Unwelcome Irony

I'm all about "discovering" myself. And, transitively, anyone discovering themselves. It's a shame to see people get hurt or misunderstood or stuck into places where they're uncomfortable because they're not really sure who they are or what they want out of life. It's a shame to have it happen to me.

And it sneaks up on you. Maybe you don't realize that certain aspects of your life don't jive quite right until it's "too late" (in quotes because, let's be honest, it's never too late).

I'm getting distracted by reading other stuff I've written, but I want to finish with the thought that started this whole musing in the first place, which is this: sometimes the things you learn about yourself, instead of empowering you, make things more difficult.

It's an unwelcome irony at this point.

Snippets

We drop bombs from only the most appropriate heights.

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If I worked my hardest to cover the page for no sake other than the task itself, ashes floating from on high would leave an impact far greater than any words I could ever dare to set into the world.

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Last year's wishes aren't enough for this year's man.

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Just in case, just in caves we wait, wail and waste away the flickering light left behind by a star burning straight to hell.

Fate Leads us Off

This is a beauty that cannot be touched,
that cannot be held. This is a river
that cannot be dammed or diverted.
This is a teardrop that will never fall,
that knows not the touch of a cheek.
This is my beauty, my ebbing, my flow,
the waters I slip into when I go home.
This is my lovely, the sight I can't keep,
the mountain that's straining outside of my reach.
This is my everything all in a row
a list of checked boxes that she'll never know
and this is my beacon that shines forth at night
fading away as it turns to the side
for this is the radiance I'll never feel
a glorified nimbulous stuck at the wheel,
a maiden I know through my rhyming alone
but not any more as her heart has a home
that's not mine--our destinies laid out in stone
two separate paths carving through a delicate noon,
and we never will share in a body's caress
the whispers that stave off this lonliness,
and fate leads us onward
and fate leads us off

My Country

This was my country, was the ground from which my rockets flew to burst in God-forsaken skies. These were my pictures, views of older days with tree swings swaying above that creek, the one in the backyard, our one escape from relatives drunk on American Nationalism, on 4 of July. This was my backyard, my hometown, the bright-eyed crucible of dreams forthcoming. Fuses lit, we huddled close and waited for ignition.

*written while listening to Our Song by Joe Henry

Golden Gardens

Their cries echoing agains the hillside, bursting forth from nature's megaphone, washed over the pair of eyes as they set about for their God-given task--to give light to the facets of the world, categorize them by name and likeness. To document and report on the state of the world, and most of all, to write it down.

(Here) Listen Up

Kid 2000, reppin the houses
where the people lay down their lives in the form of work
to sanctify their God-given fruits of the earth
and union?
Kicking down the doors of disunion
while passers by send a flare into the air praying for a second chance
praying against prayer with the thought that they can do it for themselves
but no, that's darkness stealing from the light.
Cause don't you see? Someone somewhere is playing that tune
and all you've got to do is listen,
hear, (here)
listen up
to the sound of your brothers as they're marching through the street

Some lines from some music, some other jottings

"I cringe for myself when I cringe for you" ~ Hello My Treacherous Friend, by OK Go

"Sing us a song to hum through the hours of dying" ~ Shortly Before the End, by OK Go

"And I've had recurring nightmares that I'm loved for who I am, and missed the opportunity to be a better man" ~ Hoodoo, by Muse

"You have so much to live for... I'm just dying to stay alive" ~ Show Me Something New, by Shout Out Louds

"You can drive those wheels to the end of the road--you will still find the past right behind you" ~ Carve Away the Stone, by Rush

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You know what it is about the moon that I love so much? It's a giant undifferentiated rock orbiting the earth at about 300,000km away, and I'm a tiny organism.

It puts me in my place.

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Used to cut through parking lots to save some time,
but now I walk the sides of streets on someone else's dime

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As gunslingers go, none better than I
have walked these roads; no mortal eye
as keen as mine has dared to pass
among the hills where life stood last.

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like days without jackets

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This is something we cannot solve by words alone. We're speaking chasms here.

My Team

One day you wake up and realize that you don't speak the language of your ancestors, your own flesh and blood.

And you probably never will.

But you carry the bloodline still, despite what might be seen as your betrayals of the form. We want to reach back, of course. We feel the tug at all times when we wish we could live in older times--that's us reaching back. It's futile, we know, but that can't keep us from wishing.

The fact of the matter is, the bloodline is just as subject to the currents of time as we are. The bloodline is one long chain, one long life reaching over a thousand lifetimes. So instead of thinking "I wish I lived in [such and such] time, we ought to think, "my team already did that. Now, I'm here, doing this."

Betrayal in A Minor

Every tragedy endured, but this:
Covered by lies, deceit, false peaks on
A mountain hike, a minor chord.
Eager to depart from this thin-aired
Altitude--can we be real for a second? No.
Epiphanies come far too late. Trust no one.

Even if you told the truth,
Bared it all, confessed your crimes, I
Am betrayed, still.
Even in this resolution,
Be it major or not.
Even then.