Tuesday, March 1, 2005

superhero

I

I read of comic book lore, those modern mythologies, and I wanted to be one of those heroes, I wanted an alter-ego. So I began exercising and lifting weights, and I underwent all forms of martial arts training. If you had a bucket, and took every ounce of sweat I perspirated, it is sure it would be filled to the brim, even leaking. It would've took three buckets to hold all the blood from wounds and cuts and scabs. And if you had a bucket to hold all my determination, you would need a bucket which was bottomless.

So I toiled for around three years of pain, triumph, let-down, beauty. When I was done, I was exasperated. I felt drained as a human being. Every ounce of me had been beaten and hit, and I was born anew.

I looked at myself in the mirror that day. I had emerged. My muscles bulged, my mind was a sharp shard of glass ready to slit, my eyes were an alive, wavering flame. I felt like I could take the world upon my shoulders and carry it for eons. Nothing would get in my way.

II

The weights I had lifted were words. The blood I had bled was from the piercing, in-your-skin prick of the syllables as they flew off your mind and into your tongue. They made me sweat. I learned how to make words kick at other words, how to block words, how to break them in half with one swipe of my hand. Words became me. They defined me. The dictionary was my holy bible, my religion. I knew all the stories.

Writers are the Gods. The Creators. The hero you always wanted to idolize. The answer to your purposeless, mundane life. In those three years, that is what I became. I became more than a man, I became a hero. The words were my costume. I became someone else through them.

I rescued those who were being beaten up by this world. Who were black and blue to it. I gave them meaning. I gave them life. I promised them absolution. I delivered. I told them there was something beyond this cyclic circle spinning around, and around, and around. I was their flailing voice. My voice soothed them and brought justice to their enemies.

When I looked in the mirror that day, I was morbidly obese. I weighed 400 pounds. I was the perfect picture of the average American. All this weight only covered what dwelled inside. Inside I was sinuous, I could lift the entire universe on my finger. I could give people strength. I was the dark knight, the man of steel. My words could death-grip you.

III

Each day was a passing bore. I went to my job, sitting in a cubicle all day, doing what amounted to nothing. Then I came home, sat, and brooded. I sat with junk food in hand, satiating my discontentment with life. Everything was empty, but the food filled me artificially. My fat stomach, chubby arms, and flabby face made it seem full. The fat covering my body hid the fact that I was thin and starving from what my life, and so many countless others', was.

Then I would sleep. Sleep was my only solace, my only pleasure. In it, I existed without consciousness. In it, I dreamt and the world I wanted felt real. I would only gain this to be reawoken each morning by the blare of my alarm, telling me it was time to work, then come home feeling sorry for myself and bask in pity by engorging myself with food.

IV

When I was younger, I read and wrote. While we learned which direction North, South, East, and West were, I was writing or reading because that was my direction. It encompassed every direction. There was no need for any other. While we learned the months of the year, while we learned anything, I was more intent on reading and writing. The only thing I cared for was spelling, and whatever else we did with language. I would pass each spelling quiz with flying colors, I would shout out answers asked about a short story we may have read.

I went through my schooling. When I was in 10th grade, we began writing essays. I hated it. It killed everything in me to write like they made you. Creative writing was the only writing I agreed with, writing that was from the heart and soul.

I would give my 10th grade teacher some of the things I had written, telling him this was writing, unlike our essays. He would always disagree with me. He would have me stand in front of the class, and read what I had handed into him. Then he would proceed to tear apart what I had written as I read, telling me it wasn't writing. That was the turning point. I was reigned from my writing. I felt it was wrong. When I stood in front of the class in tears, and the teacher still giving me his stern eye, the class laughing, that was the end.

I went through the rest of my few remaining years of school feeling I was "going through the motions." By 11th grade, I had a menial job and I hated it. By the time I graduated, I had no clue what I wanted to do. I ended up going to college, getting a major, and getting a job I also hated.

V

Something reawoke in me. It came out of nowhere, in between my usual, routine life of working, engorging, and sleeping. It was as if from 10th grade on I had been sleeping, and I had startled, opened my eyes, and was alive again. More alive than ever before.

I had been cleaning up my huge mess of a house one evening. I was putting some things in the attic when I came upon a yellowed age-old paper. I bent down and reached over my bulging belly. I read it. It was written in child's writing. At first it was foreign. I hadn't a clue why it was here. What it was. As I read on, I realized it was mine. I continued reading it until I finished. I stood there for the longest time.

Lying in bed that night, sleep didn't come so easily. My eyes peered out in darkness, but in my head there was a flaming lamp lighting everything.

When I dozed off to never-never land, and my alarm rang to awake me, I prepared for work and went. All day, in my cubicle, words whispered to me. They talked to me. Words that had long since become dust relics were suddenly glowing trophies. They wouldn't leave my head. That was where I belonged.

The day dredged on, and when I went home, instead of consuming food, I consumed words. They filled me, nourished me. It was food. The best food to ever taste.

What I wrote was the first step. It was the hardest step of all. It had taken years and years to be taken. Once it had been taken, it could not be held back. From then on, I was obsessed. I lived to leave work and go home and consume words. There was a monster in me, and he was raging.

VI

At day, I am an ordinary person. At night, I wear my words. I softly write telepathy. Each letter is a tally for everyone living caged. Each sentence is a punch, a kick. The period will break your nose, and make you bleed. The comma will comb your hair right off your head. The words will eat you alive.

I'm a superhero. You'll never know my name.
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((((((((stratum))))))

cut through
the ((((layers))))
with a knife

i am FrUsTrAtEd
i just [[[hide]]] it
in an i v s b l e box
with dead wrap
choking its sides

i am SiCk & tIrEd
(((((((((((((((((((((((((i'm so deep inside)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))
i can't find myself
anywhere

i don't want to ZzZsleepZzZ
it away
right now, i am sober

this world is alcohol
it depresses me
it recesses me
too bad there's no World Alcoholics Anonymous. . .
i have a disease,
i feel my CNS depress
i am centrally nervous in this system. . .

this world is a bottle
i must write my note
put it in this bottle
squeeze it in even though it is so long it barely even fits inside so much i have to CrUmPle it to fit it inside

i want to BrEaK this bottle
, shards of . glass . , to pelt
everyone . , and make them. , . ,
bleed blood flowing_________________________
through the choking arteries of these rules

maybe some . , . shards . . ,
will , cut my (,(((stratum)).,)
here's hoping
wishing & dreaming


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Monday, February 28, 2005

instantaneous thought

In AP English, a girl named Jessie Dunn never brought anything for our Poetry Fridays. She said she just didn't like to share. Beaudoin, our teacher, asked what we thought about this. Colin Cahill answered, "I think it's fine. I bet she's a good writer. Some of the best writers are those who write just for themselves."

So, this just ran through my head again. I've felt a new awakening again with my writing. Back when he'd said that, I hadn't agreed with him: I felt people should express themselves and not hide anything. But now I realize, some writers can't express themselves, can't share, because writing has become such a systematic process: someone's always telling you how to do it, and if you don't cater to the reader, then it isn't writing.

I realize more what Colin meant by what he said. Or perhaps, I've found my own meaning in what he said. That doesn't matter. What matters is I believe I am more one of those writers that writes for themselves, and not with the reader in mind. That is why, perhaps, I shouldn't share my writing to those readers who don't enjoy it. Or, more specifically, I shouldn't publish what I write, because it is not written with the reader in mind. On one hand, this is what I believe, but on another, I think: who cares about all these rules and ways they tell you how to write? Writing's my own thing, through it I am an individual. If some cannot understand or appreciate it, that's their problem. I'll still push my stuff out there nonetheless.

Whichever way I lean, someone will hate what I write and someone will love what I write and all forms of gray areas in between. . .so it doesn't really matter then. Writing written the way English classes teach these days writes with the reader in mind. . .but that reader could just as well hate the piece they read that is written with the reader in mind, and just as well love what someone who doesn't write with the reader in mind, but writes for themself, writes.
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a YoungMan

a YoungMan, a ~~() cig smoking ()
through clamped tEEth

i see the red (eye)
(O)f his ~~~~()smoking cig ()
glare @ me lit up

~~~~~~ smoke enters his (lu)(ng)s
nicOtine calms him
his pleasure = his death
& that is his chOice

the ~~~~~~ smoke-filled air
i breath in my (lu)(ng)s
his pleasure = my death
& that is wrOng

he **ashes** in the [tray]
i walk from death
he ~~~ breathes it in again

how Youth is wasted
on Pleasure
how we ~~~~~~ smoke Youth away
what a waste
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Sunday, February 27, 2005

societyfuckedme (old poem, but it's so good, and it inspires me)

I
he's big,smiles,
--a clown that's
not funny
but quite mean—
he's going to eat.
(big teeth)

funny to feel eaten,
and cycled
around.
and funny how this feels
so wrong (and goes round
and round)
when does it stop?
where is it found?

laughter,dead balls fall
balled into dead—out of reality.

II
Society, fuck you,
laughing coon,
bigsmilingman.
go down and fall
and leave me be.

ifeeldead
i feel eaten
BEATEN
d e s t r o y e d
fad
ed
and gone
left
leaving

Society why won't you die
be shot by an assassin?
if i could shoot a gun
i'd shoot you down
and you'd be gone.
right in the head
. . .dead.

i have will,will inside
and captured butterflies
i have things most gracious
but they're all circumsized
i'm just a penis,aren't i society
a penis for your insides.
all i have is in you,stabbing
(you) PRICK
–ing.
you should feel glad i'm circumsized.
i'm just a penis,i go inside.
i'm too hard,but really flaccid inside.
i guess we fucked in the end.

III
you to me i to you
me and her and all them too
fucked you inside,outside,through.
i hope your face erred in pleasure;
i hope your pussy felt really good.
my penis didn't
it felt wasted
it felt desecrated,raped,and forced.

i'll ejaculate.
spawntheSEED.
down we go—ashes, ashes;
bleed;

ovulation?
sure as we breathe.

Society,you're of the sexist breed.
like your fucking?

IV
i was a virgin
--doing fine
then you came along
and made me go.

you whore,
cur,(metrosexual i say with a smile,
that term so numb)
you boar.
sleuthing egotistical bore.

i was a virgin
--doing fine
then you fucked me,
showed me all i am is just a penis,
and i go inside.
nothing beautiful—i'm of no great design.

sure as we breathe,i'm dying—
dying by your whoreish deeds.
Society,you deserve to bleed.

your period's a few days away.
what they hey—let's fuck today.
maybe we'll have a baby,
just like yours is god.

V
you beast,
with large teeth,
and an even wider O
--the one that's your whole—
(hole)
the one where i go in,
and go in slow.
and there's hair there,
i know.

pub(ic)[hair]:I:lic(k),
my tongue in there.
raw.
and then my stick
to poke around.

VI
i grab your breast,you beast.
horny harsh hands.
(lustful lashes land)

your breast:
milks us all.
sour,curdled milk.
and the nipples are harsh.


Society,your period's a few days away.
(and we're fucking today)
be sure to wear a tampon,
don't let it leak away.

be sure to fuck as many as you can
give birth to more children,
i think i like wacking around the Bush.

VII
i grab your stomach,you beast.
horny harsh hands.
(lustful lashes land)
no-man's land.
sex is the juice
in my trench where i wage.

sex(less)ed fucking.

Society,you have strong strangling hands
they grab me and i can barely stand.

fuck you,man.

VIII
i guess we fucked in the end.
it was well (and good) and grand,
and now i'll see you later.

Death is release, a bloodsoaked fan.
thank god for that much to have had.

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death to rules in writing, life to me and my writing

okay
i'm here for you
youandyoualone
i feel you
speak freely,
let tongue be in cheek
let your voice yawp
so loudly

you've been dying,
an aborted fetus
i wanna nourish you again
you won't be aborted again
i've wised up

you see,i was pregnant
with someone else's babe
he shoved himself on me
when i was weak
weakIamnomore!
i've disposed of that whore

i slaughtered that babe whilst
he slept amongst my imagination
taking it all away with each breath
in cold blood i felt a change

no,i am no murderer
i killed what needed to be killed
i let live what need to live
i am but a genius who pushes the norm
words are my form
i wear them as skin!

blood wets my hands
yet it dries
and flies buzz round
the parasite i excised
a smell permeates
the smell of death

goodriddance &
goodbye
sohere closes one chapter,
sohere begins another

O how i feel alive
O i am here for you
my voice
i have returned
let us marry
let us kiss
let us make love
between the sheets
let us have ilk
let us write our name,
bold,
where they won't

i am here for you
youandyoualone
let's do what's never been done
my darling, my imagination
my one true love
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Thursday, February 24, 2005

That's right

You scored as Verbal/Linguistic. You have highly developed auditory skills, enjoy reading and writing and telling stories, and are good at getting your point across. You learn best by saying and hearing words. People like you include poets, authors, speakers, attorneys, politicians, lecturers and teachers. Verbal/Linguistic 100% Intrapersonal 96% Musical/Rhythmic 75% Visual/Spatial 64% Bodily/Kinesthetic 57% Logical/Mathematical 54% Interpersonal 50% The Rogers Indicator of Multiple Intelligences created with QuizFarm.com

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Letter for AP Gov

107 Estevan Dr.
Bismarck, ND 58503

February 23, 2005

Congressman Earl Pomeroy
1501 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515

Dear Congressman Pomeroy,
My name is Mitchell Grant Smith. I’m a senior from Century High School. I’m concerned about the issue of gay rights.

It is like the oppression and slavery of the blacks, the hatred of immigrants, womens’ past lack of rights. Again and again in America the fundamental thing we stand for is paradoxically turned from. But each time, we have turned around and eventually embraced what it is we turned from, realizing our prejudice. Just as blacks are no longer enslaved nor segregated, women now have suffrage, so shall one day gays have all their granted rights invested in them by the Bill of Rights.

I believe it is time for people to open their sewn shut eyes and realize the truth: that gays are people too, and that as a people they are guaranteed the right to marriage and to be treated the same as heterosexuals. There is no argument justifying the current treatment of gays in the U.S., and there never will be. Being homosexual is not nor ever will be a choice. I believe it is your duty as a congressman to dispel and thwart this prejudice against the gays, and to lobby for their rights with dogged determination. This oppression of a group of people must stop.

I appreciate your reading of this letter, and look forward to your response.

Sincerely,

Mitchell Grant Smith.
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Indexed

Book mark it. Let it become your life.
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Wednesday, February 23, 2005

the insomniac, pt. 1

"Goddamnit, I can't sleep," screamed the insomniac in his house. He drew the curtains down. "They'll get me if I sleep, won't they? Won't they? I know they will!"

He went and lay on his bed, staring at the ceiling. It had little bumps on it. He reached up and wanted to feel them. He got up and stood up on his bed and did just that.

"Feels like pimples," he whispered to himself. "The ceiling's got pimples! It's infected!" He started to laugh. It was uncontrollable, and he fell down, out of breath, back onto his bed.

Everything was so funny this late at night.

He turned on his lamp beside his desk. He put his hands in front of him, and made dog ears with his fingers. It made a large, looming shadow on the wall. "Woof! Woof!" he barked, imitating a dog. "I'mma watch dog!"

After a while, even that got boring. He went upstairs and stared out the window of his living room. Whenever he looked out here late at night, he always got the shivers. Before he got to the window, he expected a bug-eyed alien to be there, waiting to take him to who knows where. But maybe it was better than here? Maybe there he'd actually be able to sleep.

No bug-eyed alien here this time. All he saw was the world frozen in darkness. Not a damn thing was moving out there, save the moths attracted to the streetlamp, or the stars' twinkle. If only the world bathed in day was like this. Then it would be serene.

"I guess I'll go for a walk," he said to himself. He was getting quite bored with staring out the window, not a thing going on.

He walked, and ended up walking beside a field. Its plant-life gently swayed in the breeze. Then suddenly, he heard the rustling of someone running through the fields. "They're coming!" he yelled, and began sprinting away.

That was when he heard a bang, only it wasn't as loud as gun. Sudden pain hit him at the leg. He'd been shot! It was them! Trying to put him to sleep! He knew it! He could feel the downer entering his bloodstream now, feel it woozing him. Making him drowsy.

Then he looked at it and realized it was just a paintball from a paintball gun. "Goddamn kids!" he screamed. He could see a shadowy form somewhere off in the field. "If I hear another of you fire, I'm calling the cops! People are trying to sleep!" And he certainly wasn't one of them. The shadowy form ran off. The irony of him helping others sleep made him have a belated laugh, as he stood there with the pain in his leg stinging like a bee sting. That would bruise in the morning, it was sure.
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