classic

"another bumbling escapade"

[a ramble on boredom and beauty]

subject: late-night rant
style: who knows
source: someone else who said something I wish I'd said first

I now invite you on another bumbling escapade

as I sit here at approximately two in the morning

(as they call it, though I tend to disagree

in arguing that this feels to me very much like night)

and type a spontaneous rant, a culmination

(if I can ever once use that word correctly)

of whatever the Hel decides to be on my mind

in these waking, sleeping, waking moments.

I write without plans, without guideposts,

without any direction. I write because it makes me feel

like the past two or three hours I've spent

staring at the screen, reloading pages,

drawing blanks, wishing I had something worthwhile

to do, or more importantly the drive to do it,

taking self-conscious photographs with my new

and painfully honest camera, reading pointless words

and trading them for an emptiness of my own,

feeling bad about everything I've done for them,

realizing how idle my mind can truly become, ...

have not been such a complete and utter

waste of time I hesitate to pretend is somehow mine.

I write because it makes me feel like I have

a reason to be here after all. I write because,

even when there is nothing going on

with anyone I care to take an interest in,

even when the world seems to have slowly

taken on a certain blandness that splotches its image

with traces of a strain called mediocrity,

even when nothing I've done and nothing I plan to do

sounds as appealing as it once did,

and it seems like nothing worthwhile has a purpose

and nothing wasteful makes a difference,

even when my image of myself and how I matter

has been stifled, ... having a few digitally attractive

blocks of words to call my own when the night is done

gives me a brilliant satisfaction that methinks

cannot imaginably be achieved in any other way.

I write now off the very topmost layers of my mind,

and I do not, I assure you, change a word of what

originally falls upon the page. This is honest, this is true,

this is what it means to show yourself you care

what your subconscious wants to say.

I write now all these technically random thought-crumbs

with no purpose and no intentions for their fate

because I have confidence (though who knows why)

that I have something deep inside me that brushes

off these gems and polishes their forgotten linings,

that I contain some strange and unknown power

to take what started a mere twenty minutes past

as quite literally nothing, and turn it into something

worth reading (perhaps), or at least worth throwing down

to kindle the fires of imagination and form a few pretty

blackening curves and scars and scratch-marks as it

curls upon itself within the flames and withers itself away

to nothingness, to the desiring place from whence it

dared come forth. Because I believe a way with words,

as they call it, has been bestowed upon some clever

and comforting inhabitants of my neurons.

And (shockingly enough) I continue to write because

I think (though it is likely that no other person ever will)

that what is coming out is, in its own strange

and delightful little way, what I would call beautiful.

"Beautiful" is not a word I often use to describe

anything or anyone. This is a word

I save, for the most part,

for those who desperately deserve it, those who have

proven themselves once and again

and again that they have something

more.

I use a multitude of other words to express

what to some may liken to the same in denotation,

but I trust myself in thinking they are far

from what this crumble really really means.

And this, to be particularly worryingly earnest,

is a thing I still am bothering myself

to figure out, a thing I think I must have yet

to have discovered in full.

unannounced

subject: unsent letters, wishes
style: earnest, wanting
source: George Will

"The future has a way of arriving unannounced."

F: It was nice to see you again. I guess you didn't feel the same. Hope I didn't ruin things with that proposition ... In other news, I can't understand how someone as beautiful as yourself can have so little self-confidence.

A: I don't want to meddle in your life. I don't want to interfere with anything you've got going for you, because I'm not certain I'd be able to make you any happier anyway. And yet somehow, everything I write nowadays ... is for you. Something about you inspires me. I don't know what it is, but I have always held a special place for you. I am constantly reminded of how much we have in common, and on such a deep level. I care about you, and it hurts me to see you so oft neglected and put down. I don't know what to do for you. I don't know what I can do. I wish I could hear from you again ... I feel I can only speak to you in my writing, and in this you never answer. Are you listening ? The words that leave my pencil continue to call your name, and I guess I feel like, if I keep writing long enough, I can help us both to reach a place where we can finally be happy. I have always wanted to run away with someone, and if I had to choose anyone with whom to do it, it'd be you. Of course, the only places to which I can really run away are my thoughts and, occasionally, my dreams.

K: You're cute. That's about it.

E: Not having seen you for a while, I forgot what a sweet person you are. Sometimes I wish you could just tell somebody when they make you swoon, so that they could say likewise and you could just get past all the awkward stages of figuring it out for yourselves.

that's what I said

"rebound"
by antoine.

he said look at her
I said ditto
he said here I go
I said good luck

he said hey
she said hello
he said look at you
she said thanks
I said no way

he said want to
she said let's
he said really
she said why not
I said maybe so

he said I love you
she said me too
I said look at them

he said what now
she said hold me
he said not now
she said why not
he said later
she said hold me
he said fine
she said closer
he said I don't care
she said go away
he said fine

she said why
I said what
she said look at me
I said I'm sorry

she said why not
I said look at him
she said thanks
I said good luck

she said hi
he said what now
she said hold me
he said what
she said hold me now
he said fine
she said thanks
he said bye now
she said wait
he said why
she said closer
he said later
she said fine

I said better
she said not yet

he said I love you
she said me too
I said what a sorry state of affairs

for armoured linoleum

[This time I couldn't stand to wait.

I actually got up at 2 a.m. last night to write this.]

"having broken art most fragile"

by antoine.

there she sits upon a bed of marble

with an alabaster pillow.

there she sleeps in silence,

motionless, her beauty

emanating from her residual pulse

and leaking through the air.

from her ruby orifices

trickles out the darkest remnants

of her strength and her spirit.

the crimson liquid manifests

most passionate desires.

now i turn mine eyes

away from this still-beating

heart upon the tile

and fix them upon her source:

my dream-plagued lover,

lying still, a perfect mirror

image of her vital organ.

now, in my blackest craze,

i see the gaping chest

from whence i have most blindly

wrenched her most prized possession

heaving its last

and seeping black-red corruption

to sully the white of the ground.

i contemplate what i have done,

am overwhelmed and, weeping,

i join them both.

i gasp for breath and love too soon lost,

an unworthy and easily forgotten sacrifice.