Striking the heart of a man
who knew few words
and fewer still
reality struck the man
as a bolt of lightning crashes
(crashing, crashing)
into the sickness of his affinity.
This is it
these are done
I write no more
fulfill the void of white space and black letters
no more, no more on this keyboard I write
for you
for my love
for the beauty I will always keep dear to my heart
(love, love, love the one who loves).
A friend you have
—a friend who wants more
you have.
I won’t stop the love
I have the love you want
wish me eternity
for I will not have your love.
Idiot
I guess this is the time where I tell you a story, something enlightening; but I don’t want to— not right now.
Let me describe myself: I am not smart, I am not clever, witty, or fun to hang out with; I hate big groups, parties, and people that judge you incessantly on your faults and beautiful merits. I’m not conceited; I don’t like to be thought of as modest, timid, or a “worry-free” kind of guy. (If you think I’m bullshitting you: you’re wrong; and go fuck yourself). Since I was young I was a terrible writer; couldn’t write, didn’t want to write, and was deadly afraid of trying to figure out how to write. I was fat, ugly, big teeth and big gums, and was born with the worst disposition of a child, youngster, and adolescent. I met girls— fell in love with them too quick —and got my heart broken in more ways than I can count. I only had two girlfriends: they proved the mistakes I made, destroyed my thoughts on life, and made me start from scratch on a world I thought I knew so intricately.
—I still love you.
I was an average Joe (literally). I wasn’t strong, fast, or smart in school. I found pleasure when I was in solitude— thus, I had socially anxiety and didn’t communicate well with kids. But, besides my hermit lifestyle, I was lucky to meet very good people when I was young— three good friends I hold strong in my heart today.
Women don’t like me, and don’t want to like me; don’t have the patience to sit down and talk with me because I’m different, stupid, or some idiotic cause bitches try to reason themselves into in their mind. I don’t stalk (I really try not to, seriously), I don’t try if you don’t try, and I don’t touch, kiss, or cuddle until I’m comfortable with you. (They, you, don’t seem to get anything I’m writing or trying to say; but that’s fine, I thought you wouldn’t get it anyway).
I think differently than you might imagine: I believe in honesty and love; ardor, passion, and ardent affection to only one woman that finds me special. I imagine if a girl loves a boy: a man will equally love a woman. I’m not afraid of heartache (Break my heart— I’m sick).
Blah, blah, blah: rambling on like an hopeless romantic. I’m a dreamer— if I didn’t mention that before in one of these idiotic stories I put on here. I’m still trying to figure out why I’m on here, writing these words, making myself look like a fool in front of millions of people. I hate, love, and want to kiss every one of you; but I can’t, never will, probably don’t want to because these lips are for a girl that loves me just as much as I love her. But who would want to kiss an idiot, a fool, an elementary school boy still trying to find his way back home to his mother?
I want to believe you, but I can’t. You tell me History is universal; all great men think alike; everything coalesces; nature and man are one in the same; Plato, Socrates, Homer, Aesop, Plutarch(still need to read his writings), Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman, Sophocles(he should be fun), and Hemingway: they all thought a-like, the same, as one affinity. I want to believe you: we are the owners of our own, private estate— but I want to share my estate. I’m such a —— up. An inconsiderate, stupid, berk.
I’m hopeless; I’ll always live at home, alone— in solitude with the books that I think are preparing me for life when they are just pushing me back in time. The geniuses of old seem to be the only ones that want to hang out with me now. I’m a hermit, I don’t know what’s going on today, or care to know what goes on in the future.
—I cry at the end of movies, I drink whole milk before bed, and I like to call myself a vegetarian in a very broad sense— the idea of how society sees it: the “lifestyle” of not eating meat. But I will never stop drinking beer. If there was one thing, only one thing I could never give up, it would be beer. I.P.A.’s, Pale Ales, Lagers, Stouts, and beautifully colored blondes, blacks, and glossy filmed whites. They keep me alive and hopeful for the future; tasting beers from all the Cities, Capitals, States, and Countries. I’m rambling on about beer— pity me if you want, I deserve it.
In conclusion: I love you— you know that (come on, get it together). I love my enemies, friends, and sweat dear. The ramparts that separate us are no more collapsing, the jutted spears no more increasing their decay— quenched by the ebbing seas of Poseidon. The island is no longer dwelled by salvages but god-fearing men. The bridges are down: we can finally sail for home, to our sandy island, on our black-trimmed ships, and feast on the slabs of meat double-folded in fat— pouring libations out for the gods and goddesses.
Orion
I opened my eyes to the darkness on the screen that was in front of my face— the metal obscurity in front of my eyes having a polished-gold interior in-which protected me from the gamma rays coming from the light source that pierced an imperfection on the bottom right corner of the vertical slider. There was a nostalgic feeling of warmth in the fit suit I was snugly environed in that was made specifically for deep space— a space suit impenetrable to the harshest rays of light.
I was scared.
—I lifted the visor and peered into the void of space:
I was in the Orion Molecular Cloud Complex gazing at the Horse Nebula that was only a few hundred light-years in front of me (Please! O dearest one, don’t wake me up). I looked at my hands to see how real this dream was; I saw I had a computerized wrist-band about as thick as a leather belt wrapped around my forearm. I brought my forearm close to my helmet— accidently touching the glass to it — and pressed a button that showed markers of other objects that were in the vicinity of the Orion Molecular Cloud Complex.
(I’m dreaming…but I can’t be dreaming) Why do I dream such things— things that are so complex they baffle me when awake?
I was on a journey that didn’t require the sinewy legs to move or gait to a distant, far-off place— I was floating, my muscles relaxed. It was so beautiful, *****. I was on a voyage home from the great walled city of Troy, just after sacking it, mimicking the great Odysseus before his long journey home back to Ithaca (I wish I lived with him, in that time: worrying only of the leather strap around my shoulder that held the blade and hilt of a bronze sword; the three-meter brazened spear with it’s tight grip made of the finest wood of Troy; the bronze armor and shimmering round shield smelted in the immortal caves of Hephaestus’ workshop).
(I ramble on about The Iliad and The Odyssey like people have read these books; but who would read these elementary school books that are for children. I’m ——ing stupid. I was the little boy in St. Ann’s elementary school that sat in silence, doing his worksheets; I was blessed when it was silent and I could think. I was quiet and peaceful in a world that was my own— waiting to go home and hide myself in the attic to be in a reverie: building an imaginary world that seemed fit for a youngster like me. Now: I worry about money (that’s a lie) and the opinion of my parents who find motivation lacking in their son; but all I want is books, a computer that I can type on, writing that is eligible to others (it seems like it gets harder and harder everytime; and I get scared), and find a nice girl that understands the discombobulated words that spew from these chapped lips of mine.)
Rambling on in my mind: I was still in the Orion Constellation gazing at the Horse Nebula that was motionless in the void of space (I wish we could understood dark energy more); but, in the perfect stillness of the void, goosebumps ran through my body as the shift of tidal forces began to change; a monsoon of chaotic bliss took hold of the two circles stationed on my face, below the eyebrows, my own two eyes. She— the horse —began to move!
At first, the horse’s head and neck began to shake subtly in the cold cloud of gas— as if shaking the dust off it’s hair and face. My source of light was the shining emission of the colossal blue stars in the background that were hundreds, thousands, millions of times bigger than our own sun (VY Canis Majoris). The horses’ features began to be more distinct as it shook off more gas and dust; then, as a bullet firing from a gun, she shot up, as if coming out of quicksand— breaking free, finally, of the tight grip nature held on the animal in it’s prime. It shook violently, scraping off the remaining dust on it’s hind legs and buttocks. It stood there, silent, relaxed— the toll of the escape dwindling the energy from her reserves.
I was scared again as the horse rested on it’s muscular, sinewy legs— light-years long — as it slowly exhaled the hot Oxygen out of it’s nostrils— and it’s eyes, staring into the hollow man, little but dreams to his name. (Just look at her!: the lighter gases still seeping, wafting, and dissipating into the void of space as the titanic creature stands there, breathing, exhaling, morphing the elements into two’s, six’s, eight’s, and twenty’s— iron being the death of all stars.)
(Oh, I miss you so much, sweetheart.)
Woolgathering
I awoke to you breathing softly on the right side of me in the bed; and the sun shined through the slits from the shutters that made marks on the opposite side of the wall: white, slim, and translucent rectangles that patterned the bookshelf in front of me on the far-side of the room. I saw how small and peril my life was, but how beautiful and eloquent it was when I was with you. I wanted to do great things before I met you (but it all seemed to egress away like the dark-wine sea (Odyssey) washing away the diamonds on the beach). It was still early in the morning; and from the brightness of our Creator, I knew I awoke early, and had the pleasure to begin a reverie:
You looked so helpless lying there, facing me, holding my hand softly as sleep took you hours ago. You were so very lovely and kind to me; you were the nicest girl I had ever met; you were raised from a good family; and you were so beautiful and dainty— O god! how beautiful and dainty. I was in the best shape of my life because of you (I did it for her, you know); and I didn’t care for the day we broke up: all I cared about was this moment in time when you were mine.
Her eyes shuttered briefly and I waited for her to wake; instead, she raised her head slightly, moved a little forward, and put her arm around my chest and pushed me close. She felt warm, and her bosom felt like silk against my upper arm; and I carefully put the arm under her head (She, resting there until she woke a few hours later). But, before that, I crept into another reverie:
How did we meet? I remember: it was at a party, filled with random people I wasn’t very comfortable with (I’m never really comfortable in big groups), and you were sitting on the couch with a boy next to you who looked like your boyfriend but really wasn’t— just a friend you knew. I was nervous when I first saw you; and you didn’t talk to me until later in the night when a few drinks got a hold of me in the early hours of the day. You weren’t talking much: just laughing, giggling, and smiling the whole time as you hesitantly participated in the conversation they were having about LEGOs. I wanted to say hi, but I was too shy and anxious.
(You looked so beautiful laying there as I thought about you.)
When the party was dwindling down, you were still there, and I walked into the kitchen to see if there was any food to eat before I left to go home; then you walked in, and got yourself a drink of water.
“What are you doing,” you said to me.
“I’m looking for something to eat,” falling back as my hands clung the cabinet doors. “I’m hungry for something but it seems like there’s nothing here.”
“There’s a market down the block that you can get food at.”
“I guess I’ll do that. Where is it?”
“Just down the block.”
“I guess I’ll go there when I leave then.”
“When are you leaving?”
“Probably in a few minutes,” I said.
I looked through a few more drawers to the right of the stove-top; and I stopped, and waited for you to look at me.
“Just down the block right?”
“Yeah, just make a left when you walk out the door. I’ll go with you. My apartment is that way,” you paused. “Is that cool?”
“Yeah, it’s cool.”
“Cool,” you said.
She awoke in the bed next to me a few minutes later— asking me what was for breakfast —and I told her to get dressed; and as we were putting on our shoes, I told her we were going to Cape May where I knew no one would bother us (They served really good oatmeal at this one restaurant I really wanted to go to).
“Honey, why do you always know what I want?”
“I don’t. I just like hanging out with you.”
“Oh,” she kissed me on the cheek. “I don’t want to kiss you on the mouth. I haven’t brushed my teeth yet and they feel all icky.”
“It’s alright. You can kiss me.”
She kissed me— a long, ardent kiss —and I put my arms around her waist and held her tight. She did the same, and squeezed me hard until all the air in my lungs were forced out.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hug you that hard.”
“It’s alright,” I humorously said.
I put my coat on and helped her with hers; and we walked outside to the smell of salt air and the bay breeze coming from the West— kissing my rosy cheeks and whisking her hair gently. I remembered not too long ago— in summer —when the breeze was warm and welcoming to the the gayly countenance of a man that had all the hopes in the world for love and ardor. The passion dwindled somewhat in Fall and was replaced with benevolence and empathy; the Winter brought me solitude.
(I can’t believe how much I love you. Can someone like me love a person this much. Can it be real? It’s not real. I don’t want it to be real. I would like to kiss you right now. I want to take a nice walk with you and hold your hand. I want to do something for you; I want to show you all of what I can do: I want to impress you.)
“Honey?”
“Yes.”
“Are you going to open the car door?”
“Oh yes,” I came to her side and unlocked the door and opened it for her. “I was thinking— sorry.”
“It’s alright,” she laughed. “You do that a lot.”
I closed the door to shut her in and walked to my side as she unlocked the door for me; and I sat in the driver seat and turned on the car. I don’t really remember the drive there or even the breakfast we had at the restaurant I forget the name of; but, what I do know, is that we came home, and went back to bed as I welcomed her in my arms again.
Mamiya RB67
My sister let me borrow it. Her film is really out-of-date. It took me about ten minutes and a phone call to figure out that you don’t need to rewind 120 film on the film back (I hope I didn’t screw that up). I’m going to Walmart to send it out to get it developed. I hate waiting.
