nothing.

All you are is what everything else makes you. Every fragment chunk and piece of it combines together to create you. Because, you didn’t ever create yourself. What created you was your parents playing with their deck of cards – their genes – and these genes ruling out a predetermined set of traits and characteristics that are you. That’s only the nature part, though. There’s more.

What else shapes you is nurture. They teach this in psychology – that nature and nurture pool together to create who we are, at least on something of an equal kind of level.

Nurture is your parents. Nurture is your culture. Nurture is your habitat you live in.

If you take someone from a culture that’s a polar opposite of America’s culture, you’ll see a different set of values. A different set of who the self is.

You’ll see a different person.

In America, we’re snobs. We’re egocentric self-serving self-loathing pricks. We only care about ourselves. We care about others because this care in turn benefits us. We do everything independently. Everything away from the main group. We all want to be leaders. We want others to follow us. The brand of foods we eat. What we wear, it makes us different. When someone asks us for our opinion, we say it.

Our religion that’s mainstay is Catholicism. The main figure of the catholic, the bread and butter, the pop cultural phenomenon is Jesus Christ. He’s a guy who suffered, suffered, and suffered all for us. Got nailed and crucified on a cross.

It makes a nice metaphor for what being alive is. Suffering and suffering and suffering.

We all get crucified before we die.

To be an American, you really do have to be masochistic. You have to enjoy the pain. You have to go to work each and every day when the right age comes around, and work hard. Of course, it’s the same thing in any civilized civilization, as well. Unless they’re a different form of government. Which is becoming rarer and rarer, what with us going into Vietnam, Iraq. . .we’re just like the Catholics, spreading their religion. Only our religion – which might as well be a kind of religion in and of its self – is democracy.

It’s like a religion because it’s got all the makings of a religion. You’ve got your head figure, your figurehead. He’s the president. He’s god. Then there’s the lessers of him as you trickle down in the knit of power.

This cabinet – this set of “rulers” – all are part of the great machine of government. A system that adds order and structure and backbone to the world. Or so they say. It’s definitely not all it’s cracked up to be.

I don’t even trust my government at this point. They’ve made too many lies and are bound to do it again. And again. And again. It’s not like anyone’s stopping them from their lies, anyway.

Hopefully one day the depressed masses will rise as one and crush everything in a chaotic fling of deep-set passion and frustration. Until that day, I wait.

You figure, with six billion people, sooner or later some of that immense population has to go. The earth just can’t support all this life.

Especially considering that most of the life on this earth’s so pointless. Especially when we aren’t even ourselves. When we’ll never be.

Just face it. Who you are is in no part made from your own self. It’s all taken, all gleaned, all founded and melded and molded by other forces. Forces beyond your control. Things you have no say in that make you who you are. And when you do have the say in these things that make you who you are, it’s too late, you’ve already been assimilated long too far away.

I mean, you didn’t even ask to get born, let alone choose the type of person you are.

Some people are stupid. They’re mentally disabled. It’s not their fault. Their genes predetermined them to be that way. Somehow, they got messed up in the process of being created.

Some people are mediocre. They’re okay, but they’re not great, either. They didn’t choose to be this way. They didn’t have much say in the matter. They just’ve done the best with what they’ve got, like us all.

Then there’s those people who’re geniuses. Like me. We’re the people who are misunderstood. Who say what we’ve to say last. Who speak directly and seriously only when it’s necessary. All the rest of the time, we’re sarcastic, full of empty promises and empty dreams. Most people probably find us creepy. They mistake creepiness for genius.

Maybe if you give us some time and chance, you’d see it. See the genius.

Me, I’m a crazy bastard. I’m an egocentric egotistical pseudomasochistic prick. Just like every other American. And I’m this way because I’ve become what everything’s made me. Sure, one could argue some of what you are is what you made from yourself, but that’s stretching it.

I’m still just waiting until the day. When all oppressed peoples rise against the tyranny that’s happening in this world. When there’s chaos, disorder. Because, mark my words, it’ll happen.

Will it in my lifetime? Who knows.
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Words are worth a thousand paintings.


You are "Uncle Black"


Which Mark Ryden Painting Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

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Thursday, October 28, 2004

just take the sharpest bequeathment

just take the sharpest bequeathment, take it against it. this slightly round maybe oval sallowed thing called a head housing the indenture - the lips - mouthings of a face – break it open. the flesh is apparel. hiding. make the incision to start the severing. inside is the spaghetti matter, the locale of all that’s me. this is what you came to see.

i’m full of hippocampus blues. my endorphins are through, done blotting the pain. what’s left is the wracking in a concussioning skull. the cerebral cortex is an unknowing tangle of lies. i grab hold of each thin strand. dredge the teeming mass. we’re always looking to the past. basking in what could have been. grab ahold of my scalp. this will be what should have been.

crack me open. seep inside the grate. disturb every part ever belonging to me. this grandeur is smaller than it seems. far from beauty in the dwelling environs where i precede. the mind, the centerfuge of this machine. with its networks its entreating lies. its hypocrite logic streams. contradicting seams. all the open valleys. as we’re wallowing in this following interstate of real estate owned by me the road’s nothing the end’s bellowing someplace far away. today i build closer to the edge. closer to the trailing nothing of termination. i’ll discard the knowledge of this place to the dreams.

the mind’s an endless weaving of upholstery. the endless scathing land of a being. ripped open here’s the circuitry the functioning entity. the uncouth standing ground of everything. it’s an organized mess that’s so free. trod upon all this that’s me, there’s much to see with wondering eyes. much land to map with depth. take a footing then a step.

sadness is welting the surface in a fresh coat of luster. placing a sheath over the reality. if you dig your hands into the somber cover you’ll uncover a swollen uncaring sensation. a numb invigoration. a pointless desperation. a sans all of creation. in this brain’s nation there’s a downing fall. nothing feeling worth it at all.

the world in my head is my bed. it mothers me in its semiscent hands. it holds me unto all i can. frees me from being barred in the outside’s cell.

this cold winter is the most irascible fire ball of a hell. the leaves fall from the trees, in my head i’d like to believe all is fine. it’s only fall. winter breathes a cold hint on my bare skin. autumn readies itself to leave again.

soon to freeze over in permafrost. soon to wander through artic tundras. frigid, shivering to myself in the breadth of my brain. cold to all i’ve come to know, all i’ve named. there’s no haven there’s nothing to gain. i go on and on but still feel the same.
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Wednesday, October 27, 2004

anach

i'm an anachronism
in this day and age
(i belong in the future,
swallowed in its sullen
sullied suffuse somber cheeks)
the past can kiss my ass,
i don't dwell on it.

today another dull day
yesterday a smudge on the
fine print in the teeming
culmination of other yesterdays.
tomorrow hopeless but hopeful
a scouring landscape sculpting itself
with fine firm shapely hands.
(i belong in the future,
dead in a grave a forgotten name
whose pointless time here
was forgotten)
my voice will curve its tendrils
into the opening of tomorrow
sleuthing time open, undoing
the stiches, it will seep
into the wide-eyed oblivion
of the unknown and will echo
back to me carefully.

i will hear
the reverberations
of wallowing stillness.
i will hear the
lisping of the impossible.
i will know
man is a marked son of a bitch
being hunted by god
with the sternest damnation
worn high.
(in the future our selves are our nots,
our others found, our entire knowing forgot
too confused to know the lay of the smudging days)

one day
all you know
will be in the shoals and banks
of yesterday
in the whimpers of the past.
(and i'm an anachronism
i shun the past
and want to be delievered
to sweet nothing)
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Sunday, October 24, 2004

flattening boxes

a human being a machine wallows his way into the working place. he wears his uniform he is in conform as he steps inside. take yourself and put him aside. it’s time to be someone else for a while.

he sits at the table beside the others while he awaits the passing of enough time to get to work. when it’s time he steps inside the bowels of this hell. he takes his card and punches in. it’s about to begin. take your countenance put yourself aside, wear a false face inward and hide. false face must hide what false heart doth know. don’t ever show a blink of yourself. don’t ever think you know where you’re going.

he moves around with heft, taking the bus tubs and emptying them. putting the cups in their rack. putting the plates in a stack. placing the pie plates, the ice cream cups, the soup bowls. he pools his hand around in the varying mess of food garbage in the tub, searching through this marsh to find anything he missed – finds nothing. running the now empty bus tub through the dishwashing machine. the familiar rushing sound of water as it goes through the conveyer belt-like contraption.

the plates are full of food as he grasps them in his hands and swiftly places them on the rack, one by one. some gravy, some mashed potatoes. some fries. some broccoli. some iceberg lettuce. some fried chicken. some steak. some grilled chicken. he takes the hose and pushes his finger adept on it, causing water to flush out. he moves them onto the now racked plates, cleansing the plates of the food. runs those through. he fills up the rack of cups, runs it through. places ice cream cups, soup bowls, pie plates in a rack, washes them off, runs them through. and it goes on and on like this. repeat. redo.

whenever he’s gotten all the bus tubs almost done, or he’s gotten the prebus cart finished, another one’s brought in. another one’s there to empty. to take out the plates, the soup bowls, ice cream cups, pie plates. then it’s racking them, running them through the machine, over and over again. all over again.

there’s not a moment to stop. not a moment to collect yourself. he’s pushing himself the whole time. putting his full attention to it. his hands in a flurry of movement, his feet racing to keep up with what’s going to be brought. there’s no stopping. there’s only keep going. $5.65 an hour, for this.

he does it for around two-and-a-half-hours, straight. no stopping. no going. then he’s told by steffen to go prebus.

he goes by their tables, surveys, looks for the dirty plates. he’s glad to get a rest, but now he feels tired. he feels like he’ll pass out. he’ll fall to the ground an cease to go on.

“how is everything?” he’ll say so fake. “can i take some plates?” he’ll say with tedious boredom. “how was your meal?” he’ll say with practiced waste. “i can get that for you,” he’ll say in listless obedience. then he’ll grab their plates. he’ll take them to the prebus station. set them there if someone’s there to scrape them off. scrape them off himself if no one’s there. repeat. redo. keep going. stumble around, walking like death itself, tired and dulled.

getting more tired. more sick. stumble around, walk around and around the sections, not taking their plates anymore. grab some without saying anything. every so often muster up a tried-and-true dull phrase. take the plates. clean them.

this is the rest of your life. work until you die. earn the inked paper with the adorned faces of the presidential nobodies. retire when you’re least alive.

he asks to leave half an hour earlier, but travis won’t let him. he won’t let him get a meal, even though he’s stayed until 10 countless other times while all the others who aren’t closing leave earlier. what’s owed never is paid.

feel like a man’s inside me. feel like he’s held down in bondage. feel like he broke free. feel like he wants to be wild and crazy. wants to be feral and insane. he’s sick of it being so mundane. he’s wearing a straight jacket, breaking himself from side to side in a blur, struggling to take off what’s holding him down. wanting to be free. but each day his struggles get a little less – a little less tense. this is a losing battle the real me is fighting. one day i’ll be fully broken, barred, and chained. one day i’ll be gone. . .just a nothing inside this useless hull of a thing. just waiting for the end to capture away the pain to a long-sought numbing nothing of endless lessening. one day existence will cease.

i was forced to carpet sweep. i didn’t want to carpet sweep. but he wanted me to. he kept watching me he kept ordering me. he was trying to retie the bonds and chains, trying to get me bent – rent. even though i was spent. even though i was screaming outside from the inside deeper breadth of me. i looked around me as i automatically moved the carpet sweeper hither and thither in cycling haughtiness. i played the dumb and missed spot after spot. said the carpet sweeper wasn’t picking anything up.

it was almost time to go, after i did the boxes. “i’m getting a new job,” i said. “it’s not worth it to work this hard, and get paid minimum wage.” another of the younger managers steps out, says, “flattening boxes is hard work?”

i said nothing to the smartass. i wanted to tell him he knew what i meant, he knew how hard the work was at washing, but i didn’t say a word. i continued flattening the boxes. putting my feet on them, pulsing them apart with pressure, loosening the cardboard into flat prairies of muck upstuck in that brown paper color.

i went outside. i dumped the boxes away. i went inside. i punched out. i told travis i was leaving. i said goodbye to hell for the day. i left its jaws a cynical useless. i left its jaws and feeling the real me being tied down and chained. i felt the feeling of hopelessness. i felt the feeling of endless revisit. that i’d meet this place again and again. that i’d get another job somewhere else just as bad someday.

when i was driving cars passed me by on the going-the-other-direction opposite lane. i wanted to crash into one. i wanted to see the destruction. i wanted to see myself go away. curse the day i was ever born. curse the tribulation as it wears me to the tethers. i’m quite worn. sleep beckons, the dead-but-not-dead existing state where weightless i do as i please. so tired of everything. needing release. lease me a new life. this is always just flattening boxes. this is always just tearing down the walls i build around myself to isolate myself away.
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Saturday, October 23, 2004

doifjdok d

"What time did you
get home
last night?"

"One or two,"
I lie.

My mom would not care
how long i was out.
But he does.

Last night,
I told him
she lives
on Brandon Circle
right another
block away,
but, "I don't care,"
he said.
He said, "No one lets their
daughter stay with a guy
for that long."
I told him her parents
don't care
I told him
I'm eighteen now -
I can be out
as long as I want.

He said I still
have to live by the
rules of the house,
that i have to be
home by one
I said, "What does it matter?
You're not even going
to be here, anyway."

Earlier,
he asked me about
mom.
He always does.
He asked me if she
came home
last night.

I told him no,
and I asked what the
big deal was.

Then he went on me
about how I don't
care about my family,
how no one in my family
matters to me.

I guess I just don't really
care.
It's just history repeating itself.

My entire grasp of love,
that thing that's talked about
so so so so much -
i don't even believe in it.
It is severely damaged.
it's hard to even care.

These two divorces
in my life
have snuffed it,
and soon i will
be prodding over the
ashes of this divorce
which will make it
two.

i really do feel
nothing
about the whole ordeal.

I didn't get home
until 6 last night.
What he doesn't know
won't hurt him.
We didn't even do
anything inappropriate.

I read to her,
she read to me.
She said i don't give
myself enough
credit for how talented
i am,
i try not to be too
egotistical about the
whole thing.
I try not to give myself
too much.

The last piece i read to her,
it's called "gargoyle,"
it was so good.
it made me feel strong and
determined again.

What's amazing
is it looks
warm enough
out
to jog
in just my shorts
and tight tanktop.
Comments (4) | Permalink