Blog Neglect

Haven’t written something meaningful in a damn long time.

Haven’t been able to sit down and cocoon my thoughts, so woven together, within a single chrysalis; all the while, wishing they could exist as something more than just the buzz of warning behind my brain.

Tickling my pursed lips, dancing upon my bitten tongue, these thoughts demand to transform themselves into words; harsh words, soft words, words that can only be spoken in the dark. But when the darkness eludes me, or if there just isn’t any time, and their demands become so great, I let them escape as whispers that only I can hear.

Or even better. That only I can read.

Maybe one day,  someday, I’ll let you read.

Filtered & Refined

There are varying degrees of love. I love my cat. Yeah, I really love my cat. Its not the same way I love my mom though. And they're both really different than the way I love you... But once you realize all of this, shit starts getting a whole lot simpler.

The Mid-Day Dreamer

              She checked the time. 4:20 in the afternoon.

The ancient face of the grandfather clock perched high upon the wall gaped back at her, glowing brilliantly as if illuminated by heavenly light. With each hushed tick of the minute hand, and with every passing second, the clock teased her, inching forward into the future, leaving behind an empty shell of a moment that failed to be extraordinary.

That was her biggest fear, being ordinary.

The long pendulum beneath the face of the clock rocked to and fro, tracing the same path it had been since the day of its birth. The metallic clanking sound it made as it reached either side of the glass case it lie within never changed. It remained, as always, to be a constant, low, solid tune. But now, as she stared harder into the face of the grandfather clock, it got louder and louder until there was an angry echo in her head, sound ricocheting off of her brain. The low clanking morphed into a shrill ring of laughter, reminding her that the tides of time never rest. She tore her gaze away with much difficulty while the ringing continued, sounding in her ears.

The cat lay in front of her, sprawled like a carpet across the wooden floor. His cold, steel colored coat of fur grew elegantly around his body. Each thin whisker, each curled eyelash, extended from a dark pore in his face, reaching far, far away. A bushel of white hair crept downwards from his fuzzy chin, merging into the hair on his belly. Her gaze met his and she watched in awe as his pupils narrowed into slender slits of question, restricting the sunlit glow that was pouring in through a nearby window from entering his eyes.

Small fluffs of dust danced in the celestial downpour of light. The tunnel of light extended further, smoothing over the cats back, enveloping him within its delightful glow; his dark coat of fur glazed over, each layer casting a dim shadow on the next. Her eyes trailed down the length of his tail and up again to his face where he opened his mouth in an overwhelming, gaping yawn. His ears flexed backwards, accelerating the shape of his face, and long sinister looking teeth were revealed, stretching out thin strands of saliva. A slender pink tongue protruded inches in front of him and the ridges on the roof of his mouth spanned deep into his exposed throat. And as quickly as it began, the yawn ended, and her gaze was broken, and the moment was over.

The cat’s nose twitched ever so slightly, and a small tremor originating from a hiccup shook his body. The world stood still otherwise.

But suddenly, it began to spin and her head felt heavy as the floor slowly rose up to meet the back of it; she lay down on the soft ground, gently fingering the woven tassels attached to the corner of the red carpet beneath her. The world around her continued to dance and she wondered, strangely, if her eyeballs were gliding around in their sockets to keep up. Life was on repeat while her mind saw the same sights over and over again, and her soul felt entrapped behind the steel bars of her mortal body.  

A short moment continued, lasting for an eon, and she was dead. Stuck in purgatory? so she waited for the Almighty to summon and judge her. She had never been a pious girl, believing in God perhaps, yes, but certainly not in religion. Religion, she had once scoffed, that ridiculous fable, a book of rules invented by kings and tyrants and politicians used to control the enslaved. And that was when the tsunami of terror washed over her, gushing into her lungs and burning her insides. That she had been wrong during the course of her short life, she had underestimated and made mistakes, over and over again, until they were no longer mistakes, but were habits; and now she would be judged and thrown into the fire. Panic overwhelmed her, causing her eyeballs to pulse and her heart to throb, louder and harder until it could no longer be contained within her ribcage; it was now beating directly outside of her body, but she did not know how. Sweat poured from her forehead and she gasped for a breath that would not come, repeatedly, and she realized that this was her punishment. She had been judged and He had decided that she would be stuck in this moment forever, imprisoned within her frightened body, petrified, unable to escape the heartthrobs that slammed against her chest or the salty sweat that gradually drowned her.

She lay on the floor, scared and still, as if trapped at the bottom of a deep, stone well. An unusually dull chill, radiating from the core of her body, began to spread steadily throughout each limb. When it finished its course, it left her shivering, every hair on her body raised, and her insides feeling numb. The end of her journey began to dawn and although she did not know what came next, she lay motionless, waiting. Suddenly, far above her, from the soft light up ahead, she heard the solid, low tune once again. It was the familiar metallic clanking sound that reminded her of her living room, a safe haven, her sanctuary. The grandfather clock, still perched high on the wall watched, guarding over her as she voyaged through the depths of her own mind and soul.

As her living room carefully rematerialized before her, feeling began to return to her body. Her neurons were released and resumed their duty of picking up sensations to deliver to her brain. She noticed that her cheek was still pressed firmly against the padded floor, and her mouth lay slack, silent and parched.

The world stood still; not a sound, not a scurry. An eternity passed.

She checked the time; 4:22.

The Monster

Such a profound loneliness, he thought to himself.

His eyes darted across the landscape; a luscious scene stretched out before him. Thick, wet grass poked up from the earth below, warm and long. For miles it ran, leaving no patch of soil unfurnished. Directly above it, an expansive baby blue sky unraveled, reaching beyond the heavens themselves. Wisps of clouds, like cotton candy, powdered the sky while the occasional black speck that was a bird darted through them. Nearby, magnificent trees, thick and brown with age, extended their arms, branches tickling the sky. Leaves that had shed from neighboring trees littered the earth, giving the world a freckled appearance. As the season of fall began to creep up on this half of the world, eating away at the final days of summer, it brought along a cool breeze that ruffled through his hair and lightly burned his eyes. 

In between heaven and hell, he sat.  

He relit the cigarette that had remained untouched between his fingers for several minutes, brought it to his lips, and inhaled deep and long. With every puff of exhausted smoke, a slight bit of tension escaped. But then he blinked. And his mind, like the scratched reel of a movie film, skipped over the last few years of his existence, and the tension reappeared; a sharp pain in his head, situated directly behind his eyes. Annoyance mostly, but also tension.

He was strong, unyielding, thoroughly and laboriously molded into the man he was today. The self-discipline that he so diligently prided himself on was mistook by many for outright arrogance; and so they hated him.

Many people hated him. But he could care less.

Drumming his skinny fingers on the wooden picnic table beneath his hand, he sighed; it sounded more like an exasperated moan. She had always irritated him about that; about his unusual hybrid of emotions. About how one could never tell them apart, or see them at all. She would sit beside him on their soft, velvet couch, the television humming in the background, and sift her pale fingers through his coarse hair. In the beginning it excited and warmed him; such an angelic girl, such a beautiful face, only inches away from his own. But as the months went by, her face grew more and more customary. The soft touch on his scalp began to itch and the humming of the television grew louder and louder until it reverberated off his brain, ringing in his ears.  And the soft, velvet sofa sagged beneath the weight of their hatred towards one another.

After that, he went through them like water; women. Not prostitutes, never the prostitutes he would see crossing the street near East Detroit. Got more class than that, he muttered beneath his breath and took another drag from his cigarette. They were always the girls he had already known – from work, from class. It was not unusual for him to end up sleeping with one of the young beauties Nick introduced him too on a Friday night. It never took too much effort to have her.  A smile from him. A phone number from her. A short exchange in the form of a phone call. And in a matter of days, it would be over.

And he was alone again. Such a profound loneliness.

He finished his cigarette and flicked it into the grass. The shining sun overhead continued to pound down upon him and it was then he noticed that it was no longer pleasantly cool; that the cold running down his back was sweat and not a breeze. He scratched an itch on his forehead and gazed back up at the sun. The already small, black pupils in his eyes narrowed further, but his brilliant green eyes continued to soak up the shine. He had been in hotter places before this.

The inner eye of his mind skipped back to the day he had first seen her, seated across from him in a lecture hall. She was oblivious of his existence and never spoke to him, but he watched her; watched her twirl the thin strand of hair that had come loose from her ponytail with a slender finger. Watched her body rise and fall with every hot breath that passed through her and imagined what it would feel like on the back of his neck. Watched her eyelids flutter when she blinked and gazed straight past him, unseeing. But he wanted her immediately, and vowed silently that he would have her. And he did.

Several months later, she lay beside him, naked on his bed, sweetly humming a pleasant tune he had not heard before and gently pressing her lips against his. Her enormous black irises frightened him; he had only ever seen such an ink black in the dead eyes of a fish he once ate. But her eyes were not dead, they were alive with laughter and a magic of youth he had never seen before in person. Her diamond shaped face hosted every feature well, from a perfectly sculpted nose to naturally arched eyebrows that never seemed out of shape. She turned over to find sleep and the tingling scent of something foreign exuberated from her dark hair and tickled his nostrils. He leaned in closer to enjoy her scent and tenderly touched the tip of his nose against her warm, smooth skin and watched as she glowed unusually in the dim-lit setting. His hand quickly replaced his nose and he pulled her close to him, not wanting her to leave.

He wanted her so desperately, in more than simply a lustful way. He wanted every part of her to hold him, to love him, her body, her mind and her spirit. But she had seen the terror in his eyes and the destruction in his soul. She had seen it thinking that it was his worst; that she could help him through it – but he assured her that this was not the case. The terror, the destruction, the anger and confusion that he so desperately clung too, that was all him at his best. He had nothing more.

So I must leave, she told him in the morning, you have nothing to offer. And so she slowly, sensually got dressed and walked out of the room, without a single glance back in his direction. He stared behind her at the door she had so selfishly left open, like the gaping wound that was his heart. Something growled and awakened inside of him, a never before felt, strange burst of hybrid emotion. It stung furiously.

He felt it then, and he felt it now, sitting amongst the grass and the trees and the skies. Jealousy, he had always known, was the worst characteristic a man could ever possess. It turned one wild with anger and red with hatred until every pore on their body emitted a heat so strong and so sharp, it stung not only him, but friends, family, and passerby’s, keeping them all far away. Discipline against jealousy and pain was what had been engraved in him for years, since before he was a young man. But as his resolve weakened, and that wall of training crumbled, and as those emotions flooded throughout his body, he felt unsure and alone.

Such a profound loneliness.

Gold

The Opposite of Opposition

You think that just because you grow out your hair, get tattoos, and play rock music you’re a rebel? You’re only conforming to another stereotype that society is thrusting upon you. You wanna be a real rebel? Wear a pocket protector and study in the library for 20 hours a day like the Asians do because those are the guys who really don’t give a shit what people think about them.

Insomnia

I met a boy a little over a month ago. He was very charming, very alluring, very mature. A girlfriend of mine, a mutual friend, introduced us, smiling and laughing at first, but when he got up to use the restroom one evening while the three of us were grabbing coffee, she admitted to me, exasperatingly, that she couldn’t take him anymore; couldn’t take their friendship. He was demanding and persistent and above all, a black hole; one that would suck the life force out of anyone he got close too, tiring them out and diminishing their spirit.

I laughed at her cautiousness and disregarded her warning for I had fallen for him instantly, like a burning meteorite falling into the earth’s atmosphere. His soft-spoken nature juxtaposed with his ravenous appetite for life as he introduced me to new and dangerous worlds I never knew existed. Every night he kidnapped me playfully from my bedroom and took me deep into the abyss of the night, surprising me with his knowledge of the earth and stealing my breath away underneath the vast velvet dark sky. With him, I could sit at the edge of the world and not feel alone, or wish on falling stars and not feel silly.

Quickly we became inseparable. He kept me company every day, but especially during the long, lonely nights when he felt I needed him the most. My friends would come to my house, sit around my bedroom and look upon with mild annoyance as he lay beside me atop the blanket, our fingers entwined, clasping hands almost in desperation; as if subconsciously scared that someone would force us apart. My mother disapproved, saying we rushed our relationship and that it seemed, almost eerily, that he was more than just dependent on me. I shook my head, telling her that this was love. Very soon, I saw less of them, of everyone, and much, much more of him.

He was there every moment of every day, whenever I needed him – and soon, even when I did not need him, when I did not want him. His offers to help me, to be there beside me began to irritate and annoy and his constant presence was a distraction to far more important aspects of my life – school, work, and even other relationships, relationships with my friends and my family; his jealousy was overbearing but he justified it as his intense love for me. The very sound of his voice or the mention of his name triggered claustrophobia inside of me, but when I finally summoned the courage to leave him, he would not let go. Like a leach, like a parasite, he had latched onto me, sucking away at my happiness and my freewill to fuel his ever growing jealousy until all that was left was my empty shell of a body; a misshapen ball of fatigue.

At last, I lashed out. Screaming, yelling, crying at him to leave but he was adamant. My fury morphed into a bitter resentfulness as I told him I did not want him in my life and that I was a fool for loving him. We battled for weeks on end, as all the while he continued to drain the energy out of me, even the anger, until I was left with nothing. I was left numb; a numbness that frightened me more than I had ever been frightened before. Pain is a terrible affliction, yes, but it is a sensation one feels to remind themselves that they are still alive, still breathing. Numbness is no sensation. No emotion. It is nothing, and that is far worse than any sort of pain one could ever feel.  

Finally, he left. After collecting not only my happiness, but also my grief, my desperation and my anger. I was no use to him anymore; he was through with me and was satisfied with leaving me with nothing, for that had been his goal all along. Still, I was relieved to see him leave.

My girlfriend, the one who introduced us, is happy to see that I have gotten rid of him. I haven’t told her though that, unfortunately, I do still see him from time to time. He follows me often, beckoning at my bedroom window several times a week, appearing when I least expect him too; he even slithers into my bed on some incredibly lonely, rough nights, wanting to hold hands and I feel the chill of his breath against my nape. I haven’t told my friends any of this, and they try not to talk about him much, as not to upset me. But there are moments, of course, when I hear his name whispered by hundreds of people who, just like me, have fallen prey to him around the globe; Insomnia, they call him.