How Can I Help You

How Can I Help You

At some point I have to stop trying to win the affection of my parents. It’s over, it’s inevitable. I’m estranged and there’s no going back.

            What’s the opposite of incest? As if there’s only one. I believe that I never exchanged the words “I love you” until I was consciously aware of doing so, at which point I was intrinsically terrified of its underlying finality. I’ve only said it when I felt it, when I knew it was real, but there’s been plenty of times when I felt it and didn’t say it. Shouldn’t such inhibition and self-reflection sort of cancel out every previous and future heartfelt connection? Or can time and place really have a valid nullification property? Just because I’m trying to make money and you’re trying to have a good time, where is the harm or foul in sharing or not? Because nothing is ours to keep, if it’s even ours in the first place, so we might as well go on believing that we’re sharing this rare and mutual experience?

            Do you know what it means to be sheltered, guarded, and then exploited? Business as usual. The development behind cherished baby blue eyes of crystal water, fed vitamins and forced smiles. The perfect little fleshy vessel.  One day the man of her dreams will finally see the light gazing back and want nothing more than to kiss it and make it better.

            I don’t have a chip on my shoulder that may not be accounted for by the numerous trips I’ve made around the old block. It’s all good. And now I just gotta keep the ball rollin’ because I knew this day would come, I know who I want to be and the world I want to live in. Historically, this is the only way. Practice makes perfect, each and every time in the eyes of a certain beholder, the one it’s drawn to and draws to it.

            Encouragement is the casual, not-so-silent killer. But for me to stop would be a waste of taxpayer’s good money. Something about opportunity cost and doing something with my life, something different that will be appreciated. I have hopes and dreams. I know the only to get what you want is to want it.

            I’m sick, I’m gross. I’m spending wisely and coming up short. I’ve forgotten my investments and what it means to be prosperous rather than to become such. To be the platform rather than to ever climate.

            Someone is always awake, keeping track of time, noticing the details and taking due note.

            I am liberated, less concerned with what comprises a thin line of graphite on a clean linen sheet. My debt is a festering wound. I’m not honest. I’m not honest.

            The church of intrinsic motivation. The name should leave chills in anyone’s spine, chills that don’t run up and down but just are, regardless if they attend or not.

           

Future Tents

             I was born in a hospital, and in that moment, that room and that building and that city had always existed. However, based on our forever as we understand it, that hospital was built and will be destroyed. We will certainly make the best of it while it lasts, maybe make renovations and additions as medicine changes and population grows, find new meaning, live and die.

We will be nomadic, when the Earth is burned and fucked beyond use and recognition. It won’t be weird or uncomfortable, at least any more than what we’re at now. It will be like the old days, the ones that you have to go somewhere else to remember. The ones that no one’s really sure even really happened because it’s been so long.

            We won’t live anywhere or when we can’t, the places that would need homes and regular air conditioning. We will have means and measures of adaptation, cultivation, a reason to be whom we are where we are and no more than that. We may not be able to fathom living on Antarctica, or underwater, or in space, but with a transient spirit we will see what we see.

We could all continue to live in cars if gas wasn’t dwindling. We’d all look pretty silly sitting around in wheeled structures that no longer operate, overgrown and rusted at the bottom.

We can make dwellings faster and cheaper now than we used to, we’re better at it. But the beauty of old buildings is inevitably lost, like the smell of an old book, though we’re tempted to develop facsimiles of tradition. There is a tiny old man who mumbles to himself as he passes out front that we got it all wrong and wonders what the world’s coming to.

             It’s up to us to exploit what we understand before it passes away, before we get old and ugly, when there’s no difference between whether I eat or not. I need to do something, to take care of myself. Everything happens for a reason and I can’t predict why I’ll come back to this body and page. That’s what it takes to read something. The same eyes and thoughts and posture and page. We don’t have to agree. We don’t have to do anything. 

When the sun comes out and I melt so slowly, I will not be broken. I will find a voice to argue with, to distract us from these politics and this warfare and strife and hunger and illness and suffering. I want to be put away so I may make my solid gold album in peace. But life is what happens while you’re waiting for life to happen. I miss my future, my family and my failure. I have all that I need and I don’t know who I am.  Almost one day old.

            We are champions of light, tourists of the underworld. The only thing we have in common.

             

Sunny Moony

Sunny Moony

A unit is essential, like a burger, a night’s stay in a hotel room or a pair of pants. It is whatever the vendor declares, and the buyer then agrees, to be worth one.

Sun notes are worth one unit during the day, while moon notes are worth one unit at night.

Sun notes are traded at all times, whereas moon notes are only accepted at night. A sun note is worth two units at night, the worth of two moon notes.

Moon notes also break down in increments of full, three quarter, half, and quarter. This promotes liberated commerce at night, as part of celebration, and the reciprocal survival methods of demonstrable trade by day.

To make a sun note, cut two circles from a piece of yellow construction paper so that, when you pinch the circle between your thumb and index finger, you can see the edge of the circle on either side of your thumb. Glue these to one blue square of construction paper each so that you can just see blue all the way around the yellow circles. Then glue these blue squares to a red rectangle, one on each side and at opposite ends, so that a smaller rectangle is exposed beside the blue square which is about the width of the circle, as well as a border of red around the blue in comparable size to the blue border beside the yellow circle.

To make a moon note, cut two circles from a piece of white construction paper so that, when you pinch the circle between your thumb and index finger, you cannot see the edge of the circle on each side of your thumb. Glue these to one blue square of construction paper each so that you can see the blue all the way around the white circles. Then glue these blue squares to a black rectangle, one on each side and at opposite ends, so that a smaller rectangle is exposed beside the blue square which is about the width of the circle, as well as a border of black around the blue in comparable size to the blue border around the white circle.

Easy X Farm

“Time is of the essence. . . ” – Samuel Spade

Easy X Farm

Arnold, age 15

“I’m not learning here what I want to. These walls my prison, and my warden chosen, by me, my indoctrination and my security.  But these intermediate tasks, moving water and goods, fixing this dirty house and maintaining the surrounding areas, and getting along with these people, sometimes it’s sickening. I could leave if I had to, if I wanted, if I was provoked.

“I’ve never known any different, same as my sister does. I can never tell what my parents know, if they even know each other. They lie all the time.

“We do what we have to do to survive, no dreams beyond that. No one comes to visit or bother, and we don’t care to leave the grounds.

“Dad says we’re different, though he won’t divulge too much as to why or how. He holds a disdain in his heart, one he believes mutual to the city people. I’ve never seen them.”

************************

Maggie, mother of Baby Arnold, to father Earl

“But Earl, if we don’t accept these things, we will lose our friends. How would you feel if your loved ones, in apparent crisis, refused your help? Don’t you ever think of other people?”

“But that’s just it. I’ve thought long and hard and nothing will change if I don’t do anything about it. We don’t need that kind of help, and we should hold out for when we’re really in trouble. We are a family, and we must be proud if we want to stay this way.”

It was unseasonably cold the morning they decided to leave, before the sun rose. They were dressed, Earl in a dark suit and Maggie in a spotted blouse with matching long skirt that flowed as they hurried, and the small children wrapped in blankets, one in each of their arms. They didn’t tell anyone they were leaving.  How could they? They didn’t even know themselves until it was already happening, though they’d dreamt about it plenty. They’d always had enough money, but were always hoping the world would come around. And that might have happened if they weren’t the first, last, the only, of their kind. They would be happy somewhere.

Earl had a distant cousin, Amos, who agreed to give earl a plot of his land to tend and live with his family. “Two conditions,” Amos defined. “One: not a word to anyone that you, me, or we know that I’m helping you this way. I hate to see my blood treated this way is all. Left for dead, don’t matter why. It’s your choice but that don’t mean anything to me. Two: You give me all your money. I will help you, but with you being lost to our world you don’t need your money like I do. And if things happen that you want to leave, we’ll work it our so that may be. You have my word.”

Their liberation was immediate, and things naturally fell into place. Earl and Maggie hadn’t a care in the world beside their little ones, though Earl knew in his heart that this was meant to be and the four of them would be taken care of. Now, in their new home, he saw they had a chance to flourish, and future civilizations would see their happiness, a kind to cherish and embrace. To let go of such tethers, and to remember such a cruel, foolish world of building towers that, at the time, were thought to last forever, in light of all aesthetic.

*********************************

Maggie churned butter on the cool shady front porch as Lilith played with her dusty dolls some few paces away. Earl was hunting and Arnold tending the vegetables. The young ones didn’t remember a time that their little home did not exist, but their parents had enjoyed every minute of building it from scratch, using just what they need and making it so perfect. It was unlike any house that ever could have existed, with such beautiful design passed onto them from their own maker. Honest, humble, neither dirty nor clean. Alive.

The sun had gone down. Maggie and Earl prepared dinner as the children cleaned up. “What will you tell them the day they want to leave? Are you going to tell them they cant?” Maggie held a rolling pin covered in flour, as she was, in crossed arms. She did not blink or sway.

“I will tell them the truth. That if they want to survive they must be strong. That they will face strangers that meet them with harsh disgust. That the comforts of some are the evils of others. But not necessarily of many, or all. And that we may only become something better if we accept our current flaws. They have a beautiful opportunity, one that we together dreamed about, and now it is their beautiful world, one they may know and realize completely if they choose.”

They loved their children not as if they were their own, but as if they were their selves. Their very own bodies to promote, exploit and manipulate. Yet what Earl didn’t realize is what’s good for a few in the eyes of one isn’t necessarily in those of an other.

???

Hook, Bridge, Sink

A random story is selected and written, as any other. A character is selected, a disposition and a point of view. The moral may be different, but the format must remain the same, for consumption purposes.

“I don’t believe in the quantum path, the one I could have chose. Dark matter doesn’t exist to be seen or felt, or believed. And it always just so happens to be in the last place I look. Car keys in the 99^th drawer, defeating the very concept of a hundredth.

           

“Nobody is perfect. They never become, or are, hungry, sick, lonely, anxious or in the way. They are the negative environment that sets the standard for my positivity. I owe them a just amount: nothing. Just as I owe myself. At the resolution of the problem, the solution is simple. And I may dissect and subdivide the remainder, time permitting.

“The difference between one and zero is one. The difference between one and one is zero. And between zero and zero, there is no difference. . . ”

***********************************************************************

George Schrödinger is hella stoked: the chance to meet the maker of The Akashic Records, the greatest record store on Earth. It just so happened to be erected not a block away, “meant to be,” as far as George was concerned. And today is the grand premiere.

“The sun is shining; not an obstacle in front of us. I must be trippin’ on each lace and crack as I certainly approach my destination. I broke my breakfast in half and I’m feelin’ it. And soon I will be there. I pray, “Mein Gott, clear my schedule until this afternoon. I must prepare my self to learn and retain my world.”

George finds himself on the footbridge, where a sign is posted: “Do not throw anything off bridge.” Upon reading, he glances around, down either end of the bridge. He is the only one around and he thinks “the coast is clear.” He’s always up for a challenge. So he pulls three bottles from his knapsack, one of goat’s milk, one of Malbec, and one fresh squeezed blue raspberry juice. He arranges them in a neat triangle between his palms and fingers, extends his arms beyond the railing, leaning his stomach, and lets go of all three at once. He waits to hear a crash on the asphalt below, which never comes. Instead his body is pulled back and thrown to the ground, and his rights are read. But he successfully persuades for his release, and concluding short hostile argument, with his explanation to the officer, “it wasn’t anything that I threw.”

****************************************************************

He got up and dusted his sleeve. His mouth was bleeding. The officer apologized, saying his name was Bart. George shook hands with his free one and said nothing. He was trying to concentrate on what he was doing before the shake, the blood, the explanation, the throw, the sign and the bridge. He stared at Bart’s badge listening for a solution. “Have you ever rode in a cop car?”

The seats had built in warmers and they listened to jazz. George recognized everyone as they flew and he had no time to speak with any of them. “They all do their best, as I do” he thought, “seeing independent success in self or an other.” He turned to Bart, “Won’t we ever stop fighting?” George thought hard at Bart, who continued cruising the center lane, silently professing a creed to his land and people.

“Here we are.” Bart pressed a button on the steering column and the passenger door slowly opened. George stepped into the golden light, waved goodbye and made his way for the door. His lungs adjusted to the darkness as his lungs adjusted to the smoke, pushed his way through the crowd, got to the bar and asked something that has always troubled him: “is this the path of least resistance?”

*******************************************************************

February Morning

Metastasis

What we conceive today, as human beings, will physically realize itself in about nine months. What we conceive today, we may or may not have contemplated yesterday and so on, as we may or may not contemplate today, tomorrow, or even in the very moment of conception. Yet, it's own realization is our perception, is our actualizaion. And so, we are all in this together, we are taken care of even if we don't remember or care why.
Fear is not the only thing keeping us here. Fear is not a thing. Gravity is not a thing. We are interested in seeing what happens next because as much as we'd like to think we know and may, we cannot. This is the very failure we had agreed upon with ourselves a long time ago, which is also not a thing.
I hope to see my mother again and that she recognizes her son when that happens. Time stands still when you're taken care of and I still think back to the times when even the blackest metal and the clearest skies were golden.
Crazy people are positive. They have their axioms. Next they need crayons and paper, tuna or tomato sandwiches and open pastures. At this point in human existence, furthermore, they should avoid coffee shops, television, Las Vegas, cell phones, and limitation. They should break a wall of their institution because it is fixed. Where there's a wall there'd be away.

I push myself because I don't know what it is to pull. I still don't know that the voices in my head are my own, solitary and persistent.
     Either I see why the told me that, for good or bad reason, because they got what they wanted when they did or their neighbor got what they wanted against when they did and learned from an other's example.
     I
do I seem negligent? do I seem negligent?
we don't  share the same way anymore than
im testing you you
I know my blood pumps in tight  quick little circles. small. my metabolism is fast. I used to stutter and stammer then I learned to listen and incorporate. To not say what my body shouldn't say. I got way ahead of myself. and wrote it all down.
Life has meaning: "a characteristic that distinguishes objects that have signaling and self-sustaining processes (i.e., living organisms) from those that do not, either because such functions have ceased (death), or else because they lack such functions and are classified as inanimate."

I believe in bullies more than school, in private than public education. and it's not that I learned more, but that I learned something else. Therein lies my value.

She wanted me to practice in my own time. I did and I do, when I have to, when I think I have to. When she's not there and I need something but I can't put my finger on it because it's not here.  She kept me out of trouble. She kept me like a secret, like I wanted it to be. Even though I am now, I may never know what it is to be alone. I'm hell bent on believing that you exist and that she's long gone. That I know what I want and have the will to wait. Good things come to those who wait.

We are organisms that don't know what they're giving up until it's gone. We quit before it's finished, however, so someone may pick up where we left off.

Prewriting 

We made a choice against not choosing. It was not and is not the only choice we could have ever made, that much is obvious by the relationship between the choices of the previous sentence. It was of our free will, our own volition, and now here we are, in the future.
     I'm terrified of prison because I would have to choose to abandon my free will if I want to survive. I would have to follow the rules and do everything they tell me to. Every glimpse of achievement would be in vain, out of context, a waste of time. What could I possibly learn in such isolation, and to apply that to my real life, the one I had lived and will certainly live again? "Prisons are only rehabilitative when they house 20 individuals or fewer." Otherwise, it's summer camp: impressions of dirt, rocks, people.
     But I don't run the obvious risk of going to prison. If I did, I'd take care of it. Andy Dufresne of The Shawshank Redemption goes away because his God, Stephen King, wanted our heart to race when he finds his justice, the kind of race only metaphysical conspiracy may ignite. But did He, upon realising an existence, care about Andy any more, any less, any different from the warden or boggs or the old mans bird. Did He want to open his manuscript only to find a rock hammer near it's own end. Did He cry out of irony or coincidence.

     I push myself hard, too hard, just enough. The verge of death, the urge of life. I'm looking forward to a vacation, to surviving with an intact self so I may find myself where I want to be now and still enjoy it then.
     I proved to myself that a good man may also be great and vice versa. The lesser of two evils is a false dilemma. I'm only here to walk you through it and we won't meet on the other side. This is your journey. Don't kill yourself about it, that road is paved on still beating hearts.
    My art teacher easily convinced me that God is a woman. "Look around."


   
Pre-prewriting
    

We're drawing a future upon the past, a false dilemma of a choice only perceived.
It had not occurred to me that this was doughnut day, a forming tradition of regular excess in honor of youthful fondness, until I was directing us away from our sidewalk path and across the supermarket parking lot. And they didn't have the pre-boxed dozens, so we debated the fundamentals of choice while I took that extra step to get a more personally appropriate amount from behind glass.
     We have our own problems. We like talking about ourselves, but we have our own problems. I've been corrupted and abandoned, though it didn't seem so at the time, but he made it obvious to me, regardless of the point he was trying to make, that not making a choice for one is as good as choosing against it. But the choice against one is not as good as choosing the other, not necessarily. the choice against one is just as much the choice for none, two, a different one or more. The choice against not choosing

The Unimportance of Prewriting (verbatim)

you and I only live once and must press on in order to achieve. I wrote that for the first time on my dinner napin in the absence of company so that you may know. Our best ideas come when we least expect them and to sieze them in such a way may only come at a great cost. I must finish my sandwich.
     But then, who would read my napkin besides me. I do not know and may never. I'm wasting my time and energy. I'm exploiting my serendipitous resource. I'm learning to relax and enjoy myself, I'm waiting for life to begin.
     you and I only live once and must press on in order to achieve.

These Receptors Never Close

Talk is cheap. I make myself sick. I wish upon a stare and ponder in my head. I see something fundamentally wrong with the world and so there is a choice I must make. Or not.
I once tried to explain to her what I had gone through, the repercussions of psychonautics. I once tried to explain to her the things that I did not yet understand and if I had I would have cried. 
It's not a coincidence that I'm the left-handed middle child, musically inclined and preoccupied. I stretch myself thin to meet unknown expectations, to explore everything this world has to offer me and to embrace every tinge and twinkle in my bones and blood.
Health and time are the same illusion. The same currency. The same investment. I invisibly support every system I've denounced, and now that the end of the world is upon us, the other end has wrapped them tight, waiting to hatch, in vain, wasting and watching.
I had friends once. We had common interests and similar means.
You timed your advice, that was your mistake. I was prepared as soon as I saw your eye change. I knew you were lying. Don't be sorry.
The precedent is irrevocable. The seams may split only to give way to more fabric.
I'm not mad there. I'm not mad about anything. There were specific times as they aligned with places, that I may recollect if I must, when things were dangerous. My body was as small as my words and I couldn't ask for an apology. I might be dumb but I'm not mad.
I'm somewhere between eight and thirty-two.
I'm somewhere between jobs, houses, and loves.
I'm a negative person and I'm the negative person.
I was the most surprised at an inopportune time.


I want to be great, but I'd settle for good. I'm usually worried that I will die before I may explain myself. So listen very carefully