Stereo in the Kitchen

it is when you begin to apologize that you know you may be in trouble...

"Ennui unbridled, let's talk to kill the time.
How many styles did you cycle through before you were mine?
And it's been a while since we went wild and that's all fine,
But we're sleepwalking through this trial,
And it's really a crime...it's really criminal"

Everything was awash in orange
and our mouths were filled with grins.
The table would morph into a new mess each night
and the furniture would tumble down the stairs.
We could walk into each other's houses,
drink a glass of water and keep walking.
The sky protected us when we played basketball in the dark
and candy on our tongues could melt anything away.

Long drives and drunken lost living rooms,
dark hallways and loud basements filled with sleeping people,
a television kissing you goodnight
and a kitchen sink to wake you in the morning.

To name the things that changed you
is to remember who you are
and if it's the difference between
the hole in my diary or the clippings of my soul,
I'll carve something righteous out
just to tell these stories again.

Some love stories were never meant to be sold to Hollywood.
Or to last.



Note: This is a summary of the events of last fall and the feelings that went with it. I lost a job and a friend last December, neither of which would want me back. The love story is not of romance in this situation but an idealized adoration for a group that was family. I had previously referenced death before things began to fall apart not thinking I could lose this.
In short---last October was a lot of fun and I'll really miss it.


Originally written on 10/20/09

Still Life

An edit of this. Feedback is thoroughly encouraged. Criticism extremely welcome.

Eons have passed since we walked through that green maze to bronze fields.
Yet I have visited our park so many times in my thoughts,
with the heaviness of death hiding so close to my heart,
it would seem as though it was only yesterday since we were walking side by side.

With open eyes and bare feet,
the music of the air spilled into our ears
and we swayed like stalks of wheat.

Under the blue autumn sky,
I can still hear all of the words you ever spoke
echoing through the blades of grass.

We were not silent then;
we were not patient
and there was no need to be, either.
Our souls touched and grew inside one another.

I can only dig down so far
to find where there is a difference between us.
It would not matter if you lived in any other place,
if I could not see you with my eyes.
We were born to meet each other and live to learn.
(Perhaps if we had never met I may have died?
What about you?)

If my legs could carry me,
I would run.
If you could open your mouth,
you would conduct symphonies.

It was so simple for us.
We were creating worlds by discovering what already existed.
We were flourishing in the void.
We were making peace by not needing one another.

My only fears for you are that fear would get in the way of any life worth living.
That something could paralyze you beyond ever
understanding or experiencing the most necessary affairs.

Waves passed and oceans flew,
time churned and next thing I knew
you were walking away from me.

The crisp air hit my lungs and I decided this wouldn't be when I chased after anyone.
I was tired of walking so far North
that I forgot where the beach lay.
When I was at your place
I never knew which way was home.
I got so comfortable in your bed
I began to dislike my own skin.

Four years ago I might not have known any better,
but four years from now I might say the same thing.

I take a deep breath and plunge in.

---maybe I'll find you after all.

Cold Goodbye (The End of a Chapter)

Everything has a piece of you that I love(d) waiting to sneak up on me.

And it feels like I did when I stumbled upon that empty village;
when we walked into that cold apartment
with a breeze that came in through the floor
even with the windows sealed shut.

I know because it's like walking in on yourself
as you look over old, broken memories.
And look, that's where I held your hand,
and that's where I fell for you all over again
and that's when we did, and we felt, and we were.

Looking back on it, the barrel of tears in my throat can't seem to say enough.
Just a washing of waves through the grains that were once mighty stones.
A harsh light on the silent night walls of buildings.
The cloudy air of the coast,
the unrelenting roar of waves,
the disappearing horizon line.
Just a quiet surrender of the giants to the fall,
a whispered goodbye to someone and something
long gone
and faded.

Inspired by the track "Zerthis was a Shivering Human Image" by Eluvium, urgency, reminiscence, longing, and a strange sense of happirness.

Before This War

There is a man and he rocks me.
This steady motion follows a path and sets music to life. The notes show a dreamscape he's only spoken of before and here it is on the walls around us. I could live in his arms, just in this moment. So that every time he holds me I hear the same melody whispering from another dimension and another time.

This is a different kind of safety, where I am not just saving you but you defended every bit of me.

Sick

i wonder how much time of someone's day is really given to really uprooting every single good thing that could be laid down.

i am listening with my entire being and i'm finding that i'm out of practice. i miss the point sometimes, please bear with me. the words won't make you hear what i have, you need your skin for this, your ears, your soul. you need to absorb it all the way that we can.

i was in love with your history. i was in love with your history. my past was in love with your's but i don't know where i stand now. the brink that i am teetering on is showing signs that if i take you with me, it will mean a swift plunge and certain death. but once i let go of this rope that holds us tight to one another in a swirling current, if i just loosen the grip of my bonds to anyone in particular, i will find exactly what i've been searching for. and whatever you see as beautiful or amazing or grand, none of it will effect what i see. rather, none of it will have to effect it. that effect is ugly and cruel.

maybe the nice things are the ones that i need the least. perhaps i wasn't built to simply enjoy, and a lot of scripture points to this. but that really means something a lot different here, i think.

"nothing about us is simple"
(the phrase "i don't want to lose you" is very real and obnoxiously useless.)