finding out christmas

as my father drains the dregs of his wine

i'll crawl up these stairs, one at a time.

i'll avert my eyes from the ghosts in shadows,

the ones that continue to follow where i go-

and all of a sudden we feel so far a-part,

and this corridor's orange and falling apart.

as my mother stands and stares at the sink,

i'll sit in the chair and finish my drink.

i'll curl up in the seat but i won't close my eyes.

the warmth of the fire can touch my insides-

like the sun on a run before a cool autumn night.

as i watch, in the corner of my eyes,

my father drains the dregs of his wine

and i'm climbing the stairs, one final time.

to find what i've been looking for all along,

to find who i am, before i am gone.

and it is

And then there are those times in bed when no one shut the outside light by your window off,

And as it shines overhead you can pretend it's the moon-

as your breathing to yourself, 'just fine, just fine.'

I feel in these moments that I have never been further from knowing what I am doing:

A reminder that every day, we are all just living.

So you turn to those memories and images that almost have a texture in your mind.

And you're skiing through the snow in the woods in Vermont, 

or you're jumping down the sand dunes like they're the end of the earth-

And they are.

Then you're running barefoot down the dark cobbled streets:

And the pitter of your feet patters 'Just fine, just fine.'

these days

        i keep coming to my senses with my head in my hands, or braced on the edge of the desk. with my hair in my fists i feel insane. i keep finding notes i've written myself, and of all the things that happened last week, i cant remember which were dreams,

     sometimes as my head falls back, i can let it all go while i hold on tight.

     i remember this day i was so convinced i had figured out imagination; when i closed my eyes, i saw speeding racecars, but when i blinked and shut my eyes tight all over again, they had sped off. and in fourth grade i tried to tell my teacher that racecar was a palindrome but she didn't believe me. 

      but then there were saltine crackers, and track races and math textbooks that i stole in middle school by accident- that plagued my conscience but i was too scared to return them the next year thinking my teachers would be mad i hadn't done so promptly last june. and sometimes i wonder where i would be if it hadn't been for the people who forced me to be something. 

      and then with the hand me down track spikes and the pick me up ice cream cones with the pretty girl who i didn't understand, came the means to be something by myself. and with the summer and the short hair and the long bike rides, and with times on top of the car at night, and the times asleep in the sand, came the chance. 

     but i'm still sorting it out, sorting myself out. there are times when i forget my thoughts before they reach my lips, and times when i forget how to move my legs or grit my teeth. 

       i catch myself when i forget what summer feels like. what fast feels like, or skin on skin, but more importantly skin on concrete, and blood in my veins- or the sound on the dock in the rain surrounded by lily pads and the smell of wet dog. these are the things i won't let myself lose sight of if i open my eyes. our imagination leaves us when we have enough memories to go on without it, i think.

      i grit my teeth as i rip my knuckles open over and over again.

     and sometimes i'm on the right track.

     and when i grit my teeth the fourth time round the track, i feel so fucking weightless; falling apart has never looked so graceful, as i leave myself behind me for the entire world to see. 

everything, everwhywhere. fuck.

and when i was little i wanted to dig up what was left after the dinosaurs died.

and now i want to die.

in some cabinet somewhere, index labelled and easily overlooked,

my life between the thick black lines.

is this

really falling apart?

so close, so close, so close

to the goal, the close, the finish

line.

so where

does it come from?

the strength to see us to our end-

when i cant push myself anymore,

it's falling apart,

everything like i've always known it would.

it should have been a sign, those times

i couldn't move my feet

like i knew they could.

well i pull, when there's no more push i pull

on that elusive inconcrete feeling-

and recently it hasn't been working.

tangiers

at the counter at the deli,

where the slicer turns meat into money-

with a newfound love for everything,

it is all so comforting.

these scenes from my youth.

but the people here are experts,

at hiding themselves in hollow words.

their wrappings wrapped tightly,

'what we obtain too cheap, 

we esteem too lightly.'

united for a common cause:

who could call us friends?

planned, scheduled, figured out.

not the calm, calculated kids, who

figured out the mysteries of the world-

like trails from jets we streaked

(across the sky, but we were only temporary).

this was me, a flaming memory.

defeated, dejected, down.

whatever happened to my memory?

people and places spill out at the seams.

i was young, i was naive, full of dreams,

as i tried to catch every falling leaf

(oh, how they darted and dived on

hidden currents of air invisible to my eyes).

this was me, a soaring dream, a floating leaf.

desperate, drained, young.

the times when the floor

is a more comfortable bed-

the shaking in my hands, the pounding in my head-

(thoughts are threatening, ever threatening,

like clouds of saline rain over the ocean.

the waves turn black and sweep me away).

this was me. this is it.

i think i will, rest my head.

i wish more than anything i could give it all away,

give it all up, and give myself up.

pull me, tear me, bend me, break me,

whatever you will, i won't-

(no, i can't) fight you anymore.

if you can't believe me, then leave me be-

i used to try and write stories

but then someone told me, 

that i should start with the beginning and the end,

and then filling in the rest should be easy.

so i tried it, and it ruined me.

if you're going to a place you don't want to go,

then what really matters, 

is how you get there...

so many unfinished stories.

i sit in this chair, every single day,

without exception.

but then there will be a time

when i won't even sit in this room every day.

but then someone told me, 

that the first step to fixing your problems

was acknowledging the truth.

and i sit here every day,

and i am sad here most days.

but then someday i won't even sit in this room,

and the moments when i realize

that this is the happiest i have ever been,

and will probably ever be...

they ruin me.

if i ever was

for years we have tried to squint our eyes and stare at the sky. 

what is this pressure in my chest?

what is left?

what is this feeling in my feet?

i have to let it out i have to let it out.

i can feel my heart beat, there is something it keeps

locked in, the stanzas of our existence will intertwine-

the swirling leaves and falling colors,

we will all collapse, a grand collapse.

noise like the wind through the forests, over the rivers, across the seas-

thunder through the towns and the wharfs and the city streets.

everything will listen,

everything will be

what i have never felt, i will feel this time.

i am scared, i am terrified, this is mine, and i slide-

my panoramic view spinning and spinning, lightning and lighting

the colors the shapes, my life before my eyes,

everything unwinds.

i am awed by your power,

shocked by your grace.

choking and spitting and pale in the face-

hooked in my nose, the noise the noise,

the speed of your words through the air and the space.

thoughts like missiles crash into the churches, the bridges and barns,

explaining the sparks and stabs and stings

all of this, the things that cant be put to words, they ring

in my ears, before my eyes, my life-

it always ends on a riverbank in the sun at the end of the summer.

there is something in me that i do not understand.

a letter

"you can't be what you don't feel," he said,

and i believed him, and i was sad,

sad for the things i couldn't be, and the things i couldn't write.

"but you will grow up someday,

whether you feel like it or not"

and i believed him, and i did.

hey kid, there's a world out there to be lived in,

and you can't write what you don't feel

so how are you gonna write it?

and how are you gonna live it?

and how will you make it?

yours. and what will you chase?

people? dreams? storms? 

wherever you are, i hope you wont stay.

hey kid, slow down, you aren't mistaken yet.

there's a story out here, and we all just live in it.

the hours you wonder over words do not go to waste.

you have to believe that worlds collide in this place.

and walk with sure steps through the prairies and plains.

i will meet you there, where it never rains.

there is a fence at the end of this field,

and there is a storm at the end of this world. 

"you have clouds in your eyes," he said,

and lightning in my chest, i thought,

thought of the wind that moves me through the skies.

"and you have a mind like a mirror,

so go live your story, kid"

but when i wrote my life, it came out as a letter.

a sonnet

when i was four and a half, i fell in love

with the tall trees of corn and a toy truck full of grubs.

on the roof of your car we watch the sun, barely above

the treetops, dread going home and gaze at dead corn stubs.

driving my father's car for the first time, i swing

off the road to watch a flustered turkey flock

wandering through a frozen cornfield, intently gleaning. 

from the car i watch as the quiet birds peck the stalks.

now on the same state highway we take a detour.

i've always seen this road, 'let's go for a walk'

is all the convincing i need. i've always loved to explore.

stomping through the cornfields i splinter brittle stalks

and paint my cuffs with encrusted mud, because despite the early frost,

the following thaw had softened the earth, hardening my thoughts.

we will make our peace with everything

when i was little i would catch bugs and put them in glass jars.

then my father bought me a yellow and clear plastic bug keeper.

after that i would create lives for my friends in this miniature habitat.

i had two fascinations: bugs and dinosaurs. and since dinosaurs were extinct,

and i had deemed bugs more manageable, i caught bugs.

this was my first experience with love.

i could never let them go. and thimble fulls or bottle caps

of water were never sufficient to preserve their existence.

so it was sad, but i couldn't let them go. i would rather

see them grow feeble and fail in front of my eyes than let them fly

away, and that, i think, is the really fucked up part of this.

no matter how sad it was to watch them die, i could not watch them go.

and that, i think, is the really fucked up part of love.

it made my father sad, to watch these events unfold.

and now, looking back, i know where all the grasshoppers, moths,

caterpillars and frogs disappeared to while i left them unattended as i slept.

when i was eleven and it was summer, i went to Jake's house for the night.

and his step-dad got mad when we played nintendo in the basement

while Jake was supposed to be cooking his step-dad's dinner.

and that night we chased the winking lights in the dusk by the power lines,

and we captured almost twenty fireflies, which we put in a jar with holes

in the lid, which we left by the window. and for the first time

in our lives, we stayed up through the entire night.

and as the bugs' lights began to dim, Jake suggested that we release them.

so we walked through his yard in the dew and the mist and for the first time

in our lives, we stood in silence and watched the sun rise, as the fireflies

fluttered away feebly. although i had no idea why, for the first time

in my life, i felt very melancholy, a word i couldn't have defined.

and i haven't caught a single firefly since that night,

we grew up, Jake and i, and we left bugs behind.

but more important than that, i think i'm too scared to try.

and that, i think, is the really fucked up part of life. 

i sleep with my eyes open

and i see ghosts in every room.

i see your face in every picture,

and i get scared when i'm alone-

i get scared and i'm alone.

i am the cold creeping down your spine,

and i am the sting dripping from your eyes.

the catalyst of my transgression-

i believed all of your lies.

another

with connor this time-

http://www.sendspace.com/file/h5dcm9

tomorrow

in the red light of apocalypse,

in the red dawn of a new world-

we will pad the first footprints into the dust

and the dirt,

the bent steel jungle is all around us

and the ruins of ancient highway overpasses

tower over us like steel wires,

holding in the earth so it doesn't explode.

follow this link-

music by jon, lyrics/vocals by me

http://www.sendspace.com/file/4w5hk8

shorts (again)

people, places and pronouns

in years you will wish,

that everything had been simple

and that you had not lost sight of dreams

amidst good intentions and bad impressions.

because nothing is as it seems,

yet we make our peace with everything.

i am the sound,

of your voice hanging in the air.

i am the animal you keep well hidden,

in the back of your head, causing you to pull at your hair.

are you scared?

why will no one ever be as terrified of me

(because nightmares are only when

your conscience sleeps with you)

as i am of myself?

at a stop sign, in a snowstorm,

i've never felt so alone.

and i've never needed someone so bad.

not for company,

no i need you, to recreate myself

in your questioning eyes-

maybe this time i will write answers

that i can convince myself to believe.

i've always had a problem with authority,

i've always had a problem with growing up.

so many hopes built on so much uncertainty

when i was young i was wise,

and as i grew older i grew wiser-

and more adept at fooling myself.

but now i have accepted,

i'm much better off being hated than being loved.