Archive for 2012

sometimes i think i get it

i get it

if you took the time
to notice the beauty,
the elegance,
of this earthly shrine
you’d get nothing done,
like i

i get nothing done

i stand with my mouth agape
and get absolutely nothing done

i stand and tell myself,
“i will not move until…”

“until these feet of mine
and the footsteps they leave behind
match the beauty of the sky”

i will not move till i can fly

and so,
after all these years i find
i have not moved

in hate or in kind,
in sight or in blind,
in body or in mind,
i get nothing done

i find myself confined
by my want of a spotless shrine

so yeah Mankind…
when, entwined by your daily stride,
i see you rush past masterpieces,
with soles your mother forbid at home,
i think i get it

sometimes

she says the heart must be broken.

that it must be cracked
in order for the fervent content within to flow
further,
out.

that when,
given time,
the cool air
(the outside
temperature)
hardens the exterior,
again,
that it must be cracked,
again.

that this must be done,
yes,
repeatedly,
continuously,
desperately,
and in a manner that properly respects
this force of nature;
this volcano.

he says,
“if my heart is fervent,
if it is as warm as you say,
as fiery as you say,
then it,
then i,
am underwater;
it is hard,
for fire,
for it,
for me,
here.”

she says
good!
break through this.
break because of this.
use this.
explode!
make islands.
explode!
create,
this is the only way how.
explode!
build castles,
above you,
in the sky.
make them last,
make something that lasts,
change the face of this planet.

she says,
good!
it is hard here,
and you will break here.

she says,
good.
great!
wonderful!
the heart must be broken.

when they kneel,
when they beg,
when they tug
at your pant legs,
and say,
“please, please, please,
be stable in your instability!”
you must have enough cruelty,
to say no;
to walk on.
and enough self-hatred,
to bring about your own death.

Post-traumatic stress disorder, the illness warriors get when they come home; when hardness returns to a soft place. The illness where warriors find no war to fight and yet they still do… I heard they used to call it soldier’s heart.

That’s all I know about it though, I’ve never been in the army. Or the navy. But I say I have.

See, I have this hard way of staring; it comes across wrong I guess. And with these ever-growing scars on my wrists I wouldn’t know what else to call them but casualties of war. And I can’t for the life of me walk with someone without checking behind me every so often. Stuff like that is hard for me to stop doing. Seriously! When someone sticks their hand out, my hands form fists. And in the seconds it takes me to raise my hand and shake theirs back, I’ve already waged and won a silent war, demanding they open in kindness instead of the opposite… Stuff like that is hard for me to keep doing.

So, yeah, I tell people I’ve been in the army, or the navy, or whatever.

Just so my rigid way of standing won’t raise questions. Just so my silence can go uninterrupted. Just so I can take long walks alone, deep in thought, and not seem hard and alone, but sad and alone. I would rather people think I’m sad than hard. See, I know hardness is feared, I know it’s hunted. I know it’s hunted, and that eventually it finds itself out of breath, cornered, and on the receiving end of a clenched fist wrapped around a knife. I know hardness is stabbed, repeatedly; hacked-away at, by self-proclaimed Michelangelos who channel Phobos and Deimos, gods of a dead culture. But sadness, that gets you a message of comfort, delivered through an open-palmed pat on the back. I’d rather that than the knife, I am not David.

What’s it called when warriors are born in peacetime with all the fight and paranoia left in them? Pre-traumatic stress disorder? I don’t know, I just say I’ve been in the army, or the navy, or whatever. I’d rather that than the truth.

The detainee is a schizophrenic who requests that we address him by his self-given nickname Elephant (presumably due to his tendency to wear grey clothes). First found kneeling and begging inside the main concourse of the Grand Central Terminal he was given a pardon. When later again located sitting on a street-corner in the Lower East Side with a black and empty open briefcase, a smile, and a handwritten cardboard-sign we proceeded to detain the subject. (The detainee’s sign reads “May the happinesses your delusions bring you be true. May they shelter you. I am homeless.”)

it is cold out there.
so what?
open it,
wide.
let it all come in.
let the frostbite reach
you
make it thaw.
you are not weak.
it will thaw
in here
let it summer,
with no air conditioner on.
summer with no air conditioner on so long that you’re forced to open it,
wider,
just to stay here.

it is cold out there.
so what?
you are home.

my mother’s crazy,

and this family resemblance
and these aging eyes
are making it harder and harder
for me to tell us apart.

this fucking scares me.

i’m serious.
all reflective surfaces
that i glimpse with my peripherals
reflect her
before they don’t,
and it scares me.

this.
fucking.
scares.
me.

and yes,
i can’t tell whether or not
this is all in my head,
but this is not the first night
i’ve swung punch woken to soaked sheets.

imagine
the number of programs you could have on tv
consisting of only a female chimp
and a dark-spotted banana.

the combinations
are mind blowing!
it’d all be so basic and deep
and nobody would get it,
but the chimps will.

and I gotta tell you,
genetic comparison tells this joke
that starts off with us having
a common ancestor with the chimp,
i forget the middle,
but the punchline’s that we all share one with
the banana.