Spring Days In Exile (Part 1)

It was one of those perfect weather days I immediately wished would just end. It was absolutely beautiful outside, like so many 75 degree spring afternoons in Southern California. But my spirits were not tied to the temperature or the clarity of the air.

Kids were coming home from school, walking through the streets outside my window, laughing, smiling cause an unusually cold winter had finally made it's way south.

I shut the shades a little tighter.

I didn't want to go anywhere, I didn't want to see anybody, I just wanted it to be some other day in the future. So I lay on my bed staring at the ceiling but in reality focusing on the thoughts playing back and forth in my mind. That cursed organ or concept or whatever it was, my mind was low on something at the moment. All I felt was isolation and stress and inability. What a crappy thing to do to me on a Friday afternoon.

Despite the airtight blinds my room was still lit by an artificial sun from an artificial world. The computer screen shone brightly like a full moon.

I turned away from it. Not because of the light but because of what was displayed on it. A web page with a simple photo in the corner. A girl posing, smiling, staring at me through the lens. She wore an earthy green summer dress with a small print and her hair poured down her forehead like a waterfall. So natural and serene like the day outside. So I fought the urge to look at either.

My dog barked at all the traffic outside our house despite my parents and brother yelling at him to stop. Two wrongs trying to make a right. I turned up my music to drown out the noise from all of them.

All this music and I don't even want to hear any of it, I thought to myself as I scanned my Ipod for any sort of relief from the circus going on around me. I settled on Death Cab cause even when I didn't want to listen to them I always could.

"...I need you so much closer, I need you so much closer..." And I fell asleep.


Hours later I awoke to darkness and silence and shot my digital clock a look.

8:42 PM it informed me.

Satisfied that I had defeated the terrible day, I sat up and cracked the excess of sleep out of my spine. Finally leaving my matress I transferred my body to the chair in front of the sleeping computer. It sighed to life with a whirr and a couple robotic tics. And all it once her image came to me like a Vietnam flashback in a bad eighties movie. I quickly refreshed the browser window and erased her for the time being.

Then I heard the familiar bloop of a new iChat window and stared at the electronic translation of a thought in type.

-Hey Therrrrre

It was her. Adele Lopez, the girl from my screen, the image from my flashback, the girl manifest as a Friday afternoon was suddenly posing a common colloquialism to me. I wanted to respond and at the same time not.

Over the past week I had finally been resolved to let her go and it seemed fate dealt me a cruel hand.

-Hi Adele, how have you been

Then nothing. For three minutes I watched the empty speech box and imagined my conversation buried somewhere in six or ten other ones she was having with people who deserved her attention. All the guys I'd seen compliment her on Myspace. All the boys who posed so close to her in party pictures. And me staring at an empty speech box.

My heart sunk a bit. I had no confidence in myself and I knew it. I resigned to walk away from the computer with a little dignity and fix myself something to eat.

As I reached the frame of my door a second bloop sounded and I paused in stride. Staring down at my feet and the carpet, I made a decision. I turned around and took a seat in front of the screen to read the response.

-Sorry, I had a phone call and I didn't want to be distracted

I wasn't sure what that meant. Well, I understood what it said, but what was she really telling me? Was the phone a distraction or me? Did she actually care enough about this conversation to give me the courtesy of undivided attention? As was sometimes the problem with instant messaging, words could never give the whole story and I had a bad habit of analyzing intent in the most innocent of statements. Especially when I was already looking for something.

-Oh that's fine, I didn't even notice, I said playing off the small panic attack I had at the sight of her name.

I was strangely good at speaking over instant message. I was able to think about what I said and maximized my personality by joking almost constantly. It must have been a bit like conversing with a Vaudevillian comic.

But the longer it went on, the brighter I became. Adele was seemingly happy to play back and forth with me. Suddenly my terrible Friday might be salvaged. Then she surprised me.

-Hey Evan, I gotta go now because I've got to get ready to hang out with some friends, but I wanted to say you are welcome to come along if you want

If I had a panic attack because of what she said before, this threw my heart into a full blown conniption of conflicting, overloaded thoughts. Of course I wanted to say yes. So I quickly got that out of the way.

- Sure that'd be fun. Where are you going?

She named off some bar I'd never heard of but it didn't matter. She could have named The Palms in Las Vegas and I would have been at the airport buying a ticket in the best D-Bag Diesel Jeans, striped button shirt and leather Florsheim shoes I could find on the way.

-Just come over to my house, my friends are driving

I couldn't believe it was this easy. My personality had never paid off before and I was on the cusp of strange territory. I still had no confidence but at least my mind was too distracted to realize that this fortunate turn of events was being wasted on me.

And I rushed out the door to take a shower, smiling that I wouldn't have to spend ALL my Spring days in self-imposed exile.

Better off

You know I never meant for it to end that way
but you see I'm not always myself these days
and you were someone
I just couldn't stand being two faced around

That doesn't mean everything that happened wasn't real
cause you don't miss apparitions
and I do
miss talking to you sometimes

But I let those other things in the way
those things that tighten the gap between man and ape
Those primordial inclinations
Which made me cut off my right hand
To preserve the left

It's no consolation but I was trying to protect you too
and it's hard to delicately shield another person
from yourself
I feel like the bridges I burned were in some part necessary
but still, I can't help wishing
there was a way to see across the divide

And so now months later I do feel the void
like a phantom limb
And I keep expecting it to be there
but when I look, its just free space

I don't know if you still come around here to see whats happening
in my screwed up head
but if there is any bitterness on your end
I want to say there is none on mine
You are better off now than then
So I guess in that way I achieved what I set out to do
a success despite myself

God, it's no wonder I'm not with someone
Why should anybody go through that
I'm sorry, really

The flirtations of a fool: Terminal B, Gate 56 nonstop service to Ontario

There is this girl in green
Looking right at me
Unabashed unwavering
seemingly infatuated with me
or something in my direction
And I'm facing her
trying not to get sucked into the blackhole
Of a possibly interested female gaze

It's not love at first sight for me
or even fleeting attraction
but I am still taken by her persistence
It's so rare I am flattered
in this way

I think our eyes met a few times
though I could hardly hold it
for longer than a few seconds
But now she is distracted by the phone
And I'm the one painting her with stares
like Van Gogh's Starry Night
Laying it on thick
With Denver International Airport as a canvas
While hundreds of people run and stress
over where they will end up in a few hours
I just did it again
Looked right at her while she looked at me

My guess is that by the time I warm up
To the idea of flirting a bit
She'll have gotten over whatever
Fascinated her about me
in the first place
And it wouldn't be the first time

Late budding confidence
Has never bloomed into anything
Save for esteem wilting disappointment
And neither will comparing myself to a flower

Ahhh! but the airport is a rotten place to waste a day

Garden of Gathsemane

There was a vessel so giving it took on
the weight of another's sorrow
As the water came seeping through the cracks
it poured into her basin

Filling up fast

But she received it nonetheless
Though I worry sometimes
that her capacity be reached too quickly
and without time to drain
she might become fractured as well

There was a tragedy so great
It seemed fictional
Surreal and unsettling as any
Shakespeare wrote

I felt numb for a day and a half
Despite how far removed I was
And yet you charged forward with purpose
like a battlefield medic
resigned to duty over self

These words are yet all I could muster
To unthinkable loss
I fear they border on ineffective
Or worse
A mockery of the beauty of life
And the delicacy of it's uncertainty

God seems so distant at these times
but I take solace
When I see selfless acts in times of crisis

He has placed angels on this earth
For those who must mourn
So they may find comfort
When their thread has been stretched apart

But I wonder about the angels
and who will lift them up
because God knows it hurts them too

My name on newsprint

A couple of dogs loose from their owner run free
for a few moments
Happy and slobbery like a dog should always be
Unaware of the potential harm
which might come to them
should they venture too far from the perfectly manicured front lawn

And I leaned on my truck and the night air was freezing
and clear
Clear straight through the thousands of miles to the surface of the moon
which was so immediate and full
out of place, but bold
A screaming white glow which all but the brightest light
from the closest stars
fell victim too

And I moved to stand on a very short brick wall
of the very small brick planter
with mostly dead shrubs
and weeds which even looked neglected

Teetering slightly, fighting to find perfect balance on my bare feet
while my friend spoke to me
and I listened
and spoke and questioned and participated
but at that moment my mind was divided

A young couple (well younger than I) strolled past
shoulder to shoulder, smiling
I think going nowhere in particular
Which I found endearing
because doing absolutely nothing
with somebody who might mean something
is never a waste of time

Whispering on my neck
the breeze picked up slightly and I zipped up my new blue coat
that I really liked
though nobody would compliment me on it
cause maybe only I thought it looked alright
And it still had the smell from the bar the night before

Not a lot happened that night in the bar,
(well not that would be any sort of interesting story)
but to me it was like this new blue jacket
I was proud of it
and maybe I didn't stand out
In a crowd full of people with flashier coats
better stories and witty banter
but it was a start

Of what I don't know
I don't know where I am going these days
At least I am trying

So I stepped down from the bricks and onto the icy concrete sidewalk
under the streetlamp outside my front yard
the same sidewalk I laid on alone 13 years earlier
and stared up at the overcast sky
Daydreaming about what life would be like when I became an adult

And on nights like this
I still do

Residue

Faucet water filled the basin
As I washed my face
And I thought about everything
Piling up on me
Faster than I could manage
Like the clogged drain
In the sink
that always left a residue

I thought about attraction
and the subjective nature of connection
About how depressing life seemed
And how I could no longer pinpoint a cause
or just one

I thought about the tapwater dripping down my cheeks
My bloodshot eyes
And the knot in my gut
From every time I am pressured to feel
something I cannot

I thought about how often
Tears follow a laugh
And disappointment a desire

Drying my face
I looked up from the towel
and into the mirror
And there was the reality of it all
Sucking the moisture
out of hope and expectation
Replacing it with arid facts

The gritty realization that my heart
was a son of a bitch
and I now hated him for it

I found myself saddest when I was feeling good
and that notion scares me the most

Staring into my own brown eyes
at all the frustration and despair
I could not stand
to be in the same room with me

So I shut off the bathroom light
And closed the door
Leaving only the gurgling sound
of a slowly draining pool of dirty water
and a bloody mess from the torture
I just put myself through

Notes from the Ipod touch

I started writing on my iPod Touch's notepad so i could get things out of my mind but not necessarily on the blog. Hopefully it improves my quality a bit. Here's two that I liked.


The sun in LA

I watched you collide with a mountain
Top and it was like
nothing
The earth is winning from
my perspective
But the sun in LA gets the best
Of us all in the end

Isn't it sad that the new tower of Babel
Lies at the heart of downtown
And all the little sweatshops are
boarding up their windows

The bad economy is a cliche'
Like a sunset on the 101 fwy

Somehow neither was a surprise to me


Beautiful beautiful

Gone, disappeared
Vanished
From memory
And the blue glow from
Halogen headlamps is a ghost
In the corner of my vision

While sweat dripping down the forehead
Could not evaporate
Like the holder of that jewel
of a thought
In subconscious windows
Taking my mind off the
Muffled clatter of slow jogging effort

There's no self-deception like the present
And I couldn't lie to myself as I rounded
the inclined sidewalk
In an attempt to run off my sins

I could visualize no one
No hope, no possibility
No discernible want

Thud, Thud
my legs burning
With a kind of passion my
Loveless heart could not match

Beat, beat
that marvelous muscle
Ticking like a department store
watch
Counting down the seconds
And I wonder what was missing

Beautiful, beautiful
the girl I could not conjure
Beautiful, beautiful
The poetic justice

I was stood up by an idle thought

Sometimes I just have to close my eyes

A sullen addict hunkered down
beside 40 watt candle light
after wallowing in his mind
he finally lets go

Down dirty down
It feels a lot like betrayal
though for a brief moment
he is reaching for the heavens

Not before sinking back into the depths of hell
a demon staring back in the mirror
it's disgusting
unrecognizable
but sadly still an echo of reality

The worst part is the lie
the secrets that keep him separate
from Love
from ever reaching freedom
A slave driven by the most virulent master

Loneliness

No longer a bleeding laceration
But a festering wound
That does not heal

A dull grinding of bone to bone
With soreness hanging like a fog
Shrouding the soul so nobody could connect with it

And there was a poignant,
Biting
Possibility
That I might not recover

The moment before I pulled away

The knuckle jumps, cuticle tingles
While electricity juices through
My index finger

Muscles contract, blood flows
We're frozen now
In a slowly building, numbing shock

Dance for me digits
Don't you know that pain and exhilaration
Stem from the same source?

I wish I could paint

Rain I love you

Cold weather I adore you with chattering teeth
And every breath looks like a cloud
Like I'm smoking

The wet streets
Make every step a special one
because the earth is now a diamond
A transcendent gem

And the sound of water hitting asphalt
is a rich symphony
It is a harp
moving up and down scales in such a flourish
The sounds like heaven

Rain I love you

When my too long shoe laces are getting soaked
I can barely hear you through my hood
Turn back now before you overwhelm me

I love you rain because you are so very neutral
but so very confident
No judgmental double standards
you don't care who is damp

Whether it's the old lady asking for change
or the four intellectuals beside her
debating whether the government
should give her a chance
The rain will cover every one of them

It's beautiful to me
How folks run from shelter to shelter
and I wanted to laugh all the while

The leaves on the ground are brown
the leaves in the trees are green
the bare trees are naked gray
and mountains are speckled white with snow

A true masterpiece
You know,
I wish I could paint
(all the best writers did, I bet)
maybe then I could be good company

Rain I love you
because you weep for us all.

Random mish mash of thoughts and feelings with feeble conclusions

I'm not sad anymore
But far from the opposite
No...
there is a different feel to it

Not the fit of an old baseball mitt
but the void when my hand isn't there

It just isn't there

And if life were a game I'd be waiting in the bull pen
warming up the pitchers
Or were it a tree
I'd be the one
lone
leaf in late autumn
somehow clinging to a twig
cut off from the life giving nutrients

It's not about the home runs
The spring bloom
The enlightened old shrub high on
a wise old hillside

It's not about making sense
Knowing what I want
Meeting someone
Buying flowers
Embracing love
or rejecting it

It must be more external
not from me but for me
from without

This is my Valentine's day requisition:

I'd just like to be liked
on a day for being liked

Simplicity itself

"It's really pouring outside right now,"
I told the woman trimming my hair

The buzzing of the clippers matching
clumps of black strands
falling in my lap

And the inane excess of pop music
on Top 40 radio
Eating away at my ears in the same way

4 down to a 2
Blend it in on top
leave some in the front
I think my hairline is revealing
too much of my modest forehead

I could only stare out the window
while she worked on the sides

It's just as well though
The glass was a mirror
but of a rare society
That I watched like a cat
perched on the sill

Cars created waves by the sidewalk
as they cautiously outmaneuvered
one another

Driving more carefully than if the moon were
shining pregnant on a dry summer evening
Her womb full of life

Blinding midnight light

In this storm the only brilliant shine
was the low beams
bleeding into the soup covered streets
Emanating from family sedans in rush hour traffic
fighting their way upstream
like spawning salmon

However, comparing humanity to trout
was a flawed metaphor
because they only make the trip once and die
while these folks kill themselves
five days a week

"I'm glad," she said,
Talking to my reflection
and so to me.
"We needed this rain."

It was then that I realized
Wisdom is not found exclusively in lecture halls
where we may only roam a four walled aquarium
and surmise what the vast ocean is like

And I knew that I could be happy
not despite myself
but because of who I am

I needed the rain more than she could have guessed

The haircut paid for in full
I joined the other fish
With a smile stretching from gill to gill.

Learning to walk, one foot in front of the other

A walk is a significant thing
Foot pounding pavement
the most mechanical motion we are capable of
The mind has time to dwell

To get lost on unkempt paths
long since treaded in real time
imagining bridges to gaps which
are impassable in immediacy

Solution after solution
Thoughts work overtime in their inward world
While the feet dredge on
an ever stretching
never ending path

The monotony would kill the mind
but the feet know their job and do it well
And in a subtle way
the feet know how important
their work is to the mind

And while each foot must stop in destination
and each mind must once again focus on reality

It is in walking that their truest purpose
is manifest
The feet for moving forward
the mind for forward thinking

A walk is all some people really need

I always intend to take a stroll
But some days I just feel like
I don't have the feet for it

In this case I am the party foul

A lot of confusion goes on
in a dark room with loud music

Like introduced names and hands extended
and girls with black
thick rimmed glasses

Waiting to be met

A whirlpool of sensuality
splashing water droplets in scattered directions
like so many missed connections
and the sticky floor from a forgotten
red cup

Lying on its side
bleeding out and ignored
Rocking slightly beneath the trample
of desperately sweaty bodies
and syncopated stiletto traffic

Those thick rimmed glasses bouncing up and down
bobbing like buoys
in a sea of smiling faces
and sometimes incoherent stares

From the shore I watched
the dancing white caps
and the floating spectacles seemed to watch me back

But I was not any closer
to knowing the eyes
behind the
lenses.

An insignificant transaction, ten minutes til close at Borders

To the girl with the boy cut at borders:

My friend thought you were into me
but I know better
you were just interested in my magazine

I know a burgeoning music lover
when I see one
The Beatles T-shirt gave you away

The Beatles are always the beginning

I wonder if you still think Eleanor Rigby
is the saddest song you'd ever heard
Or if you are searching for the one
that will really
affect you.

For me it was Julia

So you made conversation
like any good sales employee
and asked me about my purchase
and smiled
and listened to my answer

For a second I was a guru
to you
perhaps opening your eyes
to the next level
of euphonious euphoria

You had very pretty eyes by the way
they made good contact when
I was brave enough
to look up

And for some reason I remember your cold hands
when we made brief contact

The whole transaction
45 seconds
a minute tops

I paid with cash and never looked back
My friend was wrong
you weren't into me

But I think I might have been into you

I'm a sucker for girls with short haircuts
and black Beatles T's

To getting better from pneumonia

Illness like this
only exists
to make you appreciate feeling better

And a cold in your head
might make you feel dead
but pain is a good reminder that you are alive

Rest for a week
and long nights of sleep
are the cure for a number of things

Not the least of which is pneumonia

But a terrible poem
will hopefully incite a smile
or at least a roll of the eyes

In case they should be in short supply
during a proper recovery

I want to scream brood of vipers, if only I didnt slither myself

Hypocrites! Hypocrites!
the lot of you
Taking for granted
What I would have given anything for

Protecting your dysfunction
through a thin smattering of hearsay
and ignorance

Believing in your innocence
because deep down you don't want
to hear that people change

Because forgiveness would force you to look
at your festering flaws and sludgy hearts

Shrieking with glee
like a wild dog in bloodlust
tearing at flesh and driven insane with pure violence
while plasma showers all over

Howling
from a moral high ground
that is more like a pit of self assurance

Drinking and wasting your lives
Drinking and wasting
my time

You don't deserve to slander the name
Of something so God blessed
it makes us all feel God damned

The calming sound of rustling trees is a cliche for restless boredom

There are some days when you don't feel
the same species
as everyone
else.
And maybe it's nothing
really, its nothing
But it's in these awkward silences
that I see God
cause there isn't anyone else
who will look me in the eye
Everybody trying to get a better angle
of the world as a whole
"I'll see something you didn't,
right?"
Whether you care too much
or not at all
is not what defines happiness
In fact I find it to be more of a
barrier
Because on my best and worst days
I am my most insurmountable hindrance
to finding the deeper meaning
And these words.
These words are nothing more than
the swirling dust
on hot days
in dry places
that look like tornadoes when you're 5 years old.
When the only twister you've ever seen
was in The Wizard of Oz.
And now I wonder in my bed at night
If my major problems
are really tornadoes
or merely anomalies of unstable air
The devil
or a dust devil
And, perhaps, life as I now
know it
is not also a facsimile
of a 1930's
Judy Garland musical.

Last time I cried (short story)

The last time I cried, I mean really cried...

"I was about 16 years old," I said to my partner under the stars.

I adjusted my body on the blanket I set up in my truck bed for a midnight picnic. Placing my right hand along the side of my head to prop it up, I looked her right in the eyes.

"Really, you've never cried at all since then?"

I smiled a bit.

I loved it when she played sarcastic. But I wanted to continue my story because I knew she would care. That meant something to me.

"Maybe I've teared up at a sad news story or favorite part of a movie, but I'm talking about a complete release. The kind of crying that happens when sadness is the only thing on your mind, the only emotion you are capable of feeling. The kind of crying when you're torn away from something you love."

Her smirking face sobered.

In the dim glow of the waning moon, her brown hair sparkled like a 2 foot waterfall from a trickling brook.

"What made you cry, if you don't mind me asking?"

Her face was genuinely inquisitive. So I went further. Further maybe than I normally would have.

"Well, and this is gonna sound lame-"

She quickly interrupted.

"No Evan, I don't think you could cry for a lame reason."

I was taken back for a second. I wasn't used to believing somebody when they said a thing like that. But I believed her. I believed every word she ever said. It almost made me want to cry right there.

"Thanks for saying that but, the last time I cried was when I found out my cat died."

"Oh, that's so sweet." she told me with a tired smile on her face. The kind of smile that is sincere because exhaustion would not allow the wasted effort of false pretension. I loved tired smiles and for whatever reason that is what she gave me in this moment.

"Yeah, I was away for the weekend with some friends at the beach. At that age, I was finally being given the freedom to do things like that, you know? Anyway, it turned out to be a really hectic and strange time. A girl I thought I liked was there camping with us and I was doing all I could to stand out to her."

"What was her name?"

"The girl I liked?"

"Yes. Sorry if that is a weird question but I always love hearing the names of high school crushes, for some reason they are names that people only seem to have in high school."

I laughed. I knew exactly what she was talking about.

"Her name was Michelle Castaneda. I used to listen to the Beatles song Michelle and it would remind me of her. It still does actually."

"Oh, that's a pretty name. My first crush was Walter Doosenburg."

We both laughed.

"Doosenburg? That is definitely one of those high school names."

The night sky was an audience for our mirth. The infinite splendor of stars and the temporary glamor of the city below cheered as we two were as alone as happiness could permit.

"So you were out with your friends and then what?"

"Oh yeah. Well I was trying to coax Michelle into noticing me like I said and it ended up becoming a disaster. All of us were on the shore late at night we climbed up onto a lifeguard tower. On my way up I slipped and hit my leg on a protruding bolt or something. Long story short, I spent most of that night in the ER waiting to get stitches for what turned out to be a hole in my leg straight to the bone. Needless to say, things did not work out for me and Michelle that weekend."

She burst into laughter and tried to cover her mouth until her eyes watered.

"I'm so sorry Evan. I know it must have been terrible but it's just... so you. Go on, please."

I grinned.

"Right. So after that debacle I got home and I found out that my cat was killed by coyotes. I just burst into tears, absolutely uncontrollable. I felt a real loss. Which sounds so dumb because people lose family and friends every day, but I think when that cat died, I felt a void more real than the chunk of flesh I left at the lifeguard tower. And that was the last time I cried."

"Awww Evan. That is so sad, really I'm close to crying myself. And its nothing to be ashamed of. Nobody can tell you what to love. And losing that thing will always cause you to wince in pain. Its an equal action reaction response. It's not pathetic that you cried over your cat, it's logical."

She leaned over and kissed me on the cheek and gave me a hug. She was such a good friend. I felt guilty for wanting to kiss her back.

"You are so amazing to me when you don't have to be, you know that?"

She looked away for a second and I felt embarassed.

"Uhh, but I think it bothers me that I cried for my cat because there is another reason I cried then and haven't cried since."

"What is that?"

"I think it's because since then I haven't really loved anyone. Well, I love my family but its different. I mean people you develop love for. It's like I've been alone since then and sort of distant enough from people to not have that reaction. And it hasn't been only my decision. I don't think anybody has loved me enough either. It's hard to explain but I just can't cry about anyone anymore. It's a numbing experience to be alone."

The wind tussled the leaves in the canopy above us like ominous applause and for ten minutes after that we lay there in silence.

Shakey goes an earthquake

I-slip-down-in-to-the-sofa
seat
and-sulk-and-sink-be-low-their-field-of
view
A-girl-walks-past-as-I-try-to-blend-and
disappear
The-less-she-sees-the-less-I-have-to
hide

But

The-more-I-do-this-the-more-I-feel-like-I'm
alone
It's-hard-to-meet-new-pe-ople
when
I'd-ra-ther-in-tro-duce-them-to-some-one
else