Off Balance

            Though scientists, physicists, microbiologists, what have you, have long thought the earth was kept in balance and on course by the tilt of its axis, total mass, and the battling speeds of revolution versus rotation (certain religious groups may lay claim to it being the hand of god, however that was debunked long ago) new information has recently surfaced, which completely denies such allegations: it is the distribution of people on the planet that keeps the balance.

            All of our tiny little bodies spread out everywhere buying cars, shooting out bullets and hairspray, cashing checks we received from the jobs we hate, lighting cigarettes and incense and candles—all this is what evens things out on this sopping wet orb floating through the ether.

            There are no deity-created archetypes of perfection to strain after other than keeping our (here, the question of ownership must be raised) oversized sphere from knocking heels, boots, or any other type of shoe together with the other pool balls out in this cavity we have aptly named “space.”

Now bereaved of this higher order we thought existed for so long, memories and various nostalgia may adhere where they shouldn’t at times. For instance, when eating a fudgesicle, you may have visions of nursing homes, catheters, and miles upon miles of pills to keep your body healthy instead of the summer where you and the other neighborhood children cooked eggs on your driveway—being only nineteen years old, this may shock most teenagers who slide their tongues along those frozen, chocolate-brown sticks. At other times, what once, as a forty-five year old, reminded you of the camping trip you took with your father after your mother divorced him, may now inseminate a slideshow of the digital camera you filled with the fourth boy you thought you loved during your sophomore year of college. And post realizing the real reason for balance we will, just like these misplaced memories, often find ourselves kissing the lips we previously found grotesque or even allow lovers inside our souls who we know will break our hearts, given enough time.

            All this being said, there is hope, or so some think, but disappointment follows stoutly. It is a decision left to the deciders as to whether they desire a glimmer snuffed by a sour downfall or just a mediocre, level and balanced existence as they attempt to keep this world from being drawn into that mammoth fireball so far off in the distance.

A Heritage I Make

Upon realizing that I have never been anyone’s first choice (and every time subsequently) I decide to partake in the cultural festivities of “barhopping,” except I sit in one bar, next to the first man alone and over fifty I see, so we can talk shit about everyone honestly participating and how they think they’re in love. If I talk of enough before-my-time references, he will eventually warm to my presence and on my way back to the bar from the bathroom, he will have ordered me another whiskey for my topical conversations, circa 1953. The bartender, to my hopes, will have forgotten where exactly I was sitting—because I slid my empty glass closer to the space between the rugged drunkard and me—and placed my new, free of charge full glass before the seat next to said worn body. I, acting so drunk every barstool looks the same, lay my weight on the cushion next to him, full well knowing he won’t bring it up because he enjoys the human giving him attention and because that would just be awkward.

I ask him about things I will never experience. I ask him about his parents, particularly his father, because everyone becomes impassioned about that. I ask him about religion and the freedom we have as masses of matter. I ask him to tell me stories and he does. Seven or eight drinks in—what was I drinking, again?—I start to see my granddad in his eyes. The warmth of a loosened bloodstream makes him familiar, and though I know it is not sincere, I believe it is. I make connections and warp the stories my parents told me of their fathers for hours until I see the coagulating terms drooled out on my jeans. I don’t mind. I don’t mind because I am sitting with a dead family member who only slightly remembers me and he doesn’t mind either.

A Dream

Nothing is familiar. All of the places and people I know the names of do not look the same, though they have the same titles. I drown in black, dry ink, emitting from the press I operate. My lungs shrink, but they do not return their expansion. The beings beside me only stare, because I am doing something wrong. They judge my asphyxiation. Retreating to where I remember the bathroom being located, I am successful in my hunt and attempt to wash the ink out. When my dry skin laps the water up, I am instantly in a suburb of Phoenix, Arizona, slithering my way through the gridlock. There is an accident on the side of the street and my car, without my help, steers to it until I can see all the mangled, bloodied pounds of flesh at the bottom of an immense pile of sand. I cannot know whether anyone else has found this, so I swing my car door open, half circle my vehicle, and start climbing down the mound. The backgrounds of everything twist like the unfocused objects in a shroom trip and, upon looking up towards the top of the sand, I see a solid, few lines of people watching me. My nerve endings push me off balance. My mouth fills with miniscule pebbles and dust and again, I cannot inhale. I attempt only once to climb my way back up the sand hill, but when my feet sink, I lie down and sink with them.

Gifts

 
            I give people things so they will remember me, so when we haven’t talked in years and they don’t even know if I’m alive or have done something stupid, fallen in with the wrong mix and am currently half-breathing on some rotting, off-yellow couch in South Mexico with blood gliding down the syringe invading my arm, like a child on a slip-n-slide in slow motion, they will think of me and consider these things.

            There must be a list, somewhere in time, being scribbled by some angel on probation that is attempting to prove to god that I am a good person. This list’s contents: Heather O’Neill, Sharon Olds, Albert Camus, and Robert Pirsig books; Righteous Brothers, Bob Dylan and Neutral Milk Hotel LP’s; elephant and giraffe wood carvings (whittled by yours truly); various band t-shirts; fairly large sums of money; and gallons upon gallons of drinks filled up in bars and backyards. It is my hope that that angel, spoken of previously, can bathe in the purity of my heart, but in that hope, I assume I have drank it all up through one of the swirling and bending toy straws my mother, to this day, keeps around.

            Still, I imagine you, fingers twirling the carpet while you sink in with each turn of that vinyl I scoured record stores for and (upon discovering in the one dollar bin hiding towards the back corner) bought for you, playing back me, however you remember me. I see you, as well, a whiskey cooling on your nightstand, scanning the letters of each page, though not actually reading, because you are thinking of the time we were drugged, lying down in a garage, explaining our views of existence to one another. And I invent you, lonely after a fight with your girlfriend, smiling before you sleep because of when I pissed in your neighbor’s yard after a number of beers and shots of vodka I will never remember the count of.

Perhaps existing in others’ minds at times is all I need. Perhaps it is what causes me to exist. Perhaps that is what makes me a narcissist, but perhaps I’m just like everyone else, because we are all narcissists, no matter who gets the blame.

Somber

              Waking up changed today. It rotated to a new slot in the slide projector. I noticed when the yellow strings bent through my blinds and turned me over on my side just so I could watch them slide at the speed of New Orleans sinking across my floor.

            Stray hairs caught the light and bounced it between atoms where some girls had released their weight for the night, months and years ago. I folded near my hips, readjusted my briefs and knelt to pick each singular strand out of the carpet until there was nothing to remember. I even vacuumed.

            I sat in the bathtub so long I felt skinless. I went out and stood naked in the warm drizzles that only fall in the summer. My face creased in the humidity and I remembered that I am young. I saw myself in each leaf that bent the branch holding it and caught some that broke off; the bond was too old.

“The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart."

My great-grandfather didn’t rape and pillage any helpless women (and/or children) in his day. He was an inventive farmer who smoked three packs of cigarettes and drank two pots of coffee every morning before the sun rose. During the weekends of 1931, he tried his hand at circuit racing, and, from the stories I've heard lent down to each teenager in the bloodline, he was good.

His son—that would be my grandfather, in case some of you have a hard time keeping up—didn’t get drunk at annual Christmas "get-togethers" with his older brother and ramble into how he hadn’t seen anyone at the party since their sister died 4 years previous. He wrote mildly amusing, mostly comedic, cowboy poetry and decayed after a few strokes in the hurried time I felt the ecstasy of knowing him.

Next in the male lineage comes my father, who never traveled the world, touched a beer in front of me, or even second-hand-smoked Marijuana when he was in high school—it’s probably for the better. He married young, started an offset printing company with two acquaintances even younger, and can count how many times he’s missed a Sunday church service without even taking his mittens off.

That unveils me: the unexpected, drop-out heir to their throne of satisfied monotony, who is attempting to say something of value, but(t) fuck it. I know you don’t want to hear this anymore. Even I’m already sick of it.

           In short, welcome to another (judging from what the ladies tell me, post-insincere-smiling-and-awkward-silence) premature cum stain on “real” literature’s britches. Cross your fingers for improvement, and pray to Camus for guidance.