Fuck! I must be a dictionary.

It is happening again. I have this desire for words now, but no words come out. Well, yes they do.
Words about circuits
and words about algorithms
and words about chemistry
and words about water
and words about waste
and words about history
and words about politics
and words about babies
and words about friends
but they are all scientific.

No words about feelings or papercuts or the sad smell of bread.
And no, worst of all, no words about color.
No words about passion, only stark definition.
Some gestures perhaps, but even they are deceiving with specific drab meanings.

My wrists are the same width as my hands and that could be nice, because they fit in your hands. But all I can think of as I display them before me is

What homeotic gene was expressed at my raving conception that might give this me this specimen?

I missed it right now. I want words to lack meaning.

A monochromatic three weeks

Three weeks of intense
Incense
Words make no sense
Immense
Bodies encased in cement
Ease into the silence

Then CRACK!
Two colors commence

Break in form

Form and function, always. What's left to lose? Nothing. So much to gain. I run, I spread my wings, I try to fly always. Down, maybe, they take me. But first and foremost, I will fly. Fuck yes. This is not the right tone. It lacks fortitude. My face is pressed into a mold I forgot about, but it's still there and I can feel it on my nose. Tomorrow I break free. Free as I wanted to be. I don't know if I want that. But of course I do. Those shackles are too small for these wings.

Better things to do

I have real things to do, real things to fix, real parts of life to perfect. I have real people to help. Real real real lost in a swirl. Beasts in a corner tapping at the bars I could swear I just installed. I don't have the energy to keep you in a corner, you huge hideous raping pillaging imaginary almost real bit of nothing--and everything--and nothing. Remember, remember the fifth of November and what it did to you. It destroyed you and locked you in a cage. Why is this not a happy week, oh week of all weeks why why why death down in the stupid stupid pit. The pit. Stay down there and stop growing wings. I have better things to do than fight your pathetic lifeless form. It has no meaning anymore. The real form is destroyed. Stop. One day I will grow wings instead. And you will stop beating at the back of my head trying to get to the front. Seriously. Escape out the back so I can forget; I've left the door open. I have better things to do.

It's too late for this

It's late and I'm tired and I'm remembering things again. This happens when I can't sleep, I guess. It all melds together now, and I can't remember who did what and which and how many and if it even mattered at the time. You've all become one oppressive beast who never wrote me letters, even when I bought you flowers. I tried so hard. I covered up the bruises dutifully, and whisked myself along, on drugs, in holes, hiding, pretending to be beautiful. All of you. I still feel the terror, and I can't get away from it. You're still so big. I have this list of reasons...it's long. I can't keep it, because it hurts. I still keep it. This is stupid. I left once. I want to be sorry that I wasn't good enough. But that's wrong. I want to be sorry that I never hit you back. I want to go back and rail on you. I want to destroy you, your worlds, everything, so you can't be this huge oppressive beast. All of your incarnations. Shit. It's late. Write me a goddamn letter.

wet

The grunter's sick revolted red echoes off the sky in blurred homogeny. It tears at your skin, burrowing under. Industrial block walls press in on your face, clog your windpipe, drown your lungs. But that is alright. No one ought to breathe here.

Terrible poems I wrote in five minutes each on October 13

Puce

Slow, light, interred
She slips in and out of vision
A room, with curtains, a hint of cinnamon
Then loss, haze, heat behind eyes
Rage-worn weakness
A hand, full of the life blood
Her body so needs
Rest, it says, as it moves toward her
Mouth, though she is sure she lacks
The strength to scream
Slowly, with the euphoria that comes with
A final relaxation
She rolls back and allows
The haze, the cinnamon, the heat, the death
Engulf her soul

Machines

crank. crank. crank.
like bones in my wake
as I walk through this deserted party
noise, noise and mechanical laughter
of which I will never be a part
none of my days matter, for theirs
are eternal until they break and I
fulfill my duties and fix them
I live for their immortality
and then I live to die
an axe at the door behind glass for fire
I smash it, yelling, grab the handle
hurl it at the metallic faceless
nightmare that surrounds me
the blade clangs off and echoes, merging
with that eternal crank. crank. crank.

convulsing, i weep

Not this place

I have not felt this way before about this place and in this space. It is futile to ignore, but I have no protocol for understanding. I walked through those hallways, and the pictures of those people I desired were gone. Instead, I saw pictures of my colleagues, my classmates, my friends...my self. I sat on the roof of this place for a brief moment, and I saw. My place here is within these buildings, though they are small, difficult and underfunded. My assumptions about guidance are gone. I have lost all forms of role model--I am now my own. Those few I would have emulated have regrettably been destroyed in their attempts to defend rather than assume their ground. I sat above everything, and for a brief moment I saw, I understood, and I repented.
I needed vindication. And now, I have tagged that space which was essential. It is, finally, a part of me, though I tried to avoid it. I am here, and I can see the paths I have to flight. It will take effort, to be sure, but I am trying. I knew tonight on this roof that one day, one day soon, I will fly away.

Great works of art, torn and banished and lost at sea

My head is ripped vertically, in line with the heavens, and I see those stars above me. Erase, erase, erase and be free of this race, of me through this expansive ecstacy. Race race race, pounding off, off, off into--

What?

I ran away from ignorance in an effort to become something else, become better, be free. I have left my home as a rat to become a lone pigeon, because that seemed better, because anything was better. But from this ghastly vantage point I can see the seagull, beyond that the noble albatross, and above her a plane. And though I may yearn for its sleek and polished frame, I cannot have that plane. It was better to be a rat in ignorance, shepherded along by collective will. Who am I to shepherd? I wanted wings, but for what? What is this opportunity? I don't have the strength for this. I can't give up the ease of life I used to have in favor of that nobility. Nobility. What a whimsical dream I had. I envy the self who had that dream. I have not the strength for noble pursuits. Perhaps I also lack the strength to hold a self.

Once upon a time not so long ago, I fell off a cliff and a great white gull swooped me up, refusing to let me scatter for naught the half-hearted carcass I inhabit. Misty-eyed for so long, he reminded me of my nobility. I saw, I envied, I healed, I nurtured that spark in his eyes with all I had. I returned to flying, though I knew that no amount of flying could lift me above my status. They were true gulls, who learned from him. I am just, as the saying goes, a rat with wings.

I return to that cliff now. I am not falling, but I near the edge. There is no gull to learn from, no gull to save me, no way to break the neural bonds in which I hold myself. It is these times when my hero is Rearden, metal and rigid and stable, bearing the brunt of everything to raise himself up. I need to show myself what I fight for. I cannot hold on to the things that I love. They are gone. I must find the strength to save myself, though I will never be a gull. I must do what that living gull did, but for those who are like me. It is perhaps too late for me, as I have drowned my moral code. But there are those who are worth saving. If I find the strength, I will come back and stand rigid, for that is all they need of me. I will inspire, and swoop through to save one other. I can only hope it is not too late.

Who am I, to compare myself to Rearden? I am too shifty-eyed. I have not the strength, and I forget my own self-loathing too readily. I lose motivation too easily.

I race. I have lost the physical ones too many times, but it is an addiction of mine to race my mind. I cannot help but to race through to an ending or a finish, but I can no longer see the euphoria across the line. Perpetual motion is at times unbearable.

I used to be ripped to the sky in triumph, with a victory and a daring risk overcome. Today I have been pulled unwillingly, guiltily. I do not deserve to feel this alive.

Yesterday, I declared: I have forgotten freedom.

Today it burns.

I have agreed.

Wish

Today again, I remembered. It doesn’t happen very often, but sometimes when the wind is blowing smoothly like a river past my face and the night is particularly stark and bright, I can taste it. I can taste its colors and its frames, woody and faintly acrid on my skin, like an aged dark wine. I smell the crispness in the silhouettes of flat trees outlined against a mournful sky, and I hear echoes of colors bouncing through surfaces and spaces etched in lines of leaves. I feel the weight of the earth on my feet as they pass by one another into space as yet undiscovered.

Inevitably, I will succumb and open my eyes, but until then these glimpses that are bare perceptions caress a cloud of euphoria around the points at which my mind probes the world. I always hold out as long as I am able, but each time I become so mesmerized, so entrenched, that I cannot help but want to experience more, feel more, drink more, and I open my eyes.

Tonight it was particularly awful. Every instance of my being was split away from all the others by the currents of resistive purple, deeper than a cliff dive through an icewall. Horrifically, I could see the pain I experienced envelope me as an impenetrable force, deeper in despair than I could have imagined or remembered. I saw the chaos that drives the world apart, and I emerged, like always, screaming and sobbing without coherence or thoughts or even words. Eventually I stopped, but I continue to be, even as I write in this moment, deadened, solitary and confined as these colors bleed around my head indefinitely.

There's nothing in my mind except this hill. The trail is steep, and covered in burrs, which is uniquely comforting to my distended consciousness. Through the middle, a large rut wicks water through the shoulder of the ridge, forcing me to stay aware lest I lose an ankle to its jagged edges. Largely uninviting, the entire slope is dry and brittle, covered with summer growth that has long since wilted and died in the suffocating heat.

I teeter hesitantly for a moment at its base, then surge towards the trail, picking up my knees and lengthening my stride. My first step hits the incline, and I am forced to pull my body in sharply over my center. My dissatisfaction with this run, this day, this work, this path has blossomed into anger. The emotion spills out through my legs as I pound them harder, faster, stronger into the earth. With each passing thought I gain speed.

I am ready to sprint flat out when I get to the top of this garish place, but every summit I think I find is false. One, two, four places where the trail has dipped or curved so that its peak is hidden. Slowly my anger channels itself into a mild disappointment; I have expended the energy I had left over from this day. Eventually, my legs notice and I decelerate until I can once again appreciate the stationary immobility of this never-ending bump of packed, nondescript dust. I turn around and see sky, the hill, the path, a road, all deserted and grey beneath my feet. Defeated at my own game, I begin to jog back down. The hill takes me back, jubilant in its success as my feet are placed lightly and far apart. I am resigned, again, to merely experience this haphazard fling back into the end of my lackluster worn-out day.

Orb

It's white. Given that everything in this sterile room is blanched of color, that should come as no surprise. What is, however, incredible is its reflection on the walls, or maybe in my head, although these ties on my wrists will prevent me from ever observing enough to understand. Its surroundings are bathed in blue and yellow; supreme pleasure with excruciatingly pure pain. As it floats, it pulses. Occasionally, it gets close to me and its potential for destruction is palpable through the air. Today I can feel it, helpless, as it carves imaginary initials into my skin. Tomorrow it will float away, an orb of beauty flitting on the edge of my consciousness. And somehow, in these lapses of memory in my weakened state, I will forget what it is, and who it has caused pain. Tomorrow, I will pine for it from this helpless corner. It will come. I will feel again, and half-willingly assume one more initialed scar. What I should do tomorrow, really, is run.

Toys or Noble Pursuits

I wrote a poem and scrubbed it from a notebook only moments ago. What fury I found flowing through my fingers as I erased that small expression; I fancied it too revealing for the ugly garish paper on which it had been scrawled. I was told today that true art can only come from a soul that is truly feeling anguish. I am afraid then, to admit that the words with which I attempt to play are merely toys.

"The world you desired can be won, it exists, it is real, it is possible, it is yours."

At what point does one person stop and another begin? Is it possible for me to stop well before I ever touch another human being? Is that natural, or is it actually that everyone is so far inside the bubble I call self that I am unable to recognize their independence?

I can perceive and reason about so much, but once I have to actually see what makes them operate, other people make me queasy.

Rain fell through my window this morning. Not hard, and not enough to wash away the deep purple blue of my dreams. Instead, when I woke up, my windowsill was damp, and the calls of crows outside were muted. I sat up slowly, taking in the grey emptiness of mist that cascaded through my window like a sunbeam. Closing my eyes, I hugged my knees to my chest and let the rain make its soldier's march across my consciousness.

After several moments, I kicked myself off the bed and spread my arms wide. Surrendering myself to the sound of water, I danced a spin forever into the dawn.

On a plain

I wasn't aware at all, on that run. Absorbed in your torturous ways, I was posessed by my own motion and flailings, until a gnat actually flew into my eye. Startled, I continued to run, still halfway angry at the loops my mind was making. My vision was blurring, and I swatted at the gnat, refusing to detach myself from my remisiscings about your evil chains. The world wanted something else from me, however, and sent a rabbit to appear between my feet. In my confusion and mind-clouded drudgery, I stumbled. I looked up finally, away from the ground because my face was heading more quickly towards it than usual, and realized that the trail I had forgotten to consider was ending in a step. Too late. I stepped over the edge and onto a slope of scree. There was nothing to do other than ride the pebbles down until my foot crashed into the duck pond below me. Ducks splashed and spluttered and flew away, indignant at this limby creature that had interrupted their peaceful musings. Their pond had interrupted my thoughts as well, but I suppose it was for the best. I stood for a while giggling, one foot in a pond and my head high on endorphines. My life is too great for those old petty thoughts to enslave it.

Fairy wings

I dream. She calls me. She is beautiful in the classic way, tiny and blonde; wise, yet cute like a child. Her feet are small and graceful. Fearing her already, I make a move to introduce myself in a way that shows how sorry I am for taking what I did from her. She doesn't notice. Emboldened, I press further. She flies at me, her delicate wings beating indignantly and her mouth open in a gaping sharp scream. I understand in that instant she wants to kill me; she wishes I were dead. I try to fight back, because I didn't know what it meant when I took it. It was so insignificant to both of us. And now I understand its meaning. So does she, now that I took it from the place where she had dropped it, worn from use. I eventually repaired it lovingly, although in some ways it will always be hers, which is why I think she fights. I have no claim on it. Suddenly she stops smothering me the way she has with fear, and I gather that I have communicated some of this meaning to her. In a flurry of time and edges I understand that she holds something I will not find, not in the trinket I now possess or elsewhere, and that we can reconcile without it. We bind, and for once I feel strong and sure.

I wake. She is gone. In a sigh I discover that these things are real. I have taken on her burden, but in the context of dry ground I can no longer float the way I can in dream mist. Deflating, I see that all I can ever hope to cling to is the small trinket over which we would have fought. I turn to my side and look it over. I think it mourns our loss.

Iridescence

I ran over the beach today. I began at the edge of the dunes, and ran along the coast, idly listening to the crashing waves. At first it was difficult, as I plowed my way through elfish foothills made of sand, but I held my ground, and my muscles developed a rhythm. After nearly half an hour I veered off closer to the water. The sand was more densely packed, and I didn’t have to work as hard. Just as I had gotten used to the new environment, the texture of the ground under my feet changed again. Looking down, I discovered that I was running over a marbled path made of uncountable tiny shells tossed upon the sand. Alternating white and blue almost as if they had been tiled with intent, the band of shells marched along the coast ahead of me until I could no longer make out the difference between their path and the crashing waves. Understanding for an instant what it meant, I kicked off my shoes without stopping and peeled off my shirt, realizing I no longer coveted its protections. After a few more steps and a moment’s hesitation, I tossed my precious necklace away as well. The shells felt smooth under my feet. With each step my foot pushed them into the sand, soft like custard and gritty like snow. To my left lived the grey ocean coming from infinity to kiss my heels with green-capped translucent waves. To my right, incredibly, a flock of seagulls began to land, shoulder to shoulder, their brown bodies quivering. They continued to approach the sand and come to rest, until their clean white heads formed a sea of their own, reflecting the sky’s smoldering blue. Suddenly I needed nothing more than air as my feet flew in graceful arcs down the benevolent path, and iridescence reigned in all directions.

Falling through yesterday's anomaly

Yesterday was unusual. I parked on the roof of the parking garage, because I like to see the sky at least once every day, and yesterday I figured it could be walking to and from my car. I was forced to postpone my seeing of the sun until after work, however, because a dense white fog enveloped the top of the building. Few people park in my garage, and no one else uses the roof, so I was not distracted from the vacantness of the space I presently occupied. I could see no movement in any direction as I slowly made my way to the staircase. I turned one last time to look around before I went down the stairs, and heard my name. It exploded over my ears and blew past my head in its rush to fall down into the stairwell behind me. I was knocked down a few steps and had to grab the handrail for support.

Needless to say, I was on the alert as I arrived at the top of the parking garage stairs in the evening. The fog had cleared, and the setting sun reflected orange off the deserted cement railings. I had proceeded almost halfway across the lot to my car and was about to shrug off my morning shake-up as a twist of mind, brought about by lack of coffee, when I noticed something. A crow was perched on the railing of the garage near my car. I couldn't see its eyes because they blended into its empty black feathers, but I had the distinct impression it was staring at me. I still don't understand why I did this, but I ran toward it, waving my arms, trying to shoo it away. I yelled as I neared it, and just as I was about to touch it, it fell. It didn't fly away. It fell. Head over heels off the railing to where I couldn't see it. I ran to look and see where it had went, but it was gone.

I got into my car and sped home. Some of the streets I take have speed limits of 60 miles an hour or so, but my odometer never dipped below 70 the entire ride. I bring this up only because as I got out of my car to head into my apartment, I went to close my door and touched something slimy. I looked again and realized I had touched the still-wet path of a snail, making its way up the side of my car. I wondered why it had not fallen.

Anyway. You can I'm sure see for your self. Yesterday was unusual.

To the person whose life I stole

I stole your life today at the checkout in the gas station and I'm sorry. I bought a lighter because I miss them and told the cashier that it was for my brother. I don't have a brother. I told the cashier I was going to work as a secretary today, and tonight I was going to an art show. If you are a secretary who has a brother and is going to an art show tonight, I learned what it was like to be you today in that fleeting instant in front of the counter.

I wonder what you think your life is like.