The World is Filled with Hope
I’m sitting here at the airport and overhearing the most powerful & inspiring conversation:
A man is sitting with his father and openly talking about depression, suicide, the power of therapy, and the power of God.
He repeatedly said “I love you” and “I care about you”.
Let that sink in
The Whispers
Dr. Smith tried to keep a smile on her face, her pen hovering above the notepad. "And you say these urges are what brought you here?"
Across the desk, Ethan shrugged, "I can't help it. They're like whispers in my head."
Smith’s pen resumed, but this time a little more nervously. She asked, "you've acted on these urges?"
Ethan's smile slowly returned with a chill. "Oh yes, many times."
The next thing Dr. Smith knew, a cold hand had clamped around her wrist. Ethan's eyes, once vacant, now gleamed with a predatory light. "The whispers are telling me you’re next.”
The pen fell to the floor as Smith attempted to scream. Ethan had wrapped his hand around her windpipe, silencing her.
"Hush, I’m hearing the whispers.”
Her lifeless body fell to the floor. Ethan straightened, his smile widening. The whispers had grown louder.
My Unknown Admiration.
I watched the sun hold you today.
You lie there so elegant and warm,
with your hand stretched out.
And I know you will complain when you wake
You'll sigh at the annoyance of your arm tingling
And use that hand to rub the sleep from your eyes.
You will never know I was amazed,
Just as you will never be amazed by me.
But for now, I watch you sleep.
And I look to your outstretched hand.
Like the sun,
I wish I could hold it.
End of watch
They didn't host a funeral, and the obituary was pretty lean on details.
It lists his kids, both grown, one with kids of his own. It lists his current fiance as his "significant other." There's no mention of the wife he brought back from his military service overseas.
Why would it mention her, anyway? She ditched him after running around on him for years with Rangers she'd pick up in any one of several Bay Street bars. Fuck her.
Fuck him, too.
I used to work with him. Two different jobs, actually. The first one, I absolutely hated being his partner. Hated it. We stood shift together on a permanent night watch back in my deputy days. He was the type of guy who liked to stay busy when people were watching. Constant high-energy, constant motion, constant demanding of all the attention and work credit. "HEY LOOK AT ME I'M DOING THESE THINGS WHILE NO ONE ELSE IS!" He'd run down that hill and jump all over that one cow, the whole while, bragging about how he was first down the hill and how he was nailing that cow so good. Meanwhile, the rest of us would still be calmly ease down the hill, watching him burn himself out. Then we'd slowly take our turn at each of the other cows, but we wouldn't talk about it. When he left, all the things he used to run around and do and demand credit for doing, I then walked around and did. And didn't say anything about. And people noticed how much quieter things were, and how things got done meticulously, carefully, and calmly.
Fuck him, too.
We were friends, though. He was a funny guy. Quick witted, quick tempered, whip smart. He was a reader, but never where people would see him. He was typical on the surface; football, red meat, Coors Light. Dig a little deeper, and he was Tolstoy, vindaloo, and hefeweizen.
He drove a brand new Ford f150 that he named Phil. He'd wash and wax Phil at least every other week. He loved that truck. I was surprised when he sold it off.
I was surprised when he did a lot of things. When he quit the department. When he quit his next three jobs, each of which was quite good considering he lucked into them. When he moved back home with his dad after finally leaving that turd he married (the whole while insisting she was beautiful when he married her). Good for him for thinking so, I say, but I've seen the wedding photos. Never let the facts stand in the way of a good story is something I can understand.
Fuck her, anyway. And fuck him, too.
That next job we worked together, he was less annoying than the first. Age and experience seemed to have mellowed him a little. I'm still surprised that he wasn't terribly mellow at the start, really, considering he had done a couple of tours in the Army before I'd ever met him. One would think that'd be enough to calm him, but I think it took some being-fired-from-a-job experiences to tone him down a bit.
He fell on some hard times before he fell out of my life. He got caught stealing from a small business, and that was right about the time things fell apart for him at home. He became distant, started avoiding my calls. Truly, I didn't mind so much, mostly because of the embezzlement. I'm still close to those business owners in a personal and professional sense, so it was hard to really be available and present for troubles he may have had, but I tried. He withdrew and then he disappeared.
The last time I talked to him was 2012.
The last time I saw him was the photograph for his obituary.
He was 46, and his end of watch came at the business end of a 45.
He pulled the trigger.
Fuck him, too, for not hitting River Street with us one more time so we could hear his stupid little laugh and listen to his stupid little jokes at our expense.
We grew apart. I don't regret that. We became different people heading in different directions.
What I do regret is not playing a walk on part in his war, because it seems he was living a lead role in his own cage.
Fuck you, man. I wish you were here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXdNnw99-Ic
The many cycling seasons of my life
Happy.
Sad.
Happy.
Sad.
Hungry.
Full.
Hungry.
Full.
Not spicy at all.
...
Oh, now I'm starting to feel it...
AUUGHHH!!!
Too hot.
Too cold.
So close to being perfect...
Ugh, I messed it up.
Ahh...
Ahhh...
AHHHH!!!
...Oh, the sneeze is gone.
This will be fun!
I'm doing great.
Just a little more...
Ok, no more.
My nose itches.
My nose burns.
My nose is runny.
Sick.
School starts.
Burnout.
Winter/summer break.
Less burnt out.
Sprint.
Hold.
Push.
Final stretch.
Just five more minutes.
Just five more minutes.
Just five more minutes.
Oh shoot, it's been an hour
Energized.
Tired.
Fatigued.
Dormant.
Like.
Love.
Hate.
Alone.
I can't get better.
I hate myself.
Stop.
I can't stop.
Pretend it's fine.
It's not fine.
Everything is falling apart.
Tell nobody.
Tell nobody.
Tell nobody.
I need to tell somebody.
Anybody.
Please.
Even if they can't help.
I need to say something.
I need to scream into a pillow.
Something.
Anything.
...
...
But then it's fine again.
Check Prose.
Realize I haven't written anything in a while.
Write something.
Leave for an undisclosed period of time.
Blessing
I pulled the arrow from my chest. A drop of blood, maybe two, fell onto the rock beside my boot. I threw it to the ground and continued my path. My assailant gasped but quickly recovered his wit and with a furrowed brow, pulled an arrow from his quiver and prepared to attack again.
The Days of Offering were here. In order to keep the power bestowed unto me, there were requirements to be met. In my darkest hour, Atrok extended an ancient, guiding hand. But his grand benevolence paled compared to his vast appetite.
Archers were his favorite snack.
Red Flags—See How They Wave
There are raised red flags
For me, things otherworldly.
What I offer both good and bad
For them, mourn tragic and deadly
The banquet I offer the hungry
For me, are leftovers
The purgatives needed humbly
For them, hoard holdovers
The praises I give the underpraised
For me, obsequiously
Swellings that come, as heads, upraised
For them, excuse expediently
False engagement and gamesmanship
For me, serve camaraderie
Assuming love and friendship
For them, naïve quixotry
When above me you see
Red flags waving high and held fast
Blame and shame not, me
When they fly, for you, at half-mast.
[INSPIRED BY walking red flag (a song abt why tf im still single), BY @sushishi : https://www.theprose.com/post/759534]
A useless, shiny adjective.
Aria. Awake in bed, arms above her head, stomach rising and falling with breath. Ginger on her tongue. Abdomen, rye. Her mind, steel. Blackened. The pills only hurt, so she kicked without any help. Four years back. Four days of dread, brain snaps, tingles in her fingers and toes, palpitations. Heart on edge. Four more days of a hole in her chest. Withdrawals. Synthetic. Four more days of recovery, and four more days to clear the way.
Withdrawn.
Without synchronicity.
Always kick on a Monday. Allow Sunday to be the gate.
She kicked on a Monday. Midnight to end Sunday. It had been that way with liquor, with cigarettes, with sugar. She put nothing in the way of feel. Her walls were plenty without help. Her father built the first one, but she had learned control with the first line of ink. Lightning strike, once to remain alone, forever. No other line would be so new. No other pain shocking. Graffiti for the walls, for her own understanding, for her understanding of alone. For her love with it, their affair. On her back. Quilt over glass. Moonrise.
—Four years back, she kicked on a Monday. Midnight. Sunday behind her to show the week it would give itself over or lose her. Wild pig days, itching blood. Taper Sunday to midnight. Clean sheets. Showered and in bed. Breathed up into the night, remembered a story of stars up there, the belt of Orion, the burning of light. Eskimos whose souls would find Heaven stepping up the stars of his belt. Three on the rise up. Open arms of somebody never dead. The story of it, the sadness.
Her sadness. A psalm of the city. A flower filled with blood. Unmoving.
A plant in her heart. It grew only when she shed what was not needed.
She was a flower grown from the city, and it was proud, so proud even death would not usurp her. Her skin graced by the city, the design, the product it pushed. She was vindicated through crawling up a victim. Now the faces of the city were there to keep the flower strong, to keep it alive. With the city as her only love, the nightmares had stopped with her addictions. The city saw to that. When the sadness would punctuate its reach, the city only moved faster to heal.
Her face in the mirror. Sunfall. The lights along the awnings breathed possibilities into the sidewalk, breathed sleaze. One stroke of eyeshadow twice, one carton of juice drained, and the elevator spat her out. The landlord smiled. Lobby. Aria gave her a nod, a late-night-at-the-office sigh, and the landlord laughed, watched her walk away, to someplace offering risks meaning memories. What she would not give to be in the skin, the youth of her, the years facing forward from her. Behind the counter, what the old woman would never know. The eyes of men and lesbians would mean much to her, the smell of the stage, the degenerates, as long as they would want her, she would give herself to them. The years behind the counter. The city was her thief, but she knew nothing righteous. Her eyes clung to the coat of Aria. Long, black. Her hair blue and white, the city opened with neon, prostrated in wait, when her boots would touch the concrete, the city would begin. The landlord looked away.
Aria disappeared through the door.
Tall Jack Coke. He drank half. Two drunks sat facing the bottles blocking the mirror. One drunk spoke to him, but the other cut him off, a pat on the forearm. The stranger spoke to no one but the bartender, and even now the words became one nod: Two shots, a pint, and a tall Jack Coke down the road. The drunk shrugged it off, and they focused on the two women. The bartender looked over the shoulder of the stranger, out the window, while Aria walked past for the place next door, where she would remain until four in the morning, where she would pull in more than any attorney in the city. The drunks and the women followed his stare. The drunks laughed at the bartender, his lust, they laughed along. They knew her silhouette as much as the others. Aria went into the building next door. The bartender shook his head and uttered one word.
“Beautiful.”
Beautiful. The stranger stared into his glass. The word rested upon his lips, a dead thing. Beautiful. Did not come close. The word could not approach her. Aria. Beautiful. It cheapened her. Diluted.
Beautiful.
A useless, shiny adjective.
The name was not lost on him. She was a flower reborn by the city. His. He would wait for the time to tell her what she was, when she would listen to him, when he would make the connection fixed for the time ahead. A flower. His. A child risen from the city, into his own. Like the plant from the blood of Robinson Jeffers, the line from the book had scratched him. Long scar. Unmoved beneath the sky her ghost set over him. The flower in his blood, Aria. Her fingers set in ink, born from the city, meant only to move through his hair. Moving through obsidian. Burn the film off his body. Nothing smelled as sweet as blood.
Her blood. It sat in his, trapped by him. When she would move he would feel it. Next door she would work the stage, the faces. When the other girls would spray and wipe the pole after their time, it made her sick, so she never went near it. Aria. No inversions, no slow slides down, no ascents to communize her, no bills handed to her or placed upon her. Their money, on the foot of the stage in front. The faces in the crowd, the look from them. The bodies beneath her. On stage, in dream to get her through, she would watch them burn to bone and ash. The other girls, how they went nude and often beyond, rejects of the city reaching for its grace. Outstretched, ignored. Aria, not once exposing her body as nude, not having to. Her mystery piped in from the city, the Moon on high, the lights and the sick things filtered for her, for the view of the city to keep it for its own. The city. The air as flesh, the rain as veins, the night sky as blood. Aria, her flesh as rain. Next door, the stranger finished his drink and walked out.
Silhouette walking west. The old man watched and it was no more. On his back there, dirt cooled, the night receding lighter. Torn back by dawn, when the city put him to sleep, when the light would bore the artists, the thinkers, the hunters. Light in the city, the expansion of lungs, only levered because it had to be. Tolerated. Daylight for the adopted. Loved just enough. They had to be there for business. Landscape and lifting. Commerce and order, base work. When the Sun would fail, the real blood woke and waited for the naked stars.
—From The Velocity of Ink, a book I wrote, and one I'm reading for Audible. Here's a link for the narration of the chapters above, if you want to hear it. Thanks to @Mamba for creating the photos to go along with the read on YouTube. Here's the link.
https://youtu.be/nCNPIuBK_uw
Here's the link to the book.
https://jeffstewartauthor.com/the-velocity-of-ink/