All the World in Black and White

Nearly 3am as I sit here with a sabotaged left Achilles Tendon, listening to the birds prematurely chirp. It’s kind of bringing me back to the days I used to try and fall asleep on coke. Boy am I glad that phase has come and gone. 

I guess the truth is...I was going to fast. Something, whether it be just the ‘unstoppable force of life’ or something a little more intellectual, insisted I to sit down. For whatever reason, I was forced to sit this one the fuck out.

God or man, I’d like to think I’ve stumbled upon something profound. And no...that isn’t a variant to “everything happens for a reason”; those words still bother the living shit out of me. 

But I digress. How I should have phrased it this: I have an opportunity to turn this into something profound.  The hardest day in anyone’s life is the hardest day in their life, and in the darkest reaches of a mans existence, he begins to change...for better or for worse.

I’ve spent far too many hours just...simply...wasting. And that was NOT for a reason that led me to this turning point,  although, with the mentality I’m going for...a strong case can be made for that boring ‘Superman-Esqe’ cliché of a saying. 

Maybe, just maybe...I can turn anything into a positive. Well, perhaps not everything. If my eyes were gouged out and I was only to audibly bear witness to my families horrid screams as they were murdered...I’m almost certain all would be lost at the point expect blindly carrying out some sort of revenge.

But I DIGRESS AGAIN...fuck.

What I am saying is to be taken on simpler terms. My ability to walk was temporarily taken from me. Key word: temporarily; in all sights forward and little effort, I will walk again. 

But...who will I be when I regain my ‘taken for granted’ gift?

-Will I be the same as before? Living too fast, smoking and drinking too much, hardly taking a second to smell the toast? 

Or will I evolve? Will I take a retrospectively minor moment in a long life and let it be a defining moment in my mortal career?

I want option 2.

The rest is up to me. Not everything happens for a reason and no deity sure as shit isn’t looking after me or any of us. I can either make the change or NOT make the change. Something that is entirely up to me and can go either way.

Time to be my own god. Time to make the change. 

Have you ever taken the time to actually sit back and scrutinize people in their relationships? This generation is so royally fucked in that sense. Our fidelity has dwindled down to a bloody stump. Every corner I turn there is someone on their knees, taking their love to town for the third time this year. It’s not just you, or you or even you…times that by 100 and you’re still a few numbers shy, I bet.

And its fine, it’s all fine. We all like to fuck, who wouldn’t?-it’s a spiritual bind between two humans…Or should I say that it at least was. Now sex is the same as eating fast food at the Big Kahuna Burger down the street; same amount of shame, too. There is nothing that leads up to that “magical” moment anymore; bases or the fifth date rule is simply no more and if a girl doesn’t unbuckle your pants by the end of the first date, she more than likely didn’t like you. There is no more class up the ass in this generation and if there is and you’ve managed to find it, then I suggest you hold onto it for dear life and spice it up every second you’ve got…’cause shit can get reeeeeal boring.

And to you feminists, for quite possibly jumping down my throat, saying “Men can be whores, why can’t women?”

Well, this is all subjective…but young women in this day currently hold the heavy weight title for this problem in question; infidelities and whatnot. And at first, second and third glance you’d swear they held absolutely no concept of guilt in their bones, as they kiss you at night and brew you coffee in the morning. They smile, do their makeup and maybe straddle you with an early encore before it’s time to go to work. You’ll swear to the false gods that everything is fine and fuckin’ dandy. And maybe it is…maybe you’ve got nothing to worry about and you’re going to get married and pop out a few kids behind that white picket fence. Well, I say god speed and I hope you last for the better part of a decade out there.

I suppose this entry is really just my own curiously that begs the question: “When do you finally know to trust someone?” When exactly does that finally happen? - is it just a sheer leap of faith? And even when you do, is it perfectly sound and okay in the grand scheme of it all. Do people cheat based on their counterpart’s insecurities? – Bringing their fears to reality due to how scared or irritating they were about it. I’ve been on the outskirts (both male and female) of relationships and have seen some dark, tormenting shit go down. This whole “love, lust” thing sure as shit isn’t that pretty no matter how many times they told you it was.

Maybe it’s all a game. One complex game of Chess and it’s all about the moves you make that define your fate.

Or maybe it’s all finally pouring out onto the surface like concrete before it hardens…Maybe we are just a race born to fuck ourselves toward the end of days.

The unknown has always baffled and intrigued me beyond belief. Wondrous things like the story of the stars and universe above; all the creatures that still dwell undiscovered in the deep blue below; why isn’t there such a thing as a two hour orgasm and why the fuck is Justin Bieber famous? But I’d have to say that lately I’ve taken a more humanly turn to glance at people and how utterly unpredictable they can be. It has me questioning everyone around me and if a devil can walk about the masses disguised as an angel innocently dressed in blinding white cloth, then who can I really trust, honestly. 

This story isn’t about me, not in the least. I’m just supporting background noise for the main characters. More importantly, I didn’t come here to bash or trash and make you run for the deepest, darkest hole in the hills(although I do believe it’s where you truly belong).

No, today I am genuinely interested and amazed at the brilliantly constructed facade that some people can put on; A mask that meshes in so well with your birth face. An alternative face that smiles and laughs the way your original one did; a leathery, skintight gown that fucks with deceit over and over again with no real shame produced. How does one person carry on with such devilish routines, with not so much as a crackle in their voice or misplaced step in their path.

The human fucking race: A massively complicated organism. I’ve still yet to figure out the ones who aimlessly waltz around me. Hell, I’m sure as shit many eons away from understanding my own ultimate construction. It’s just difficult hardware with red and yellow wiring that keeps on tangling to no end.

In the end, I suppose what I really mean is, I thought I knew someone very well. I had pretty damn close to infinite respect and faith for a person that I was happy to call my friend for the better part of a decade. I stood up for her when others restlessly sat down in spite of her. Imagine my fuckin’ disappointment when her closet burst open from the overly jam packed skeleton bones.

Now I sit alone in my usual introspective chair, the one that curiously spins round and round if I needed it to. I question human nature in this chair; I look around corners and beneath un-turned stones; I over-analyze the faces and body language for the certain signs that take the shape of mysterious and sophisticated illusions.

I feel my restlessness closing in on me fast. I can hardly concentrate at work and I don’t truly know if this resolution is to blame. But perhaps its presence untapped something far greater, which would in turn make it to blame anyway, so there. But I listen to my new vintage vinyl player except I keep recycling the same damn three albums; soon, if I don’t buy more records, that will cease to help me. I drink a lot of coffee, beer and I inhale more than enough smoke. Almost up to a pack a day, yay for me. But the only true thing keeping my inner-monster at bay is the reading and analyzing that in seeing through this strange endeavor, I will cure myself from such a quietly shameful “disease”.

Oh, I have also been questioning and entertaining ideals that otherwise kept a very scarce role in my brain. Things like going to school or just really putting forth the strength that I think lies inside of me. I’m trying to appear more elegant and intellectual because that’s close to how I view myself. Maybe it’s the three beers deep or the three hits of my pipe, but I see myself an inch or two above MOST people I meet. Not everyone, but most. Is that too vane?-more than likely.

Needless to say, I’m somewhat all over the place right now. Ducking through low corridors, only to crawl out and walk through a hallway with 55 foot high ceilings. But hey, nobody ever defined reckless abandonment to be such a stroll in the park. In fact, nothing in this world is, and maybe it’s just me but most of what I see seems pretty fuckin’ dim around here.

But we’ll do the best we can and try our hardest to stay afloat, as we always do.

I don’t feel much of an urge. Well, there’s no way that can be completely true, I feel some fire hidden down there and I know it’s something that will only grow stronger with the passing of time. I must remain in power, though, I know that much.

All this self-celibacy has me drawing some interesting and eye opening ideas. Ideas about love and lust and I am now aware of my social shortcomings. I am now aware why I haven’t fallen in love, yet. But I suppose the larger revelation would be that I now know why I can’t seem to feel a damn thing toward another woman. It’s all just momentary aspirations that dissipate when I come within a certain distance of "her". It’s all a day-dream that my mind pencils in when I see that lovely face. And I dream and dream to create the illusion of taking her hand and running down a flowery field, laughing. While in reality I stop with anxiety when I’ve moved close enough for my subconscious standard. That’s when I step backward and swear I’ve discovered all the reasons not to go through with it.

I suppose with the beginning of day 3, I can say that the reasoning behind my current path is just as apparent as it was when I first etched it in stone back then. But I can’t stop…and how can I?-with many solid years of a ritualistic habit I’ve come to adore greatly.

But even still, smokers smoke even though they know that it will eventually destroy them; murderers murder, despite the all-knowing fact that they’ll one day be caught and put on death row.

Sometimes I’d like to say that I’m a fresh breed; a specimen who has full control of his mind. And I play it off to the public eye as such, appearing as sly as a fox or graceful as the proudest soaring eagle. And for a second there I swear I almost convinced myself that that’s exactly who I was, as I sat alone in my room watching porn and smoking the good stuff over and over until reality caved in.

A good friend told me around eight O’clock last night that I was incredibly young. Mind you, this gentlemen was up there in the 40’s, but still, I’d like to believe that to be the truth and may the universe lay down its most violent strike of lightening before I live out an average, unloving life, hell bent and stressed on paying off the next bill.

I look across the water and see a city as magnificent as something written in a well-known storybook. I see tall, lit up buildings that NEVER seem to turn off. I see men, women and children walking the spit covered streets, daring to be optimists, as they attempt to fulfil their wildest dreams.

I want that struggle and I want that drive that I know hides under one of the many un-turned stones in my mind.

It was the smoke from all the cigarettes we were too distracted to fully put out, or the bed that never got around to being made. It was the ruby-red lights that were poorly strung around the unfinished trim. It was the countless empty bottles of Pinot Noir that we shoved into one corner and proudly called it decor. It was the blissfulness of getting high and dancing in the night to Barry White. It was all the fucking and it was all the cliche to go along with it.

It was the struggle of getting out of bed, for fear of facing the street. It was the makeshift tent consisting of old bed sheets that draped down to spiral around our queen mattress; black and thick, to block the sun from disturbing our sleepy eyes.

It was sound and smell of brewing coffee or morning bacon sizzling in an oiled, overused pan bought at some ghetto market on 5th. It was the dirty dishes that never got done because we couldn’t keep our selfish hands off each other.

Hell, It was those eyes and it was how I never got tired of looking into them. It was those consistently burning and naked thighs that were always wrapped around to warm my cold waist. It was the blood that flowed heavy passion through every pleasing instrument my body had to sell.

It wouldn’t seem much to you, but it was our home.

Until that one day when she never came home.

Now, my cigarettes never foolishly stream smoke from its ashtray anymore and I tore down those ridiculous sheets. I make my bed in the morning and do my dishes at night.

And now, It’s my new viewing pass-time from my overly-expensive loft in New York City, that offers me a eyeful street full of strange and struggle.

It’s the man selling hot dogs for a living on the corner and it’s the half naked homeless man that harasses him as its the pigeon that craps on his out of season winter hat.

It’s the boy who looks no older than twelve that confidently walks home from school and it’s the badge-yielding “sworn to protect” officer that texts his mistress while he drives 15 MPH down the moderately busy street.

It’s the pollution that my lungs breathe in and it’s this city that chews me up to spits me out everyday, since she left.

It’s this damn winter and how cold it makes my skin; its my body and how glass-shattering it’s come to feel.

It’s also the raw, realized fact of everyone else’s distress, not just my own. It’s the beautifully, scientific fact that our sun will rise and shine on us tomorrow as well as the next. It’s the little boy and the mother he needs to reach, it’s the hot dog man and it’s his kids that he slaves away to feed. It’s that homeless man with his every second struggle to make it through a long, cold winter. It’s every godforsaken face in this tall, grid city of ours.

Yeah…It’s this fucking winter and how alive I’ve allowed it to make me feel lately; its my goddamn legs, back and arms and how resilient they’ve grown to be. It’s my heartbeat and how fast it speeds up at times, and it’s these imaginary pages that I continue to fill.

It’s been more than a month since his last written word of at least partial substance. But his bill situation yielded itself to be one cruel bitch and even more inclined to cast procrastination upon him. Funny system he follows, or should I say, “we” follow. But the more time he wasted his life on meaningless tasks and long forgotten hours, the more access to “freedom” he thought he’d have. All the while he could feel this old, dull and rusty mallet bashing against his temple, getting him more and more tired, more and more disoriented to what was really around him. He felt himself turning into a zombie; Meshing clean in with the rest of the horde that stumbled down his busy New York City block. Where all they tended to do was walk until they smelt even the tiniest drop of blood, because it was all that drove them.

Until he reached a certain point. Looking out from his window, passed the cable wires that unattractively webbed to and from, and saw a crow soar calmly against an unusually cool summer afternoon.  

He said to himself, “The mundane is madness and the madness is mundane, I can place the words however I’d like, but they will still mean the same thing. 

Now it seems the kids know more than we do because they are the only true untouched and free ones. They hear every boring, motherless word that comes out from your “wise” mouths, and yet they still do and believe in whatever they want.

Until they become conditioned as I was unfortunately born and designed to be, to hopefully reach around the still tender age of 22 and realize that it’s all one big and massively planned out devil scheme we decided to call… society. 

It was a feeling of repair, a feeling of reconstruction. A feeling I knew all too well to be momentary and oh so very unprosperous for me. But somehow, out of character, I found myself aimlessly walking through a forest that happened to be my very backyard. I didn’t know where I was going or headed, hell, I had no map. I just walked a steady pace to god knows where, through a trail with no trees in a perfectly laid out path.  

                The breeze felt satisfying as it brushed through my hair, passed my face and blew into my nose; I didn’t hate one bit of it. My eyes were closed as I asked myself, “self, why haven’t we at least tried this.” It was the first time in a long time I actually felt inspired just by nature’s simple sight. Looking up and to the outside of my trail, the treetops waved to me while squirrels darted from one end to the other as birds chirped and flew, swaying in and out to dodge their incoming branch. The forest was alive and welcoming me to walk inside its breathing, pulsating liveliness. It was like we shared each other.

                It was only ten minutes into walking when I saw the end of my trail and something that magically gleamed in the sun’s highest point. Something that peacefully drifted on by like an ongoing stream. It was a very calm lake that spanned about 100 feet to the other side, which was just more grass and trees that continue my trail further into the woods. I’d be lying if I didn’t consider for a second a quick swim to the other side. But I took it all in instead, for what laid before me was a big fat cliché of beautiful, and I practically collapsed on my back to relax and face the water.

                I heard the skip of a rock across the water. My face formed a smile and I shut my eyes to accept a gorgeous memory.

A DISTANT TIME, IN 1998

                “You know you’re mother wants to ground you for a week.” I said.

                It was right before dark and we were both standing in front of the same lake we always come to. Little Jack was pouting with his knees touching his chin, as he sat in one of our camping chairs. I stood up beside mine holding different sized rocks in my hand. Little Jack wasn’t talking much, which usually only made me talk more. “I convinced her that you and I talk instead.” I said again.

                But there was still no response from my son. His arms were tightly belted around his legs while his front teeth touched his knee; he upheld a dead stare right into the lake’s soul.

                I looked down at little Jack, hoping he’d feel my presence and at least glance up. But I had no such luck and it again only made me want to talk more. “You know it’s just me, bud. We can always talk about anything.” I poorly skipped one of my rocks across the lake then went on to rambled some more, “It’s always a mother’s duty to worry about what you did today in school. She only wants to make sure we bring you up right.”

                I skipped another rock across the lake and this time succeeded with 3 solid skips. I laughed a pompous laugh, then looked down at my son for a reward glance of some kind. But still, he kept still as a stone.

                I released the rocks in my hand to fall on the camping chair below me. My knees hit dirt and I was leveled with my son. “Look, Jack. All she wants is an apology. She wants to know you’re at least acknowledging what you did. You can’t go beating someone up and-“

                “Why did you and mom lie to me?!” Little Jack finally broke his silence in aggression.

                I was left utterly stumped and at a loss for words. That was the last thing I expected little Jack to say. I tripped over my words a bit, throwing out an empty, “What, uh…”

                He took over where I couldn’t continue, “All the boys at school already told me dad.” His voice was layered in heavy disappointment.

                I blew out of out my mouth in relief. My eyes wandered as I took back some of the rocks sitting in the chair, and stood back up. I skipped an apathetic skip into the lake, expecting no real outcome at all, and juggled around the rest in my hand.

                In little Jack’s lap was a small piece of notebook paper. The paper had a list from 1 to 20 written on it. He looked down on it then rhetorically asked out like he was speaking not only to me, but to the universe, “I mean what out there is even real.”

                I smiled when I heard his words, mainly because I still to this day ask myself the same thing. “Honestly, buddy…I couldn’t tell you.” I skipped the next rock, getting another 3 skips out of it. “But I can tell you skipping rocks alone is extremely boring…” I tossed one of the rocks down by his shoe. Little Jack shoved the list into his pants and grabbed the rock.

                “UGH, thank you,” I said in alleviation, as little Jack scooped up several more rocks around him.

                He stood about a foot away from me which was all part of the tradition. I began to feel better knowing there was hope and my son wasn’t going to dwell forever is sadness. So I let silence drag and took a short contentment in my son’s absence for words. I thought it a smart move to let him get back to his comfort zone, especially after such a traumatic situation.

Then he came to, “When did you stop believing?”

He skipped a rock and I could tell he was rusty and maybe a little tense, so I attempted to coach him, “Gotta get that rhythm in the snap, son.”

“Don’t avoid the question, dad…” He was too smart for his own good. His mother raised him right.

I laughed it off, “Okay, okay! Hah.” Then slapped my words into a much more serious tone, “I was five when I stopped believing, almost the same as you.”

Five skips across the lake this time.

“Well, there’s nothing really too crazy about this story,” I went on to say. “To be honest I can’t really remember a specific time when I stopped believing. It just happened like it eventually happens to every kid.”

“It just seems real mean to do that,” little Jack’s head went down. “I mean why create a story that isn’t real?”

                I skipped and trekked backward to only three this time.

                “Well. Jez. I don’t know, Jack. But people do it. And we continue to do it as we get older and even adults still believe in made up people and made up places. Hell, particularly us adults. The way I look at it, is he represents a marvelous idea. Something magical. There are a lot of things in the world that could go wrong. A lot of things that can bring you down. Especially in an adults world, believe it or not, and you’ll learn that more as you get older. Just don’t be in a rush to grow up, son. Sometimes believing in something greater than our own understanding, whether it’s realistic or not, is something that gets us through the day.” I looked down at little Jack and he looked up at me. His soaking mind, sunk deeply in the depths of my rant and I continued, “Our imaginations are beautiful tools, bud. Look at me…I do it to keep a roof over you and your mothers head. Don’t stop believing entirely just because someone told you the big white-bearded man, dressed all in red, doesn’t exist. It’s what he stands for that counts. It’s the idea of him. And that’s hope. That’s goodness. That’s complete innocence.”

                Little Jack juggled around the rocks in his hand and took his sight and concentration off me and looked out to the lake. He skipped his rock four times across. Solid. I smiled and joined him.

Oh society, it bleeds sheer brilliance, if you ask me. But not in the way you’d think. Brilliant, in the sense that the mass quantity of Americans walking throughout it, never stop in the street to question its ideals. Quite the illusion we live. But who am I to judge?-they are only doing what they are programmed to do. They only talk about the things that are acceptable to talk about; politics, the football game, the new shiny car or that famous chestnut,”what would Jesus do?”. 

Maybe something in my brain wasn’t prone to sponge up all the bullshit, but somehow I never proudly blew societies mighty erection. Blended in with it, most certainly, and I pulled it off quite well. But beneath my facade is where I let the sacrilegious beast roam free; questioning what “fantasy” actually lurks above the stars or is willingly placing yourself into a thousand dollar debt actually worth its inevitable foreshadow. I mean hey, your parents did it; finished a high school of altered American knowledge, went to college, met “the girl”, got the “dream job”, married “the girl”, purchased the castle beyond the white picket fence, got her pregnant and the rest is American dream history. Now you are born and instilled with the same ideals to learn and do a bunch of useless shit you probably aren’t passionate about. Well folks, light your cliche match and run toward the generically crowded hills.