i get to walk home when it's dark and snowy every night.

train writings

smoke columns hang motionless in the sky. giant flags. beacons poking out of the flat landscape of train yards and low-income housing. the air so thick and dead that not even discarded newspapers and dead birds flutter through crumbling streets.

it's possible to function the way we do, but we always wonder how much longer until we unravel. it's always an amazing feat that anything interesting or even vaguely productive happens. yes, it's possible to function on a daily basis even when the smallest weakness turns into a need to flee, when the fight or flight feeling triggers flight first, thinking later. who knows how we keep managing to choose fight instead. a burning desire to survive exists in us, that tiny spark that we always think has finally gave out, until it manages to reignite again to get us through another day. that's all it needs to do, to drive us out of bed and forward to push one last time, and that final effort always manages to get us through to the next time we sleep. who knows what will happen if we fail. we can never really comprehend what extent the failure will reach to, because if we can thick of it, it becomes a possible reality that we can't afford to be working towards. so here we are, the cynic's hope, the pessimist's plans for the future.

and we always want to wonder why it always manages to work out in the end, even though we don't really want to find out. because if we look at it too much, it might go away.

we never know where rock-bottom is, because it can always be just a little bit deeper. no matter what the situation, we can always come up with the next plausible step downwards. that slow, familiar spiral winding tighter and tighter, with no end.

the distance between us is frightening sometimes. to be sitting close, touching, and not anywhere near each other and still be comfortable. when we pass between sleeping and waking and are in no way walking the same world, then reach out and touch again and have it all be okay again.

the things we are capable of recovering from. really.

everything we do is only a distraction from everything we don't want to do. we seek out pleasure just so we don't have to sit on pain. we push for ways to forget about everything useless and meaningless and insignificant that only serve to remind us just that. and when it works, we call ourselves happy. and when it fails, we only keep pushing for it some more. keep looking for that edge between happiness and boredom. between fantasy and reality. fulfillment and disappointment. treading that border is the only way progress is made. we keep succeeding until we fail, and our failure drives us to succeed again.

there is no such thing as a functional person who lacks pure bone-headed dogged perseverance. just simply surviving is such an arduous task that we all are just painfull determined to do it, even with everything out there trying their hardest to stop us.

the only way any of us survive is by ignoring the frivolous details and looking only at the bigger picture.

or.

the only way any of us survive is by losing ourselves in the frivolous details and forgetting about the bigger picture, because there really isn't one.

flight 631

There's nothing that's quite surreal like listening to music being pumped through headphones so loudly that it drowns out all other sounds. People move their mouths right next to your ear and nothing comes out. They shuffle their bags around; nothing.

I'd venture to say that Philadelphia is an even drearier city than Pittsburgh. It's been overcast almost constantly every time I've visited in recent memory. The smoke-spewing factories sprawl out all along the riverside. Endless swaths of concrete plains and giant Best Buys and Ikea outlets. From any of the wall-sized windows at the airport terminals, domes and stacks sit on the horizon with motionless clouds of smoke hanging just above them.

And they say Pittsburgh is a dirty little city. Here is the place where the nation was founded, that currently has the highest crime rate in the country. Here are symbols of liberty and independence, if you can fight your way through the gang wars to see them.

I am quite sure that they only ask you to turn off electronic devices during takeoff so they feel like you're listening during the presentation of the plane's "safety features".

I was one of the last to board because I didn't check in early. The pickings were slim as far as available seats. My row-mates are nice, quite, space conservative females, and behind me sit a couple of considerate college students who are content to listen to their music and not kick the back of my seat. In front of me are several loud, blonde-dyed women who try hard to be younger than their middle-aged years. Cooing and squealing over magazine advertisements. I can smell the cocktail of perfume samples from the chemical-soaked plastic pages from here.

When they dimmed the cabin lights, I reached up to switch on the tiny little harsh bulb above my seat. The girl sitting by the window on my left looks up; I switch her light on for her so she can keep reading, without an exchange of words. Her name is Melissa; I saw it printed on the boarding pass sticking out of her pocket. She rifles through magazine pages, never staying on any spread long enough to read more than a few sentences at a time. She holds her chin-length hair out of her eyes with one hand, jacket slipping off her shoulders to reveal a low-cut black tank top underneath. Oblivious to my observation.

The woman to my right in the aisle seat switches on her own light. She reads a Pullman novel, probably influenced by the release of the new movie based on his trilogy. They say things like Harry Potter and other popular children's books are good in that they are getting kids to read, even after they have been made into movies. Study guides and teaching aids are designed around them. And I suppose getting kids to read anything is a step above encouraging them to watch television all day, but when they are done with the seven-book series, will they pick up more books and move on to more classic, thought-inducing literature, or are they just going to go back to their Toonami and Cartoon Network trash?

You can tell the different between people who love flying and ones who don't by the ones who crane their necks, trying not to invade a stranger's personal space, just to stare endlessly out of the windows to see the trails of light growing smaller and smaller. The ones who keep watching with utter fascination, even when the clouds cover up everything there is to see and the sky grows too dark to even see the clouds. The ones who always insist on a window seat so they can curl up against the glass unmolested.

I never understood why people preferred to sit next to the aisle. THe ones who wanted to be far away from the sight of the distant ground, so they can have easier access to the bathrooms and drinks and their carry-on bags. Just relax and look out of the window and enjoy the damn flight, guys.

Flight attendants come by, offering drinks that the girl by the window and I gently decline, distributing packets of honey-roasted peanuts. I put mine in the pocket of the seat in front of me; Melissa devours all of hers with two careful fingers over the glossy pages of her magazine while still staring at the orange glow of the setting sun that we are flying towards.

I've wondered what it would do to a person's sense of time if they spent twelve hours a day flying only east.

I offered Melissa my peanuts. She seemed shocked and grateful and made sure I didn't really want them, then proceeded to cram my portion into her tiny face, too. She proclaimed her love for stale airline peanuts in crinkly foil wrappers.

Once in a while, I like being nice to random strangers when they're not acting like ignorant asswipes. It's not like I ever expect anything back for it, but more like I feel like decent people should be periodically rewarded for good behavior. And I might also like seeing nice girls happy over dumb little things like two extra packets of peanuts from a stranger on an airplane.

There's no chance to get intimate with anybody on a short flight. I've been on fourteen hour flights where you're almost forced to talk to the people around you and get to know them, just because you'll be around the same handful of people for so long that it goes a lot easier if you can related a little bit to the people you are sharing butt space with. It becomes easier to ask someone for their extra blanket or to thank them for passing you a cup of water when you know their name, their wife's name, their kids' names.

The taste of damp coffee grounds sits on my teeth. Airport coffee, overpriced and disgusting, forced into my just because I need the caffeine to feel at all alert. That stale, dry feeling on my tongue that reminds me terribly of cheap cigarettes and greasy spoon diners. Those were nights I left behind after graduating high school. I still keep half a pack of Pall Malls in my desk out of nostalgia, and end up burning a couple of sticks a few times a year during periods of extreme stress. The tobacco doesn't help to ease the tension; it's just the taste on my tongue that reminds me of simpler times. When friends were still young and ignorant and petty, still alive enough to love freely and fearlessly, when we were all indestructible and uncaring enough about any of the real issues of the world. Dumb teenager crap.

Melissa asks me if I know whether or not we're landing soon. She curls up against the window around a grey sweater, watching the lights of Pittsburgh grow closer as the ground rushes up to meet us. We fold up our trays and watch attentively, but the runway always sneaks up on us before we realize it, and then we're on the ground and rolling slowly up to the gate.

more anti-snobbery

untitled elegy

on your twenty-first birthday, i opened a bottle
just for you. it fell from my hands and slipped
into the murk of the monongahela. all rivers
lead into the ocean. the nights we had spent
drinking cheers to the waves. your body, almost
seventeen years, rotting away in a box for six.
the worms must be drunk for eating your flesh.
we certainly were for being nearby. they sent me
away for over a month. the last i heard from you
were angry words. angry words. i kept your head
above water all this time, and then you finally
drowned when you pushed off of me and swam
too far into the black waves this time. they
fished your body out of that couch that you
had sunk into. like a rock. it made ripples
cut through the river. he held my hand as we
watched the glass sink. maybe i’ll let you go.


untitled ghazal

the room was dark. i made out their faces
next to each other. they turned face-to-face.

i pushed through and tore at their faces.
i ran from the room, hiding my face.

in the street, i could see the face
of a boy. they said his was my face.

i recognized no one. i can look, but i am face
blind. features blend into obscurity as i see my face.

they showed me pictures of faces
and told me what was mine. in phases.

i am blind to the face.
in the dark, i cover my face.


'clucking glory'

my knife digs into you. your juices flow.
they took your feathers from you days ago.
i teethe into your flesh. i taste your sweet.
they raised you with your brethren for your meat.
we cooked your severed limbs. your water steamed.
they sealed your fate at birth; your eggs were deemed.
my stomach pulled you in. you felt my bites.
they bled you from the neck in sacred rites.
i ate your tender arms. you flapped away.
they crammed you into cages night and day.
we feasted on your bod. your head was gone.
they scattered seeds to feed you 'cross the lawn.

my life is satisfied. i ate you whole.
they raised you just to feed my hungry soul.

there's no such thing as perfection

my hands are on fire; my fingertips are burning. elbows-deep in chemistry that would destroy me if i swallowed it, so i absorb it through my skin instead.

i keep telling myself that i'll just make one more print, or just one more print, or just one more print, and maybe i'll count the seconds a little better, and maybe i'll burn a little more accurately, and maybe the print will come out perfect.

a long time ago, when i first started taking piano lessons, i seemed incapable of playing a piece perfectly (where perfectly meant no missed notes, never mind phrasing or interpretation). i was a quarter of the age i was now, and my mother told me i should strive for perfection. at five years old i had decided that there was no such thing as perfection, and felt that my mother should be informed of such.

'of course there is. if you made a car that wasn't perfect and the wheels were crooked, the car would get into accidents and people would get hurt. you should do everything perfectly.'

a decade and a half later, i've spent five hours with my arms soaking in toxic chemicals to make the perfect picture.

my paper runs out before i make it. i leave the darkroom with a trail of smoke behind me; the print washer destroyed its own engine and burned dry.

i didn't start the fire.

anti-snobbery

'faeces'

as stomachs turn, a gaseous bubble
pushes through from betwixt legs
like rotten eggs and sulphuric air
permeating through the room
take no responsibility for the stench
we all had beans to eat

regret for something else to eat
flatulence growing like a bubble
only adding to the stench
clenching together stinking legs
to vacate from the room
the smell of bowels in the air

with fecal fragrance drifting through the air
others forget what they desire to eat
the only solution lies in the bathroom
with the door shut, a privacy bubble
pants are down around the legs
as the quarters quickly fill with stench

porcelain stained with flecks of stench
as rolling farts peal through the air
struggling under twitching legs
giving the bowl some chocolate to eat
as shit comes out like a bubble
fortunately, with no one else in the room

splashes echo through the room
sounding reflections of the stench
of frothing little bubbles
all scattering through the air
here, there is nothing good to eat
that pushes through betwixt legs

soft paste expelled from under legs
gently wiped in the private room
flushed to give rats something to eat
as an open window lets out the stench
and finally, a breath of fresh air
letting loose a final ass bubble

in this room we allow such stench
as air pops through bent legs
eaten food turning into bubbles


untitled haiku

i led you through snow
we touched each other for warmth
you came in my hands

we slept through the thaw
the melting ice that formed streams
you woke in my arms

they saw us apart
summer storms that ran like sweat
you put yourself far

i watched the leaves fall
dying branches shedding skin
you had gone away


'sailboats'

cut loose my anchor, sail into the sky
we gather'd where dead el'phants leave their bones
then rode the backs of turtles 'cross the sea
and found the comfort foam in which to lie
so take me to a place where you call home
to open skies, you'll close your doors to me


'cherries'

climb up the cherry tree, we spat the pits
the rain would gently dampen our hair
we linked our hands while clutching at the leaves
and then collected buckets full of bits
and stripped the branches 'til the tree was bare
and moved along to other ripened trees

morning rituals

i got up at 0730 and made myself pancakes. i ate them as they were cooking. i made myself a cup of coffee at 0815 and washed up all my dishes while it was brewing. i moved my laptop to the table by the big window with a view of the street so i could feel the morning light slanting in while i drank my coffee.

this coffee tastes like coffeewater.

returning to the fetal state

the lake was aggressive. from the moment our sneakers hit the sand, it was already decided that we'd be naked and floating in the water, battered by the surf and bobbing in the swells.

we lost our shoes first. laces tied together and slung over our shoulders. we stood ankle-deep in the sinking sand to feel out the water, little frothy waves crashing over our toes. the undertow pulled us in. "let's move further in. i trust perry to be offended by people in their underwear." our clothes were hung on trees, safe above the surf.

choppy water sucked at us as we hopped through shallow water; breaking waves knocked us off our feet while the rough rocks at the surf line skinned our knees. we let ourselves be lifted off our feet and pushed further and further out into the lake, occasionally swallowing mouthfuls of sun-warmed water when whitecaps sneaked up on us. the waves pushed us diagonally with respect to the shoreline, and we paddled to ride the crests back to land.

in and out we hit the lake until we decided that modesty was silly and our underwear was getting filled with sand as it is. the remainder of our clothing joined the pile of fabric tied to the tree. we struck out for the sweet spot again, right where the soft sandy floor was still close enough to balance on, but treading water and bobbing through the swells became vastly more comfortable and enjoyable.

there was a moment where it was as if we had reached our natural states as living creatures. we floated in the water, which was just warm enough to be perfect, as the cloud-covered sun occasionally peaked through and brushed the heaving surface with long, slanted rays. a low breeze kept our faces cool.

we returned to the shore and let the sun dry our clothes before walking barefoot back to the car.

summer is never for sleeping

the only way i've been able to keep track of the passage of time has been to recount what strange or epic things occurred on the night that i am trying to recall.

'oh, the time we spent three hours walking around in panther hollow being swept away in runoff from a ridiculous thunderstorm and admiring the trees flattened by microbursts? right, that was after watching rat race at 4am, which was after sneaking into a lecture hall to play guitar hero on a 10 foot projector, after spending a couple of hours wandering around in cavalry cemetery and taking most of our clothes off. no, the time we burned through an entire box of matches was a couple of days before that, but still in panther hollow. that's when trevor climbed a twelve foot stone monument and also nearly got onto the roof of my photo professor's studio, because we got kicked out of the beehive for most of the group being under 21 when they opened up the house for a latenight music show at 2am. oh right, the other time we walked around in cavalry cemetery at 2 in the morning was just before ian and i decided to drive to cleveland and got there just after sunrise and were confused as to why it was next to a large body of water before we realized it was lake erie. and the other time we drove to ohio was when my car's transmission blew on the highway and trevor's parents bailed us out by taking us home and feeding us breakfast, despite none of us having slept for the past twenty hours or so, and we picked up rocks at the lake and then went home.'

i can only hope things will continue to be this amusing when classes start up again. i'm going to lose all of my friends to all of their classes, like 'getting your shit pushed in' and 'how to lose your social life forever' while i'll be taking three writing classes, a lit class, and a photo class to try and not become a pretentious writersnob.

now if you'll excuse me, i think i'm going to go out and sit in a coffee shot and eavesdrop on conversations and not smoke cloves but read classy science fiction.

i'm a bleached head now

a random housemate somehow managed to highlight my hair. here i was, innocently trying to fetch my clean laundry from the room upstairs, and there she was, streaking her hair with a little brush. 'hey vincent, you want highlights, too?' 'uhh...sure....' 'OKAY ^^'

the fuckmeintheasspink color that the dye came in amused me so much that i was rather disappointed by the copper fluff that my hair turned into.

on my way back from beating donkey kong 2 at trevor's, i decided to stop at eat 'n park and kill some time. the waiter who has never failed to make comments on my hair all summer was at the register, waved enthusiastically at me until he noticed the highlights. having witnessed the progression of my hair all summer, from buzzed to shaved to mohawk back to shaved again, he took a pretty bit interest in the manipulation of my head. so while i was sipping my giant mocha milkshake that he made extra thick for me, he sat and we talked about other color options, such as electric blue, possibly even juxtaposed to the fuckmeintheasspink.

after he left to restock cookies, i started doodling on my placemat, as i usually do when i'm at eat 'n park alone. waiter comes over and starts fawning over the beasties that are crawling in and out of photographs of whipped cream and lattes and we start talking about high school art projects and wiping paintbrushes off on our pants all the time (he pauses for a moment to borrow my sharpie and add some doodles to the jeans i was currently wearing). after he wanders off again, he returns carrying a messenger bag with a light grey panel on the flap. 'do you have a second? would you mind drawing on my bag? anything you want, as big or small as you want!' he oozes with joy as i enthusiastically agree, spreading his bag over the table and sketching tentacles and crustaceans over the synthetic canvas cloth.

the whole time i was adding lines and colors, other waiters would stop by and tend to me, fetching water for my brushes, water for my own hydration, and finally the owner of the bag comes over to check on my progress, offering me a slice of any pie they had on him. i finished coloring my drawing over a slice of coconut cream pie. i left my business card and asked him to send me a photo of it when he gets a chance, and he left me with promises of bringing in his sketchbook next time and having me draw in that.

on my way back home, i impulsively stopped at the drugstore and picked up two blank notebooks (they were half off) and a kit with bleach and electric blue hair dye. i locked myself in the bathroom and rubbed the bleaching cream into my hair with my fingers, for lack of a better application method, stinging my eyes and burning my scalp. an hour later, on my way back to my room from washing the bleach out, i run into the girl who did the highlights to begin with. she laughed at my bleach job, i poured generic insincere compliments on her own highlighting job.

i'm a bleached head now.