Tiny moments
I recall being about eight years old and getting it into my head that maybe, just maybe, I could write a novel. I sat down and started writing a scene about rugged adventurers meeting in a dusky tavern, gathering to the call of a wizard who had the need for some assistance on a dangerous quest. I knew I needed to describe the environment so that my readers could understand where this was. It was a tavern. What was in a tavern? Well, I had to begin somewhere, so I started to describe the chair by the door, the grain of its wood, the scratches and the stories they told, the dancing shadows of candlelight and drunk farmers playing on its stillness.
Three pages later and all I had was a fucking chair.
I am making a map of novel writing, and while in the valleys of realistic characters it says, “here be dragons” in the wasteland of descriptive scenes it warns, “this way lies madness and death!”
But you won’t beat me. Sure, I am not the chest-beating champion who guffaws in the face of your monstrosity, but I am the one who plays the fool until I see where to cut. And yes, that means I know how to take a beating.
I feel those beatings in the morning, lying in bed. The blankets gathered upon me look like intricate landscapes I wish I could shrink down into and explore. There’s a curl in the fringe of the sheet that makes a cave where I am sure I would enjoy spending an evening, an evening away from the beatings, in the healing darkness of withdrawal.
But these havens are too distant for me to reach, too small. My body is a giant amongst them and was I to move to enter and explore, they would be crushed by my magnitude. And so I am still, just looking for this one brief moment at this tiny world that is free from the beatings, free from the need for strategy, the need for cleverness. A world where I wouldn’t have to be so patient.
Three pages later and all I had was a fucking chair.
I am making a map of novel writing, and while in the valleys of realistic characters it says, “here be dragons” in the wasteland of descriptive scenes it warns, “this way lies madness and death!”
But you won’t beat me. Sure, I am not the chest-beating champion who guffaws in the face of your monstrosity, but I am the one who plays the fool until I see where to cut. And yes, that means I know how to take a beating.
I feel those beatings in the morning, lying in bed. The blankets gathered upon me look like intricate landscapes I wish I could shrink down into and explore. There’s a curl in the fringe of the sheet that makes a cave where I am sure I would enjoy spending an evening, an evening away from the beatings, in the healing darkness of withdrawal.
But these havens are too distant for me to reach, too small. My body is a giant amongst them and was I to move to enter and explore, they would be crushed by my magnitude. And so I am still, just looking for this one brief moment at this tiny world that is free from the beatings, free from the need for strategy, the need for cleverness. A world where I wouldn’t have to be so patient.
love is the answer
Love is not the answer. I have never heard anything more ridiculous in my life.
The other day I joined in on a conversation with some festival-garbed dudes who were bolstering each other with puffy yoga chests, draped with healing crystals and flashing shiny, entheogen-cleansed eyes, rapping about fully embodying the divine masculine. They were going on and on about totally showing up, about embracing life with their inner warrior king in total authentic next-level presence.
Sounds like my trip. But then I interject with questions like, “so what do you do when you realize your mind has tricked you into pain?” Or, “how do you deal with the incessant primordial baseline violence that is wired into the male body-mind?”
One of them just walks away with a wide-eyed smile and a dramatic, hand-raised gesture of joining in, his totally-showing-up powerful spiritual presence called away to the jungle of jiggly butts in hippy skirts dancing at the center of attention where he is sure his salvation awaits.
The other looks at me bemused, and with Shakespearian grace bows low and spins away to join his brother-in-knowledge, incanting loudly, “love is the answer bro!…”
Holy shit. But still, I love them. Someone has too.
Yet now I am bemused. What the fuck just happened? I entered the circle of power, ready to forge some truth with some waking dreamers, and the moment I draw my blade, these would-be warriors reveal themselves as phantom travelers and turn to mist. The moment I ask myself for more, they show me how little they can handle.
It is funny to me to describe myself as bemused because I think that that may be my default setting these days. Bemused by all of those who hold the mighty ideals of community aloft yet really want nothing more than a way to enforce hierarchy, avoid chores, and flirt with roommates. Bemused by the champions of activism who are so obviously playing out the roles of ego-maniacal petty-tyrants trying to dodge the suffering of their own psyches by directing theirs and other’s eyes to the do-gooding grift-work of modern martyr-hood. Bemused that any hand would strike another, or take from another, or chain another or fool another into thinking it wasn’t good enough. Bemused by the invalidation and avoidance that is this statement, “love is the answer.”
Love is not the answer. It is not a destination, it is never final. Love is the question. Love is an inquiry. Love is a process. Love is alive. Love should never be the way out of a conversation, especially one about love.
The other day I joined in on a conversation with some festival-garbed dudes who were bolstering each other with puffy yoga chests, draped with healing crystals and flashing shiny, entheogen-cleansed eyes, rapping about fully embodying the divine masculine. They were going on and on about totally showing up, about embracing life with their inner warrior king in total authentic next-level presence.
Sounds like my trip. But then I interject with questions like, “so what do you do when you realize your mind has tricked you into pain?” Or, “how do you deal with the incessant primordial baseline violence that is wired into the male body-mind?”
One of them just walks away with a wide-eyed smile and a dramatic, hand-raised gesture of joining in, his totally-showing-up powerful spiritual presence called away to the jungle of jiggly butts in hippy skirts dancing at the center of attention where he is sure his salvation awaits.
The other looks at me bemused, and with Shakespearian grace bows low and spins away to join his brother-in-knowledge, incanting loudly, “love is the answer bro!…”
Holy shit. But still, I love them. Someone has too.
Yet now I am bemused. What the fuck just happened? I entered the circle of power, ready to forge some truth with some waking dreamers, and the moment I draw my blade, these would-be warriors reveal themselves as phantom travelers and turn to mist. The moment I ask myself for more, they show me how little they can handle.
It is funny to me to describe myself as bemused because I think that that may be my default setting these days. Bemused by all of those who hold the mighty ideals of community aloft yet really want nothing more than a way to enforce hierarchy, avoid chores, and flirt with roommates. Bemused by the champions of activism who are so obviously playing out the roles of ego-maniacal petty-tyrants trying to dodge the suffering of their own psyches by directing theirs and other’s eyes to the do-gooding grift-work of modern martyr-hood. Bemused that any hand would strike another, or take from another, or chain another or fool another into thinking it wasn’t good enough. Bemused by the invalidation and avoidance that is this statement, “love is the answer.”
Love is not the answer. It is not a destination, it is never final. Love is the question. Love is an inquiry. Love is a process. Love is alive. Love should never be the way out of a conversation, especially one about love.
Louise
Once a year or so, I pull up a saved Facebook post from a lady who I barely knew growing up and read her 216 words she wrote the week my stepmother, Louise, died. It always makes me cry, and I can’t figure out why. But I need tears more than I need answers, so I give those words to my heart whenever I feel it.
Louise was a real character. She was a rough and tumble biker chick who knew how to not take any shit from anyone. Before she shacked up with my dad, she used to hang out with the Hell’s Angels and was known to even be seen on the back of Sonny Berger’s bike from time to time. Now I am not saying that makes me Jax Teller or anything, but I’ll be damned if I don’t feel cooler sometimes knowing I was in part raised by someone who knew she was part of such infamous legendry.
Sometime in her late teens, she and a few other ladies in her sisterhood got into a terrible accident resulting in oil burns across their bodies. I knew these scars well, both on my stepmom and some of her sisters, for we frequented swimming holes as a kid, and those splashes of terribly warped flesh were there for all to see in their swimsuits. They were all broken people, sure, but they had started with some kind of deep inner strength that kept them proud even having been torn from the ranks of “beautiful young women” far too early. Something in them was so unyielding they knew they were still sexy even though there was evidence to the contrary.
And the men around them, broken and strong too, the men such as my dad, preferred their women like this. Someone who could take a beating and still show up for the party. Someone who could look trauma in the eye and give it a coke-trembling grin while they tried to choke something worth having from the tyranny of tragedy that was their life. A life that hunted them like a beast, and took everything it could from them the moment they let their guard down.
I hear she died still devoted to her excess, still trying to find the party in the war. I remember the last few times I spent with her, years before she passed, before she and my dad broke it off for the last time. As a kid, it was just do my chores , go play, and leave her alone to read the day away. But eventually, I was a young adult, and she and I could talk about the books we had in common. We’d talk about riding dragons with Anne McCaffrey and being vampires with Anne Rice. She had a wall of fantasy books that I could draw from. Something I will always be grateful for.
I remember one time when she and my dad were fighting, which was the usual, she said something awful about my dad to me, something I don’t quite recall but certainly was aimed at reducing his manhood to nothing. It didn’t phase me because I guess I don’t care what others think of my dad (he doesn’t seem to either). But I cared about Louise, and so I said gently, “if ever it would help for you to talk about it, just let me know.” She didn’t seem to care at the moment, rightly so, so I turned to go, but then, “hey,” she said, so I turned back. “You’re a good one Gabe.” I said thanks, and meant it, but was sad because I knew this meant we would never talk about what was really going on.
And she faded from my life like that. She gave me so much. She showed me how to be proud and strong, even with a mangled body. She once told me she was proud of me because I was the only one of “her kids” to make it into college. She had been a part of raising quite a few kids from different men. I didn’t have the heart to tell her when I had dropped out.
And so I read those 216 words, and I cry. But today, I finally know why I cry. I cry because while I told Louise, “I love you” all the time, I never told her what I really wanted to. What I meant to say was thank you, Louise, for being one of the few who could ever understand me. For showing me that broken and strong is possible.
The broken and strong don’t tell each other with words how to do it, we stand up and show you.
Louise was a real character. She was a rough and tumble biker chick who knew how to not take any shit from anyone. Before she shacked up with my dad, she used to hang out with the Hell’s Angels and was known to even be seen on the back of Sonny Berger’s bike from time to time. Now I am not saying that makes me Jax Teller or anything, but I’ll be damned if I don’t feel cooler sometimes knowing I was in part raised by someone who knew she was part of such infamous legendry.
Sometime in her late teens, she and a few other ladies in her sisterhood got into a terrible accident resulting in oil burns across their bodies. I knew these scars well, both on my stepmom and some of her sisters, for we frequented swimming holes as a kid, and those splashes of terribly warped flesh were there for all to see in their swimsuits. They were all broken people, sure, but they had started with some kind of deep inner strength that kept them proud even having been torn from the ranks of “beautiful young women” far too early. Something in them was so unyielding they knew they were still sexy even though there was evidence to the contrary.
And the men around them, broken and strong too, the men such as my dad, preferred their women like this. Someone who could take a beating and still show up for the party. Someone who could look trauma in the eye and give it a coke-trembling grin while they tried to choke something worth having from the tyranny of tragedy that was their life. A life that hunted them like a beast, and took everything it could from them the moment they let their guard down.
I hear she died still devoted to her excess, still trying to find the party in the war. I remember the last few times I spent with her, years before she passed, before she and my dad broke it off for the last time. As a kid, it was just do my chores , go play, and leave her alone to read the day away. But eventually, I was a young adult, and she and I could talk about the books we had in common. We’d talk about riding dragons with Anne McCaffrey and being vampires with Anne Rice. She had a wall of fantasy books that I could draw from. Something I will always be grateful for.
I remember one time when she and my dad were fighting, which was the usual, she said something awful about my dad to me, something I don’t quite recall but certainly was aimed at reducing his manhood to nothing. It didn’t phase me because I guess I don’t care what others think of my dad (he doesn’t seem to either). But I cared about Louise, and so I said gently, “if ever it would help for you to talk about it, just let me know.” She didn’t seem to care at the moment, rightly so, so I turned to go, but then, “hey,” she said, so I turned back. “You’re a good one Gabe.” I said thanks, and meant it, but was sad because I knew this meant we would never talk about what was really going on.
And she faded from my life like that. She gave me so much. She showed me how to be proud and strong, even with a mangled body. She once told me she was proud of me because I was the only one of “her kids” to make it into college. She had been a part of raising quite a few kids from different men. I didn’t have the heart to tell her when I had dropped out.
And so I read those 216 words, and I cry. But today, I finally know why I cry. I cry because while I told Louise, “I love you” all the time, I never told her what I really wanted to. What I meant to say was thank you, Louise, for being one of the few who could ever understand me. For showing me that broken and strong is possible.
The broken and strong don’t tell each other with words how to do it, we stand up and show you.
Cafe solitude
THESE PEOPLE ARE FREAKING ME OUT.
Who are they? Where do they all come from? What are they doing here? The last question I could guess at, based on appearances. Sitting around, socializing while sipping hot beverages. But what are they all saying? What am I supposed to say? They nod and wink and gesture with cups in hands and indicate social cues in this improv theater of evaluation. But we all know what they say about appearance. Don’t judge a gift horse in my mouth. I see past all these double bluffs and into the great conspiracy of culture. This doldrum drumming along to which everyone is marching in time. Even the rebels are on cue. Enter stage left! Say something dissenting! Shake your fist at the great Oz in the sky and don’t bother to look behind the curtain of your own persona! Now exit! Stage right! We’ve had enough of that.
Maybe it isn’t the people freaking me out but the cafe itself. The walls are dripping with pseudo-creative portrayals of whatever the fuck passes for art these days. Twisted images of faces and nature in swirls of color and form. It seems like they might be moving, so I gotta give them credit for that. But what does it all mean? What am I supposed to know? What do they want me to see? They got little cards with descriptions next to each one, and while that’s at least a starting point, they don’t tell me how to look into this mirror. The biggest thing in print, below the little faded gray, don’t-read-me-because-I-am-being-difficult italics 5-word description of the piece, in a bold-black jump off of the paper and grab for my wallet numbers, is, of course, the price. More valuation. So that’s how I see it. I see someone who pours their heart out on the canvas in a fit of foiled embodiment and is then forced to put a price on the head of their genius. I hope they enjoyed the ride because this destination sucks. You gotta love the process because the finale is always a whimper.
Maybe it’s this process that’s freaking me out. I got seven days to make something of myself, and here I am on what? Tuesday? And I haven’t even invented plants yet? What the fuck am I talking about? You cant invent plants. You have to grow them. Only the great Oz can pull a plant out of his ass and call it creation. We little people gotta stick to the process and wine and dine our notions until they reach our hands, and we manage to fumble about with the sticks and stones until our straw man takes form and goes on a journey to get a brain. Let me know if you find it, my son, because I sure could use a bit of that.
Maybe it’s the drugs that are freaking me out. I swear I haven’t seen straight since the ’90s. Too few too many times taking a trip across the road to find out what the chicken found on the other side, and while everything seems pretty much the same again, I just can’t seem to settle back into my cultural role. These expectations aren’t measured for me. The sleeves of fiscal responsibility hang too far over my hands for they were cut and sewn for someone much bigger than I. Except in the crotch. These too-tighty-whitey truncations bite into my creative urges and make me sorta angry all the time. I try and adjust the fit with a casual grab and tug but these sleeves are dragging on the ground behind me and when I try and gather them up I find there is no end to them. These shoes I am trying to fill are clown shoes. It’s a setup. No one can do it. I gotta tear these clothes off and run through the streets. But I gotta do it really clever like so I avoid the cliches and engage the heart and brain and courage I choked out of the wizard before he sent me home. I gotta make this life count! I start sweating with terror as my throat closes, and my eyes bulge. This brain is too big! This heart is too full! This courage is going to get me killed!
“Can I help you?” Says the far too innocent barista. Well, that seems pretty far fetched at this point. But I’ll give it a try.
Who are they? Where do they all come from? What are they doing here? The last question I could guess at, based on appearances. Sitting around, socializing while sipping hot beverages. But what are they all saying? What am I supposed to say? They nod and wink and gesture with cups in hands and indicate social cues in this improv theater of evaluation. But we all know what they say about appearance. Don’t judge a gift horse in my mouth. I see past all these double bluffs and into the great conspiracy of culture. This doldrum drumming along to which everyone is marching in time. Even the rebels are on cue. Enter stage left! Say something dissenting! Shake your fist at the great Oz in the sky and don’t bother to look behind the curtain of your own persona! Now exit! Stage right! We’ve had enough of that.
Maybe it isn’t the people freaking me out but the cafe itself. The walls are dripping with pseudo-creative portrayals of whatever the fuck passes for art these days. Twisted images of faces and nature in swirls of color and form. It seems like they might be moving, so I gotta give them credit for that. But what does it all mean? What am I supposed to know? What do they want me to see? They got little cards with descriptions next to each one, and while that’s at least a starting point, they don’t tell me how to look into this mirror. The biggest thing in print, below the little faded gray, don’t-read-me-because-I-am-being-difficult italics 5-word description of the piece, in a bold-black jump off of the paper and grab for my wallet numbers, is, of course, the price. More valuation. So that’s how I see it. I see someone who pours their heart out on the canvas in a fit of foiled embodiment and is then forced to put a price on the head of their genius. I hope they enjoyed the ride because this destination sucks. You gotta love the process because the finale is always a whimper.
Maybe it’s this process that’s freaking me out. I got seven days to make something of myself, and here I am on what? Tuesday? And I haven’t even invented plants yet? What the fuck am I talking about? You cant invent plants. You have to grow them. Only the great Oz can pull a plant out of his ass and call it creation. We little people gotta stick to the process and wine and dine our notions until they reach our hands, and we manage to fumble about with the sticks and stones until our straw man takes form and goes on a journey to get a brain. Let me know if you find it, my son, because I sure could use a bit of that.
Maybe it’s the drugs that are freaking me out. I swear I haven’t seen straight since the ’90s. Too few too many times taking a trip across the road to find out what the chicken found on the other side, and while everything seems pretty much the same again, I just can’t seem to settle back into my cultural role. These expectations aren’t measured for me. The sleeves of fiscal responsibility hang too far over my hands for they were cut and sewn for someone much bigger than I. Except in the crotch. These too-tighty-whitey truncations bite into my creative urges and make me sorta angry all the time. I try and adjust the fit with a casual grab and tug but these sleeves are dragging on the ground behind me and when I try and gather them up I find there is no end to them. These shoes I am trying to fill are clown shoes. It’s a setup. No one can do it. I gotta tear these clothes off and run through the streets. But I gotta do it really clever like so I avoid the cliches and engage the heart and brain and courage I choked out of the wizard before he sent me home. I gotta make this life count! I start sweating with terror as my throat closes, and my eyes bulge. This brain is too big! This heart is too full! This courage is going to get me killed!
“Can I help you?” Says the far too innocent barista. Well, that seems pretty far fetched at this point. But I’ll give it a try.
Surrounded
In the old days, we used to make long journeys across desperate terrains. We would bundle our dreams upon our backs and put one foot in front of the other as we made our way through landscapes that threatened our every move. We knew very little except that we did not want to be where we once were, and that we were sure there was somewhere else we wanted to be, if we could but get through this place of dangerous passage. Surrounded by Indians, we pressed on.
Now don’t get all flustered about my use of the word “Indians.” I got it on very strong, heard it from a white guy who heard it from a white guy who heard it from a white guy who wrote it in a book before the age of fact-checking hearsay that what Columbus really meant was “una gente in Dios,” or the people in God and that “in Dios” eventually became “Indians.” So that it is actually a really beautiful name for a people. Oh wait, I just googled that urban legend and it turns out to be bullshit. So much for beauty. Surrounded by white colonialists and historical revisionists, we pressed on.
And so here is where we got. All that talk of Dios pushed us from coast to coast, leaving fields of bloody self-entitlement in our wake and a deep lineage of coverups and self-denying bypass that leave everyone at least a little fucked up in the head and more than a few of us shit out of luck when it comes to knowing where we come from.
Myself, I was born in a stolen land, by the side of a beautiful river where it becomes one with another river and they carry on like they were never two. Well, I would say it is beautiful, inspiring a way forward even, and that it gives me a sense of belonging to somewhere, but we already established that beauty only comes from lies and that belonging is not something we are entitled to since our forefathers took it from everyone else. Surrounded by rapists, we pressed on.
So this is what we get. A mess of a situation filled with resentment and pain. I got more than enough good intention to convince myself I am one of the good guys, but when you pull the curtains of social order aside I am just another low ranking white devil, trying to make my way through this hell realm we call capitalism and only having a decent life because of the privilege my skin, my balls, and my location give me. It certainly isn’t of my own doing that anything good is coming of it.
But it could be. Surrounded by honesty, maturity, and possibility, we press the fuck on.
Now don’t get all flustered about my use of the word “Indians.” I got it on very strong, heard it from a white guy who heard it from a white guy who heard it from a white guy who wrote it in a book before the age of fact-checking hearsay that what Columbus really meant was “una gente in Dios,” or the people in God and that “in Dios” eventually became “Indians.” So that it is actually a really beautiful name for a people. Oh wait, I just googled that urban legend and it turns out to be bullshit. So much for beauty. Surrounded by white colonialists and historical revisionists, we pressed on.
And so here is where we got. All that talk of Dios pushed us from coast to coast, leaving fields of bloody self-entitlement in our wake and a deep lineage of coverups and self-denying bypass that leave everyone at least a little fucked up in the head and more than a few of us shit out of luck when it comes to knowing where we come from.
Myself, I was born in a stolen land, by the side of a beautiful river where it becomes one with another river and they carry on like they were never two. Well, I would say it is beautiful, inspiring a way forward even, and that it gives me a sense of belonging to somewhere, but we already established that beauty only comes from lies and that belonging is not something we are entitled to since our forefathers took it from everyone else. Surrounded by rapists, we pressed on.
So this is what we get. A mess of a situation filled with resentment and pain. I got more than enough good intention to convince myself I am one of the good guys, but when you pull the curtains of social order aside I am just another low ranking white devil, trying to make my way through this hell realm we call capitalism and only having a decent life because of the privilege my skin, my balls, and my location give me. It certainly isn’t of my own doing that anything good is coming of it.
But it could be. Surrounded by honesty, maturity, and possibility, we press the fuck on.
https://poetictruths.com/
