It’s probably comparable to the way a bulimic feels after choking down a bag of Oreos, sobbing, wishing they could stop…determined to finish what they had begun, knowing what will soon follow.
Honestly…take up jogging. What’s a hard body with an eroded smile?
…
I want to watch a movie, an old affirming myclassic like Eternal Sunshine or Vanilla Sky or Magnolia. Something heavy that finds its way to sink back in, to unwind the damage Netflix has done, catching up on the piles of shit I avoided in the first place. Or maybe cheat, just a fast-forward to the last 5 or so minutes of Tenenbaums…or to drift off to the ice dance in Ed Scissorhands or anything animated Brad Bird…
But I don’t…and am not…or can’t. Not tonight, clearly again and late on a late Sunday night, I find myself searching. Instead of movies, I let beats fuck my skull until something comes. What’s playing now? Spitting Venom, a song that almost earlier received it’s own post. Something along the lines of driving the 101 at 80 mph at 2:02 am, nearly getting run off the road by Hollywood’s finest drunk and drugged, on my way home to bed, to see someone…or the idea of it and marking in my mind the rare occurrence of a song I will from that moment remember hearing for the first time for the rest of my life and being one swallow from disappearing tears into the black leather of my steering wheel…
Because it’s a beautiful song…among other things. And baby, that’s a rare thing.
…
I’ve been working a lot lately, splitting time between two jobs that share a similar theme. One is downtown called Blue Velvet. The other is in Beverly Hills, Blue on Blue. And no, I’m not dipshit enough to make that intentional. I work six shifts a week (with room for aggressive post midnight drunks…though not as often as should be required) and make fists of money because I fucking hustle and have implanted into my head that this is the best thing to support the choices I have made in my life…
Past choices like jetting around the world for four months, future choices like jumping a weekend plane to Tokyo or Rio or current choices like spending 500 to fill a living room wine cooler instead of paying down said past debt.
…
Sometimes, I lay on my carpet with my back to the floor, dig my fingers into the soft and look up. When it’s not enough, I move to the porch, light a fire and steal glances at the sky. When that’s not enough, I’ll take the elevator to the roof, find a seat, cross fingers for a clear view of infinity and contemplate the meaning of growing up.
Sometimes, often…every time, I wait for the sort of company that only appears in my sleeps. She’s disheveled, cruel, filthy, unforgiving, brilliant and unintentionally romantic - - post the superficialities that got her into the party, of course. During cycles of my life, I convince myself she doesn’t exist…find out she does…am reminded the definition of cyclical…and laugh to myself…
Then I turn, find some guy in matching grey sweats setting up a boombox on the roof furniture…not far from where I’m sitting. As he begins to ferociously lap the pool, I pick up on his inspiration…”passionate” Evangelical gospel. As he passes me, I flinch, not whole-heartedly excited about the prospect of a “child of God” driving a semi to quite seriously sharp and tetanus laced object into my delicate sternum.
June 18, 2007
June 04, 2007
Willoughby & Sweetzer
I don’t remember the feeling exactly, or at least I couldn’t remember the feeling until I felt it again. Being a kid…seeing another kid cry, whether it was eating too much Play Doh or compound fracturing an ankle from excessive and careless Pogoballing. One child cries, they all cry. It’s a strange practice seeing as it’s only in rare cases that one can find pleasure in the pain that precedes a sobbing face. Then again, I suppose it’s about the release.
…
There’s a fruit man that sets up shop one block South and one block East of my Kings Road stomps. I often drive past his bags of Bing cherries, wondering both about his asking price and why I don’t stop on my way to work to pick one up. There are few greater pleasures in this world than spitting pits of Bing across Olympic for my usual 30 minute downtown joyride. Of course, these are the things of my useless daydreams. I often find him nestled between protruding roots of a tree that shades his grass top merchandise mart, asleep, maybe drunk. Quite recently though, as I floated past, it wasn’t Dr. Cherries that caught my attention…
On the opposite side of the street, there was something else. Entirely. Flowers, candles, grief. Two girls sat on the curb; carefree like the gum assuming anyone ever gave or gives a floating fuck about the 4 calories that come in each stick. These two girls…it was as if they were floating…or hopelessly trying to float away. Both their heads hung, one shielded by the wide brim of a Yankees hat. It took a moment, but when the moment came, I felt it for miles…days. They were in pain. Seeing these other kids, something twisted in my guts and nearly ripped me in. They looked up as I slowly passed through the stop sign. My mouth moved uncontrollably, formed the only word I could have imagined forming, “sorry.” Their heads fell as I passed through and all that came to mind…
Whoever this was was loved and now they’re dead and even though we both agree that at times you lack desire to know many or anyone on the face of this world for reasons that don’t trace back to an abused childhood or a struggling adolescence, you never knew them and now you never will and this is an undeniably nasty bite and why?
…
The next day, I took the same route, curious. There was a new pair, this time a He and She. They were strangers...I could tell. He rested a hand on her shoulder as She cried. As I floated through the stop sign, I heard her speak, “His smile just lit up the room.” I cringed, found myself wishing she had instead taken the road less trite…something like “He just wore the best shoes you ever saw, didn’t he?”
But in reality, I knew. Trite is life. What she said made it real. What else do you remember about people when they die early? It's the smile. Always the smile.
…
Tonight, I drove by the scene again, three days after I had first passed. Candles were still burning. I had hoped someone would be there, sitting on the curb, floating. Because for me, it’s the kind of thing I’d do on a Sunday…get out, ask. No one was. Someone had been recently. Recently, I don’t think they’ve stopped coming…and I don’t know what to think about that. My personal revelations are rare but then again, hardly.
…
Life is a view looking down from the top of a very, very tall building. It’s a building I selectively climb and selectively toe my feet to the leap. Since this process can be accomplished upon personal election, I hitch when trying to understand why such a thing would be refused. Often, it is...just never by me...
When the thin wind swirls my face and introduces me to pause, I ask myself how I got there but never why. Then, looking to my left, right, I see thousands...millions of faces until they blind and cease my worries and I remember the lovely view, looking out...even if all around, all the time, people are falling.
…
There’s a fruit man that sets up shop one block South and one block East of my Kings Road stomps. I often drive past his bags of Bing cherries, wondering both about his asking price and why I don’t stop on my way to work to pick one up. There are few greater pleasures in this world than spitting pits of Bing across Olympic for my usual 30 minute downtown joyride. Of course, these are the things of my useless daydreams. I often find him nestled between protruding roots of a tree that shades his grass top merchandise mart, asleep, maybe drunk. Quite recently though, as I floated past, it wasn’t Dr. Cherries that caught my attention…
On the opposite side of the street, there was something else. Entirely. Flowers, candles, grief. Two girls sat on the curb; carefree like the gum assuming anyone ever gave or gives a floating fuck about the 4 calories that come in each stick. These two girls…it was as if they were floating…or hopelessly trying to float away. Both their heads hung, one shielded by the wide brim of a Yankees hat. It took a moment, but when the moment came, I felt it for miles…days. They were in pain. Seeing these other kids, something twisted in my guts and nearly ripped me in. They looked up as I slowly passed through the stop sign. My mouth moved uncontrollably, formed the only word I could have imagined forming, “sorry.” Their heads fell as I passed through and all that came to mind…
Whoever this was was loved and now they’re dead and even though we both agree that at times you lack desire to know many or anyone on the face of this world for reasons that don’t trace back to an abused childhood or a struggling adolescence, you never knew them and now you never will and this is an undeniably nasty bite and why?
…
The next day, I took the same route, curious. There was a new pair, this time a He and She. They were strangers...I could tell. He rested a hand on her shoulder as She cried. As I floated through the stop sign, I heard her speak, “His smile just lit up the room.” I cringed, found myself wishing she had instead taken the road less trite…something like “He just wore the best shoes you ever saw, didn’t he?”
But in reality, I knew. Trite is life. What she said made it real. What else do you remember about people when they die early? It's the smile. Always the smile.
…
Tonight, I drove by the scene again, three days after I had first passed. Candles were still burning. I had hoped someone would be there, sitting on the curb, floating. Because for me, it’s the kind of thing I’d do on a Sunday…get out, ask. No one was. Someone had been recently. Recently, I don’t think they’ve stopped coming…and I don’t know what to think about that. My personal revelations are rare but then again, hardly.
…
Life is a view looking down from the top of a very, very tall building. It’s a building I selectively climb and selectively toe my feet to the leap. Since this process can be accomplished upon personal election, I hitch when trying to understand why such a thing would be refused. Often, it is...just never by me...
When the thin wind swirls my face and introduces me to pause, I ask myself how I got there but never why. Then, looking to my left, right, I see thousands...millions of faces until they blind and cease my worries and I remember the lovely view, looking out...even if all around, all the time, people are falling.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
