Post by Steve on Oct 26, 2005 9:59:39 GMT -5
-To obtain nothing and be satisfied is enough to obtain.- -knock that shit off Ian. jesus christ you piss me off sometimes. can't you just talk to people without it being some cryptic jumble of words? -can't we just walk without a destination and not be persecuted for it? aren't you doing the same in life and expect the same respect of immunity from persecution? and yet here you are, Mrs. Inquisition herself!- -fuck you Ian- -Hmmm, i dunno `bout that one now, and, who ever said that you had to come with us?- -yeah, i just came and smoked with you Renea. I wanted to go for the walk, Ian was invited, you tagged along. i don't mind but man...you can only call people no fun so many times before they want to strangle you.- It was around this time that she became quiet, obviously pissed off completely with the two of us. The two of us grinning wildly at the trees ans once in a while at each other to make sure we both were still high and wanted to walk. -I would hate to lose the sense of feeling man, you know?- -dude, you're nuts, but right man, that would suck.- i had thought similar things before, but now, carrying my guitar, thinking about all the faces thirsty mouths opening with suede soft smooth lips, nipples rising like haunting tombstones from benetath a white sheet in the early mornings of autumn, the disaster of losing the ability to touch and FEEL was worrisome. What would i do? Why would i live? Was he only talking about your fingers? Could my lips still feel the sensation of closely shaven pubic hair falling in the small slits slowly becoming chapped, my cheeks gain the heat of breath and the chill of winter winds, my toes feel the inner warmth of a pair of thighs enclosed around them while i slept? I had to shake the thought, the curse. I thought of jazz, of notes spewed from the wide mouth of the trumpet, of irish girl's lips and notmygirl's lips -the girl from ghanna has gold earrings her skin thick and delicious-on a greyhound goin to ohio for a couple months-give her a hug and she smiles.- What man?- -rik tik rav ba gav men jeh nu nev loooo- -that's right ian, no one says it like you, lets head out and jam-.
Beneath the lights, in front of the small group of 6 people drinking beer and off and on staring at the stage, the pills made my lungs heavy and my thoughts sluggish as i sat there zonning out of reality. Josh was behind me playing bongos, and two old heads were on either side of me egging me on to sing and just -Mellow out man-, if only they knew HOW mellow i already was. So i strummed the opening chords of the first song, smoothly nicely, and then began to sing:
i'll pick you some rosemarie and i'll pick you some peppermint i'll pick you a flower and the whole thing fell like a rock from my hand with a thud. sweating i ran my fingers a cross the strings and felt grease, yarn soaked in crisco, my voice disagreed with the setting and i began regretting getting up there. No, i wouldn't regret smoking drinking and taking pills without practicing before i got up to play, i met grand visions and felt comfortable around Josh. Had a lot of thoughts, one being that writing was my passion. So i gave up on voice after noticed voice was fine standin alone, guitar stood well composed by itself, though oil and water that night; just oil and water. i continued to play guitar strumming with the old flies buzzing solo after solo over my rhythms until sobriety was found. Josh had a ball drumming, thought my beats were intresting and nice to play along to, i shrugged my shoulders and asked if we were gonna go and smoke.
Renea had left us at the coffeehouse, not soon before we were due up. Her little passive aggessive way of showing us that she was upset with us. Josh and i laughed about it a we lit up on our walk to retrieve his car which was parked back at The Tweaker Hill House. High, not stoned, we figured we'll go bother the people at the Couch House, see who wants to smoke, knowing full well a house full of heads always want to smoke. We get there and my god Shannon looked amazing. It was simple. Over her abdoman she wore a black tanktop, thin straps running like vines over her tiny fragile shoulders, and her legs were covered in a creamy yellow skirt with a red pattern twisting vein-like throughout it. Her hair was down, falling into her eyes, making her curve her bottom lip over her top and exhale to fling the array strands back in place. Her pale skin was highlighted by the rich red that fell framing her face like a portrait would be framed. It was heartaching, heart demolishing, her boyfriend so many miles away, her eyes wandering over me everytime i pretended to look away, but her words to me so few that i could count them on one hand. I could place them around a single star in the sky.
It made no difference. I was celibate. Done with sex until i was with the one i desired, above strawberry strands wet and quivering on my lips, it was Danielle's almond flesh, columbian chest that i wanted to sleep upon. Finished with sex cause it hangs thick in your mind like the smoke from a burnt pastry billowing in the kitchen. It leaves a bad taste in your mouth like biting a piece of orange rine. But oh, love with Danielle, love in the bosom of her, love would be the crumbling of mountains with only our sighs and panting; the colapsing of heaven sky with our inhales and exhales, angels would fall in groups like raindrops during a tropical storm. Love in her wet flesh thumb print at the end of her columbian thighs, kisses running from her toes up and circling her kalves, against her A.C.L. and P.C.L., her knee cap, wet cool soft hungry kisses crying their way passed her hips- quivering sensation they jump into the air with a mighty animal groan-a cross her stomach and into the dip of naval; splitting her breast, into the crook of her neck resting in warmth. Below her ear, on her earlobe, finally stopping above her open gaping lips breathing in every gasp for air while my hand picks petals until she is an open rainstorm flower. But i was through with sex, cheap, heaven distracting, world distracting, i was through with it.
The night consisted of what every other night i spent there did. We smoked, lounged around the living room and they vegged out at the television while i zoned out staring at the Tibetan Prayer flags hanging from the perimeter of the room. I scanned the room, the same bike leaned against the wall as the first day i stopped by, the table in front of the bike still cluttered and unused; the area we sat in was cleaned everyday after the majority of the guests had left but still junk food wrapperes littered the table and floor that looked like the same ones from every other day. Stoned, blood sugar at a horrible low from popping pills and not eating, i decided to go not long after getting there. Okay, so weed stunted my comprehension of time, i most likely left an hour or two after arriving there with josh. I got up, said my good byes and my laters, and then shannon got up and hugged me. Amazing tradgic hopeless swimming with cement shoes to a coast that keeps a steady distance from you no matter how fast you swam. That is exactly how i felt. As i have said: i was born stupid and i have matured through stupidity to reside in a current state of a stupid young man. The night closed for me, i walked home to sit at the kitchen table alone, sad in a shadow of loss and guilt for abandonning so many on the east coast. Sat with a pen and pad and stared at the sterile white page, as empty as my stomach, my hunger making me as much a shadow as i felt to be.
July (who cares about the date with this one, just read it) from the journal
On the way back from walking the other day, the 25 mile walk for a job, i witnessed two things that shaped so much in my mind. On 38th street, in a tiny corner between the liquor store and a pawn shop (oh america how i love your non-existing irony when it comes to such pitiful displays as this one!);true the type of spot that i would look towards, there was a man standing with as much balance as a tipsy toddler. I chuckled to myself, thinking that he was drunk and just merry. I paused for a second to fix my sock, and secretively massage my calf which had complained about cramp, when i noticed him doing much the same, and so i righted myself again and threw another glance, just for the hell's right to. I saw, and by god what hopelessness i felt, that he was only ensuring that his artificial leg was still in place; ready for him to continue walking. It was that moment, that tiny moment that passed as quickly as a shooting star but froze in my eyes that i could see every detail of its tail streaking a cross the sky; leaving vapors of blue and red for the angelic astronauts, who still hover, to enjoy; that i felt i should die. Just curl up into a ball and let my stomach eat its way through itself, and then move on to other organs should his appetite not be met. My leg ached! Yes, even after this my body chose to mutiny. As captain i had to execute, and did so by running 3 blocks as fast and with as much speed i pounded my feet into the sidewalk to end each step, all to assure myself that 'feeling' was better than none.
The second, which only happened Tuesday, was of less affect, but nevertheless wriggled its way into my thoughts. I was filling out an application at Mc Donalds (please, no apologies, humility is a welcome friend), the second one if i can add, sitting as far away from the customers as i could. The pen had a hat of a plastic plant that i want to call a fern and shall do so, that insessantly beat against my nose. After doing this, hitting my face with the plant that was duc-taped to the pen, many times i glanced up; you know, to see around and occupy my eyes with something other than the extremely dumbed down application, when i saw her. I should know by now not to look up from what i am doing. When our eyes met, i felt a strange exhaustion come about me, as though i couldn't even continue the questions. She was attractive, not any thing you would imagine when you stereotypically think of spainish beauty (but then again i am not Hispanic)and held a child in her arms. It was as though a sickness, fever, had crept upon me. I hurriedly scribbled down my job duties, and blatantly wrote that i hated cvs and that their faulty manager staff as the reasons why i left; signed it, dated it and ran to the register. I looked behind me, again LOOKING, i saw the young women's husband with the same sheet of paper in his hand. I couldn't even look at her on the way out. I hadn't the need to, i knew she was watching me, i could feel those onyx eyes full of a heritage that dates further than my own, were welded against my back. There was no pity because i had something that she/they did not. My cupboard is bare, if not more barren than theirs, and my clothing hasn't been washed in what is quickly approaching as a month and a few days. I sleep on the floor, and am kept awake at night with worries just the same. The only difference was the child. Even with these similarities, i knew, nay, we both knew, that i had the job before he did. I would receive employment because of my proper posture and speech and my eye contact, all attributes and techniques i found, on my way through gritty times, to be useful. The knowledge that i only have these characteristics because i were to be born within the states, and allowed the chance to venture off into whatever wilderness i saw fit, is what made me want to revoke my application. To walk to the counter and ask for them to forget my name, erase it from the notebook. I don't want to see Ian-@2pm Thurs, there anymore. This family needs more than i. Not out of mere material possessions, or even the greater lacking of such things and food, but because i have possibilty on my side. No, not so much possibilty as it is American discrepency. I have American Discrepency behind me, ensuring that somewhere, they will hire me, while this family has none.
I walked back to the shop miserable, bored and lonely.
The feeling has not left though i haven't seen their faces else where. I don't have to. Today was my interview, which lasted a whole ten minutes; which didn't include the time i was waiting but, and of course i was hired. I had no doubts, no second thoughts or misgivings. I knew i was employed the moment the application left my hand. I knew this, that is why i waited till the worst shape, or close to it, to apply there. It was a given. Worst of all, i was excluded from the 'general questions' that this little power happy Mc Donalds manager 'usually asked applicants'. No shit. If you were to ak the questions, quite bluntly i would ask you to just look at my application and if you doubt anything to call and check up on it...as for personality, i am employed to work the night shift, truthfully, do you really care so long as the money is safe. Upon a first impression you can usually tell who would put the cleaner agent into the food. But, i know with my being hired, that poor man with his family were shot of into oblivion with nothing but rejection to keep them warm.
The blister on the side of my toe, that has grown to be the size of my baby toe, is becoming rougher; less suseptable to pain although pain would be welcome. Any type of physical feeling would have two arms reaching for opposite polars ready to clasp down against it and drag it closer to my chest.
For I know that the gentleman on 38th drinks himself out of depression to only fall into the sadness that is always collected at the bottom of a pint or such. With every drunk night i shall toast at least one drink to the man on 38 th street, and hope that he has given up on holding glass and taken up a kind loving hand.
I see myself in him, excluding all physical differences and enhancing the mental anguish, and the easily conquerable person in his eyes seem to be my own.
This is raving and absurd, but still, i do not know what i am doing. I long for the tales that seem to bloom on every tree. Bursting like a squeezed cherry, they explode all through its boughs. It seems as though these trees only live for a week or so, thriving off of the exhileration of the arriver. Fruit mouths hang from the branches singing your dreams to lead you nearer, but there's no serpent in sight, so you sit and listen. The leaves above you shiver out a percussion that is simple and sounds like a paintbrush being stroke against a large canvas, in the middle of a theatre. This is the true voice of America, and it is this that i want to hear every place that i go. It is this overture that i want o`er my corpse. No other tongue muttering, eyes tamed, spilling not a drop as though handle by a french waiter. Leave mourning for your ancestors, and look at death via Buddha. The earth won't complain as it devours and replenishes the nutrients that we have stolen from her.
To obtain nothing
and be satisfied
is enough to obtain.
Joe told me, not more than two days before leaving, that everytime i express myself with total sincerity and uninhibited, it has the feeling of some one's suicide letter. The more exact thing he said was: Dude, you write like its your suicide note. Which, not going to lie, hurt. I don't know why. I believe it has something to do with the hope i put into people that they understand the way i feel. That, when i say i am down, i am not just thinking about how i left my sandals in Kansas (this is a recent example), or, that i lost my lighter, no, it is almost aways more than that. And, to make it more difficult, the inquiries to my mood are usually posed at the worst time; during or at their first development, which makes the thought that much harder to describe. That is where there are thinks, and thoughts. There is a meaning behind that. It isn't that people aren't suppose to ask, god knows because then my passive aggresiveness will get in the way and make me wonder why the person didn't ask, and shut off completely to them. And when they demand me to tell them, or oppose my confusion with some obscure gesture of offense, i also pick up brick and morter and go back to work. Damned either way. Unless, it is questioned, then dropped politely, leaving it as we can talk later if you want .
I am only assuming that a reason, that was once a variable soon to be defined, for writing this is beacuse of an email i got today. I had't spoken to this person in quite some time, and out of the blue as they say, decided to email them. Their response was desperate and much more heart felt than i had expected. It seemed like the right time to do something, and luckily it was. But this friend explained a jealousy that had a foundation of sand. Writing that it was because i was so close to some one else, and that the other person knew SO much about me, the friend felt like we weren't close, and became jealous. Which is odd, because the person, to whom they were so envious of, complained and asserted the same to me. Saying that they felt that i hadn't opened up to them despite the years they had known me. I don't know what to say to any of this. I suppose this is something that every single person that i meet will have in common. Every last friend and acquintence will feel left out of my thoughts and pain. When, how could i wish this neverendingfestivalofthoughtsandcoloursstreamerswavinglikehairfromayoungwomanonaplaygroundfrolickingwithherloverrunningtoapatchoftreestotouchandkisshimwhilebloodstainedmexicansarestarvinginthebathroomoftheyoungboys'parentsrestaruant.
why? I would not wish this upon anyone. Some, to whom i tried to explain, never understood that it never stops. Never, it can be slowed, but to cease it knows not how.
i must go, the library is closing....
CHAPTER1: SECTION 4
The house wasn't new to me, not home to me, i had only been there once; the night Renea's friend (the one that i met on my first day in Tacoma) and i sat up looking through Klimt's art work. Now i was here amongst a whole group of people that called me friend that i had met and warmed to me within the confines of the passed couple of days. I was sitting outside on a milkcrate, taking pulls off one of Crazy's- insane jesus clown whose voice so soft it tangled and tore like a cotton ball against the course filters of your ears, his mouth openning with certainity like a grandfather, always with intelligent advice and storiesbthat would consume you for an hour while feeling only like he had just bagun-Euorpean rolled spliffs, one of two that were being passed around, listening and talking with Doug about the current events of the Couch House. Apparently some moving or other was happening, it was a downer, sweet irish angel and roomates were just fish swimming in horrible sea of tension and drama-we are the dramatics, finding soul in lightbulbs bursting into stratasphere night leaving behind flash then darkness of desert night-. But we were here, outside of a house, stoned, music blaring and talking about life paths and drunk tales.
i went into the house, someone had said that there was a hoohka being burnt, and found myself being dealt into some obsurd card game; like texas hold`em but without the ability to fold. I hadn't a clue about card games, still don't, but i took my hand and grabbed a seat. The kitchen was full of strange cats, yelling laughing, all through happy intoxication. Somehow i lost, or possibly won, but had to swop shoes with girl a cross from me. Candy little girl, a cute little red-head that won't leave her brother's side for anymidnightwinedrinkingstargazingpebbleskimmingacrossthepacificwithstepsthatsoundassoftasachild'sslipperedfootsteppingitswayoverwavestrying toreachthemoon'reflection, not for any:but she makes eye. I find out her name is Renee, and her brother was sitting next to her. So another person wins and i lose, or i win for a second time and i have to introduce myself to a big teddy-bear of a man name Todd. the group laughs as they tear the previous title of 'Mystery Man' from me and they start calling me Ian. Todd passes the Hoohka hose over to me and i fold my hand to sit and taste the blue smoke. i packed a bowl and asked if anyone was interested, everyone politely said no thanks and i smoked it to my head, got up saying -nice to have met you Todd, Renee...- and the rest introduce themselves. Only Todd, Renee, and bear's fellow friend Al stay in my memory. They were a good bunch of people. But i got up and walked a cross the street to the Couch House to see what was shaking.
I caught Shannon as she was extending soft coral salamander tongue out to lick the spliff closed and we head back a cross the street.
The circled had lost a good amount of faces but still two spliffs ran dizzily around the group. There wasn't much talk left in everyone, the night was old, the stars fading into a blue that once was black. The embers out, people go to bed, and i walk desperately back home, trying not to fall onto a patch of grass and fall asleep.
Back at the house Dickhead was blasting a movie, banging his girlfriend, her moans were like an injured puppy being beat a cross the rump with a switch. The drywall was shaking, powder billowing from through old pinholes that once housed nails that held picture frames, and the fireplace belches in the voice of Sean Connery. I left to go sit outside, smoke a cigarette; freshly rolled, and wondered about wondering and decided that it wasn't the night to look down to see how close the void was. My sweat was thick with nicotine and beer, my breath reeked of burnt trees, i thought about climbing that little meth hill to pacific ave and walking its lit trails (on drunken stoned nights i squinted my eyes to make it resemble Haledon ave, pressured them closed tighter to morph into a vague resemblance of a New York City street).
(the walk on pacific ave, meeting jamaica man, tweaker bitch.)
I smoked another cigarette, went inside and stared into the bathroom. Dust blew into my face, i heard the beaten bitch yelp again, thinking if i should bathe. I could feel my skin yellowing like a jaundice victim, i could dive deep into that realm of baths, but resolve to sit in the kitchen.
I ended the night listening to solitude ricochetting through the trees of parkland
Beneath the lights, in front of the small group of 6 people drinking beer and off and on staring at the stage, the pills made my lungs heavy and my thoughts sluggish as i sat there zonning out of reality. Josh was behind me playing bongos, and two old heads were on either side of me egging me on to sing and just -Mellow out man-, if only they knew HOW mellow i already was. So i strummed the opening chords of the first song, smoothly nicely, and then began to sing:
i'll pick you some rosemarie and i'll pick you some peppermint i'll pick you a flower and the whole thing fell like a rock from my hand with a thud. sweating i ran my fingers a cross the strings and felt grease, yarn soaked in crisco, my voice disagreed with the setting and i began regretting getting up there. No, i wouldn't regret smoking drinking and taking pills without practicing before i got up to play, i met grand visions and felt comfortable around Josh. Had a lot of thoughts, one being that writing was my passion. So i gave up on voice after noticed voice was fine standin alone, guitar stood well composed by itself, though oil and water that night; just oil and water. i continued to play guitar strumming with the old flies buzzing solo after solo over my rhythms until sobriety was found. Josh had a ball drumming, thought my beats were intresting and nice to play along to, i shrugged my shoulders and asked if we were gonna go and smoke.
Renea had left us at the coffeehouse, not soon before we were due up. Her little passive aggessive way of showing us that she was upset with us. Josh and i laughed about it a we lit up on our walk to retrieve his car which was parked back at The Tweaker Hill House. High, not stoned, we figured we'll go bother the people at the Couch House, see who wants to smoke, knowing full well a house full of heads always want to smoke. We get there and my god Shannon looked amazing. It was simple. Over her abdoman she wore a black tanktop, thin straps running like vines over her tiny fragile shoulders, and her legs were covered in a creamy yellow skirt with a red pattern twisting vein-like throughout it. Her hair was down, falling into her eyes, making her curve her bottom lip over her top and exhale to fling the array strands back in place. Her pale skin was highlighted by the rich red that fell framing her face like a portrait would be framed. It was heartaching, heart demolishing, her boyfriend so many miles away, her eyes wandering over me everytime i pretended to look away, but her words to me so few that i could count them on one hand. I could place them around a single star in the sky.
It made no difference. I was celibate. Done with sex until i was with the one i desired, above strawberry strands wet and quivering on my lips, it was Danielle's almond flesh, columbian chest that i wanted to sleep upon. Finished with sex cause it hangs thick in your mind like the smoke from a burnt pastry billowing in the kitchen. It leaves a bad taste in your mouth like biting a piece of orange rine. But oh, love with Danielle, love in the bosom of her, love would be the crumbling of mountains with only our sighs and panting; the colapsing of heaven sky with our inhales and exhales, angels would fall in groups like raindrops during a tropical storm. Love in her wet flesh thumb print at the end of her columbian thighs, kisses running from her toes up and circling her kalves, against her A.C.L. and P.C.L., her knee cap, wet cool soft hungry kisses crying their way passed her hips- quivering sensation they jump into the air with a mighty animal groan-a cross her stomach and into the dip of naval; splitting her breast, into the crook of her neck resting in warmth. Below her ear, on her earlobe, finally stopping above her open gaping lips breathing in every gasp for air while my hand picks petals until she is an open rainstorm flower. But i was through with sex, cheap, heaven distracting, world distracting, i was through with it.
The night consisted of what every other night i spent there did. We smoked, lounged around the living room and they vegged out at the television while i zoned out staring at the Tibetan Prayer flags hanging from the perimeter of the room. I scanned the room, the same bike leaned against the wall as the first day i stopped by, the table in front of the bike still cluttered and unused; the area we sat in was cleaned everyday after the majority of the guests had left but still junk food wrapperes littered the table and floor that looked like the same ones from every other day. Stoned, blood sugar at a horrible low from popping pills and not eating, i decided to go not long after getting there. Okay, so weed stunted my comprehension of time, i most likely left an hour or two after arriving there with josh. I got up, said my good byes and my laters, and then shannon got up and hugged me. Amazing tradgic hopeless swimming with cement shoes to a coast that keeps a steady distance from you no matter how fast you swam. That is exactly how i felt. As i have said: i was born stupid and i have matured through stupidity to reside in a current state of a stupid young man. The night closed for me, i walked home to sit at the kitchen table alone, sad in a shadow of loss and guilt for abandonning so many on the east coast. Sat with a pen and pad and stared at the sterile white page, as empty as my stomach, my hunger making me as much a shadow as i felt to be.
July (who cares about the date with this one, just read it) from the journal
On the way back from walking the other day, the 25 mile walk for a job, i witnessed two things that shaped so much in my mind. On 38th street, in a tiny corner between the liquor store and a pawn shop (oh america how i love your non-existing irony when it comes to such pitiful displays as this one!);true the type of spot that i would look towards, there was a man standing with as much balance as a tipsy toddler. I chuckled to myself, thinking that he was drunk and just merry. I paused for a second to fix my sock, and secretively massage my calf which had complained about cramp, when i noticed him doing much the same, and so i righted myself again and threw another glance, just for the hell's right to. I saw, and by god what hopelessness i felt, that he was only ensuring that his artificial leg was still in place; ready for him to continue walking. It was that moment, that tiny moment that passed as quickly as a shooting star but froze in my eyes that i could see every detail of its tail streaking a cross the sky; leaving vapors of blue and red for the angelic astronauts, who still hover, to enjoy; that i felt i should die. Just curl up into a ball and let my stomach eat its way through itself, and then move on to other organs should his appetite not be met. My leg ached! Yes, even after this my body chose to mutiny. As captain i had to execute, and did so by running 3 blocks as fast and with as much speed i pounded my feet into the sidewalk to end each step, all to assure myself that 'feeling' was better than none.
The second, which only happened Tuesday, was of less affect, but nevertheless wriggled its way into my thoughts. I was filling out an application at Mc Donalds (please, no apologies, humility is a welcome friend), the second one if i can add, sitting as far away from the customers as i could. The pen had a hat of a plastic plant that i want to call a fern and shall do so, that insessantly beat against my nose. After doing this, hitting my face with the plant that was duc-taped to the pen, many times i glanced up; you know, to see around and occupy my eyes with something other than the extremely dumbed down application, when i saw her. I should know by now not to look up from what i am doing. When our eyes met, i felt a strange exhaustion come about me, as though i couldn't even continue the questions. She was attractive, not any thing you would imagine when you stereotypically think of spainish beauty (but then again i am not Hispanic)and held a child in her arms. It was as though a sickness, fever, had crept upon me. I hurriedly scribbled down my job duties, and blatantly wrote that i hated cvs and that their faulty manager staff as the reasons why i left; signed it, dated it and ran to the register. I looked behind me, again LOOKING, i saw the young women's husband with the same sheet of paper in his hand. I couldn't even look at her on the way out. I hadn't the need to, i knew she was watching me, i could feel those onyx eyes full of a heritage that dates further than my own, were welded against my back. There was no pity because i had something that she/they did not. My cupboard is bare, if not more barren than theirs, and my clothing hasn't been washed in what is quickly approaching as a month and a few days. I sleep on the floor, and am kept awake at night with worries just the same. The only difference was the child. Even with these similarities, i knew, nay, we both knew, that i had the job before he did. I would receive employment because of my proper posture and speech and my eye contact, all attributes and techniques i found, on my way through gritty times, to be useful. The knowledge that i only have these characteristics because i were to be born within the states, and allowed the chance to venture off into whatever wilderness i saw fit, is what made me want to revoke my application. To walk to the counter and ask for them to forget my name, erase it from the notebook. I don't want to see Ian-@2pm Thurs, there anymore. This family needs more than i. Not out of mere material possessions, or even the greater lacking of such things and food, but because i have possibilty on my side. No, not so much possibilty as it is American discrepency. I have American Discrepency behind me, ensuring that somewhere, they will hire me, while this family has none.
I walked back to the shop miserable, bored and lonely.
The feeling has not left though i haven't seen their faces else where. I don't have to. Today was my interview, which lasted a whole ten minutes; which didn't include the time i was waiting but, and of course i was hired. I had no doubts, no second thoughts or misgivings. I knew i was employed the moment the application left my hand. I knew this, that is why i waited till the worst shape, or close to it, to apply there. It was a given. Worst of all, i was excluded from the 'general questions' that this little power happy Mc Donalds manager 'usually asked applicants'. No shit. If you were to ak the questions, quite bluntly i would ask you to just look at my application and if you doubt anything to call and check up on it...as for personality, i am employed to work the night shift, truthfully, do you really care so long as the money is safe. Upon a first impression you can usually tell who would put the cleaner agent into the food. But, i know with my being hired, that poor man with his family were shot of into oblivion with nothing but rejection to keep them warm.
The blister on the side of my toe, that has grown to be the size of my baby toe, is becoming rougher; less suseptable to pain although pain would be welcome. Any type of physical feeling would have two arms reaching for opposite polars ready to clasp down against it and drag it closer to my chest.
For I know that the gentleman on 38th drinks himself out of depression to only fall into the sadness that is always collected at the bottom of a pint or such. With every drunk night i shall toast at least one drink to the man on 38 th street, and hope that he has given up on holding glass and taken up a kind loving hand.
I see myself in him, excluding all physical differences and enhancing the mental anguish, and the easily conquerable person in his eyes seem to be my own.
This is raving and absurd, but still, i do not know what i am doing. I long for the tales that seem to bloom on every tree. Bursting like a squeezed cherry, they explode all through its boughs. It seems as though these trees only live for a week or so, thriving off of the exhileration of the arriver. Fruit mouths hang from the branches singing your dreams to lead you nearer, but there's no serpent in sight, so you sit and listen. The leaves above you shiver out a percussion that is simple and sounds like a paintbrush being stroke against a large canvas, in the middle of a theatre. This is the true voice of America, and it is this that i want to hear every place that i go. It is this overture that i want o`er my corpse. No other tongue muttering, eyes tamed, spilling not a drop as though handle by a french waiter. Leave mourning for your ancestors, and look at death via Buddha. The earth won't complain as it devours and replenishes the nutrients that we have stolen from her.
To obtain nothing
and be satisfied
is enough to obtain.
Joe told me, not more than two days before leaving, that everytime i express myself with total sincerity and uninhibited, it has the feeling of some one's suicide letter. The more exact thing he said was: Dude, you write like its your suicide note. Which, not going to lie, hurt. I don't know why. I believe it has something to do with the hope i put into people that they understand the way i feel. That, when i say i am down, i am not just thinking about how i left my sandals in Kansas (this is a recent example), or, that i lost my lighter, no, it is almost aways more than that. And, to make it more difficult, the inquiries to my mood are usually posed at the worst time; during or at their first development, which makes the thought that much harder to describe. That is where there are thinks, and thoughts. There is a meaning behind that. It isn't that people aren't suppose to ask, god knows because then my passive aggresiveness will get in the way and make me wonder why the person didn't ask, and shut off completely to them. And when they demand me to tell them, or oppose my confusion with some obscure gesture of offense, i also pick up brick and morter and go back to work. Damned either way. Unless, it is questioned, then dropped politely, leaving it as we can talk later if you want .
I am only assuming that a reason, that was once a variable soon to be defined, for writing this is beacuse of an email i got today. I had't spoken to this person in quite some time, and out of the blue as they say, decided to email them. Their response was desperate and much more heart felt than i had expected. It seemed like the right time to do something, and luckily it was. But this friend explained a jealousy that had a foundation of sand. Writing that it was because i was so close to some one else, and that the other person knew SO much about me, the friend felt like we weren't close, and became jealous. Which is odd, because the person, to whom they were so envious of, complained and asserted the same to me. Saying that they felt that i hadn't opened up to them despite the years they had known me. I don't know what to say to any of this. I suppose this is something that every single person that i meet will have in common. Every last friend and acquintence will feel left out of my thoughts and pain. When, how could i wish this neverendingfestivalofthoughtsandcoloursstreamerswavinglikehairfromayoungwomanonaplaygroundfrolickingwithherloverrunningtoapatchoftreestotouchandkisshimwhilebloodstainedmexicansarestarvinginthebathroomoftheyoungboys'parentsrestaruant.
why? I would not wish this upon anyone. Some, to whom i tried to explain, never understood that it never stops. Never, it can be slowed, but to cease it knows not how.
i must go, the library is closing....
CHAPTER1: SECTION 4
The house wasn't new to me, not home to me, i had only been there once; the night Renea's friend (the one that i met on my first day in Tacoma) and i sat up looking through Klimt's art work. Now i was here amongst a whole group of people that called me friend that i had met and warmed to me within the confines of the passed couple of days. I was sitting outside on a milkcrate, taking pulls off one of Crazy's- insane jesus clown whose voice so soft it tangled and tore like a cotton ball against the course filters of your ears, his mouth openning with certainity like a grandfather, always with intelligent advice and storiesbthat would consume you for an hour while feeling only like he had just bagun-Euorpean rolled spliffs, one of two that were being passed around, listening and talking with Doug about the current events of the Couch House. Apparently some moving or other was happening, it was a downer, sweet irish angel and roomates were just fish swimming in horrible sea of tension and drama-we are the dramatics, finding soul in lightbulbs bursting into stratasphere night leaving behind flash then darkness of desert night-. But we were here, outside of a house, stoned, music blaring and talking about life paths and drunk tales.
i went into the house, someone had said that there was a hoohka being burnt, and found myself being dealt into some obsurd card game; like texas hold`em but without the ability to fold. I hadn't a clue about card games, still don't, but i took my hand and grabbed a seat. The kitchen was full of strange cats, yelling laughing, all through happy intoxication. Somehow i lost, or possibly won, but had to swop shoes with girl a cross from me. Candy little girl, a cute little red-head that won't leave her brother's side for anymidnightwinedrinkingstargazingpebbleskimmingacrossthepacificwithstepsthatsoundassoftasachild'sslipperedfootsteppingitswayoverwavestrying toreachthemoon'reflection, not for any:but she makes eye. I find out her name is Renee, and her brother was sitting next to her. So another person wins and i lose, or i win for a second time and i have to introduce myself to a big teddy-bear of a man name Todd. the group laughs as they tear the previous title of 'Mystery Man' from me and they start calling me Ian. Todd passes the Hoohka hose over to me and i fold my hand to sit and taste the blue smoke. i packed a bowl and asked if anyone was interested, everyone politely said no thanks and i smoked it to my head, got up saying -nice to have met you Todd, Renee...- and the rest introduce themselves. Only Todd, Renee, and bear's fellow friend Al stay in my memory. They were a good bunch of people. But i got up and walked a cross the street to the Couch House to see what was shaking.
I caught Shannon as she was extending soft coral salamander tongue out to lick the spliff closed and we head back a cross the street.
The circled had lost a good amount of faces but still two spliffs ran dizzily around the group. There wasn't much talk left in everyone, the night was old, the stars fading into a blue that once was black. The embers out, people go to bed, and i walk desperately back home, trying not to fall onto a patch of grass and fall asleep.
Back at the house Dickhead was blasting a movie, banging his girlfriend, her moans were like an injured puppy being beat a cross the rump with a switch. The drywall was shaking, powder billowing from through old pinholes that once housed nails that held picture frames, and the fireplace belches in the voice of Sean Connery. I left to go sit outside, smoke a cigarette; freshly rolled, and wondered about wondering and decided that it wasn't the night to look down to see how close the void was. My sweat was thick with nicotine and beer, my breath reeked of burnt trees, i thought about climbing that little meth hill to pacific ave and walking its lit trails (on drunken stoned nights i squinted my eyes to make it resemble Haledon ave, pressured them closed tighter to morph into a vague resemblance of a New York City street).
(the walk on pacific ave, meeting jamaica man, tweaker bitch.)
I smoked another cigarette, went inside and stared into the bathroom. Dust blew into my face, i heard the beaten bitch yelp again, thinking if i should bathe. I could feel my skin yellowing like a jaundice victim, i could dive deep into that realm of baths, but resolve to sit in the kitchen.
I ended the night listening to solitude ricochetting through the trees of parkland