you know just what they say, about absence and the heart, so i cant stay here much longer, though i would like to. ~

https://soundcloud.com/briefencounters/stony-man-trails

Stony Man Trails - Brief Encounters 2014

I find myself in constant conversation.

tiny birdcages and glass terrariums make much better acoustics

than all of the vastness of the void.

maybe if you shout louder, someone will reach out to you.

- maybe there’s a progression from top to bottom, rather than horizontally, 

and this telephone game is one plane

(i kinda like the idea of being parallel, anyway.)

you read her, openly, at a podium.

you read her, quietly on the floor.

in a while now, things are going to be different.

tiny remarks only leave dashes on skin

and ‘x’ marks to

the post it note 

on her bedside, it says, “i’ll make love to you 

at 5 o’clock. if i’m late,

start without me.”

read me, openly, with your motions.

read me softly, with your tongue.

she’s not even back yet and it’s five o’clock 

and i’ve already started.

(thank god i found my independence!)

there are scars here that will heal over,

Want to tell you how much I I love you

Today I have been very contemplative. Reflective, in a sense.

I’ve been finding myself living in a sense of nostalgia, and it has stopped comforting me. I’ve realized over the past six months that I’ve receded into myself and been very introspective. I’ve distanced myself from most personal relationships besides my partner. I’ve lost friends and family over these past months, I’ve lost and gained workplaces, I’ve stopped writing and playing music. I haven’t felt the amount of loss that I’ve experienced until the other night I was laying in bed, looking at photographs, and I saw faces again that I thought I would never see again. As I remembered them, as wonderful and happy people. I have moved a few times in my short adult life, and I plan to move so, so much more. I have met and touched and danced with and recited poetry to such warm and intoxicating individuals. The loss of a few of them over these few years has made me think much deeper about my personal relationships. You never know how much love you hold until it bursts, and it’s over.

 I realized earlier this month, while standing over a full press of coffee, how much I missed my creative energy. I felt I had betrayed everyone who ever said they loved me, because I was hiding my true self. The few, sparse lines I had written in the past few months were still full of imagery and passion, something I felt I had lost as the monotony of work, sleep, eat, work, sleep, eat, repeat took over my life. This past summer is the first time I ever experienced the feeling that there was no way I could sustain myself on my own, and instead of pissing me off, it got me really down on myself. I thought of everyone I ever truly connected with, and I knew, I had to get back into it. I had to draw, I had to write, I had to jam the fuck out. 

So I did. I have recorded three new covers in four days. I started a new surrealist poem, perhaps a short story. I have more ideas and passion and fire to write than I have in weeks. I want to write music reviews, and publish a chapbook, and record an album, and release cover after cover, and I want to do it for me, for my love (because she is so good to me), and everyone I have ever shared a moment and a bond with over creative energy and one’s truest desire to be oneself. 

While we’re on the subject, I read an article, “Charles Schwab CEO tests the character of job candidates by arranging for their orders to be wrong at breakfast interviews” . There’s a quote, better than the excerpt that made the headline;  

"The teacher handed out the final exam, and it was on one piece of paper, which really surprised me because I figured it would be longer than that. Once everyone had their paper, he said, “Go ahead and turn it over.” Both sides were blank. And the professor said, “I’ve taught you everything I can teach you about business in the last 10 weeks, but the most important message, the most important question, is this: What’s the name of the lady who cleans this building?” And that had a powerful impact. It was the only test I ever failed, and I got the B I deserved. Her name was Dottie, and I didn’t know Dottie. I’d seen her, but I’d never taken the time to ask her name. I’ve tried to know every Dottie I’ve worked with ever since. It was just a great reminder of what really matters in life, and that you should never lose sight of people who do the real work."

I updated my twitter account a bit. Avatar by my lovely girlfriend Chloe Ferber and the header photo, used here also, is a photo I snapped on a disposable. 

you are scripted television and I am your number one fan. 

I've been watching you. I've been asking you the right things to say. There is dialogue, but not my dialogue. There is irony, but not ay my expense.

     You've been giving me admirable outcome after admirable outcome- ad infinitum. These boundaries are old, the situation is stagnant. You tell me how the seasons change, I am tired of the draft in the room we live in.

     The network sees our struggle. Something tells me this is not my script, but I read to scene five where

I'm getting sick of you. 

     I'm realizing this 'reality' is not my own, no, this 'reality' not quite my topic, not quite my subject of favor. The laugh track skips. The audience is silent.

     Here you are begging me to see you. 

"Just one glance,"

but my stare is frigid. It is two degrees north of yours, always. A reminder that 

You are the main screen, but I am center stage; 

Here I am saying, "hear me, please just hear me out."