operational stagnation

Operating without meaning, life full of standardized decisions with standardized outcomes, seems to be the norm. Sanitary risks with expected rewards. Stale, plastic plants in plastic painted vases with plastic limbs and plastic fruit. It’s all so clean. It’s all so…expected.

Things are not done in real time because of a reason that is happening in the present, things are done in real time based on reams and reams of paper that say this is how things were done in some other time, and they produced three fold, maybe even four fold, so plug it in. Make it work. It will work. It must. If it is done perfectly, measuredly, precisely, things will work, things will be returned with positive returns. Things will be precisely correct. The dry paper says so.

This is how things operate. Boardrooms and calculators and decisions based on black numbers on white computer screens. Nothing is relevant. Only operational.

I want to make decisions based on meaning. I want to do things that have meaning for me. I want to feel what I am doing, why I am doing, not just that I am doing something.

Put this here, they say. Why? Because that’s where it goes. It’s always gone there. It always will. Why? Because that’s where it goes. Can’t you read? they say.

This is how things operate. Remember when you were a kid and you asked questions about things you were doing? Remember how good it felt to know why you were doing something, not just that you were simply doing a thing? Organic decisions based off of organic actions, made in real-time so that in the future all the x’s and y’s that point to the past will have meaning, not just a significance based on irrelevance.

This is how things operate. Stagnant life.

empty streets

water fills the cracks in the street
it would be impossible, the movement
upward and out, if it hadn’t been done before
time and time again
every time the sprinkler turns on
after the people are gone, after the lights turn on
after the moon reaches the top and starts back down
it should be impossible, this crack should be fixed
tired streets filled with senseless babble all day
cars and feet, dog shit and running shoes
this should all be fixed

walking down this worn out street at the far end of beverly hills
it’s not much different than anywhere else
except the palm trees
except the peace
except the clean
but i’m still wearing all black
i’m still wearing my hoody
i’m still wondering why i won’t be able to sleep when i lay down

not much changes
cars still drive by at all hours of the night
the logos change, the rims nicer, more expensive
but people are still awake
eyes will still burn in the morning
just like they do now
and in the mirror i’ll wonder what’s happening
when will it happen
just like i did back then

only now, hopefully, just like the water
what will seem impossible
might become real
moving upward and out
towards…
towards, towards
something.

hello from the second story

a quick shower, warm, new soap that promises to moisturize with the secrets of the swiss, made it okay. i looked in the mirror and didn’t know know who or what was looking back. where did i become? it must be okay, because i am still breathing, and the thing about this is, well, i can see palm trees from my new window. i can see the hollywood hills, i can see a steeple from a church, i think, and i can hear all the cars honk and yell at each other on the street below. my borrowed single mattress on my new found floor, with my new white sheets and my new yellow comforter that my mom bought, it’s all here too.

i decided to put my blog on wordpress, so hello to anyone who finds it here. if you scroll down you can find many older posts that talk about things. hopefully when it’s not three in the morning and i have had more than two hours of sleep i will be able to write something more of worth, but if nothing else, i needed to put something new here to tell myself that this is new. not just old in a different dress.

ended to begin

there are no bells and whistles
no sirens or flashing lights

not even a stuffed animal

it’s finished without a way to begin
all you can say is, it’s done

maybe someday someone will see

an empty theater with a few paying guests
i’d be there, smiling, crying, waiting

what would they say

would you think about it after you watched it
wonder why it ended that way

where
is
the
redemption

they always ask
it’s hard to find, i would say

hard to see if you don’t look
hands over eyes, slits between fingers

where’s the hope. the truth.
it’s in progress, i would say

on it’s way from you to me
if only you could show me the way.

lost in it

i can see you there
lying on that couch
black fabric, closed eyes, feet dangling
over hopeless edges

and i know it
the sense of loss

i sometimes sleep with it at night
awake to it and smile in the mirror at it
at times it can be warm, a blanket against the future
but other, longer moments, more pained breaths

all you want is to be found
to be heard by ears greater than yours

open your eyes and see if it’s there
staring back at you with it’s sleepless nights
holding your hand with it’s calloused fingers
tapping against your mind with brittled dreams

i know it
i just don’t know how to help you past it

deep breaths and nervous laughter
close your eyes and count to seven
your knees to your chest, fetal as can be
and one day your lost will be someone else’s found

if i told you i can feel it
can you push it back to me?

big words

sometimes we put so many big words in front of small ideas. as i sit day in and day out, for what seems like for eternity, at countless training sessions at countless new jobs, i wonder what this is all about. how many ways can i “sizzle” the word salad? mixed greens, tossed, dressed, drizzled, topped, fresh, a bed of, crisp. quite a few. just eat it. you’ll like it. that’s the idea. those are the big words.

if something moves you. if something hurts you. if something is beautiful, ugly, or somewhere in between, why can’t we just say it.

that’s moving. or, with a bigger word, that shook me. the english student: that unearthed me.

try and be smart. try and be fluent in all the words no one says, but only writes, unless you’re reading from what you wrote. try to put big words to small ideas in order to make small mounds of mountainous meanings. right?

sometimes when the sun is high in the sky, and the car window is down, and the air is fresh, blowing in from the ocean, i drive in silence, and listen to the world, and think that it’s the most beautiful thing i’ve ever heard.

sometimes, when the solar god of wondrous beginnings and eventual ends, hangs high in the noon day summery sky…

talk sexy to the customer, they say, sizzle the menu, make it jump out at them, they say. i will tell you what it is, what it tastes like, and if i like it, and maybe i am sexy when i say it, but my words will not be. but maybe if i unbutton one button in my shirt i will sizzle the whole restaurant, the whole menu, and everything on their plate, to the point where all they can think are sexy thoughts about their food. maybe i will be able to put so many big words in front of so many small ideas that by the time i am done with that table, with that sizzle session, all they will see when they remember their food is the sizzle that brought it to them.

pound away at the computer. make it say what you want it to say. and if you can’t, right click and find the thesaurus and sizzle away, until there’s nothing left but big words and and the smallest of ideas. or hypothesis’ for that matter.

the worth of your beauty

who decides beauty
whose job is that
what committee gets to make that vote

i have a definition that runs in my head, that chases me
wherever i go
whose to say it’s wrong?

i have a thought as to what i think is beautiful, as to what i think is good
of value, of worth,
suitable for me and maybe not for you

do we have to agree
shake hands, sign a paper,
pen our names next to the x

or can i have mine
and you have yours
and let me love that smile that you refuse to see

because your beauty scares me
what you want to give me, what you think will work
makes me want to stay in my room, close my doors, and write these words

when i see beauty,
whatever it is to me
the darkness of someone’s soul against the light of your world

i want to look in it’s eyes
see how deep and far back they go
and find a place for me in there, for whatever you think that’s worth

unrest

attraction, if it were innocent, if it were pure,
what would it look like
what would she look like

what would the thoughts in my head say
how would they read
if there was no one dictating without reason from the back office

if life meets life
a spark starts a fire
consumes the dry leaves stored up, what then

what how
who then
soft voices can only say so much. but what’s to be said

whisper to me, why you, why me
tell me how, tell me now, tell me never
morning sun can only shine, if only it could reason

sleepless eyes
over yelling lies to hands held
in a silent chorus, in a eternal melody

this is how we made me
full of gravity for the unrest
happiness in chaos, homeless in peace

if it were clean, if it were young
what would that look like
who would she be

decisions

everything feels bleak. trapped.
i knew it was coming.
i knew it would happen, at first i did.
then i got greedy. i was blinded by initial happiness.
forgot what to expect. forgot what i would feel.
but here it is. oh so prevalent and relevant. way to real.

the thought of failure is awesome.
overpowering, suffocating, and black.
you can’t see through it
no energy to lift your eyes, to wave your hands
to see if your fingers still move when you tell them to.
but it’s all expected. it’s all reruns.

i wish it didn’t have to be this way.
how good it use to be, before i left, at least that’s how i see it
now. everyone is smiling, everything is sunny, when i look
back. a survivalist once said that when you are
lost and confused and don’t even know where the sun set or
rose, to just make decisions. i decided to write this.

i knew it was coming. i feared the moment it would arrive.
so here it is. hip hip hooray.

ugly beauty

the sun does shine here. at some point i forgot that the west coast is so beautiful. the way the ocean rolls off the end of the earth. the shade of purple the mountains reflect when the sun sets in santa barbara.

i just read a blog about what it takes to “make it” in screen-writing, one writer said it was like winning the lottery. another said it was as competitive as trying to make it in professional sports. i don’t know if i have it inside me, but that’s the beautiful part of this whole thing. pushing yourself to the edge of your limits. how much can you take before you quit?

i want to walk that line. i want to see how far i can go, if i can push myself past my limit and make it…

i’m watching a show on VH1 called “Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew,” that’s the other end of it all. so much ugly mixed with so much beauty all in one place, maybe that’s what makes it exciting. that’s what makes it so nerve shattering.