In Between

            Now that the world is at a point where love is not so apparent and blinding, we will all live freely of one another, given enough laps around the numbers on the clock. Humans will no longer spend nights with their pillows, or dogs, or favorite movies crying over what could have been, since there is no longer a “what could have been.” These humans will have finally realized that there is no key hidden in any possible future with any stranger they meet. They will no longer wander at night, or even during the day, hoping someone who fits their quarks and can laugh at those quarks with them is any one of the infinite souls they see in a day. They will hardly ever fight, because we humans only fight over things we love: money, steadiness, even love itself, etc.

            These humans spoken of will be our children’s children, of course, for we have too many weighted, overstuffed suitcases to unpack in this new apartment we have found ourselves now sitting in. We will sit in these new places and still think of all those we loved, whether for the shortest time ever recorded or the longest. Our children will see us crying while making dinner, but they will not understand because this concept of love, which we cry over, is drifting out even more in their minds. They will come to us as elementary school students, frustrated that a girl or boy won’t talk to them, but it will end at that extent. They will not stop eating because their crush did not accept their valentine in class that day. They will not despondently lie in bed through their several alarm clocks, ignoring their obligations because their high school sweetheart broke up with them. They will not spend multiple paychecks on a crafted piece of metal with a useless, shiny rock on top, only to realize that their feelings of monogamy have changed as the first year of their marriage bore into them. They will have no need for these useless emotions, though they may feel a residual tinge now and again, caused only by us.

            Their children, however, will feel a joy neither our children nor we could ever imagine, and they will never question why they are so indispensably jovial. When they sense a connection with another human, they will recognize it as simply that and nothing else. They will be logical and much smarter than we ever hoped even our children would be. One day, with all this knowledge and lack of such deep pains and regrets, these grandchildren will visit us in our nursing homes and, ironically enough, be the ones giving us advice as to dealing with such wrenching heartbreaks. But because we are so panged with the bruises of living, we will not listen, and it will only be another fault to learn from.

Waiting

The pores are open on my hands. Some hair grew there some time ago, but mostly age. Cracked skin marks my years the way the rings on the tree stump I rest on do. We were both cut down around the same time. Now, people just use us as a reference—a timeline for their own existence.

            The grandchildren don’t visit. Even my own children don’t. I live too far in “the middle of butt-fucking Egypt” as they so tactfully put it. Phone calls still exist, but not often. I mostly sit, waiting for time to wave as it passes on its fall to the water waiting for impact below the bridge.

            Even Time wishes not to be around this long. It’s too much waiting. Sometimes there’s a war, and the piles of gutted, dry blood-painted bodies take on the occupation of keeping a count on things. Sometimes, a political race—to where, I still don’t know—keeps track of the money spent, the votes. Sometimes there’s a death in the family and the relatives measure how long they themselves have left. Most of the time, though, time is spent waiting for dinner to be cooked, waiting for school to be over, waiting for sleep to find us, waiting for the sun to rise, waiting for the end of something—anything. I’ve lived long enough to know at least that, but I haven’t lived long enough to understand what all the waiting is for. Death, I suppose, but that doesn’t seem too fair, does it?

The moments, which don’t feel as though I am waiting, are usually spent with someone other than myself or are those in which I am creating.

             Upon realizing that it is a process, I was happy. Upon realizing that all the goals I had set for myself were really nothing real, I held back a tinge of regret at the time wasted working towards them, but finally, my joy gutted a laugh out of me, I laid on the frizzing carpet, and exhaled pointless worry. When I inflated my lungs, I thought about all the things I could work on. I thought about fixing my car. I considered sketching a mug shot of someone I had never met, probably never would meet, and didn’t care. I didn’t even care that no one other than myself, the occasional nosey girlfriend, and my best friend would ever see it. The dreams of fame faded along with the hopes to be published and noticed for what I had done. The fact that I had written, painted, drawn, sculpted, invented, or fixed whatever it was, was good enough for me.

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.