5.31

A celebration of a fiend's birth opens with a convocation of illicit terrors, of women screaming and animals convulsing. All hell gathers round to sound with peals of laughter at the screaming newness of the creature there, a squealing horror crawling from the corpse of its mother, its life-bringer born itself on this day a year before. There is no blood. The corpse crumbles away, rotten, ashy, a thousand years dead and still dying, body made of rot-flesh and fear.
I was born today, and the celebrants are carousing still.

5.30

The bones of a gnarled priest litter the beach. I'll use the calcified remnant to build a temple to the surf, and when the dread gods wake and slough the waters from their broken faces, they'll see the ossification of this morbid religion, first. I make no claims of salvation, only that they'll know we remembered the last time they rose and ate our planet.

5.28

The quality of light is very important to me. When it slants sideways, the world seems to tilt accordingly. When it cuts through trees from above, I feel alone. When it's dark out, there's nothing left to ground me, and I stare at my phone's brief blue flicker and feel alive again.
Today, the light was heavy, and it sank on me like a blanket. You could see that, couldn't you? I'm sure it was obvious. I couldn't move. The more I tried to get up, the more I was driven back down, into the couch, into the carpet, into the bed. Alive, but unliving, shackled by this certain immensity of light.

5.27

I am destroyed, utterly, by the dark rings that line your irises. When people say the word "pierce," they picture you, delivering the killing blow through your lashes. What's a tilt and a soft smile doing there, anyway, on a face that means death to me? And how have I lived through the onslaught?

5.25

This morning, I dreamt of a wide-open plain, awash with the grey light of dawn. Standing in the midst, an impossible distance from me and every detail in perfect focus, stood my haunt. I have lived in her corpse for so long that I know every vein and sinew with the intimacy of a lover. And is that not what I am? This ship to me, and I to her? Scuttled a thousand miles from her nativity, stranded among my walks and vistas, awash in the soft waves of grass. A sea, perhaps, but foreign, strange. She groans with discontentment and I paint the grass an azure to match the sky. She lists with boredom and I lash the sails down and wait for the wind. I'm so enchanted with my captured princess that I fail to see the storm until it's upon me, the water sweeping across my limitless prison plain, her hull grating, aching, lifting, gone. Her savage wreck, once the pride of the land, now drifts to the sea unhindered, unaided, unknown.

5.22

Why, wisp, will I follow? Slapdash, you slither insanely, a silvery slanting indecent snake. My grunting, ingenious growth groans and lags you, a golem of gradual gains. Leave me, lover. I fail you.

5.21

Two people enter the room. They were holding hands; it was very cute. She was wearing a romper like a little girl would, and he followed her like a little boy. They were old enough to know better.
"Look at this helmet! It's got a little monkey on it."
It didn't. It was from Mali. Helmet mask with human figure, the placard proclaimed.
She walked from the room, leading him. They spent eighteen dollars on this.

Fifteen masks, ten figurines, seven bowls, five throwing weapons, a spear, and a chieftain's staff.
Thirty seconds and an insult. Either I art badly, or they do.

5.18

I feel cautiously definitive when I say that people do not ride Greyhound buses. Maybe they were interesting before (He leaned over there seat back and said "I've been married once—" She threw her head back and laughed. "I've been married three times!" "Three!" "I'm Marilyn Monroe." "You are Marilyn. You are.") but boarding the bus destroys some vital energy in all of us. We all sleep (The four-year-old traveling with her dad popped up every ten seconds to make another silly face. Rajiv smiled every time. The movie he is watching has a mixed cast, but the main characters are ludicrously attractive Indians. At one point, a statue if the Buddha appears, fades, is replaced by a cross, only to be replaced by Rama. She's still making faces. At the rest stop, he buys some candy and tracks down her dad: "Does she want some candy?" He offers me a Snapple and we talk about education [how did he guess I'm an English teacher?] and India and Mother Theresa. He met her.) like lifeless husks. Reduced, as it were, by boiling, to a homogenous humanity, ("When do we get to LA?" I don't mean to misgender him; he presented very strongly male. But his hands were gorgeous, with long, perfect nails painted a deep crimson. He sighed at my answer—"An hour until Redding, more until Sacramento, and more stops until noon"—and said "Well, it just means more smoke beaks, I guess." His jeans fit like a mom, his hat with ear flaps askew, his satchel manly with a woman's coin purse tucked inside.) no part of us more bland and tasteless than the whole. We only speak about the trip: how far? What's the delay? Why did the driver suddenly pull to the shoulder and exit the bus? And that, only in hushed tones ("I'm retiring in the next few years. My children, they say 'oh, you should relax!' but why? I have an idea: the home, in the Philippines?" "Yeah?" "It is too perfect, I could make an air b&b, or a bed and breakfast, you know. The island there, there is a small island and the word has got out about us. It is a small town, but the beach is very good and the tourists are starting to flock. I could start a b&b and maybe have some extra money in my retirement. See? This is my house." "Wow, actually." "And this: this is my town, my island." "Oh, it's gorgeous. Ah, I'm jealous. I've wanted to go to the Philippines for a while." "You should! It's a good base, and from there you get flights to Thailand, to Vietnam, to anywhere. I got a flight to Bangkok and it cost me, you won't believe, it was thirty eight dollars!") devoid of life. The bottom of the barrel has been upturned and the last remnants scraped out and squeezed, and the wine it makes is congealed into the seats like a Dickensian scene. We are the worst available, and the best they have (She hasn't taken her earbuds out since LA. She does not seem like the sort of person to be even curious about a boy growing a Civil War-style handlebar mustache. I am intensely curious why I am doing it. She and I made eye contact twice. The second time, I threw her a thumbs-up. Why the hell not? She blinked and rolled her head away as if letting it fall, avoiding my thumb, my smile, my mustache. She is the most attractive person I've seen, apart, maybe, from Rainn, the driver who's not even on this bus. He had a dope hat and a cavalier way of demanding that you not make him kick you off for smoking pot. He gave fist-bumps to kids. She got off the bus in Phoenix, and while I'll miss the idea that hot girls ride Greyhounds, I'll miss the actual person of Rainn. She's a host, a homogenous solid, a distillation of an abject aspect of humanity that dares not board a bus unless at the extremity of need. She reads this post, skips the parentheticals, and nods like she gets it.)

Honestly, I don't know when I get off, but it can't come soon enough.

5.17

Destiny was off again and yelling obscenities. "Just use the fuckin' phone, you fuckin' jackass. It's easy, I don't know why you're having so much fuckin' trouble. What are you just gonna fuckin' beat me again? It's all you fuckin' do." He was listening pretty patiently up until this point.
"Hey, don't say that, man."
She was holding my phone and tapping it like a baboon would, like an old woman, like an alien who's afraid of what they've got. Stabbing. Punching invisible sliding keys and unknown options. She called the third person, talked for thirty seconds, and handed the phone back to him. He walked over to me.
"Hey, thanks, man. Looks like we're in for a walk."
"No problem," I reply. "I've been where you are. I lost my phone a couple months ago and got a lot of help. I try to give back what I got."
He smiled. "Man, I really appreciate it. We've got a hike to get where we're going, and all her meds and stuff--she's off her meds because--all her meds and stuff are there, but we've got to hike, and we got the tent, but no sleeping bag, you know? Man, I really appreciate it. I came up here a coupla months ago and had my truck and my tools, looking for work, and a coupla guys jumped me and broke my elbow and found--well, the tools were in the trailer, and they took all that, and me a veteran."
"Damn, man. When it rains, it pours."
"You can say that again."

I offered him some granola bars. He said maybe a couple of bucks would be better. I apologized for not having any and continued to dig. He made a dismissive gesture and turned down the granola bars.
"Okay," I murmured, and closed up my backpack.
The security guard came to ask them to leave only a minute or so after that. The bus they wanted had left an hour before. Bad luck on bad luck.

5.16

[I'm enjoying finally being in a place in my life with reminders set up to daily blog again. I'm not good at it anymore, but I'm having a good time. Dad said one of my posts made mom cry. I guess I'm keeping with the theme.]

I walked into the common room, carrying my pack. "Alright," I called out. "Which of you are bunking in the room with me?" Eleven men--boys, really--stood up and shuffled toward the door where I stood. "Let's go look at this room situation," I said, and, turning abruptly, walked into the hallway. They walked in front of me and led the way to the large dormitory-style room. Three bunk beds, two mattresses, and an air mattress filled the space. The last three rooms I had ducked into were spotless, and the beds were made up. This room was a sty. The boys all threw themselves onto their beds, expectant. In the back corner, I saw a junior officer stand up from his bed, surprised. "Don't worry, Lieutenant. I've just got to sort this out." He nodded.
"Where are you sleeping, Captain?" one boy called out.
I turned to him morosely. This seemed like an entirely temporary arrangement. Why was the military bunking officers with enlisted anyway? And worse? Each man had chosen the choicest spot for himself as he arrived, leaving no space except to sleep with two others on the large bed in the center. Several men were already double-bunked on the larger beds. Honestly, it couldn't be helped; they wouldn't have been able to leave me space and fit themselves into the room, but: it couldn't be helped. There's no good being merciful in a situation like this.
"I understand that you all knew I would be rooming with you? That would explain why you all stood up when I asked. No, don't speak. It won't make things better, and you know it. What I want to know is how eleven bright young idiots saw the billet with two officers and decided to save one bed out for the both of them."
There were stirrings in the ranks. Several boys looked extremely uncomfortable. One tried opening his mouth, but I bit the words off before they came out.
"No, don't try to answer that. This is an entirely hypothetical conversation. I'm just perplexed at what you all thought would happen. Did you just think to take a risk, hoping I wouldn't show up and kick you out of bed? Maybe you thought that after a while I just wouldn't show up? Well, good news for all of you: I'm as fair as fair can be. I'm not going to kick one or two of you out of bed. I'm kicking you all out, and I'll pick your bunks. Grab your things and make your bed and when I give you a bunk to knock out in, you'd better say thank you and treat it like you would your own momma's bed."
There wasn't any sound, at that point, other than the fast shuffling of men stuffing their personal effects into packs and scurrying toward the door.
Then it was just the lieutenant and myself in the room. I frowned at him, and he just shrugged. Time to reapportion the fools. I guess just alphabetically, this time. I took a deep breath and turned around.

Dream 5.16.17 6:30 am

5.15

I believe that the NPS and BLM were established to maintain the greatest good for the greatest number of people. Their existence is a model for other countries and sets us apart from lesser nations. We should support them and empower them. I've visited about a hundred parks, monuments, and landmarks in the last two years, and every single one of them made me a richer person.
I learned more about what it means to be American at the Washita Battlefield in Oklahoma. I felt how small I was at El Morro. I reconnected with family memories at Mount Capulin volcano. I made new friends on the Blue Ridge Parkway. In fact, these small monuments that are out-of-the-way like Alibates Flint Quarries and the Julian Weir Memorial were far and away my favorites. At Alibates, I was riding my bicycle and so extremely stressed that I would miss the opportunity to take the only guided tour of the day, but the ranger was so extremely kind to let me go even though I arrived almost an hour after the scheduled time. The relief I felt was so extreme after the stress of an hour of bicycling that the memory was burned into me indelibly. Seeing the quarries and the debitage utterly blanketing the ground, I was overcome with my closeness to an ancient people. At Julian Weir, I talked to a woman and man who were emigrants from Germany, people who were old enough to remember the other side of World War II. I only know a little German, but I will forever remember her saying "I was just very lucky to be sent to the United States before the worst of it." And he only blinked, and said "I was not so lucky." It was all he needed to say. Without these places, I would never have gotten to experience the breadth of humanity. Please preserve and protect this great American institution. Preserve and protect NPS lands. Thanks.


Please go support Bears Ears and other monuments.
Link

5.14

I just have to apologize in a way I could never do to your face. We've only talked twice, I know, and you're married, I understand that. I immediately imagined you as single, just to picture what it would be like to ask someone on a date after all this time. I promise it won't affect me. I do feel bad. I just needed to see what it would be like, this nerve-wracking fear of rejection.
Oh, in case you're wondering, I flubbed the delivery and you laughed, but we didn't go on the date. Don't worry; I won't do it again.

5.13

You've never been described as sultry, but there is a certain mugginess to your weather. I don't know what it is, but it makes me sweat. Don't ever change.

5.12

I suppose it doesn't matter, at the end of the day, what I call you, friend. I knew you once by a different name, and now you've changed it, but it hasn't changed you. Shakespeare knew. But wherefore are you Romeo, instead of Juliet? Wherefore are you he instead of she? Why would it matter to me? Romeo henceforth: I hear that's what you like.
I heard once a person confused over your new terminology, the cluttered aperture of language obfuscating the simple truth of the new You, and I had a revelation as they spoke. This boor, uncultured and uncouth, bemoaned the discomfort of the change with a simple supplication. This barbarian said simply "I never cared about gender before. Why do you care so much?" It seemed selfish of them, but I saw that it seemed selfish to them, to ask for a pointless difficulty, and the simple translation from boor to human shocked me. I know their motivation. Like looking into a mirror after a long time struggling to survive, I saw my haggard likeness in this statement. Our reactions could not be more different, I acquiescing, the boor declining, but our motivations were the same. We didn't care, perhaps equally disinterested in the names you choose for yourself.

Maybe the boor doesn't care about your names because the boor doesn't care about you.
I don't care about your names because I don't care about me.

My pronouns:
My gender:
My sexuality:
I'm not pan or asexual, not bi or trans. Whatever label you choose for me, I feel no pain. Call me cissexual, call me male. Pick labels for me; you always have. I won't repudiate them. Call me woman, call me gay. It says more about you than me, at this point. Labels don't matter, my very good friend. A rose, remember? Your labels are cheap.
Are you selfish to ask so little of your friends? Yes. But it is a very little you ask. Am I selfless to let you call me what you will? No. I only gain from your assumptions of me. Why? My proclivities seem conventional to you, I suppose, but don't judge me. (I don't judge you.) Convention holds an equivalent value to the subversion, in this case. Convention: I like straight women. You label me by the way I look and act, thinking the label matters to me, thinking to build my self-worth by gilding me with ideas I value.
Oh, friend.
I appear as such not to fit this corporeality to some idea of self, but because I'm hunting. This foul form is only a lure to attract the attractive. You call me male, you think I'm straight. Excellent. I hear that's what she likes.

5.11

It has never felt wrong, this ring. I have always put it on to return my hand to right. Yesterday, it feels like a part of my hand. But today, driving away from you for the last time, it was terrifying, aggressive. I touched it and felt the alien fear of it. I felt as though it weren't mine, and I stripped out off, throwing it into the empty passenger seat, panting, afraid. I stared at the cold titanium and wondered if I would ever put it on again.

I have touched my ring finger with my thumb, a simple gesture I didn't know was habitual, seven times unconsciously. Every time, I'm surprised.

5.10

I've written a hundred post cards and I have a hundred more, but I forgot you. You'd like a letter, I think. Would it hurt to see it in the mailbox? Would you pick it up? Are you afraid of my handwriting, mother of mine, and does the cramped script frighten you?

5.9

I'm alone at the court again, sitting among the dregs and the riffraff, myself a trash man who belongs in a trash pile. Fancy people from upstairs walk past. They belong here, drawing in the flotsam like a vortex. They walk past us, unseeing these five or six who wait for their time, attention, help. This is their world, and we, like fish from a lake, founder in the deeper waters.
Every form is an insult. Every wait is hell. I hate this place.

5.8

I can still feel my feet, and it's killing me, this icy water. All of it is snow melt, all of it is cold. The rush of water around me keeps dragging heat out of my limbs. I can feel a fire in my skin tearing away at my bones. It hurts. But--I'm still here, walking forward, because the view is better from the middle of the stream.

5.6

"What's that word mean, 'quotidian,'" he whispered. He glanced around, looking for someone smarter to explain it, but he found that he didn't know anybody anymore. He took a crack at it anyway: "What's this word mean? 'Quotidian,'" his voice breaking on the last word. People looked at him, but didn't pay any attention. He felt weird, out of place. This was the wrong venue for his inquisitive nature. This place was too normal, too ordinary, too everyday. He closed his book and rushed from the place, ears burning.

5.5

I feel him, there, tiny feet scratching my palm, carapace growing hot. I open my palm just a flutter, and out he flies like a shot. Maybe I shouldn't have tried to snatch him from thin air, but he seems fine (none the worse for wear). And he didn't really seem to mind me, much. I'll miss him, my ladybug. We may have been friends, but not friends, as such.

5.4

L'appel du vide.

Do you ever have that funny idea crawl into the back of your head, insidious, only to present itself fully-formed and intentional, that death is only a breath away? I don't look at cliffs anymore while I'm driving. All I see is a slight twitch and a long fall. Standing at the edge of a skyscraper's observation deck, the only thought that consumes me is how easy it would be to just step off into open space. Straddling a rock at the edge of a torrent, I lean forward as if to gauge how minute is the distance between my perch and certain death.

The call of the void.

5.3

What boundaries lie before us, friends? What unseen depths below? The sky streaks an amber hue as the last gasp of day drives the sails onward. The whole of creation is glimmered with an excited shell of animate energy and the sea itself phosphoresces beneath the hull. The only sound to my ear is a soft lap of warm salt water on the boards and the murmur of your voices at the stern. Is this true contentment? I don't suppose I would know. I've been hungry all my life to see the things no one has yet seen, driven to be the foremost in my field. What has it bought me, except desperation?
Perhaps I curse the day for its brevity, the wind for its sloth. Perhaps I begrudge you the time you spend fraternal as I fly further from life. Perhaps I have not been exploring, but rather seeding thin slices of myself across the vastness of the unexplored globe, planting my self-worth in the rock of a jagged peninsula or the alluvial soil at the mouth of a river. Perhaps I have now cut too deeply and glanced the center mass, and I have now bled too freely and finally feel the primal weakness of our race. There isn't much left that's human of me, you'll see.
What vastness, what terror! The leagues of sea-spray between me and home straiten me like a trap. Keen remorse! The suddenness with which it takes me puts a chill in the last soul I have left. What has become of her; I must know. Is she dead? Alone? Or with--but better dead, for my lot. And I better dead for hers. Maybe the gulls would carry the news of me to her, and she could mourn in proper season, dull, forget, live on. Your voices carry me from my reverie as you peal laughter at some coarse nothing. The moment is meaningless now, and it is safe to speak aloud for the first time in days. My voice cuts raspy against my throat, an unfamiliar guest.
"What of Penelope? Do I sail to her ghost?"
Drifting in the animate wastes of dying day, the words are caught up and away from my ears, whipped East by divine provenance or spiting fate, to drift over my home, my son, my wife.

5.2

What if she reads this?
What if she reads this?
What if she doesn't?

5.1

I haven't cried in a long time, now. Sometimes, I feel it behind me like a ghastly presence, hovering and salivating, waiting to swoop in and ruin my day. I got out of the shower and looked at my eyes in the misty mirror, red and puffy, and wished that the artifice were truth instead. I stood there, half clothed, and rubbed my eyes with the heels of my hands and waited.

I'm still waiting. Maybe I'll wait forever.