23.12.12

Realize

How do I escape the real world. Do we need fantasy? I’m hoping not. I’m hoping not. His mind was an edless expance. He felt himself falling in it. Falling backwards, looking up he saw the words fly past him. He felt his life slide by off the top of the pit like water spilling out of an underdrawn well. He felt his life slide past like the one moment of the song you’ve waited for. He felt his life slide past like a life that ticks one second off and again that you’ll never get back, that he saw every good thing slide across his skin and be over. He wants it all to be over or for none of it to be over. He would wake up tomorrow, but so what? Why was he even here? He felt his life slide by him in one for one, with every second being a second, in absolutely sixty frames a god damn second real time with no edits. He felt his life slide past him like a life sliding past a person. He felt his days slip away like the good tasting food in your mouth you don’t want to swallow. He felt his life slide past like a girl you want to fuck but your self restraint is going to win over this time. He felt his life as if it wasn’t a life. As if it was already gone, because it was going to be. Once you see the end it’s all over.

coffee's there on the floor
from the night before

17.12.12

the rat

thought: the idea of fault is worse than the idea of suffering. We don't care all that much if we are having a bad time, we do care if we think it's are fault - we will then form low self-asteme - or if it's someone else's fault - we will then form anger or resentment. We don't care all that much if someone else is suffering (we may not like it, of course, but it will not ruin our day), we care only if we think it's our fault - and then we will be torchered with guilt - or if it's their fault - in which case we will feel a little bit supirior and offer advice - or if it's a third party's fault - and we will then form anger and resentment.

People who do not do anything, who cannot complete projects, who cannot create with their life, they are misserable. But the thought of being misserable is far less potent than the thought of trying damn hard and failing. At least right now you can know it's not your fault. You can know that you're just suffering because of something intrisic in you beyond your control (which in ways is really what people mean when they say "I'm just not good enough". They're trying to avoid true responsibility by declairing that they never would have had a chance in the first place.), not something you tried for and didn't get.

I am one of these people.

The more I think I could have worth in something, the more I care about something that with practice I may be able to do, the more anxiety I have concerning it.

My anxieties are in this order: Playing/writing music, writing screenplays, Writing any other fiction, Filmmaking from a position of authority, having a possition of leadership or responsibility in social situations, all other social situations that concern only my own gain or loss, all other menial tasks to take control of my life (money, feeding myself, fixing something, cleaning, going to the bank, etc etc.), writing poetry, writing non fiction (this included, though not including any attempts at essays or rigorous point making that can be understood by anyone other than myself and my closest friends. Those give me more anxiety), listening to music, watching good movies, reading, sleeping.

What does not give me anxiety: Talking about myself and my artistic and philosophical goals (this takes no work, as the accomplishments are only hypothetical), going to art museums as long as the subject matter isn't too real and specific, watching movies in theaters, reading non fiction on the internet (because I'm good at it and retain it all and consider none of it at all important), looking for new music, eating (when I am able to get myself fed), record shopping when I have the money to spend, singing, drinking, having sex (amazingly).

At least I take some solace in the thought that my anxieties in general do not seem to be my fault. I cannot blame myself for them. Everything they make me do, however, every day I waste, every project I don't complete, is definitely my fault. I must just fight against them. I am drowning in a deep river of anxieties, washing over me constantly, choking me.

god.

when I used to go out i knew everyone i saw
now i go out alone if i go out at all.......

28.10.12

activa

hmm. what to write. I'm a little bit tired. So.

It seems that in many ways our generation has turned against the dramatic. And in many ways that was my whole deal. To break down the stories that we tell ourselves about our lives. To bring things down to the mundane. I don't remember excactly how many years ago it was, it could have been one or two or three, when I wrote down a few lines to a potential song about a friend commiting suicide, about someing talking to their dead friend and reconsiling their feelings. the narrorator is very mad. I remember it being something like:

you said at least it's not mundaneity
but this is mundaneity
there is no honesty
as your blood rushes through me
hear your voice
I can't hear anything


Ah ha! I looked it up, it was just last year and the original went:

you said at least it's not mundanity
but this is mundanity
there is no divinity
as you don't pass through me
hear my thoughts, you don't hear anything
and the blood line was actually from a different part in the song. I kinda like the from memory version better. Either way. It captures that idea. That yelling at someone for dramatizing, fabelizing, a mundane event. Yelling at her for killing herself - himself, whatever - and making herself into a story. No longer a life. Fuck that. I used to live as if being watched. I walked donw the street and knew that I was king of new york. As if a good that i didn't believe in had eyes on me and saw that and said "yes, that guy owns the city". There is no king of new york. I was just a kid with big ideas walking down the street.

But now, I don't know. Maybe I was king of new york. Or maybe it doesn't matter that I wasn't. Keeping with my practical philosophy developed when I was sixteen - in essence that the world may not exist as it appears, and all phisical sensations may be missleading but it doesn't matter, if it looks like a dog and smells like a dog and acts like a dog and is in every way like a dog than who cares whether it's a dog or not. What other definition do you need? So the world that we see is the world. Or who cares if it isn't? - So keeping with that, does it matter that I was not, in any way nor in anyones mind but my own, not the kind of new york? I don't know. Maybe dramatizing your own life is ok as long as you keep a head on your shoulders. I can't keep believing that nothing I do is important. We all need to feel important. I really don't want to kill myself. Maybe it's ok to smoke sweet cigarettes by yourself on the roof in the rain and feel like you're contracting a deep and important sadness. Maybe it's ok to think that your pain means something. It doesn't. But that's alright. It means something to you. That's enough. My life means something to me. That's enough. Or it should be. If I am not important to myself, than nothing is important. If my experience doesn't matter than nobody does, because there is nothing to seperate me from anyone else. The rules you apply to yourself you must act as if they apply to everyone.

Besides for that, this flair for the dramatic, as long as it's not grounded in a pretend wold, is important. Without this affect who would keroac be? Who would jimi hendrix or ian mckay or jeff mangum be? What would comel people to get up on stage and shout unless they felt that their own experience was important. People used to write manefestos. That's too fucking dramatic for us now - perhaps with good reason! but I think we need a little of that back. Belle and Sebastian said "do something pretty while  you can. Don't got to sleep!" 

I'm really really sad. I'm really really really really sad. And I can't talk about it with anyone. I can't talk about it anywhere except for here. I don't anylonger know how.

I am also really angry.

wasted our lives

6.10.12

american flag

It's weird to feel things slip away. Tonight I listened to a playlist I made in 2010. Me and Jaclyn used to have sex to it, I would put it on when I had nothing else to play, kind of my go to playlist. I'm starting to understand how other people listen to music. They don't really care that much because they don't really like music that much. They like it a little. So they'll put on something to please their freinds, something that makes them look cool, a little, I guess. I need to get away from people. I don't know what I need. I need to be more honest. An honest expression of everything. The songs on the playlist were so blue, so subdued. But I love every one. Everyone had a greater meaning outside of the context of the blue playlist. Labled "Will Never Die". Meant to be played in shuffle. Every song had meaning that was in the context of the album it came with. Not every song was necessarily blue. But in the context of the playlist it was. I did make that playlist to please jaclyn actually, to please someone else. I threw together songs I liked that I thought she would. I had such a small grasp on what she liked back then. The later playlist I made for her is on there too, burt to a cd, the last of such I've made. It was more real, more of what I liked that she would. More of what had real meaning. Maybe the best burnt cd I ever made, made for her after we broke up. Made wishing we hadn't. God, it's capitalized. I never capitalize anything. Named "Jaclyn". I've become disconected from everything. I don't love music anymore. I don't love anything anymore. I need to stay up all night. Or something. Something I used to do. I've always said once you see the end it's all over. I see the end. So maybe this is already it. Maybe the music has left me. Maybe all I'm left with already is nostolgia and the songs of my past. Four tet's this unfolds. I'm so sad. I want to conect with something that makes me feel again. I'm not feeling. I'm repressed. I'm not doing well, and no one seems to know it. No one seems to want to help me, because what I need is too much. That's the fucked up thing about depressing movies. You hear them and think how depressing they are and how it hurts everything, but perhaps seeing the truth will lead to an answer. A way to be undepressed. The nihilist movies. But nihilism is infinite. Depression is infinite. This is no answer. There will be no answer. So you'll just have to watch more and more depressing movies. Stacked on top of each other. For the rest of your life. The depression is not going to go away. Because the world is not going to go away. Everything will continue to be crap forever. There is no dealing with that. Learning how to deal with that is learning how to die. Learning how to deal with that is more crappy than everything crappy about the world. I have no realease. I miss her because at least she wanted to listen to me talk, at least she wanted to hear about my depression. At least she made me feel ok about it. Noone else does. Not only am I suffering, but to them I'm a leach. My depression is selfish and bullshit. So I have to be misserable and walk around with the knoledge that me being miserable is inherently horrible of me. slightly evil. I don't know what to do anymore. I haven't cried in years. I don't know what to do. I want to be in love. I want everything good so I can feel everything bad. i can't live this nothing. i can't live anything. I don't love anyone. You're not listning. I don't know what to do. I hope I can cry tonight.

if I could stand to be less diffficult

2.10.12

and a song

unfinished, of course.




You woke up
And fluttered out of touch
You fell asleep last night with eyes brighter than I could imagine
And in the darkness of sleep
I couldn’t talk to you

And I could give you a little more time
I am a coil twisting out of shape
I am a congregation of feelings and wine
That will stain your hands in ways
That are not coming off

And you chain yourself to the breeze
And I’m climbing trees
To get away from my family
Up where I can feel the breeze
As you blow over me it’s true
It’s true I do like you

Oh if I could find
I’d take you out of time

I shook me out I
Tried to stop it I
Tried to stop it I’ll
Have to see I’ll
Let you know what I believe in now

Oh if I could find
I’d take you out of time
I’ll put you where
I don’t care

I'll put you where
I don't care to change you
I just care what you do
Who I am without you

I’ll put you where
I’ve never seen the air
I need to breath
That I force in and out of me
Through a weird contraption
That I never took the time to understand
I am not doing all I can
It’s just like me

two new poems.

You can’t see the rain anymore
But I still see drops in the puddle
I can’t feel it on my skin
The shit I’m in.

They’d fill your museum
with the parts cannibals use to pick their teeth
too many fingerprints underneath
your skin, the parts that they won’t eat
the shit I’m in.




I’m never gonna die
At least not tonight
No not tonight
Not tonight
Not tonight
Not tonight
Not tonight
Well, I might
Boy, turn around, fight fight.

13.7.12

Darkness on the edge of Gastown


At three a.m. Lori turned off the movie she was watching and went to bed. As she lied down she smelt fire. It wasn’t tobacco smoke or burning food, this time she knew it was fire. There were no alarms on her floor, something she had exploited for many nights of gratuitous pot smoking, but now it was dangerous. She rolled onto the floor, pressed her ears to the cold tile and heard, faintly, the ringing of a hundred smoke detectors on the levels bellow. She hops up and emptied swiftly her backpack, hearing her small mirror shatter on the floor. She began filling it up in a hurry with her laptop and charger, hard drive, two pairs of socks, underwear, a towel, toothbrush. And that was it. She looked around her room. Was there anything else she considered necessities? Anything else she need for being displaced for a few days? She slipped on her most comfortable jeans and a sturdy light parka. Was there anything else she would save from the fire? She never liked having a tv anyway. She sat on the floor and stared at her bookshelf. What would a copy of One Hundred Years of Solitude cost at the strand? Eight bucks? There weren’t any records that were special. Most sub-par bands with blue seven inches. She could pick up any Beatles’ record again from the shop down the way. If she could take her couch out the window with her she would. If she could take her fridge. She looked at her pairs of shoes. She slipped on her newish black vans. And took a second to find which one she should take as a backup. She couldn’t find one among them that she liked. The smoke smell was getting stronger. She stuffed a pillow in, pushed it down to hide the half of the bag that was still empty, slung it over her shoulder and cascaded though the window, down the fire escape, feeling her feet hit the ground after the last jump, kindly. She walked away, going to her closest friend who lived four avenues westward. If the flames reach her apartment than she’d loose her stuff and if they didn’t she’d move back in once everything settled. She didn’t want to talk to the other residents who congregated out front. She didn’t know any of them. She did know Jeremy who lived next door, the only other person on her floor. They smoked pot together sometime. She ran into him while he was returning home slightly drunk earlier that night, making jokes about fish and trombones. She found out two days later that he suffocated to death on the smoke, still asleep.

5.7.12

gouge away


“Not every day is worth writing about,” he had said to her once. But every day has repercussions. She had punched him in the nose once at the brooklyn flea. He had picked out a dress that Jessica would have worn. She was not going to be like Jessica.

21.6.12

A Departure

            He jumped the fence on Flushing near North Elliot Street, or Portland, he didn’t remember. It doesn’t matter. Of course it doesn’t, but there was a truth. It was one of those and his recollection should not rob a depiction of the events of the events themselves. They jumped the fence, him first than his friend, bikes lock up on Navy St two blocks away, a surprising uncertain walk along poorly paved grounds he always hated biking. Flashlights and beers. The barbed wire covering the fence had already been cut, which in a way was why they were there in the first place, they saw it in the daylight three or more weeks ago walking to Clinton Hill after he had his tire replaced in Dumbo. What a good day. And the wire was already cut and my god did it look inviting. The perfect youthful getaway in a sense. Like out of Tom Sawyer. They didn’t bring spray cans though, he thought it should be noted. They could have brought spray cans. It was likely what the infamous cutter had done when he hopped the fence, so to speak paving their way. Graffiti shamefully was probably more of a odd fantasy to him so look he didn’t actually do it. Hadn’t thought to. Shamefully, but he did hop the fence! And he did drink some beers in there, probably not overcome by wonder at the decaying structure but goddamn did he try. No one could say otherwise anyway, right? People will say he was overcome by wonder, that’s what his friend will tell people. As they used to say, not terror, but awe. Not that that kind of distinction means anything anymore. An echo of an echo. It was triumphant. It was powerful at least and triumphant. And he had taken some photographs, second long exposures. And then they had been caught by the police and then he sat here. And he didn’t have to be here, he hadn’t had to jump the fence, it should be noted. This was just some weird hypothetical like the rest. What makes this more real? 


3/28/2012

4.5.12

Another Girl

Stephen walked to 14th street to pick her up. In his mind it was thrity fourth street or time square, she had on a lush dress and hair down, something she never did, and he saw her as removed from reality. He saw her as a way out of mundanity and into a life of real events. Stories you could tell afterwards, not just stories you've read and can discuss. He knew she liked him. He asked if she was hungry, no, but they could go to an eatery if he wanted, but no, he wasn't hungry either. They lay on the grass in Tomkins park. He said he didn't like leaving the east village anymore hardly if he could help it. She laughed a lot at a lot of things. She smiled and put on and off big sunglasses and rolled over on the grass. He looked at her hips and remembered them. He knew there was depression under there. He had seen glimpses back when her hips weren't a memory. It's among what actracted him. Now what atracted him was her happiness. She was happiness, and she represented it, even more so because of that sad, and he wanted it in his life. He wondered, looking at her, lying on the grass, beautiful, if he really wanted her in his life. It was too easy for him to think about her as if she was not a person, to weigh the pros and cons of her. He hated it. He hated himself for it. He thought it had to be because of her transient relations with him. Briefly her hips were here and then they were not, he didn't get to talk to her again for weeks until now, lying on the grass, playing with her sunglasses. Everyone is a myth until you really know them. That can't be avoided. Everyone is a character in a poorly writen movie, one facet, one plotmoving purpose for being there. One personality. So he'll get to know her and he'll see the real human replace the cardboard cutout representing beauty and happiness and the human will be even better than the simple idea. He'll like her in reality more. Right?


He told her he thinks he likes her. She lauged. Really? Why? He didn't want to tell her. That she represented all this. He lauged and told her he didn't know. Liking someone is not really his style. He has to remember that he is just a cardboard cutout to her. He can ruin it later. He told her she should go out with him. She thought about it. He watched her lips as she bit them. Do girls really do that absentmindedly? Do they know how much it speaks to guys of sex? He watched her hips as she rolled over. He watched her hair as it was moved from her face. She told him no but she did it in a particular way. She told him she didn't think she could. She told him how much she liked him at one point and maybe now still. She told him she couldn't deal with it now. He knew she liked him. She liked him, right? She asked him if that was ok. He told her of course it wasn't but of course it'd have to be. They talked longer, about other things. Stephen stood up in the grass and wiped himself off.


Stephen walked into the party. Later he couldn't tell you wether it was the same night or two days later, not that he would have been talking to you anyway. He was sitting on the couch. A black couch, dark walls of the apartment. He liked that, you know. He knew she was there. She even came over and talked to him once. Half nerviously, knowing he was upset but wanting to come off as friendly or wanting to actaully be freindly, or residue of actually likeing him. He punched the guy she kissed later that night. He didn't have the bulk to do it. Cut lip, black eye, sore sholder, blue. He thought it would last longer. But it's alright. He saw it and thought he had to punch that guy. He thought, do people do that anymore? Isn't that possesive, sexist, worthless? He didn't think of her as a real person. He was ashamed of that. But this was the life of action she promised. This was the life that no longer existed in his generation. No one did this anymore. Stephen's fist concected with the guy's head and it was a story. Stephen felt his face meet a fist and felt it as if it was real. Then his sholder. It was too quick. No, he wanted to call, this should go longer! Stephen lay on ground as she yelled in sympathy and in anger and thought that he has lived his life today as if on paper. He thought about how nothing has deeper significance, there is no deeper significance. What he did today meant nothing, and no one knew what it ment except for him. 


you got me feeling like

28.3.12

Turning yourself ruby
connected yourself to the movies
contracted your blood running through me

I hope you don't find peace
at least you found your way out of here
you said at least it's not mundanity
but this is mundanity
there is no divinity
as you don't pass through me
hear my thoughts, you don't hear anything

20.3.12

shelter pt. 2

if I'm always fighting with my back against the wall
she said
I'm not going to adress that at all
I can't say I think about that at all
where would you rather be than here?
she said I don't know what that means she didn't
want to know anything about me

And if there's no shelter here I'll lock myself where it's found
in gas stoves to burn me
and barricades with no sound
no thought, no sex, no sound

but it makes sense that I'll end here
show you my lack of trust
I do like you, I do like you

but if we take this all the way
we will lose.

17.3.12

if you took out the bedsheet you'd see
the fire that happened to me


you left rosy in the morning
warm skin in light of dawning
burnt in from lack of curtains
and fire from manhattan
burnt in with longing patterns for me

if you took out the bedsheets you'd see
let me know what happened to me

the morning to make you coffee
I waste my time

smile and you'll feel better
smile and this pain will fall
smile and it'll make you happy
smile over your coffe
you said smile and it'll make you feel better
smile and you'll feel at all
smile it'll make you feel

you left rosy in the morning
warm skin in light of dawning
burnt in from lack of curtains
and fire from manhattan
fresh flared in from brooklyn
burnt in with longing patterns for me

bathed in sunshine
afraid of dying

bathed in sunshine
I am
afraid of dying

if you woke up too early you'd see
catch me as I'm trying to leave

well framed from where you sit
the angle the light hits
reflected to my dark eyes
calling me to touch your lips
overexposed never to be seen again

bathed in sunshine
afraid of dying
you are bathed in sunshine
I am afraid of dying
you are
bathed in my mind
I am
afraid of dying

if you took out the bedsheets you'd see
catch me as I'm trying to leave
the fire that happened to me

the morning I burn your coffee and waste my time

thinking smile and I'll feel better
smile and your pain will fall
smile and be happy
and pray for the morning
and pray for this falling
smile and you'll feel at all
because I'm afraid this is to small.

15.3.12

A golden bird on a golden boat
I will become
I am not strong I am not proud
I have not won

pull out your eyes with your nails
pull your cheeks down
pull your neck down
your memories out

25.1.12

the city

she told me you can't go back to the person you were, you can't ever and I told her to hell with that I will make of myself as I want to be and she said that no you can't, it won't be real anymore, it will be too thought out, you will see through it, you can't do it purely like you were I said there isn't anything about me I haven't premeditated, that's not how I work, that's not something I can change no matter how much I want to, everything about me I have made, I have thought out and considered what was best. there is nothing I like about myself that is not intentional, it was only ever the bad things, the social fuck ups, the empty egotism the selfishness the shyness, these were the things that I did not intend, nothing I like about myself I did accidentally. I told her there are probably things you like about me that I did without premeditation or I hope there are, things you don't tell me because you're not one to wax about the things you like about me or tell me anything you like about anyone and I thought perhaps that's a thing I like about girls, they must like about me things I have not noticed, things my sweeping arm of introspection, of self searching, ever turning, has not found.

but i'm not unsympathetic!

solders of february

who was I talking to who asked me if I viewed music like photography or like film, and I said no! I view film like music. and I explained breifly my whole thing with the words viseral and intoxication and they thought it was all hella intresting, which was weird because I don't expect people to find it intresting like that. but you don't understand. I view everything like music. (it was henry, I remember) I view everything like music. becasue somehow I've found that we as a culture view music correctly, or at least the indie croud or at least the old post punk/indie punk/experimental rock crowd does. art without the pretence, that has to neccessarily sweep you away without you wanting it too, but is also depth and complex and true. like chris says, low art high craft, except this is high art, high art in low places. because anger is as important as sublime awe, but there are much much fewer statues in the met about it, sex is as important as intellectual contemplations and there deserves to masterpeices about it. And it needs to sweep you away, it's not something you breifly ponder or have as decoration, and if it compells you to treat is as such than it has failed. art should not be a part of your life such as your afternoon sandwitch or your coworkers anecdotes it should be life. and somehow people in certain spheres of music seem to recognize this, in ways no one seems to get about film or fiction or especially art. So I look at everything like music. everything should be like music. my life should be like music.

the recluse

I am never going to tire of lower case letters. Hillary asked me if I write poetry and i told her I didn't but I write an astonishing amount of songs that never get put to music, binding me to a meter that I feel is much needed, allowing me to break it only when doing something willfully irreverent becuase free verse read will not make someone uncomfortable but even a droped rhyme is offensive when sung, though I really often want to be offensive. but now I am reading a book Hillary demanded I track down and I've writen a short poem in iambic pentamiter of all things and I intend to write more.