First Verse

A few thousand miles traveled since I last wrote here, its been a couple of years and I'm none the wiser, in fact, I have murdered many brain cells.  I haven't really walked a path, more like roamed, lost, in a patch of bad decisions and ill opinions, a drug induced stated of stupid confusion.  My soul has rotted in the den of the devil, for if there is a God it's definitely sentenced me to a short life with an early death.  I'm pretty sure that's where I'm headed.  I haven't managed to stay out of trouble with the laws I for so long gracefully neglected to pay any attention to.  I conducted myself above them, or outside of them, but for the last few years I've been a slave to them.  They pretty much dictate what I can do, and where I can go, and I'm not quite sure if I'll ever get loose from those.  But this is an attempt to get back to what I know, and we all know the first is the hardest verse to convey.  I feel my time is limited and if I don't write this story within I'll die having never served my real purpose.  I've got worthwhile things to say and in clarifying that maybe I'll find my way, once again.  But if there's one thing I do know is break it down to simplicity and what you're left with is usually gold.  My being is broken, and my words I have to piece back together, and it may be the last thing I will do, but I will do.

Ahem...

My soul is feeling quite like an industrial wasteland lately, what was once productive is sitting, stale and stagnant.  I mean, there's like a time and place for everything, what can be peace one day is absolutely maddening the next.  That is me, I change like the wind, and I think most other writers understand this to some extent.  We're a dynamic bunch.

That burning desire, this incessant need to write never really goes away.  It lays, dormant, just underneath the surface, seething to be freed.  Taking a break is a good thing for me because it wells up and spills over, ideas then runeth from my cup.  I need to figure out a way to focus that to serve a bigger purpose.  When I write, I need silence so that I can be alone with my thoughts and ideas.  No music, no outside influences, I have to tap into something deep, and yes, even with something as simple as a blog post.  I only know one way to write and I have to follow that path.  So, my intention isn't to vacate this place, only set it aside for a while.  And all of you that have partaken in my life, that's right, I've never mixed words with a person that didn't have an impact on me.  One thing I've seen here is that there are so many good fuckin writers out there, it's unbelievable.  You guys are the shit.

Anyway, I'll be around.  I'll let ya'll know when the book comes out.

19 July 2014

Weeks have passed since I last made a post, as each one passes faster than the last. Soon I forget that I'm a writer and the thought of setting out to complete any piece is daunting, at best. The fact is, I have written, I just haven't finished anything. At the moment I have at least ten drafts which are 1/3 undone, sitting, waiting to serve some purpose. Even if their only reason for being is to placate me. Sometimes I'll take a few pieces, cannibalize them, and allow something new, more current to emerge. 

Summer unfolds with warm days and cool nights, on which I like to sit outside, in the dark, and stare at the sky and completely lose myself to it. The night thrusts upon me a calm, as it demands my attention I have no choice but to live in the moment. Living in the moment is fuckin hard, y'all, it goes against the way we as people are wired.  What makes it even harder is when one tries to rewire their brain, everyone else around them is still plugged in to the matrix. Yes, I still reference stupid, old movies. 

So, I'm still alive and functioning and I haven't been feeling very creative. That shit comes and goes, I try not to stress about it. Oftentimes getting out of my head is the best thing I can do, but in order to write I have to brave that territory once in a while. Just not right now, I'm kind of enjoying  the quiet.  

Rabble-rousing

It's Sunday, just before dusk, I don't have much in mind to write about but something tells me I must.  Magnificent hues does the sky hold, I'm high, with hopes of leaving some kind of legacy.  Yesterday a man told me that I saved his life, I humbly accepted his thanks, but I don't like being in the spotlight. "Sixteen years ago today," he told me, "you saved my life."  I didn't know what to say, I was kind of embarrassed because it was a party and he said it quite loudly. When I think about it, I didn't save his life, I just made him see that he didn't actually want to take it.  He was in a bad state from drugs, my best friends father, though we weren't really friends then, I just talked him away from a trigger.  But until he mentioned it I had never thought about it, and I'm forever connected to this man on a deeper level because of it, life does some funny things.

I call those defining moment's.

And it makes me think of the summer air, my teenage years, when I learned that books were the gateway to understanding.  I was careless back then, mad at the world for being alive, and a heavy a chip on my shoulder.  School had pretty much thrown my ass out, I was on my own. If only I was as wise as I thought I was, people talked to me, but I had all the answers. And I suppose that's more or less normal, learning things the way teenagers do. I was at a disadvantage, however, I had never had much guidance. I was a latchkey kid. 

And speaking of that, I recently had conversation over coffee with my oldest friend. We were latchkey kids together. But we were laughing at how neither one of us is likely to ever let our kids go unsupervised like we had for so many years. I think of all the stupid shit we did, and of all the opportunities we had to kill ourselves doing something stupid. I now know better. It doesn't take but a few seconds for a 10 year old boy to think of something that will most certainly land him in trouble or hurt. Or, like me, I was always the one to convince another to do whatever stupid thing we were doing so I could find out what happens without getting hurt.   Not a foolproof theory, but I made it out of childhood with all my fingers and toes. 

I'm just happily rambling right now.  Daylight is struggling to keep the moon at bay, I could get infinitely lost among the starscape.  The vastness of it all, at times I can feel how loud it is, I know that doesn't make sense.  

I probably say a lot of things that don't make sense. But it's cool. 

Abecedarian

I forced myself out into the light of day, and I definitely needed it.  My blue eyes have always been sensitive to light, but more so today for the dark I'd been sitting in was vicious. Although I'm not out the woods, so to speak, I have let a few things leak from the closet. The weight on my chest had been lifted and, quite possibly, my apathy is going up in smoke with it.

In a minute. 

First, let me finish. I got lost for what seemed infinite. About to take off I caught a glimpse of my own image, realizing that with dawn comes a new beginning. Pretty simple shit and it is easier said than done, we all know. In some way, shape or form I think that anybody even reading this silliness just knows. 

Am I write?

As the saying goes, "woe is me."  Boo hoo, bitch you've been given a golden ticket in my life and she goes by the name of Gwendolyn. Really, both of my kids but her in particular. She's one with my soul and when I need her most, with her silly faces and sayings, she saves me from my own head. Always there, at the top of the stairs waiting when I get home, and the greatest thing is she has no idea she's doing it. With her signature little pink bow, it's inescapable the way it changes things in an instant.

Only a handful of times have I experienced instances that, quite frankly, make me shiver, every fiber of my body standing on end, tingling.  I do believe in mere coincidence, but more than that I think people have underlying connections.  The handful of true friends I do have this week have proven to truly be so.  Each one has reached out to me and didn't know that I actually needed it.  As well, EVERYONE here that has written to me, or of me.  Sometimes life is ugly, and for whatever reason it needs to be that way.

And it's alright.

Change Ain't Easy

Life is an incessant string of ups and down hastily pasted together, and in the flurry I sometimes become overwhelmed so I take the quickest course to the darkest place I know.  I just want to be alone, but being alone isn't always good, for me.  A drug induced coma and three weeks pass that I don't remember.

That was the point.

Somehow I managed to grab hold of something to stop me from spiraling so far out of control that I couldn't get back.  Now I'm paying for it physically, and mentally I don't quite know what to do.  I mean, I'll carry on as always, but what next?  I am a firm believer that we make our own fate, but right now I'm having a hard time believing in me, or anything, really.  I've coasted thus far and I'm surprised I've lasted this long to be quite honest.  People like me have a hard time accepting the mundane, and in return I'm labeled with a sickness.  Because I can't abide by people's rules, or follow the lead of every other father/husband, there must be something wrong with me.  I struggle as if I were strapped to a bed, and the white walls of life close in around me.  I just feel dead inside.

I won't dwell in this state for too long, I know what it can do to me.  It's time to pull up my britches, quit being a bitch, and do something about this monster lingering within.  Have you ever slain a dragon?  I have, and it's harder when it's of your own making.  What I've created is a place where I've alienated myself from everything, and everyone, around me.  Built up a wall, reinforced by the spite I have for myself, on a firm foundation of self loathing.  All so that people can't see what I see in me.  Anger and disdain.  A fear of putting myself out on a limb.  Hell, I do some crazy shit without thinking twice but I can't force myself to take a step forward, possibly toward a whole new life.

Why is it so hard to be good to ourselves?

I'm at a fork in the road with no insight on which way to go.  Empty handed and at the end of my rope, only time will tell on which road I'll go.  I do know one thing, I can't go back.  I need to do something different from that which I'd normally do.

I'm certain of one thing.  I am going to make it.

Life lately

 I haven't been able to write because my words aren't matching my actions, I sometimes let myself wander a little too far from my own path. It's like playing with fire and I always know it, but there I go, testing the metaphorical waters again. It's like I throw caution to the wind, fall on my face, and do it again. It's insane, and people think I'm a quick learner, but that's only because I fall harder and faster than most people do. Rock bottom is like an old closet I throw all all my shit in, but I make myself sit in it, darkness surrounding me, I give in and go with it. Every time I go a little further, deeper into that hole, and it's a little harder to come back from, I sometimes wonder when it'll be that I don't. And that isn't a question, it's a statement, but that goes with the territory, yo.

Winter turned to spring and although I've been waiting for it I hardly noticed, having been preoccupied with my own selfish demons. It's my self-deprecating nature that'll have me take and swallow a handful of pills to kill the pain. And it does, but only temporarily, and I wake up the next day with a hangover and a pocket full of disdain. I didn't go that route this time, but I'm left with the agony that is this life and no way to deal with it. I stand alone like the leaveless trees that line the streets, bare and burdened, but deeply rooted and unmoving. I often feel almost as if I've traded it for my soul.

What is this life?  I don't where the hell I originally saw it, but I ask myself all the fucking time. Things will look up, they always do, eventually.  This shit I write here really doesn't mean anything, they're just thoughts that pass like the seasons.  Which seem to be a little crazy.

* I started that a few days ago when it was 70° and right now it's snowing.