Someone Else's Sins

All this baseness. I wish to wither away completely. Old joys hold no sway on my heart any longer. The day hath passed to night and another day is dawning to replace it. Only faint memory remains and with each passing moment the memory fades. It becomes a shadow of its former self and causes me only pain. A throbbing disdain that rushes to the back of my eyes with each new remembrance. I yearn to jettison these woes completely but I am not the master of them, not yet. They ebb and flow just out of reach to push them away and send them to the abyss. A nagging in my mind that echoes past hopes, drowning out my will to move and see brighter sunshine over the hills. The sounds produced in the echo confound my heart and emblazon my hate. Lack of caring doesn't wholly relieve me of these burdens. I still cling to the threads of the past, not willing or simply incapable of cutting them free for good. Once the connection is made it's as if hooked to bone and sewn into the fabric of my being. To cut them free would be to cut apart my own soul. To cast them away would be to send away all my hopes and futures. To say goodbye is to shut the doors I had swung open with a smile and heart full of love. It is cold now in that hall where the door once stood. The walls constrict, not letting me move from them. There's no escape. A recourse exists: burn the structure down. But where is the tinder? Where is the match? From whence will I conjure a flame strong enough to destroy this place? Not in my soul, for that flame has gone out. It's weathered its final storm. Now the ashes are snuffed out. Cold and base. All that remains.

Thanks, I guess

"A kid walked by me today and said I had cool shoes."
"Yea?"
"It was just weird to me. I've been getting a lot of random compliments from random people lately. Shit like that baffles me."
"Why does it baffle you?"
"Because I've never been one to A. get compliments on menial things and B. to get them from utter strangers or even acquaintances."
"It's not that strange. You're just drawing to much attention to it. Putting mean where meaning doesn't exist."
"Well that's a given but aside from the kid, there have been times when women compliment me and the only recourse I can take is thinking they are being flirty."
"That's not unheard of, what's your point?"
"No point, just voicing my confusion."
"So people find you attractive and want to compliment you? What's the problem?"
"Oh no problem, again I'm just not used to it."
"What did she say?"
"Who?"
"The girl who complimented you."
"Oh, well a few years ago a girl at the checkout line said, 'I like your shirt.' I was wearing some band shirt or something."
"What did you say back?"
"I was so thrown off by it, since it's such a random thing to say, especially towards me, I just said I liked her shoes. The other one, more recently, I was leaving work and a woman I know called from her desk at the back of her row saying 'I like your jacket.' I simply said thanks and went to the stairs."
"Was it a nice coat?"
"See that's the thing, no. It's an old shrunken hoodie. I'm assuming she said it because it had a band name on it but still it's not a good jacket."
"Maybe they were both just trying to find a way to start a conversation."
"Yea probably but I'm so inept and the setting was so weird that I was blindsided by it. I've never been one to take compliments well. And even more so when they come from attractive women."
"Because you don't think you're desirable?"
"Well yea, I've always been that way though. Things have changed yes but I still feel like I'm not that desirable, at least to be complimented randomly."
"Perhaps you need to take a chance and strike up a conversation with one of them, maybe this more recent one?"
"Impossible."
"How so?"
"We work together, she dated one of my friends. I don't think it'd be fruitful."
"You have a very defeatist attitude."
"You say defeatist, I say realistic. You know I'm not one to start something if I think it'll fail outright."
"I suppose. Do end up getting yourself in over your head once it shows signs of failing?"
"Yes...sad to say. I think my biggest issue is battling between resolving to stay alone for my mental health or attempting to being something and failing again. That's why these seemingly innocuous compliments baffle me so. I'm always the one to initiate interest not the other way around. I don't know how to handle it without either bumbling or coming off as cold."
"Sometimes that can't be helped."
"You're not wrong."
"Fasten your seat belts and remain seated for the flight. We are preparing for liftoff."
"How long is this flight again?"
"Nine hours."
"Right...what do you know about Nihilism?"

goosebumps

my lips leave marks

memories of lust

signatures left in invisible ink

on your warm freckled skin

will the memory remain, 

when the shower washes it away?

or will this fade,

like the sun at the end of the day?

your fingers trace

the lines of my face

your eyes do the same

i get lost in their blaze

grays and blues play 

a subtle quiet game

running over your face

a smile fills the space

reminisce on time shared

where we weren't scared

about what the next day brings

oh how my heart still sings

Roulette

I scarcely want to write the words in my heart because all feelings are temporary, but writing them gives them some tinge of immortality. A shout in the dark still makes noise. A voice in the twilight hours is still heard by the walls and held in their memory. Only in the vacant halls of the mind are feelings safe to live and die in solitude. The true darkness of thought. 

I'm in many ways, both hopeful and deathly afraid of the future. Conscious that small decisions impact the next decade of my life. 

This came to a realization in me during a lengthy conversation with a friend. I'm no stranger to retracing my life and my decisions only to say "what if" regarding some big change, but this conversation shed light on a small, almost insignificant decision made a little over a decade ago. 

I'll recount that now:

In the winter of 2008 I turned 18 years old and moved out of my father's home and started living with my aunt and uncle. I drove to work and school and lived that way for two months, until I could start living with my mother. In the same weekend, I moved, I lost my job, and started dating a new girl. In the summer of 2008 I was simply living and not working. I did however apply for a few jobs here and there since it is hard to go on dates with no money. I had an interview with the management of the still under construction Rave Cinemas in Florence. And here is where the small decision comes into play. On my application I put my home phone number instead of my cell phone number. A rather insignificant thing right? Well, I never got a phone call from that job and eventually got a job at Amazon, and spent my off hours playing World of Warcraft and browsing the internet a little too much. So much, that I ended up applying for a film school, since I couldn't attend Northern Kentucky University in the fall like I had hoped to. I subsequently spent two years at that film school. 

However, it turns out, two months after I interviewed with the movie theater, my mother found a voicemail seemingly hidden on the home phone answering machine. We had had issues with the phone for a long time, not ringing or dropping calls or not showing it had messages. I remember sitting at the computer and hearing her say, "By the way, you got that job at the movie theater." It being two-three months since the call came I didn't see it feasible to follow up on that job and thus my life played out how it has.

In thinking about this little thing I realized some threads would be different in my life. 

Had I put my cell phone on the application I would have received the call that I had been given the job. I would have worked nights, presumably, so I'd have less time to be on the internet. I'd have more money, so I'd spend more time with my girlfriend, and less time on the internet. I'd be out of the house and too busy, to be on the internet. Essentially the biggest change would be that I wouldn't have applied to the film school. With that change I wouldn't have gone to that school, gotten into debt, met the people I know, and a whole host of threads wouldn't exist. 

All because I put one phone number down instead of another. 

It makes me wonder what other small choices, innocuous in nature, have shaped my life. I can track down most threads but for the past ten years I never realized a phone number would affect this much of my life. 

I'm now sitting thinking about the future, my next summer, my prospects for life and wondering: How did I get here, where do I go from here? 

My heart is heavy with the possibilities. 

Exiled

I never claimed to know how to write poems. Frankly, I don't believe I've ever written one. The things I tag as poetry are simply my thoughts strung together.

My joy and my pain.

existence is futile

smash my face against the wall
against the rocks
against anything and everything i can find
until the bones crack beneath

then i'll be free

escaped finally from this monotony
these never ending days and
horrid nights
rip the sound of your footsteps
from my ears

close the door on your existence
slam it shut and bolt it tight

hold me under the surf so i can
breathe freely

Do I Deserve This?

I often live my life in day dreams; little scenes depicting my wishes in a form and fashion which helps my heart grow as much as ache. I see myself in the arms of a lover. I see myself with my hand on my son's shoulder. I see the home I call my own, full to bursting around the holidays. I see a smile upon my face and in my soul.

These daydreams keep me from darkness. They keep me in the light. They also fill me with pain more often than not. Pain of knowing some dreams don't come true. Pain of regret.

My latest daydream involves a family. My family. The one I've created. I'm older in the image, in the scene: grey hair, wrinkled face, tougher skin. I'm standing with my wife and my two faintly adult children, in a pose for a photo.

I scarcely believe this image is me. I see the man and think, "Surely that can't be me. I'll never have what he has. I'll never have that stability."

For that is one thing my life has always lacked. A foundation. Stability. I've been without this for as long as I can remember.

There has always been upheaval, destruction, uncertainty and fear of loss. And a lot of loss to accompany that fear.

So in this daydream I see a world where that stability finally exists. I have the life I wish I had had as a child. A stable home, a stable family, a stable life. In this image I've built a foundation, a pathway for each successive portrait, snapped in time, to succeed the next without a hiccup.

The daydream bounces from relative youth to relative old age. Spanning the growth of my two children. Each picture framed shows a family built on solid foundations. Ready to weather any storm thrown its way because the base is so strong.

That's a daydream I've had recently. A daydream I hope becomes a reality.

weightloss

anxious waves crash in my stomach,
sending shrapnel up my throat and into
my brain.
i'm drowning in bile

words escape me in the night.
my bones show their face as I
wither.
drown me....drown me

the valley

pavement raps my heels
cool wind, take my soul away
bird song falls unheard

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

entering the void
I grasp lightly to the edge
memory is lost

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

mist clings to my skin
ghosts haunt me in every step
your voice on the air

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

awaken to dawn

darkness is gone from my eye

only past remains

suspended

falling in slow motion the ground disappears.
i'm engulfed by the water, suspended
frozen
calling out in my heart to be rescued.

the ground returns, i was never gone
from this spot.
my feet are riveted only my soul escapes me.
it runs and hides in the long grass. as the sun
sets and the rains start on the horizon.

take my breath from me,
drown me