ether

the seconds chisel the ice;
the thaw, it has begun.
as old woes come to die,
new paths are clear in view,
if distant and unwanted.

return to past hallucinations,
don't trust your withering eye,
and always have in mind
the sad contempt you held
for him. (but who am i?)

old world across the ocean,
torment me with vivid lies.
i ask for salvation
and all i get is you,
ether, slipping between my trembling fingers.

she had an accident
but all i can do is drink,
until the scars and bruises
dissolve and melt into
the atlantic, or at least the bath water.

i read because i must,
and listen to the beats
that others love to death
but i just want
to get laid (but what do i know?)

i fear that god has made me so
no living soul will comprehend
that i don't mean harm
when i do the things
that hurt the most.

dread and happiness comingle,
like awkward exes at a party,
their hands touch at the punch bowl,
but they were never really
in love to start.

this love is

the path of wisdom dwells beneath
the open sewers of the street
and far above the ancient pylons
of a lonely gravity.

the sea of roses flows between
an old forgotten shattered dream
and young, immortal gods of new,
creating truth, or so it seems.

the strings that bind us to this place;
they are the same that make her face,
the beauty and the horror, truth,
beseech the strings to truth, erase.

this parade of fiction shall cease
only when the gods, with ease,
decide to shatter dreams once more:
how beautifully impossible this love is.

on the game

if the world as we know it, the universe, and our objective reality (whatever that means) is made up of physical matter conforming to scientific principles, then it follows that whatever science continuously and/or ultimately discovers is the nature of our existence. so if we take the grand unified theory to its full extension, we accept that no "space" is empty; everything consists of some form of energy which exists at a level perhaps unfathomable to our current human intelligences. further, that i have a consciousness; that you, presumably, have a consciousness; and that our consciousnesses are communicating via an established societal system of understanding reality: these are all testaments to the abstract nature of our system. it is suited to our minds, our natural evolutionary concerns, what we've interpreted reality to be.

but now we reach the end of this era of the individual, this age of -isms that have sought to isolate us from one another, divide us and truly, masterfully conquer us. the time has come to realize that life is but a game. the fact of the matter is that there will always be conflict. but this conflict need not be caused by things of no consequence. religion, money, government, capitalism: these are the current rules. but if the players decide not to play, to switch to a different game, there is nothing the game can do about it. first, it will try to allure us and then it will attempt to destroy us like a possessed video game might corrupts its users. we don't have to play. these systems were set up to bring us this far. religion was developed to mobilize peoples into making amazing things and creating beautiful art. government to acquire resources for an elite and ostensibly "protect" the populace (as much as is necessary). money was designed to allow us to more effectively distribute capital, and by extension, labour. capitalism gave us competition just as socialism gave us forced compassion. and now we have come to the point in our existence where it will be possible, according to most estimates of technological capacity, to outcompute the human brain in a mere decade. the time has come to turn to a new game. we can now become the people we want to be.

all you have to do is decide to play.

imagine: a world where a computer programmer is free to develop and innovate in free association with other programmers. a world in which artists depend on farmers, shoemakers depend on doctors, writers depend on builders but no money is exchanged. we use the resources we have, as a globally linked society, where they need to be used. every person realizing that they are not fundamentally different from anyone else yet they, by some beautiful miracle, have a purpose. the game allows you to do what you were meant to do...by doing it.

the ironic thing is this seemingly profound observation on my reality's situation and it's true nature doesn't change much. it doesn't change the way i feel about anything essential to myself as i see myself. all it does is make me feel free, unbound by parameters of time and space. while i am continuously here, in this "dimension", in this "reality", i know that whatever i do, everything will be. however i feel, whenever i speak, whenever i die? what is death in a game of cosmic reshuffling?

i've decided to enjoy this reality. i want to see and speak to and touch and hear and think and create with as many people as i can, telling them what i think about it all on the way. i want to feel love and make others feel love. and beyond that, it's all a matter of objectives, inventory, rules. it's all a game. which game will you decide to play?

circa 2009

the story of the year was nothing but an escapist fantasy.
she took it, she read it, and she understood it as such,
yet she did not point it out so as to make it less real.
across an expanse of water and an equally daunting stretch of time,
she assumed my unjustified and unjustifiable love would dwindle,
would crumble, would fade, and would die.

and in fact, her plan is working.
every second, like a cancer,
the love that courses through my brain is being transformed.
through sheer pain and disillusionment,
whether she likes it, whether she knows it,
whether she wants it or not,
the waves of infinite love,
the ones that used to lap at her feet when she,
alone and too beautiful,
would sunbathe on the shore of my ocean,
they are turning toxic.

something has gone wrong.
like a tormented planet, choked of all good, deprived of love,
my wrath tempts my restraint.
will the hot and angry sun scorch the lush rainforests of affection and goodwill?
will the bitter waters flood the plains of balance and reason?
will my mind,
whether in retribution or in self-defence,
turn to thoughts of cosmic revenge?

but then,
with a flash,
the drugs kick in.
or are they wearing off?
and i realize that it's all for what?
and i remember what i want.
and i smile.
it's a simple wish, really,
but it's proven elusive, at best,
at worst, beautifully, passionately,
revoltingly unattainable.
i hope it stops.

but will it ever begin?

post-fall

i saw a girl i've seen a million times before today. about an hour ago. nothing special this time.

except the way she smelled.

regardless of how the scent came to inhabit her suburban pores, i'm sure that it didn't migrate directly to alabama from brighton in the past week. i know that sweet, infectious scent, that intoxicating smell that i have lost myself in, that delicious sequence of olfactory chemicals which, transcending their original purpose, invade my brain and invoke some mindless euphoria in every nerve. its extension, the body behind the odor, the mind behind the almost sinister gift; her eyes peer into my soul (right here) from beyond the foggy atlantic. and suddenly what i left (what left me) and the inevitable...seem like a fateful practical joke.

someday, i will either be immune to its allure or i will find her. otherwise, my life is to become an endless chain of unattainable temptations, this being the most recent and the most cruel.

cold

in the misty cold midday of this place, her face looks drearier and darker than ever before. 

the week ticks; the days melt; and a feeling of impatience permeates every grain that falls through my mind's rusted hourglass. it's as if, with my own dreams, i've returned to the beaches of that mythical place, where there is no sand to rush through my fingertips, nothing outside of my control, an unknown place made into a home. the rocks on that far-off beach are as cold now in december as my heart, and hers, and hers, and hers. is life but a rotating door of short-lived half-hearted happiness, with a nightcap of heartbreak on the rocks; the return of bliss and an icy reprieve, ad infinitum?

i walked around my neighborhood to have a cigarette today and i saw absolutely no one.

my heart in portland, my skin in texas, my mouth in england, and my eyes in huntsville. this is no way to live, broken. i need my heart back. my skin is cold. my mouth is tired. my eyes ache, weighty with tears. my speakers blare songs of no consequence, the television which i had forgotten for so long dulls my emotion. i miss knowing anything. i forget how it feels to feel whole. i fear that life will never be what it use to be. 

it could get better, though. but who exactly am i supposed to fuck until then?

on second thought, it probably won't get better. fuck until then.

the two americas

i've come to a realization that is, at once, frightening and uplifting. when i think about the events to come in coming days, my stomach drops - but my heart soars. i realized two inextricably linked truths, just now, just two minutes ago, while thinking about the junior senator from illinois, barack hussein obama. if (and, with any luck, when) barack obama wins the 2008 election, it will be the proudest, most satisfying, most viscerally emotional moment of my life. the intense euphoria that will invade my heart and mind when the first non-white president proves that, even if racism still exists in america (and it most surely does), it has been relegated to the fringe of our country, leaving the mainstream with a basically intelligent understanding of the importance of justice and the unimportance of skin color. personally, i will feel empowered, ennobled...at home. being a political fiend, having this irresistible attraction to this misunderstood business of society, culture, and power, i find that i can pinpoint no single event before now that would come close to the sheer joy, the ridiculously optimistic enthusiasm that will overwhelm me when i hear, see - know(!) - that he will be my president come january.

still, i said i came to two realizations and that was only one. the other, the one that makes my stomach drop, the frightening truth that lurks on the other side of the coin, is that, if the senator from arizona manages to steal this away from me, with the help of christian radicals who believe that all should believe as they do, with the aid of neoconservative pseudo-fascists who wish their power to extend indefinitely to the corners of the earth and the bedrooms of america...if john mccain and sarah palin manage to overcome barack and joe biden with some cruel twist of fate, it will, conversely, be the first moment in my life in which i really, truly question the decency of my own country. i will, for at least a moment, question america's greatness, rethink our grand claim to protector of liberty. i won't stop loving america, but from the cold depths of my mind i will carefully reexamine the worth of the country where i was born. if an old, undiverse, intolerant, elitist, imperialist, conservative administration can be voted into office after eight years of old, undiverse, intolerant, elitist, imperialist, conservative policies that have damaged our state and our reputations almost beyond repair...then i might not actually, morally be able to support my country as much as have before.

my mind is begging me to wait before i cash in all my chips...which is why the second paragraph is even an issue. i can't let my optimism and the polls lull me into a complacency that might be brutally shattered and replaced with the most bitter disappointment i've ever felt. but my heart holds sway here to. and it tells me i can at least rest easy, sleep soundly, in the knowledge - no, in the hope - that everything will be just fine.