Category: Rants

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The rime of the modern mariner

The idea of being abandoned is so painful to me that I resist it even when I am running in the opposite direction of my abandonment. I couldn’t feel the shackles fall from my neck, ankles and wrists. I could only hear, “Now go!” But, I was already running and, like a dog on a choke chain, continued to repeatedly asphyxiate myself as I reached the end of my line. “Now go!” sets me free. I bristled because I didn’t get to say, “I’m leaving.” Petulant, foolish, little boy that I am. I didn’t see that you were pushing me off the Amistad and back toward the shore of life, back to the world. Like the Ancient Mariner, I had been the lot in a craps game between Death and Life-in-Death, and having been won by the latter, it had become the only life I knew or expected. That was not, is not, and shall not ever be a life. I feel like a snake that’s just molted and am completely grossed out by the shell I’ve left behind. Thank you, thank you, thank you for telling me to fuck myself and die. Isn’t that ironic? That is where I found my life.

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Affectations

I think the only thing that works with you is affectations. I know how you feel and I know how I feel. But I also know that screams to no one are probably more effective. And perhaps my screaming isn’t for you anyway. The night is sort of used to being deaf and dumb. I scream into my pillow and feel the spit gather and pool. I type in ALL CAPS, then time your metronomic response.

But now, when I can’t help but think about you–his smile in that picture when I know he fucks you later that night; that second betrayal–the part of my torso, the call of my heart is exploding with whatever chemicals say, “Fuck that.” I go to the next thought about why I hate you, or maybe I eat this surge in my chest this once. And I’m not quite sure what I would do if you were in actual arms reach. Would I reach for you?

That ferrous taste when there’s blood in your mouth lets you know something rusted. That chewing on your cheek in angst wasn’t all in vain, there were consequences. Part of me still loves you and that part wants you to know that smell.

You ask sometimes what I am thinking. I think you say it to fill the empty space of quiet; I’m sure you are not particularly interested in the answer. The verb “to think” does not have the required nuance I need to explain to you my real-time interpretation of what I see and hear at any given moment.

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Self-report

You say what you think, how you want things to be, but you are what you do. Visa, Google, OpenAI all know you better than you know yourself. They are not hindered by defense mechanisms; their currency is data. And though data can be used to lie, in its raw form, it never does. It just is what it is. You can trust with 100% certainty that self-reporting will contain inaccuracies. It might get close if the reporter doesn’t know about, doesn’t care about, or is not actively involved in any agenda affected by this data. Otherwise, you can’t trust it. I trust your credit card, monthly statement. I trust your search history implicitly. Not the one you didn’t have a chance to curate. The ones Google, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, et al. took without asking. (Technically, they asked, or you couldn’t have joined. But who reads that fine print?)

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Words and being human

The trouble with belief is that it’s a lie. Your senses lie. There is a whole spectrum in all five senses, and yours is in the middle. You can’t see what a housefly can see. You can’t smell what a dog smells. You can’t hold your breath like a dolphin. Then why be human? That fraction of our brain that makes us sentient. The small part that gives us speech. Or makes the abstract scribbling of lines make sense as words.

I want noise. I want percussion.

I’ve had almost as many conversations about why words are important as there are words to explain why.

But words are more important than most things. They are what make us human.

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An illusion of permanence

It’s weird, all these things I curated to a greatness in my mid-teens have come ‘round to be the defining characteristics in haute couture. You might know the story of how I went to undergraduate Tacoma with nothing but a box of ill-fitting sweaters, two pairs of size-44 Levis 501’s (that I squeezed into so I wouldn’t have to buy a bigger pair) and 500 LPs ranging from Kiss to Depeche Mode to Iron Maiden to Nina Simone to Queen to Rocky Horror to Miles Davis to the Escape From New York Soundtrack. I didn’t even pack a turntable and wouldn’t have one for my first three months in school. I carried all of those albums into a future I had no idea what would bring; they were how I defined a pretty big part of myself. And in just 12 months I would trade all of those albums, at the Jelly’s on Piʻikoi for the promise of about 20 “permanent” compact discs.

The lament I have for that moment is not financial. There are far greater “what-ifs” that would have resulted in far higher values lost or found. At best, those albums might fetch five figures if the collection remained intact, and mostly undamaged (highly unlikely). I lost more selling Apple stock too early (I still made a lot, not life-changing a lot). But that makes for a good story. This one always feels like a blow; a long lost could-have-been. Those albums were me. And I traded them all in for the illusion of a new permanence. I rebuilt that CD collection even larger, and the mp3 collection larger still. But I’ve never had something again like that vinyl.

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When it ends, so do you

Is it bad that I love you but I don’t like you? Is it bad that I think you’re beautiful but everything out of your mouth that you’re not mimicking is almost always ugly? And the stuff you mimic is almost as bad, but it’s better thought out. Like the holocaust. Terrible and tragic, but there was a plan.

I’m torn between worship and disgust.

There was a time when I had nothing to explain or ask explanations of. When I see you I see an angel. Who doesn’t give one fuck about anything except being angelic. You look at me and call me a devil. I know exactly what I am.

There are words I don’t say. There are places I don’t like to look at. I made a mess in some of them, but that’s not why I don’t like to look. The difference between you and me, and I hate to think about it even. You don’t know how to look.

I’m going to lie in this hospital bed that’s actually my bed. I don’t want to be dead. I certainly didn’t try to be here. But if I could not exist anymore and be happy at the same time, that would be my choice.

A happy life to you has no conflict. Life is conflict. When it ends, so do you.

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Ledger

I realized that in my downward spiral of hopelessness, I was actually falling into the huge hole created by my absence of basic human graces. The most obvious was forgiveness. When relationships become a ledger of profit and loss, you have no friends. Just pluses and minuses. You are absolutely alone.

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Kahekili

Thunder is an emotion. I remember crying when I heard it. I never felt tough. I was never that guy. I was the one that had thoughts in my head. I was beat up by guys like you. I wasn’t fond of taking a slap.

But I guess you had to endure the pains life gave you. Gives you. Keeps giving. You may have asked for this. I didn’t ask for this. It just sort of happened.

I keep attention maybe two seconds at a time. It’s a blessing and a curse. Most likely a curse if you don’t like what I have to say. That doesn’t make me wrong.

Life is a mystery inside a riddle inside an absurdity. And we all know it. And we ignore it. You are a mess. I am a mess. And it’s such a mess when we push our mess together.

If you’d have asked me ten years ago, I would say I hate myself and want to die. Now people like that frustrate me. They make me sad in a way that I don’t like to be sad.

Words come easily. Words come like water. They flow. Sometimes they overwhelm me. They’re like a wave. They feel bigger than me. They are larger than life. But they’re just syllables. Just harmless vowels and consonants. They push together to make ideas. Ideas are what’s truly fucked. They make you think things. I’d prefer to have ice cream.

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Be here to love

Be here to love, otherwise everything is speculation. I’m not here to be angry, though given the right circumstance I can usually be counted on to be so. Old behavior is extrapolated into guesses about what will happen. Vague memories have a way of becoming hard truth. Everyone knows what happened, but everyone knows differently, passionately. There are no witnesses that have actually seen anything except what they’ve heard. Credibility is a measure more valuable than a credit score. It means more than the truth.

Nothing happens without an equal and opposite reaction. Lies beget lies. Sorrow makes thing sad. Revenge makes retaliation inevitable. I’m not interested in propagating any of that. I realize my choices might put me in the background for now. I’ve never stayed there before. Why would I?

What’s happening outside is not an ever after. Things will get worse before they get better. But things will change. It always has a way of coming around. See less

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Light years

We all go through this life. Some moments happy. Some sad. Most boring. But when you can see the inevitable. When you look at the dumb star that makes wind possible. Think. Turn on a light. It seems instantaneous. That light in the sky took eight minutes to get here. About 93 million miles. And that star is close. The next closest one would shine on you in about four and a half years. That is how small you are.