sleep like awakening

I stopped running

2009-11-18T13:52:00.001-07:00

I wrote once about how I always felt the darkness closing in on me, chasing me with every step. Now I don't think it was darkness. It was God, pursuing me relentlessly with his love. But at the time I was terrified of that God, seeing him as a judge rather than a loving Father whose passion to love me is more fierce than any power in the universe. Once I realized that God loves me, once I learned to accept myself, once I started to trust him - even in the slightest - I stopped running. And I was violently overtaken by my pursuer. But He did not bring death as I'd imagined. Rather He brought an overpowering sense of life, allowing me to see the truth of who I am and be at peace with that. He brought a holy reckoning on my soul, but instead of being full of condemnation it overflowed with complete and unconditional love and acceptance.

When I arrive

2009-11-04T00:59:00.000-07:00

Someday I’ll look you in the eyes and ask, “Do you know what I went through to get here?”
And I’ll watch the tears come to your eyes. And I’ll know you know.

Although

2009-10-31T01:25:00.002-06:00

Although you threw away my name from your mind...I have to try...sometimes.

Although you hit me hard, I come back.

Because in the times that matter, you are the one in my mind.
Because it seems like the most unlikely path.
Because I can see you knowing me more than anyone ever has.

Although you hit me hard, I come back.

Bones

2009-10-12T23:07:00.001-06:00

This loneliness is gangrene eating away the flesh of the prime of my life - which cannot be recovered or repaired. Every night more rots away as it works its way through muscle and sinew. And when I finally find her, I may be nothing left but bones.

The Good Night

2009-09-22T23:04:00.001-06:00

Have a shot of Beam and get a little drunk on Keystone Light with some friends at dollar taco night, buy a sixer of Coors Light and some Turkish Silvers on the way home, smoke one of those Turkish Silvers, crack open one of those Coors Lights, and still catch half of Conan. Now that’s a good night.

At the seams

2009-09-18T02:09:00.001-06:00

I want to pull myself apart at the seams. Because it’s gonna happen anyway. Now it’s just a matter of whether it will be accidental or intentional.

Just me

2009-09-13T23:28:00.000-06:00

I’m leaving behind the notion that any of the people I’ve turned to for refuge or comfort or hope could ever be that. I’m leaving behind any notions that there was ever anything there meaningful or honest. I’m looking truth in the face and hearing what is not being said rather than what is. Now I’m being practical. Now I’m being realistic. Now I’m recognizing this for what it is, or rather, isn’t. And it’s cold. And it’s lonely. But it’s the truth.

Somehow that is comforting. It’s just me on this road. And either I’ll make it or I won’t.

Look yourself in the eye

2009-09-07T23:56:00.001-06:00

Have you ever done it? Just stand in front of the mirror for a second and look yourself directly in the eye? Allow yourself to see into what they say? I have. And it’s terrifying. And it’s beautiful. Because I see what I long for and how that is good. But I see the indifference of how I get that, shaped by years of hurt and failure and the frustration of the present: having it right in front of me with no way to attain it. Ever. So I look away. Focus on everything else that is there other than the desperate truth staring right back at me with disdain, malice, and determination. And I plead that it doesn’t have to be. But they stare straight through me and say that it is. It has to be.

[drunk] confession

2009-09-03T01:42:00.002-06:00

I have the most potential and the least prospects. The greatest promise and the utmost failure. And I’m coming apart at the seams. Dying to live more than this and dying by the day. I’m one step closer to the grave and the unknown that I hope might be heaven. But I don’t even know anymore. Hope is the hardest thing to embrace cause it cuts me like razor blades when it turns away.

Motivation (the lack thereof)

2009-08-29T13:41:00.000-06:00

I’m starting to think this is unsustainable. Doing this all on my own. Making my way in this world alone.

The Story

2009-08-12T18:32:00.003-06:00

The best thing about my life is that I am the protagonist. The worst thing about my life is that I am the protagonist. When the story takes an unpleasant turn or when Protagonist isn’t being all he should, I am unable to distract myself with other subplots or tangential stories featuring other main characters. I’m pretty much stuck with the same guy. And the even more frustrating part of the story is that the bad things, the parts I wish I could edit out, get so intertwined with the good parts that the good parts can’t ever seem to become great parts. And then there are the recurring villains who cannot be dispatched. When I think Protagonist defeated villain X in Chapter 3, villain X shows up again in Chapter 12—which complicates things because Protagonist is currently battling villain Y. How can he take on both of them at the same time? And, in the midst of all that, how can he be what he’s supposed to be for the emerging heroine of the story? I just hope there’s a surprise plot twist coming soon, cause it’s not looking good.

A song is key

2009-08-06T00:26:00.000-06:00

I wish I had a guitar here so I could sing this darkness out of me. It seems to build when I don’t have that. And I’m starting to see that a song is key for me to sing out what is poison otherwise. The way a minor tone brings a shift inside of me is something beyond what words can say. And I know I need it, to sing it, to feel it. But tonight words must suffice to carry the weight of hurt that you’ll never see, except when I sing it.

Hannahgrace

2009-08-03T15:25:00.001-06:00

Today, my six year-old niece did two things that utterly and completely charmed me all over again.

When I got to my sister’s house, I was wearing my glasses. I said that I was going to put my contacts in, and Hannagrace exclaimed, “You wear contacts?” as if she were surprised or if this was a new revelation to her. Then after a short pause she said, “What are contacts?”

Then we were at a pizza buffet-type place and she was sitting eating noodles with nothing on them. My mom (Nana to her) asked Hannagrace if that’s how she likes to eat them. Hannahgrace said, “No, I just could not reach the sauce.”

If there has ever been a reason for me to come to Texas more, I’m pretty sure I’ve found it.

But honesty is not always eloquent

2009-07-25T03:15:00.001-06:00

I sleep through most of every day. Because I stay up most of the night and morning trying to drink it away. But I’m not even sure what it is...loneliness? unhappiness? fear? the sickness I have that no doctor can diagnose?

Tonight I realized it’s fucking bullshit. I would rather soberly face everything...my insecurities, my fears, the realization of my utter failure in the face of so much potential...than have one more drink. That’s it. I’m done. At least until I can handle it. And I can’t right now. Escape is a disease that has become the norm. And I don’t ever want to be normal. I would rather writhe on the floor in pain and sorrow and suffering. And if that’s what it takes, that’s what I’ll do. Until any of this makes sense. Until I see the promise instead of the fallen. Until I see redemption instead of death.

I want to be free of all this. I want so desperately to be free.

Waking reality

2009-07-24T12:13:00.002-06:00

Typically when morning comes and I roll over to my alarm clock going off, I’m pleased if I made it through the night without nightmares of someone with a chainsaw cutting up from underneath my bed or the angel of death standing at the foot of my bed or a dead woman dressed in 19th Century clothing who has hung herself from my ceiling.

But this morning was different. I had a really good dream for the first time I can remember in a long time, and I awoke to the sad realization that it was only a dream. What I dreamed of was something that could never happen in reality because it might be too perfect. It could be the missing piece. But since the realities of reality are much harsher and can’t be controlled simply by the firing of my synapses in a REM cycle, I guess I’ll just revel in that moment before I woke up until it also fades out of memory, as dreams will.

Neglect

2009-07-10T00:56:00.002-06:00

I feel bad that I haven't updated this blog in so long. Most of my writing as of late has been poured into lyrics for new songs. Also, I've been a bit busy recording a full-length album with my band Plan for Landing and writing and recording an EP of solo material as well as playing bass in another band and playing music at church.

Maybe I'll get around to writing some more entries soon. Until then, feel free to check out my band web pages (which will have lots of new songs uploaded in the near future).

Follow

2009-06-14T19:04:00.002-06:00

[lyrics from the latest song I've written]

hold it inside just to get through this night
hold it inside don’t give up, you don’t have to fight now
no, not now

just keep it together, this composure feels like murder
bottled, held back
but I wonder what I’m keeping in

just give me a sign and I’ll follow you home
past the city lights and all I’ve known
just give me a sign and I’ll head back home
leave these city lights and then we’ll know

it’s simply too much
this beauty, but it’s fallen down
it’s broken now

And I’ll hold them inside all the pieces of broken lives
that I’ve seen

just give me a sign and I’ll follow you home
past the city lights and all I’ve known
just give me a sign and I’ll head back home
leave these city lights and then we’ll know
yeah, then we'll know

Clothed in white

2009-06-02T23:48:00.002-06:00

This morning, as the clouds draped the tops of the mountains in a soft and ethereal white, I drove up into the foothills on a wet road through the rain and mist. I went up that road wearing a hideous monster, and I came down wearing something quite different.

Then one of the elders asked me, “These in white robes—who are they, and where did they come from?”
I answered, “Sir, you know.”
And he said, “These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore,
‘they are before the throne of God
and serve him day and night in his temple;
and he who sits on the throne will spread his tent over them.
Never again will they hunger; never again will they thirst.
The sun will not beat upon them, nor any scorching heat.
For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd;
he will lead them to springs of living water.
And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.’

Holding it together

2009-06-01T17:24:00.000-06:00

I’ve reasoned the emotion out of it and can just speak plainly and unaffected. I can state my feelings as responses on a psychological level and talk about them objectively. I can watch you cry and stare off into space with indifference.

At least, that’s what you see. Inside, I’m barely holding it together, ripped apart by every word we’re having to say and decimated by every tear that rolls down your face. I’m so disturbed and distraught by the fact that I really tried this time for something real and failed that all I can do...is hold it in. The only way I can seem to express this chaos is through utter composure.

Too much

2009-05-28T00:33:00.001-06:00

More and more I’m starting to feel that this world is simply too much for me. From injustice to beauty, duty to rebellion, hearing the perfect song, unrealized potential, what I have, what I’ve lost, what I’ll never have — all these things assail me with an unreckonable force. I am an autistic child standing in the drum line of a marching band. It’s too much. I see the things most people choose to ignore and I feel what most people choose to bury. And I have to. Because callousness to those things is more horrific to me than the pain they bring could ever be.

Singular

2009-05-20T01:22:00.003-06:00

After so many years of being single, I'm starting to think that going home alone feels more right than it should. Do I like it? Well, that's a different story. But I'm starting to wonder if I can ever see it being any other way. Part of me is happy about this. Part of me is not. I almost don’t remember what life looks like any way but alone, yet I find no comfort in speculating "well, what if it stayed that way?" Though reading novels about zombies until I fall asleep in my recliner and waking up at 4am to stagger to bed does have its own charm...its own bachelor kitsch, I don’t think it will be enough — in the long run.

I tell you what

2009-05-13T16:03:00.002-06:00

If one more student comes up to tell me that they are not happy with the grade they got on an essay because they "worked so hard on it," I may end up in prison for verbally assaulting a minor (is that punishable by law?).

Where the hell did these kids learn that if you "do your best" then you should be given whatever it is that you want? I guess I'll take it on as my métier at DU to teach the hard life lesson that "doing your best" is quite often not at all good enough.

Maybe I'll start putting two grades on every paper - one that says for effort: A++ and another of actual grade: C-
Then I can have a fine print disclaimer that reads "for effort grade represents no correlation to reality and, more importantly, counts for absolutely nothing in your final average for the course."

Yeah, that's what I'll do.

Sadness in Joy

2009-04-25T15:21:00.001-06:00

A year or so ago, I wrote a piece entitled “Sadness in Joy.” In it, I attempted to explain how even in the most joyous moments in my life an undercurrent of sadness is always present. Today, I read another writer’s way of expressing what I so often feel. Alain de Botton puts it this way:

“A perplexing consequence of fixing our eyes on an ideal is that it may make us sad. The more beautiful something is, the sadder we risk feeling...Our sadness won’t be of the searing kind but more like a blend of joy and melancholy: joy at the perfection we see before us, melancholy at an awareness of how seldom we are sufficiently blessed to encounter anything of its kind. The flawless object throws into perspective the mediocrity that surrounds it. We are reminded of the way we would wish things always to be and how incomplete our lives remain.”

The show must go on

2009-04-21T23:06:00.001-06:00

I’m starting to hate every smile I fake. Whether for a stranger or for my closest friend, every one hurts a little more. Because on days like today, a smile makes me a liar, a laugh makes me a fraud. But not to worry — it's merely clinical, with its own special section in the DSM-IV I’m sure, that gives multiple steps to the appropriate cure.

Oh, God

2009-04-16T01:25:00.006-06:00

Tonight I was listening to Manchester Orchestra's song "Shake It Out" and found the lyrics that brought me home.

I felt the Lord begin to peel off all my skin,
and I felt the wave within reveal the bigger mess that you can't fix.

Oh God, you've got to shake it out, shake it out,
You've got to break it down, break it out.

Allusion

2009-04-13T12:00:00.001-06:00

I'm starting to think that holding off is not an option.

And so it seems

2009-04-09T11:17:00.001-06:00

You can't resist her.
She's in your bones.
She is your marrow
And your ride home.

You can't avoid her.
She's in the air
In between molecules of
oxygen and carbon dioxide.

Only in dreams
We see what it means.
Reach out our hands.
Hold onto hers.
But when we wake
It's all been erased.
And so it seems
Only in dreams.

You walk up to her,
Ask her to dance.
She says, "Hey, baby, I just might take the chance."
You say, "It's a good thing
That you float in the air.
That way there's no way I will crush your pretty toenails into a thousand pieces."

Only in dreams.

Tough

2009-04-07T01:31:00.001-06:00

The Krav Maga training center that I go to is in Five Points, which is a bit of a rough neighborhood. Developers are trying their best to gentrify the area, but I don’t think that’s working just yet. As soon as a new row of fancy mod townhouses are finished, they get tagged with graffiti. Homelessness, drugs, and drunks are still quite prevalent there.

Tonight as I was leaving Krav, I saw a black cat trotting across the road, and I wondered if cats have it as rough in Five Points as the people do. He was a pretty big cat, and he had a bit of a swagger to his gait, which made me think there might be a reason he’s the only cat I’ve ever seen roaming around there.

Once

2009-04-02T00:25:00.003-06:00

Falling slowly, eyes that know me
and I can't go back.

“Burn the ships, man. Burn the ships. Don’t look back.”

2009-03-29T23:16:00.000-06:00

Those were some lyrics in one of the songs by a band I went to see play tonight. That is what I want to do. Burn the ships. I feel like I’m starting on a new life — a new way of seeing and a new way of living. And I no longer want to go back to who I was or what I did before. But, given the opportunity, I will. I want to take away the means by which to return to that life. I want to burn the ships and never look back.

Farther

2009-03-28T23:31:00.003-06:00

Now I'm empty, now I'm spent. And I don't believe in this. I don't fucking believe in this. But it doesn't scare me to write it. I have failed.

God forgive me.

You know I dreamed about you for twenty-nine years before I saw you.

2009-03-11T00:29:00.001-06:00

You’re on your way. I can see it now. Because you swam the depths and found the creatures there that no one wants to see. But they didn’t kill you, and I hope that makes you not afraid anymore.

You know I dreamed about you, I missed you for twenty-nine years.

Of the many joys of being a teacher

2009-03-06T15:36:00.001-07:00

I’ve been grading papers ad infinitum, and I have to share one of the gems I have come across. Writing about the War in Iraq, one of my students states, “Many people think that penetrative war, which is a policy stated in the Busch Doctrine, is a new strategic phase.” I had no idea this doctrine was named after beer and was about sex.

And yesterday, I had a student come into class about 45 minutes late. She came up to my desk, looking a bit haggard, and said, “I’m sorry I’ve been getting here late and that I’ve missed a few classes lately...” and I was expecting to hear that she was having health problems or that she had some family issues going on or something. But no. She then said, “I’ve been sleeping through my alarm.” Usually in such a situation, my natural and immediate response is, “It’s ok,” but I had no idea what to say to this. I just looked at her with more than a glimmer of incredulity in my eyes and said nothing.

“Nothing is fucked, Dude. Come on, you’re being very un-Dude.”

2009-03-02T10:56:00.000-07:00

I need a Walter Sobchak in my life right now to be the calming voice of reason or just to simply put things in perspective by saying, “Fuck it, Dude. Let’s go bowling.” The turbulence started in my personal life, and all of a sudden work has gotten completely out of hand too. Miscommunications, disrespect, and a feeling like I’m screwing up when little of it is really my fault. (Those are the problems at work, not personal ones.) I need this quarter to end so these students will leave me the hell alone and so I can have time to re-evaluate why exactly I do what I do.

Options

2009-02-28T01:45:00.001-07:00

I feel like I have two options at this point: 1) Let her consume me and my thoughts to the point of obsession until she’s mine, feeling that unrequited longing the old poets wrote about. 2) Kill it off. Kill the feelings and thoughts and memories and hopes until there’s nothing left. No memory. No regret. Nothing.

Options rephrased: 1) Drink and find something meaningless to fill the void. 2) The death of what I’ve struggled for years to believe in again — the very thing I found in her.

Or maybe, just maybe, I can put these thoughts aside and keep living knowing that even if this is as good as it gets, then I've got it pretty good.

You're a door without a key, a field without a fence
You made a holy fool of me, and I've thanked you ever since
And if she comes circling back, we'll end where we'd begun
Like two pennies on the train track the train crushed into one

Or if I'm a crown without a king, if I'm a broken, open seed
If I come without a thing, then I come with all I need
No boat out in the blue, no place to rest your head
The trap I set for you seems to have caught my leg instead

Raymond K. Hessel. 1320 SE Benning, apartment A

2009-02-17T22:59:00.002-07:00

In the movie Fight Club, there is a scene where Tyler Durden drags a convenience store clerk into the alley out behind the store by gunpoint and makes the man get down on his knees. Tyler stands behind the man with the gun to his head as he goes through the man’s wallet. He finds an old student ID the man has and asks him what he had been going to school for. The clerk says, “Biology, mostly.” Tyler then asks him “What did you want to be?” The clerk responds, “a veterinarian.” Tyler then tells the man that he is going to keep his driver’s license so he will have his home address. He says that in six weeks, he’s going to check up on him, and if the man is not back in school on his way to becoming a veterinarian, then he’s going to kill him.

After some thinking and talking with friends, that is what I realized I want to be. I want to be an agent in people’s lives who changes things. I want to inspire people to live better than they did before. No, I probably won’t take such a drastic approach as holding a gun to their heads. Hopefully, I could persuade people through more positive means. But, as I’ve learned through my own experience, you have to be on the edge of losing everything before you can learn to appreciate anything.

I don’t know what a job like that looks like, but if you do – and you’re hiring – let me know.

Tomorrow will be the most beautiful day of Raymond K. Hessel's life.

Recovery

2009-02-15T22:09:00.001-07:00

My recovery from surgery was a bit longer and more difficult than I had expected. But the experience of it – including a lot of time where I couldn’t do much but sit around and think – really gave me some perspective. I realized that life is to be lived, not to be worried about, planned, checked off or calculated. I get one go round at all this, so why not put all of me in it? I feel like I’ve been waiting or saving up for something. But I recognize that that something is now. Right now. Yeah, life could always be a little better in this way or that. But I’m done thinking about that. Life is good, and I’m gonna live it.

Pre-op

2009-02-03T22:17:00.001-07:00

“Does your skin tear easily?”
As I was filling out the pre-operation form this evening, I ran across that question. I mean, I’m not one who likes to think about what goes on in a surgery anyway (or even in a hospital at all, for that matter), so this was a bit unsettling. So I’m just going to keep telling myself that, after they put me to sleep, they only use high-tech lasers to complete a scalpel-less and bloodless surgery on my sinuses. Ahh, the bliss of willed ignorance.

a life of quiet desperation

2009-01-26T23:12:00.004-07:00

Tonight I walked to the grocery store in 8 degree weather. I forgot to put on my long johns on my lower half (I actually call them tights, for which all my friends make fun of me), and it turns out jeans aren’t very insulating. Upon arriving at the grocery store, I realized that I am in many ways not a unique human being, as my mother would have me think. I wanted soup. They were sold out of almost every kind. I ended up buying some really generic kind just so I could have chicken noodle. It tasted a little like metal. Then I wanted some saltines to go with that soup. They were out of those too. Apparently, in some ways, I’m just another — as Thoreau would say — of the mass of men leading lives of quiet desperation...for soup.

By the way, this is what 8 degrees looks like.

favorite things

2009-01-23T09:48:00.002-07:00

[This post is a response to a blog tagging incident from a friend who’s blog you should check out.]

Here are some of the things that make me happy:

1) Spending time with a certain someone who will go unnamed here for now.
2) Krav Maga
3) NPR
4) My fancy new eco-friendly, not gonna give me cancer from free radicals, stainless steel water bottle.
5) Touch screens! My iPod touch has one. Now I want a MacBook that has one.
6) Bicycle shops (specifically Turin and Cycle Analyst)

Here are some blogs that make me happy:
Copenhagen Cycle Chic
bikecommuters.com
Pistols and Popcorn
FAIL blog
Bike Snob NYC

paranoid much?

2009-01-22T13:59:00.002-07:00

Does it mean I'm crazy that I bought a cookie at a coffee shop then didn't eat it when I discovered it was a peanut butter cookie? I'm not usually quite so phobic, but you never can be too careful.

Notification: Content Changing

2009-01-15T00:10:00.005-07:00

So you may begin to see some changes in the type of posts I make on this blog. Since May of 2007, when I started it, I reserved it for my "writing," that is to say, things I write that I keep within certain constraints and do my best to craft into something between poetry and prose that lands not too far from the label of aphorism. Don't get me wrong...there will still be those posts. But there will also be more everyday type posts where I just talk about life and what I find in it in a very matter-of-fact probably-not-at-all-poetic kind of way. Also, I may try to incorporate more photos. Like this one.
That someone took of me as I was walking out of my bathroom during the New Year's Eve party at my place that got a bit out of hand. (All I'll say is that it took mopping the floor TWICE to make the sticky from the champagne go away). I might even add photos like this one too.
Taken, obviously, at the Celestial Seasonings factory in Boulder. (Apple Banana Chamomile tea, YUM.)

Let's hope, for your sake, that not all the photos that I post will be of me though. To recap: changes are afoot. Just wanted to let you know.

Closer

2008-12-11T00:56:00.000-07:00

I know you’re empty, I know you’re spent. But believe in this, please believe in this. It scares me to write it and it scares me to mean it cause I’ll let you down, I’ll fail somehow.

Yet I feel a peace with you next to me. I can believe when you’re next to me. That this will work out, that the loneliest times are nothing now but memories and false reprieves. That we’re closer to how life was meant to be all along.

At Arm’s Distance

2008-12-07T21:59:00.000-07:00

I might pull her close but she stays just out of reach. And I understand why but it’s pulling strings inside of me. I start to think and then I sink into myself when that’s the last place I want to be. I’ll just give her time, take it night by night and I’m sure I’ll see that the distance she keeps will give way to meaning. That over time she’ll show me inside to a world I’ve never seen.

So I'll Sing It Again

2008-11-17T20:01:00.001-07:00

I usually only play songs I’ve written when I pick up my guitar to play. But lately, I’ve been playing a song by Glen Hansard over and over. I almost feel like that if I stop playing it, I just might lose my grip on things—as if playing this song is the only way I can hold on to you for now, until you are gone forever or until I can really hold you.

I’m scratching at the surface now
and I’m trying hard to work it out
So much has gone misunderstood
and this mystery only leads to doubt
And I didn’t understand
when you reached down to take my hand
so if you have something to say
you better say it now

Cause this is what you’ve waited for
Your chance to even up the score
And as these shadows fall on me now
I will somehow
Cause I’m picking up a message Lord
and I’m closer than I’ve ever been before
So if you have something to say
say it to me now

Timing

2008-11-11T10:40:00.000-07:00

Love is patient. Love is patient. Love is patient. For now that’s all she asks. So for now that’s all I can give her. And it will take everything in me to do it.

: to draw breath in sharply

2008-10-29T00:11:00.000-06:00

When I was seven years old playing in the surf of the Pacific Ocean, I got barrel rolled by a big wave. The currents tossed me all around and upside down. Still underwater with my eyes closed, I began swimming as hard as I could to reach the surface. My breath was running out. Right at the moment I expected my head to burst out of the water so I could take a deep breath, my head hit the sand. My body gasped anyway.

At twenty-nine, that same wave has caught me again. Down seems up, wrong feels right, and the currents pull me, helplessly. I’m swimming hard again for the surface, and I hope the next breath is air. Because I’m gonna gasp either way.

What happens?

2008-10-26T22:11:00.001-06:00

What happens when you find someone who you enjoy being with almost regardless of where you are or what you’re doing? What happens when you find a person who feels like home? What happens when I start to care again? What happens when no one else understands this? What happens if this isn’t just a phase?

What happens if it all goes away? What happens if it stays forever?

The ones who give up

2008-10-21T22:28:00.000-06:00

Part of me thinks I’m gonna lose her, one way or the other. Then part of me knows that I won’t. That everything will happen how no one expected, and it will be more real and right than either of us ever thought it could be. For that possibility, I’m willing to lay my soul bare. But in time. Because the outcome I am suspicious of now could be too much for anyone to process if I actually said it out loud.

It almost seems like the ones who give up find what they were looking for all along, in the end.

Lift

2008-09-19T01:18:00.001-06:00

This music flows around me and I fall in it like the ocean. The waves lift me up then bring me down again and I smile. Because I know the next swell will be bigger, as will the one after that. As the waves get higher the troughs get lower. But I just know that there will be the one that takes me high enough that I can grab on to the sky and never come down. I won’t ever come down.

James Wortman

2008-09-18T01:14:00.001-06:00

Tonight I’m coming home to a different home. Because I’m on the fourth floor now instead of three. Because of a phone call that told me that James passed away tonight when his heart just stopped beating. And there are other reasons, but that’s the one that gets me. That someone I’ve known my whole life died tonight while I was here, unaware, lost in my own cares that now seem so petty, so unprepared for the ending of a life.

I remember red

2008-09-11T01:28:00.000-06:00

I remember the days when I would do anything for her. Patience, kindness, and all that. How she reeled me in. Then slit my throat and said, “Why this? Too much. Too much” as the blood flowed. But now I wonder if it was I who did it all. Pressing the blade in gently until I felt the give. Then pulling hard with the rush of madness until all was red and unrecognizable. And saying “Why this?”

Absurd (in the Existential sense of the word)

2008-08-27T17:08:00.002-06:00

I’ve been pondering the absurdity of recent events in my life. And the only conclusion I come to as to how one should respond is with laughter. It may be a laugh of ennui, a dark laugh tinted with masochism, or...or it can be a self-deprecating yet good-humored laugh that asks, “Really?” shakes its head, and answers, “Yes, really.”

I guess that third type of laugh is a pretty complicated one. Oh well.

There is no fate that can not be surmounted by scorn.
--Albert Camus

Paroxysmal Pedagogy

2008-07-21T17:02:00.000-06:00

How can I be an English teacher when I don’t believe in poetry anymore — at least not in the form most conceive it? What if I believe a poem should never quite know where it’s going until it gets there? That lines should flow together without suffering the violence of an end-stopped break that interrupts the pace and wastes so much space where words should be? And what if I lie and say that a poem could ever satisfy the intractable demands of meaning and truth? What if all I can do is undermine the very line that you read as I write it?

[praxis]

2008-06-29T01:21:00.003-06:00

The game is only fun for those who play it well. And sometimes I do. But as soon as I start getting ahead I begin to forget the first rule: it’s just a game. It will never be any more. Not ever. And believe me, I speak from experience. I have a saying, and for a few months I began to question its validity. But it proved itself true in the end. And that saying is this: a girl you meet at a bar will never be anything more than a girl you met at a bar. Not ever. And the day I fully embrace that, I will master the game. Or I will just quit playing altogether.

POTC 2008

2008-06-15T13:58:00.001-06:00

Music was played, friends were made, and the keg was floated. Things were said and done that shan’t be repeated. Body parts were revealed that should not have been. Photos were taken that should be destroyed. There was shirtless, sweaty man love. There was blood and bruises and marshmallows.

And it was awesome.

Here’s to good times and the best friends a guy could ask for.

They move on beams of never-ending light

2008-06-13T13:56:00.000-06:00

These sounds surround me like a castle and I am unassailable. I stand on the highest turret and take in the scene surreal. Colors and lights and horizons. My eyes are closed but I can see them swirling around in a constant motion of melody and syncopation that is the meaning in me.

Inside of Happiness

2008-06-09T22:27:00.002-06:00

I try to forget, but the ties that were are cut and lacking tension, dangling without purpose. I see a photo or a passing reminder and it hurts, not because of the bad times but because of the good, and how I miss those. And I’m happy most of the time now. But sometimes I think that the inside of happiness is a hollowed-out core where no one asks if things are really how we want them to be.

And a folk singer sings, Yeah, I’ve made love, and I’ve been fucked, so what?

Awake

2008-05-21T00:24:00.001-06:00

My eyes are open wider now. Not like a person who is afraid of the world but like a person who can take it in. And take it. Because something has changed. Something in me knows I’m more alive now. That I have more life than can be overcome. More light than the darkness can answer.

Ode to Sunscreen

2008-05-19T12:33:00.002-06:00

O sunscreen, what a miracle you seem
to the pasty-white white boy I'll always be.
A trustworthy buffer against that orange enemy in the sky,
my suit of armor against the UV arrows that fly
so fast toward my skin, but they won't get in
because you adhere through sweat and through tears
and stick to me like an ever-true friend.

Distant

2008-05-17T01:30:00.001-06:00

I may begin to seem that way. But it has little to do with you. Just think of it as an act of self-preservation.

The difference is, we wake up

2008-05-13T00:37:00.002-06:00

There are times when I realize I have fallen asleep. Not in my bed or sitting in my chair, but just in life. I am walking and talking and smiling and working. And I am asleep. And it’s intentional. Because that sudden gasp of air and wide-opened eyes that come when you wake up might be too much. It might be too much to look around and see how this world really is—and where I am in it.

But I must. Because feigning sleep is a child’s response. And I can’t claim that innocence.

Lo único que importa es continuar

2008-05-07T17:55:00.000-06:00

Last night I watched a documentary about immigrants from Mexico and Central America who try to cross the U.S.-Mexico border illegally. One Mexican man who they followed on his journey said this:

“Before you leave, there will be many people here who will only tell you negative things. Like ‘watch out for snakes’ or ‘the ranchers might kill you.’

“And when you are on the journey, a lot of people will tell you, ‘Don’t continue, la Migra is up ahead.’ But what am I to do with that information? Turn back? I have to keep going. The point is to keep going.”

Lo único que importa es continuar.

All that matters is that I keep going.

Remuneration

2008-05-01T15:09:00.002-06:00

I feel it creeping, always a few steps behind me. If I slow down too long, if I stop for a breath it will catch me. And then comes the darkness. Doubt and fear and knowing that I am failing. That I may not be who I want to be and that I definitely never planned to be here—not now, not ever. That things may not work out in the end.

So I steady my pace and try not to look over my shoulder except when I have to. To remind myself that I have to keep pushing even as my body fails. To remind myself that one day there will be an accounting. And I’m the one responsible for all this.

The Sin of the Fathers

2008-04-30T00:53:00.000-06:00

I’ll look for the answer in the bottom of this pint glass. If it’s not here, then the next. And then we can talk and I’ll threaten to walk out and maybe even do it—again. But I won’t mean it. It’s just what I need to do to breathe. Just something in my genes, this tendency to leave.

The Monsters and Magic of Entropy

2008-03-12T14:24:00.006-06:00

I just came to and realized that I have toppled head first down the rabbit hole of information theory. I have only a vague sense of how I got here. I remember reading Umberto Eco, typing out a quote, looking up a term. I might have clicked on a hyperlink. But now I’m face to face with the monsters and magic of entropy, black holes, transinformation, and Kullback-Leibler divergence and have no idea how to extricate myself without triggering a quantum data loss or a disequilibrium resulting in certain theoretically-posited molecular annihilation.

The Mustard Seed Revolution

2008-03-03T12:47:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I fully realized that I am more interested in prophets than profits. I am more interested in an economy of love and peace than an economy of money and power. More in reconciliation than retribution.

Maybe this makes me unfit for this world. Or maybe it makes me perfectly fit to change it.

After the beep

2008-01-28T22:40:00.001-07:00

I can usually say that I’ve left my sentimental days behind me—years behind me, in fact. But the “it’s me” in the voicemail you leave means more than it should to me because I’ve been trained to read into things that only seem to need to be read into, or at least taken out of context enough for me to separate word from meaning and make a textual scene from a mere informality.

How it doesn’t

2008-01-03T22:08:00.001-07:00

Yesterday I had trouble getting in because the keypad on the door of my apartment building wasn’t working. It doesn’t work quite often, but this time it was doing something different. I thought to myself, that’s not how it doesn’t usually work.

I’m seeing a girl who tells me that she tries to make me smile because she loves my smile. She holds my hand when we walk down the sidewalk and understands without me having to say a word. And I think, this is not how it doesn’t usually work.

A Winter Away

2007-11-26T23:42:00.000-07:00

I understand that we all have seasons in our lives. But what happens when season lasts too long? What if a winter didn’t break for years? Would the grass remember how to grow or the sun to shine? Would the birds still find their way back—and sing their song? Would one remember the warmth of a summer sun on his face?

On a solitary, twenty-three degree night in Denver, Colorado, these are my concerns.

Academic, again

2007-11-13T16:20:00.000-07:00

I have resumed my academic pursuits once again—namely, work on my dissertation. So, if in a conversation with you I start talking about Godwinian anarchism or atavistic response to crisis, just ride it out. I’ll stop talking eventually.

All I need

2007-11-09T23:03:00.000-07:00

Tonight I chose to be alone. I left a group of friends at the pub to come home and, in silence, think. I left because I realized that friend can never mean much of anything in this world. I say that because we all believe in lies. Lies that tell us what we should want, who we should be…who we should be with. And anyone (everyone) who is lost in this blessed deception can never be trustworthy.

What is friend compared to Savior? Or mate compared to Lord?

He is all I need. He is all I need.

Syllogistically Speaking

2007-10-31T01:25:00.000-06:00

I’ve realized that I’m at a place in my life that don’t need a woman. What I mean is that I don’t need a woman to take care of me or to make me happy. I manage to remember to shower and feed myself most of the time, and I’m pretty darn happy with my life. However, I think the only way that I’ll stop opting to fall asleep in my recliner instead of going to bed is through the influence of a woman. So, syllogistically speaking, if going to sleep in a bed instead of a recliner is a beneficial to me, and a woman is the only way to get me to bed from my recliner, then a woman is beneficial to me. Or at least deductive reasoning would argue such.

Updating my status...

2007-10-17T00:09:00.000-06:00

Matthew is losing touch with his dreams. In the wake of the apparent losses he is forging new ones. Dreams of waking to the sunrise. Of bicycling from Denver, Colorado to Eastland, Texas. Of doing what he has always been afraid to do. Of giving the best he has on behalf of another and never expecting anything in return. Of really not caring what others think. Of losing his life to find it. Of letting another praise him, and not his own lips. Of being joyful always. Of becoming a servant to all.

The Answer in the Anomaly

2007-10-08T01:14:00.000-06:00

Because a smile broke out this weekend more times than I can count. And I meant every one. Because a friend asked me questions I couldn’t answer, and I found peace in that. Because I woke up late but got there right on time. Because a coffee shop conversation found mystery in hope.

Because a promise realized pays the debt of patience tenfold.

the one

2007-09-27T02:01:00.001-06:00

Some day I'll stop being "the one who got away" and start being the one who will never leave.

Rules of Consumption

2007-09-24T22:59:00.000-06:00

If, hypothetically, one were to get a beer buzz (some might say beer 'drunk') on a Saturday night, one should follow that up with a whiskey buzz (some might say whiskey 'drunk') on Monday night. After doing so, one might realize that this talk of “alcohol tolerance” may, in fact, be a myth.

The New Romance

2007-09-21T02:50:00.000-06:00

A touch of the leg, a brush of the hand and I’m sure that I’m just a pawn in a move that breaks every rule of every game that we’ve made but who’s for rules because the joy is in the breaking out of the noise that ended you last time and who’s to say(?) such a double-edged play might end with you in or near my bed or at least leave you feeling less dead than the night when loneliness put a bullet through you.

A Broken Temple

2007-09-19T22:34:00.000-06:00

If my body is a temple, then it’s a broken one. Shattered stained glass and cracks in the foundation. Only just standing. And now it’s poisoned. I didn’t do the breaking but I drank the poison because I thought the only antidote for pain would be numbness.

I desperately need a mason and a carpenter and stained-glass painter who can fix this mess of a hollowed-out holy place unfit for a savior of your kind. But the shingles are slipping and the arches are crumbling. Please come quickly. Please come quickly.

I'm not very good at being alone at night

2007-09-09T23:36:00.000-06:00

And some times it gets to me.

“Swan dive swing vote”

2007-08-31T01:20:00.000-06:00

That was the title of the piece I tried to write last night. As I typed, words eased onto the page with subtle threads of sound laced throughout and signification as dense as a sonnet. But then it stopped. I didn’t want it to, so I pushed it, shoving more words in, forcing creation into intent until the very subject matter of the work played out once again, as if in an absurdist drama rife with irony. A heated exchange of signals in my brain and a balance of chemicals being tipped to a disadvantage, for me, but potentially advantageous to any who might read it and think so this is what madness sounds like.

PANTS!

2007-08-16T00:11:00.000-06:00

These are the pants I'm wearing right now:

They are more awesome than you can ever hope to be.

Perplexed

2007-08-14T01:29:00.000-06:00

Two times in the past two days on two separate occasions, a beautiful girl has smiled really big and waved at me as I was riding by on my bicycle. Both times I kinda sensed that they were expecting me to stop and talk to them. But I didn't stop either time. Because I was convinced they thought I was someone they knew.

unimpressive thoughts

2007-08-03T01:13:00.000-06:00

1) People like photos with people in them. I've been watching the number of hits on some recent photos I posted to flickr, and I've found this to be true.

2) I am the only person on my hall who actually lives here. The lady in apartment 3312 had a postcard stuck in her door for over two months. Yesterday morning, the FexEx man left a package in front of the door of apartment 3309. And it was still there when I got home at midnight tonight. I haven't heard my next door neighbor in weeks, and I've never even seen the person who lives in the aparment across from mine. On my hall, I am the only person, actually, who lives here.

I guess it begins again

2007-07-28T18:49:00.000-06:00

Running into you in places I didn't plan to be. Surprised every time, I never get out what I want to say. That your hair looks great grown long. That your perfume smells beautiful, if smell can be such. Instead I talk small and have no idea what I’m saying. Because your eyes. They captivate, enthralling all of me.

Blessed

2007-07-23T02:06:00.000-06:00

Because I’ve found a love I can't conceive.
Because a heart turned to stone has started to beat again.
Because I’ll love till it hurts, then I’ll love some more.
Because I’ve discovered the secret.
Because the cynics speak hollowed-out claims, halfheartedly.
Because a life in his name is never safe.
Because the cracks let the light come in.
Because “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.”
Because Death has no victory.
Because he’s opened my eyes to see it.
Blessed.
Because we all are. Every single one of us.

Amazing Grace, How Sweet the Sound

2007-07-18T01:54:00.000-06:00

I love you because it hurts to. Because you kill me. And nothing makes me feel more alive than dying.

I’m starting to see something divine in that. You will never be who I need you or want you to be, and that somehow makes it better. Gives me peace. Because that’s who I am to him. I am the one who falls down, runs away, slaps his face. Then begs for help. I am the one who can never be the man he wants me to be. But just once, I swear, I wish I could say that I even tried to be.

Fucked

2007-07-13T03:24:00.001-06:00

Because I thought I’d found ‘the one,’ again. And was wrong, again.
Because bad decisions leave scars like sloppy incisions in permanent marks.
Because in times like these, alone is the scariest place to be.
Because a death wish is a life wish gone to hell.
Because yesterday may have been the best day of my life.
Because I can never save you from what he’s done.
Because I’ll break my vow again tonight.
Because I’ll lie and make you think I’m alright.
Because it’s in my genes, a double helix jinx.
Because I’m more than you can handle.
Fucked.
Because we all are. Every single one of us.

Shh...

2007-07-09T00:48:00.000-06:00

I love doctor appointments. Over the past few years, I’ve seen sinus doctors (4), allergists (2), general practitioners (2), and an orthopod. I go in and tell them what is wrong. And they listen. Really listen. And that’s what I love about it. Because no one listens anymore.

Surprise

2007-07-05T17:53:00.000-06:00

I'm starting to see my life as the day of a surprise birthday party. But the minutes become months and I'm still waiting for everyone to jump out and scream "Surprise."

A Ghostly Jest

2007-06-28T01:20:00.000-06:00

I live in a wing of the old St. Luke’s Hospital, built in the 1930s, that some developers gutted and turned into industrial-style lofts. I’ve heard rumors that this had been the pediatrics wing. A few months ago, they put in a new elevator. It has had numerous problems and has been shut down for repairs quite frequently. The latest “quirk” is that once you step in and push the button for the floor you want to go to, the door starts to shut, then opens again four times, finally closing on the fifth. Just yesterday, I noticed that this problem had either been repaired or stopped on its own.

Last night when I came home around 1 a.m., I stepped into the elevator and pushed the button for the third floor. The doors shut on the first try, but then the car didn’t move. The doors opened to let me out, still on the first floor. I pushed the circular button labeled "3" again and got the same result. A bit frustrated, I just walked out of the elevator and started up the stairs, which are right next to the elevator shaft. After climbing five or six stairs, I heard the doors to the elevator close and the car start to go up. I came out of the stairwell on the third floor, and right as I was walking in front of the elevator doors, they opened. My rationality wanted to laugh it off as the failure of modern mechanics. But the immediate chill that ran up my spine and down my arms made me wonder if I wasn’t the object of a prank from a child who might have never left the hospital. As I walked down the long corridor to my apartment door, I looked over my shoulder several times to make sure that the unseen was at least staying that way.

This Round Is On Me

2007-06-26T01:32:00.000-06:00

Left alone with my insecurities, your words replay in my head. Over and over. “Why are you so self-conscious?” This is not an issue that should come up on the first night we’ve met. But it does and I am and I've got no response. Look away. Pint glass to lips and swallow. I’m not good at hiding and I know why I’ve never played this game. Because the best liar always wins.

the Pragmatics of Suffering

2007-06-18T23:07:00.000-06:00

Not long ago, I realized I want to be a writer. Then I spiraled into a depression. Not a real depression, just a poetic one. One morning, I looked in the mirror and noticed that I had grown a beard. And that my eyes didn’t look the same.

But it occurred to me that since I’m not famous yet, my going into a depression would not draw the kind of attention it should. So I decided to hold off on being depressed.

---

2007-06-08T11:22:00.000-06:00

Several weeks ago, I woke up from a dream, or a vision of sorts, and scribbled down a description of what I had seen. I completely forgot about it until today when I found the scrap of paper I wrote it on. Here is how it reads:

The not-Philosophy
3:44am
I saw it clearly. A four-dimensional, utterly complete system of thought. It was multi-cubed and labyrinthine. Translucent. Skeletal. Truth was inherent in the structure, but it cannot be spoken or formulated. It was the framework of everything, luminous, floating above me as I marveled at its beautiful complexity. As I began to gain consciousness, the object drifted away, becoming as little more than lightning flashes in a distant storm cloud.

Goodbye, Dresden

2007-06-03T23:39:00.000-06:00

It’s not like I knew her. She lived next door for only a short time, six months maybe, but the mere proximity lends itself to a sense of loss upon leaving. Maybe it’s because she left her door propped open after she was gone and the smell of her place filled the hallway. As I unlock my own door, I think how this was the scent that had been closed in until now, how when she would open her door, this is what home smelled like. And it's lovely.

damn you, John Updike

2007-05-31T23:44:00.000-06:00

You broke me down again. But I’m grateful, in a way. Janice loses the baby in the murky bathwater. My eyes swell. Harry comes back home.
Nelson, age five, asks, “Baby sick?”
Then the next day, “Is baby Becky dead?”
“Yes.” Harry answers.
And I’m useless for the rest of the day. Because I want a Janice. And a Nelson. And the bad times. Because you only know bad if most days are better. Good, even.

Too visibly unaffected

2007-05-26T11:55:00.001-06:00

By the news that you have plans to wed. Because I know it moves something deep in me that previously clung to indeterminacy, or to some impossible possibility that we could—

Never has come just as we knew it would (should?). Yet your reservations reverberate, and I wonder what that means. To me, implicating.

Henry

2007-05-24T19:49:00.000-06:00

Phantom my killing is theater
imminent on the object anonymous.
It’s daunting with possibility.
I lie faking if I succeed.

What yellows in my own tomorrow?
Cardiogram antithesis if a reason.
Oh sear is cigarette
as I breathe in again.

All, I come closer in arriving left of
after all our pier is not sunk,
mocking out to sea who aren’t
in epic romance vacuous.

[a homophonic rendering of Sappho's "Fragment 31" with heavy influence from Laird Hunt's The Exquisite]

of Ribbons and Rebellion

2007-05-21T01:04:00.000-06:00

I want a typewriter because I think I am supposed to be a writer. It’s what I’m good at, what comes naturally. Words and phrases flow from my fingertips and create paragraphs, pages, and pathos. And if not pathos, at least noises, stirrings, whispers. All the things that are the beginnings of revolutions and rebellion through reticence and recalculations of how you thought of words before and how you will never see them the same again. Or maybe I’ve had one to many whiskey and 7ups.