Watch me exhale and try to breathe in, struggling in the vacuum of my own bubble.  Seeing through its drunken surface at every turn I smell trouble, and lately it comes in double.

That which does not kill me used to make me stronger, until I lowered the outer wall,

now every blow cracks my heart.

Its shattering seems a question of when, not if, and I don’t know how much more of this I can take. Waiting, guessing, thinking, soaking into the pages

and bleeding out in tears.

 

Don’t hurt me, that’s all I ask, just

 please don’t hurt me

anymore.

 I’m on the ground already.

Just stop.

 

Stop.

I don't feel safe telling this to anybody, so I'm going to tell myself on the internet. How fucking random and pointless. I'm about to fly off the handle.

I want my life to end.

fin.

Losing my way is my way. Where have I gone; when will I come back? I suppose I can never go back, I can only come.... here. My mind isn't here, it's there, always drawn there. I sit and breathe, I open my palms to the universal mudra to let all pass through - but I am dragged away, back there. I can't watch myself be there anymore; it has to be here or nowhere... the distance between here and there is nothing but pain.

There it is. I'm here, for a brief moment, and I realize it's no different. This uncomfortable blanket covers me wherever I am. All the work, all the struggle, the pain, the blood and tears, half my life spent slaving on my body's project and for.....? For the purpose I started, continued, for that purpose I achieved what so few have done. Am I someone to look up to because of that? What does it mean, any of it? A monk, a moral man, a good friend, who stubbornly and masochisticly cut away at himself in an effort to fit, in more ways than one. What is it? It's nothing. The reason I began, the reason I continued, was to be loved in a way so many others take for granted, even just for a moment. After all of this, even in the midst of loving myself I still stand alone, growing tired and sinking to my knees.

Nobody's going to pull you up. All that's left now is manhood, or sleep...

My eyes hurt from seeing. My quivering lips drip blood, but it doesn’t matter, the carpet’s stained  through anyway. I can’t even remember where they all come from, but my bones feel their vibrations... and each new strike against my head recalls all their echoes. When my mind stops shaking and the floor lies still I’m left with ringing ears calling out in a child’s voice, and children only ever ask one thing...

There are times I am the ocean, others I am the sand. Some times... depthless and unfathomable, my only queen the glittering moon. Others... pushed and pulled, laid down to rest only until the queen brings the black sheet back to cover me. The sand clings to that darkness and the shapes it sees within, its porous body weakly clutching at the moon’s blood until her tide soothes it away. It never holds... and in time the beach erodes, and with it all the wants and desires buried in the sand. For a time I am the ocean again.

For a time... until the sands form new beaches, and I grasp at the shapes these sands form in the deep. My queen... bring back the tide. Wash me away...

Gaze into my eyes and see all the seasons

Striking my heart; wordless winds haunted

By ferocious fire, inching ice swallowed by

A flower’s smile. Gaze, gaze away;

There’s nothing else to say anyway.

 

Still not giving a fuck! Despite everything that should be getting me down. This is amazing. And not altogether safe, considering the things I've been doing. Good; safe is an ugly word anyway, like taxes and torture. A ship is safe in harbour, but that's not what ships are for. Ride the waves!

No fancy metaphors here. I'm too at ease with the moment to produce a grand prose; it only seems to arise when I fight against the current and right now I'm riding the ripple. I reflect on the lies I tell myself and others. I do so because I think it's one of the most important things in living a truly spiritual or authentic life; I have to take time to reflect, to watch instead of doze. Luckily I don't tell many. Lies do not make me feel better, not telling them nor receiving them. To live an unhappy truth is better than to live a happy or comforting lie. What hurts me above all are lies. I spend so much effort trying to let go of my own stories about things, and yet still people want to add more, as if it will make me like them more, as if they're somehow saving me from something and all they're doing is trading a lesser evil for a greater one; not only are they hurting me, they're hurting themselves. This applies, for me, to lies and 'playing with the truth', too. Deception is deception.

It sounds so straight up. Too bad people still add their baggage, inabilities, misconceptions and ignorance, spouting things they think are true but really aren't. So reflect. I won't lie (hah), it's scary. It can fuck up your life-long plans and ambitions, change your relationships and friendships, change everything you thought you knew, and you can't stop watching because eventually you'll step into a hole again. I've been in a hole lately, stuck tightly and now I've climbed out with open eyes again, 'ridin' the ripple' wherever it goes and not holding on to anything on the way. Back to not giving a fuck!

This is not for reading. This is my purge. A wound is bleeding out and its picture will not be pretty for any involved. Consider that a disclaimer. You've been warned.

From the littlest things we make the largest stories. Short me version: What. The. Fuck.

Blow-by-blow bleeding out:

The tank’s running empty as my pen touches the paper, and the tip threatens to scratch sleep in squiggly lines down my path, but anger steadies me. My eyes lose focus, my mind out of tune, this hand aims to cut through lies and it seems surrounded. Which ones belong to you? I wish I knew, but I know that your hand aims to cut too.  In a state of supreme contentment I seek to hold and comfort what I thought was sadness only to find poisonous barbs beneath my hands, penetrating deep after watching others touch it unharmed. Confused, I hold on, paralysis grasping at me until pain finally overwhelms and pulls me away. Venom dripping from my hands and seeping through my veins I run to my soul and pluck the notes, barely breathing, wielding music as a shield to push back the poison. I can only hold it off for so long, and when the last note sounds from these shaking fingers I am disarmed, to watch like a child the cruel venom whose name is judgement snap the strings and break open my scream. That bellow, a whimper in my darkest days, a past unearthed by that corrosive chemical, bleeds out of hallow mahogany walls as I plead to mute my nakedness.

What is any of this about? What the moment brings, what reflection of that moment interprets, judges and skews. Did you read the metaphors and think it was all about you? It's always about you, it's always about everybody. It's about earth, but not space and time. It's about holding on until you let go. Being yourself when you have no idea who you are. Smelling the flowers but not being allowed to touch. Staring death in the face and playing her a song. This is me staring.

Against the tide of a mountain I diminish for want, and never have I wanted something so cosmic. I sacrifice pieces of myself, my space and time, my auroric love, for a desire devoid of gravity and am left shattered in a cloud at the point of pointlessness.  To let go of desire I stood atop the world in a field of snow with no protection but for the music of tiny flakes melting upon flaming skin no longer my own, knowing that I could be standing in those eyes and still feel surrounded by ice. For the gravity eluding me I diminish into shallower waters to catch fish less sought, while under me those scales catch the starlight and blind my hook.  There’s nothing for it, I can’t breathe in your depths anymore, so the hook gets tossed again, baited with pieces of what I’m losing until you swim up to bite at what’s left, or until the hook rusts and no longer remembers your shine.

Posted elsewhere but, well, I lied about where it came from, and this is a place to undress the lies. Why did I lie? It was written at a very angry time. The song doesn't focus on a single experience, but rather... a condensed account of some experiences from December-May, 07-08.

Brimstone Hat

 

[Song intro, spoken word]
She came to the party wearin' my hat and my eyes lit up
I walked over and asked her what brought her round the bend
And an hour later we sat drinkin' whisky out of a paper cup
Year ended in a flash of fireworks -- she left with my best friend
[/Song intro] 

January roared out in a flood of fire, every dark thought dire
As peace of mind rolled off the couch and swallowed its tongue
Witching hour spread like peanut butter caked in an old tire
and there I swung in the middle, lamenting the song I'd sung

It ain't mine no more, stolen from my guitar into their kiss
And these shaky fingers can't find that harmony anymore
I ain't mine no more, never was, couldn't touch that bliss
Oh January flooded me with fire, and it burns to reminisce

He and I we'd been through hell beyond the school bell
Now I've the devil's fire, crawling into my cocoon shell
Where flames immolate and desolate; where I will be born
But the song remains the same, sung now fuelled by scorn

Every look and word I read like a book, while in my shell I cook
Recipes and strategies, a game of risk up and down the neck
Words aren't the feeling, so I'm peeling them to undress
the meaning till I'm left with nothing but myself to transgress

It ain’t mine no more, stolen from these strings into their kiss
And these shaky fingers can't find that harmony anymore
I ain't mine no more, never was, couldn't touch that bliss
Oh January flooded me with fire, and it burns to reminisce

Hell ain’t underground or all around; it’s the face in the mirror
And I break the glass hoping to find myself and see a bit clearer
But the look in my eyes is like watching the past, runnin’ fast
Onto the floor, towards the fire, into the forge, out the door

And into a cast, where I try to heal, callin’ the devil for a deal
He thinks there’s a soul to steal, he doesn’t know the time’s past
The cocoon’s about to crack, the string’s about to snap
And all the while this old guitar sings a song beyond me

It ain't mine no more, stolen from my guitar into their kiss
And these shaky fingers can't find that harmony anymore
I ain't mine no more, never was, couldn't touch that bliss
Oh January flooded me with fire, and it burns to reminisce

And while I’m burning the song sings yearning for what I miss
But I’ve forgotten the story because it doesn’t have an ending
And death seals nothing but the end of remembering that kiss
January’s come and gone, the message I thought I was sending
Got burned to a crisp, and these fingers still run from mending

Love. Word of multiple directions and schizophrenic tendencies, a dictionary of degrees and layers blind to so many yet only one meaning concerns me. To give love is to give of yourself. What is the price paid? Not love in return, but only that which has been given. There is no trade. How does one replenish if nothing is given in return?

The greatest love manifests from one who first loves oneself. To give a gift you do not have is to poison and corrupt, to fall into debt with yourself. When the collectors come, you are but a shell, devoid of the deepest feeling, residing neck-deep in the most melancholic layer of hell. The greatest love comes without desire or the need of return, replenished infinitely by the well of oneself, overflowing and given freely without fear of running dry.  

I am empty. I have nothing to give yet I keep scrapping the bottom, hoping to find one last morsel for myself, only to toss it into somebody else’s arms hoping they could save me, a compulsive gambler with a single penny.  The circle of my feeling extends the world over; I can’t hold on to a single drop, all for the thought that I don’t deserve it.

I’m supposed to be myself. What is myself? Empty, I am malleable, melted iron, not cooled by the soothing words of those upon who I unburden what I need to keep. I thought I was ready, confident, I felt lucky, but luck’s never touched me and nothing’s changed except that I’ve stood up and started walking away from the death bed I was borne upon, the bed upon which I refused all nourishment.

Now I have to take it for myself. I need to fill these hollow bones, work my legs until they can run. I can’t truly love until I flood with it; to do otherwise is to siphon out contaminated blood, starving and dehydrated. My heart tells me I have to love truly, if I ever do anything in my life, and so I’m going to start running... towards myself.

Going there to disappear, what brought me here
Running from their spears in a cage contest
Clowns trying to see who can hurt the best
I can go on about fear but here’s where I digress

Back to that cracked and weathered rock, a giant
Smothering my future from tip to sole, still defiant
Brandishing the suture, forgetting to forget the goal
Still every step up her ancient face is out of the hole 

Her price was hefty, what she takes can’t be returned
Nothing from the shelf, worthless what’s unearned
And so I lost myself, not a single mask unturned

Sweat from my fingertips showering and falling red
Drawn towards her center, on my fictions she fed
Satisfied only as I relinquished to her steep hills
My desire to return to the cage, to swim in my rage 

The story belongs to her, pages seeped into her spine
The book I made, the price I paid for crossing the line
From Hell to Earth, Kutoyama’s ancient soil gave birth
To eyes seeing a new world, with it the collapse of mine
 

 

Their company circles me like a pampered quilt
Dampened by the rain, slickened to my skin
Seeping the moisture from my veins like guilt
Collecting a thirst paid for in years and dry gin

The only company that comforts holds the knife
Haphazard but unavoidable, the blanket thread
Needles through my heart, driving icicles in strife
To keep the warmth from reaching where I tread

Tracks up my arms, the marks mapped by mice
All roads lead inward, if only paths could suffice
To teach and soothe me, but I have to think twice
I’ve missed the signs and stopped at every yellow

The gin’s dry and in my delirium of thirst I realize
There were no signs and every light hides a stiletto
In the blanket’s company I run the red and bellow
Leaving behind a piece of myself, grinning as it dies

Parasitic scars reside within my skin, memories fade and anger goes dim, and brought back to light at the sight of these twisted badges of ridicule, painted in layers over by feeble attempts to hide my damnation from their wants. To finally undress and reveal the lines, confronted with veiled judgments, a cold acknowledgment of something far removed, a stock compassionate phrase mouthed underwater. A friendly word, “someday, someone, somewhere,” and all I hear through the waves “not today, not me, not here,” and the veil slips. They don’t think they’re lying, leaving my anger untapped and the dam of my despair shattered. Drowning, the judgment that pushes me under is one of desire, consumed and repelled by the worms mapping my skin.

On other walls and in other books I write my thoughts for all to see, restrained poetry and the subtlest of hints as to what I feel. I am unafraid to undress myself, but I am critical of the room in which I do so, and questioning of the company I keep. So many relations are tethered by the faintest thread of nothing, a drawing tie that paints the picture of capitalists consuming friendship; the more you have, the better, the more beautiful, the more beautiful you are. Fake smiles reflecting back at you. The union workers have pumped the water out of friendship lake and left it shallow, too shallow to stand. Nobody knows you when you're down at the bottom. I'm tired of their company.  Here I have no company, only strangers...and maybe her. Perhaps that’s best.