i dont understand commercials. has anyone ever seen an advertisement and actually been compelled to invest money in that product? most of the time, theyre just a nuisance. especially when im trying to watch programming. i rarely pay attention to them, out of principle. it makes me wonder, because i know im not alone in this mentality, why these big corporations spend so much time and money in the first place.

i was actually watching the office today, on the internet. an advert popped up. a smooth-talking voice-over calmly reassuring me that my program is brought to me with limited commercial interruption. i like how they had to qualify that statement. first off, limited. its not maximum commercial interruption. its limited. why, apparently is a good thing. otherwise, they wouldnt specify. tbd

verbal punching bag

i don't know what's wrong with me--why i feel so disenchanted lately. i think it may have something to do with an overdose on experimental faulkner. i've immersed myself in a world too brilliant for my eyes. i need sunglasses. painkillers.
it' s the weirdest thing:
i'm driving to work and it's not me making those sharp turns but it's in that narrow maneuvering that i'm aware of my head--metacognition times one million.
work is unbearable. i can't see the words anymore. my mind is a mess. i need a doctor. or better pills than the ones i've been prescribed.
read an excellent editorial by steve albini today dealing with the shady nature of the music business. stuff i'd already kind of suspected but never looked into, for fear my dreams would come crumbling down. alas, they have.
even if we get a contract (which is highly improbable, i know), our projected cut is absurd. in theory, we'll making the business millions while accruing massive debt for ourselves. and that's how it works. unless you're freaking radiohead.
i don't even know why i bother with it at all. there's no market for the kind of music i want to make. even my closest friends hate the songs i write.
i'm just so sick of all the rocknroll cliches--the excess, the stupid formulaic songs, the girls, the drugs, the classic rock tropes which have been exhausted, taken out, bloodied and beaten and bruised, thrown back on the fryer, reconfigured, reprocessed, repackaged and sold to the hipster-centric consumer time and again.
there are about five bands i listen to--all the others are just variations of these bands. if you can't do something innovative, your best bet is to plagiarize the shit out of someone you like. but that's not the kind of music i want to make. i want to make something that people can connect to--something heartfelt and not off-the-cuff rehashing, plug-n-chug indie-pop. i'm so sick of these bands that get recognition simply for sounding like other bands people like. where's the innovation in that? i know people notice because they tell me all the time: dude, you've got to listen to so and so, they sound just like neutral milk hotel! if i want to listen to a band that sounds like neutral milk hotel, i'll listen to fucking neutral milk hotel.
we live in a remake culture.
i wouldn't have a problem with this except that these carbon copies offer nothing new. there's an extent to which you can rip off somebody and still manage to produce your own signature sound and, more importantly, leave room to expand upon or improve the foundation laid down by the original artist--to take what someone else has done and make it better--yet these bands and these artists don't seem to grasp this concept. they simply take what's been done and mimic it, parrot it right back to the idiot public who preys upon this kind of garbage. i just don't get it. i want to say it's wrong--that they're being taking advantage of, but i'm not sure that's the case. and if it is, i'm not sure i really care. it's hard to feel sorry for anyone that retarded.
anyway.
yeah.

caddy

in media res: he is outside or inside a familiar place, prattling on about something near and dear to his very heart--something very specific about a production company and their money-shark hold on the american audience's sensibilities. you're being exploited, he says, in a nutshell, the prophet preaching. he wonders, mid-sentence, if they even care cause he can see them looking away and almost rolling their eyes. he endures, like the stars, because he doesn't know any better.

chompski

they lived in little houses, like humans, except that these houses were carved out in the trees. they never wondered why they were so inclined to mirror the path etched out by us. and i honestly couldn't care less. they had a mouse father, a mouse mother, a mouse baby and a mouse brother. and, sometimes, if you were really sneaky, you could wander through the woods and peep in on them and their fingernail-reality. if you made eye contact, they would reciprocate, pestered, annoyed, irritated. father would resume his newspaper and mother her apple pies, or at least that's how they smelled. baby never cried. but lay there still. they were projections. that much is easy. but why?

can't sleep

his sleep-function is broken
off the charts
we're not getting a good reading
it appears that's he's accessing
foreign chambers
as if re-wired
auto-programmed

someone stop that dog barking
it's interfering with my
frame of mind and besides
barking never drove any storm away
please, kindly illustrate that
there is a barrier
between itself and the raging sea
that violence is intangible
barring no one opens a door
you don't plan on going outside in this
weather, do you?
no, sir.
good.
did you ever think that she may be barking
because she's marooned inside?
don't be trite, lenny. i'll smack that smirk right off
your idiot cheeks.

seizure tv: the Ugly Spirit

his name had become synonymous
though never explicitly acknowledged
with the theory of dreams
the myth and the mighty
the familiar spirit entangling
ensnaring
earth's gravitational pull
he came from somewhere vague
and void of time
his pallid face
a white of a different kind
he crept into my room
every night to talk with me
and sat by my side and
in exchange for travels
i gave up dreams
to know just what my
fantasies could not confirm
there is no validation in his
studied speech
his out and out
bold-faced lies
he tells me angels never
think to react
that we are idiot children
orphaned by our misconceptions
and the vagaries we construct
all violent and vulgar
in their very nature
though we're quick to
turn our heads
this is all you see he says
and all you see is wrong
this is all you see he says
and what you see is wrong

an attempt at a start

i've taken three separate tests within the past two years all confirming that i am an INFJ personality. if you don't know what an INFJ personality is, look it up. it's part of the Myers Briggs Personality Test--too lengthy to get into here.

basically, though, what i find so astonishing about this phenomenon is that, despite my frustration over the years in trying to understand myself, the computer can reduce me to four little letters in less than ten-minutes and thereby provide me with a more definitive solution than i could ever hope to achieve through meticulous introspection and soul-searching. i know it's probably bullshit, but...i've taken three of these things. and they all say the same thing. that's gotta mean something right?

anyway, this whole ordeal has prompted me, though it may seem somewhat counter-intuitive, given the information i just provided you with, to re-examine and define exactly what it is i want (out of life, out of love, etc.) and sort of meld this together into a more comprehensive understanding of who i am.

first, i need to look at why i'm so lonely. why i so often desperately seek the approval and acceptance of others. what am i looking for and i can i provide this for myself?

i've always complained about being single, but i think the problem is that i don't know what or who it is i'm after or chasing. is it some sort of ideal? a specific type of person? do i want highly passionate albeit fleeting romances and flings or something with a little security?

the truth is, i don't know. at this point, i'd be up for anything. when i fill out questionnaires on dating sites, most of my responses are "unsure" or "i don't know." i don't want to speak prematurely. i don't want to settle for something without entertaining every possibility. it's not that i'm indecisive. i just don't know that i want anything definite and i figure if i give off the impression that i'm a person of convictions, this is what i'll end up with. maybe i just want someone as clueless as myself--someone with the same "what happens, happens" mentality. but i'm not sure of that. i mean, am i after someone just like myself? or do i need contrast to be happy? i don't know. i've dated girls with similar tastes and values as myself, but i've never dated my opposite or my twin. so, i have no clue what that's like. and i think a lot of it has to do with never taking the time to really think it out and assess what it is i'm looking for or what fundamental qualities i find attractive--most of this, i feel, has been determined by friends or society. i'm such a people-pleaser, that i'll often go out of my way, betray myself, just to find acceptance. in this way, i compromise a lot of valuable insights into my true self--what jung calls the shadow. then again, maybe that is my true self--everyone else. maybe that is who i am--a reflection or a mirroring of my peers' sensibilities. i just wonder if there are others like me out there, because i've always felt sort of alone in that aspect.

it seems that i tend to gravitate towards people who make it easy for me to just sit there and listen--and not have to give anything of myself. sometimes, it's irritating. i just want to lash out, freak out and blurt every last little jumbled mess of head confetti swimming around in my skull. most of the time, though, i don't mind. i like listening to people. it's oddly mesmerizing, like watching television. i love people that like to talk, domineering personalities. i'm not an assertive or vocal person, so these people make my life a whole hell of a lot easier. i know i'm being used, as an audience. but i don't mind. the less they know, the more they love me. actually, i don't know that "love" is the right word--but something bordering on love--lust, maybe.

knowing this, being fully aware of this dynamic, i really have no reason to be upset when my so-called friends inevitably sell me out or turn their backs on me. it always happens. and i always get upset, feel betrayed, but, really, i'm asking for it by refusing to advertise the person inside of my head vs. the person everyone else sees, the shy, reserved, easy-going art-fag (or whatever it is that they think).

i believe in cooley's construction of identity--the looking glass self. i believe in it whole-heartedly. and that's what makes the struggle to realize myself that much harder. my identity is so tightly entangled in how others see me and how that affects the persona i project, that it's nearly impossible to get back at square 1--where it all begins. if, of course, that truly is where it begins. it could be a case of the chicken and the egg. for all we know, they arrived at the same time. or, it's all relative. or, blah blah blah. basically, i just want to find out who i am because that's something i feel like i missed out on in high school and even now. i know, it's kind of a typical twenty-something thing to do: to feel directionless and lost and wonder where to go to next, but i am a twenty-something. forgive me.

oh well.

i don't know that i've clarified anything tonight. but i've at least made an attempt at a start.

mannikin

No. 5

she took his hand and led him down the steep hill and to the open bank.
i like you, fonzie, she said. i like you, you understand?
sure, he said.
let's play a game, she said.
ok.
she started removing her dress, the one garment he promised himself to remember her by.
well, take off your clothes, fonzie. we're going to go swimming.
swimming? but it's night and i don't have my swimming trunks.
this is a different kind of swimming, she said. this is called skinny-dipping. ain't you never heard of skinny-dipping before?
is it like lover's leap? he said.
sure, she said, not quite understanding.
you mean you want to play lover's leap with me? in the name of fonzie and everything.
i guess so, she said.
fonzie felt that he understood now. the excitement was unprecedented.
take your clothes off, fonzie. that's all part of the game. we have to be naked. that's what makes it fun. it's not a game if there's no fun in it, right?
fonzie started at his shirt, removed each button slowly. he wanted this to happen. he liked the idea of sharing his nakedness with another human being. but he was also very protective of his body.
well, hurry up now, fonz. you can't delay the inevitable.
without thinking, or allowing himself to entertain his reservation, fonzie quickly undid each button. he started at his belt when he caught a glimpse of miss traum's glimmering flesh. he liked that her body was so structurally different from his own and that there was so much yet to see. it would take days to fully comprehend the sight in front of him and the absence of light, the flattering moonlight only made it that much more exciting because it deprived him of the opportunity to look and really see everything. he thought back to the story of adam and eve--how it had affected him as a child and how it had informed his conception of sexuality in the present. he had a fundamental knowledge of the female form, but until now, no real-life experience.
there it was, in front of him. he tried to take it all in, contrasting in his mind the disparities between the crude and speculative sketch he'd always envisioned and the image now standing before him, a transient model for study. it was cruel, he thought, that she could provoke these feelings within him, simply by being naked, a different kind of naked, not the kind that stared back at him in the mirror when he showered or changed clothes, but a new kind, and not feel them herself. there were one or two glaring differences in their physiological make-up, though it was essentially the same, but it was the one or two differences that sent fonzie's head swirling. she was furry in places he thought unusual for women to be furry. she had breasts and jutting hips. and none of this seemed to faze her. this is what set fonzie off more than anything: that she had grown accustomed to this image and that it was so intrinsically a part of who she was and that, try as he might, he could never truly know what that was like. she would be a mystery forever.
come on in, she said.
fonzie discarded his pants into the collection of clothes sparsely scattered around the bank.
he jumped in.

apotheosis

IV.

fonzie had just returned from some menial errand--one of his uncle's thinly-veiled attempts to keep the innocent busy. he entered the shop and immediately saw the woman standing at the counter, more or less being talked at by his uncle. she was lovely, he thought. right away, he could see she was a familiar spirit. she displayed the same sort of deferential disposition when interacting with his uncle. the same deferential gestures. in short, he was in love.
"fonzie," uncle said, "get over here, there's someone i want you to meet." fonzie obeyed. he looked down at his worn and weathered boots, never daring to make eye-contact or break the calculation of this action. he knew if he did, it would be over. she would be gone. he would be forced, then, to see, to know, to become aware of her disinterest. he risked it anyway.
"this is miss traum," uncle said. the woman did not appear to be off-put by his self-effacing nature, in fact, she seemed similarly stricken. this came as a shock to fonzie. in all his years, he'd yet to encounter a member of the opposite sex who did not immediately act repulsed at the mere sight of him. he had learned not to look them in the eyes. it only confirmed his long-held notion that he was a creep--a displaced sideshow attraction--a spectacle in real-life. but miss traum was different. he could tell. he didn't know how. or why. but he had a hunch.
"miss traum, fonzie, works uptown. she's a dancer. you like dancin' don't you, fonz?"
fonzie looked up and then quickly back down at his feet. he knew, somehow, that his uncle was being insincere.
"it's a pleasure to meet you, miss traum," fonzie managed.
"you know, if i didn't know any better, i'd say he's taken a particular liking to you, miss traum," uncle said. "you like her, fonz?"
fonzie blushed. he ignored the question. it only infuriated him. he hated being talked down to, especially when he knew that it was happening. he felt helpless. unable to combat his uncle--the words failing him.
"i gotta go now, uncle. chickens is ready be fed. bye miss traum."
"bye fonzie. i hope to see you around," she said.
he had left the situation abruptly, he knew, but he could barely contain himself. not only was she nothing like the others, but she had actually gone so far as to talk to him--to not dismiss him immediately or even after their brief exchange. suddenly, fonzie felt a surge of something like adrenaline coursing through his brain. he had lied to his uncle. his real motivation for leaving the scene was not to feed the chickens--they wouldn't need fed for another hour--but to escape the unbearable and foreign sensation rising up inside of him. he had never before come this far with a stranger, one whom he was genuinely interested in anyway. he wanted nothing more than to hold onto this one. he decided then that he would do whatever it took to make that a reality, even if it meant evading the issue altogether. he was aware of the delicate nature, the fine line he was forced to walk in order to preserve this bout of fortune and that's what scared him most--the realization that now he was expected to perform, to impress. it was a feeling altogether unfamiliar to him--equal parts invigorating and burdensome. but that was part of the excitement.
he hid behind his uncle's pick-up truck parked outside of the store, within safe watching-distance of all the action and saw his uncle leave the store accompanying miss traum to her vehicle. they were discussing something, though their voices were muffled--inaudible. whatever it was, miss traum seemed hesitant. fonzie knew his uncle well and knew that he could be persistent, that he could make anyone do anything simply because he was the way that he was and that he had been born, it seemed, equipped with the ability--a talent, you might say--to dominate.
miss traum got in her car and left, but not before uncle had walked back, a smug smile, that of a lunatic, fixed so firmly on his bulldog-face.

dumb-old

II.
they are sitting at a picnic table, the red and white checkered tablecloth caked in birdshit and failing obscenely to conceal its natural form--like a fat girl in hot pants and a belly shirt. uncle, he says, what's lover's leap?
lover's leap? uncle says. lover's leap is a thing which they used to call these high places, natural formations in the earth, these high cliffs which would inspire stupid star-crossed teenagers like romaine and julietta to leap to their deaths in the name of love.
what do you mean in the name of love? he asked.
what do you mean what do i mean? i couldn't expect an idiot like you to understand something like the name of love. you can't even piss straight let alone grasp these high-minded concepts of things. how do you expect me to explain something as complicated as lover's leap to you for?
he went on selectively nibbling at his carrots and other veggies.
i'll tell you. it's not like you hear about in things. lover's leap is all storybook, fonzie. and not in a good way. it's a bad and terrible thing. it's a suicide-thing. and suicide is murder. that's a sin. no matter how sexed-up and love-lorn you're feeling.
he paused for a second, raising the soiled napkin to the carnivorous debris all about his mouth.
you understand what i'm saying to you, right? it's a sin, fonzie. a sin. and sins is wrong. because that's what the bible tells us so. you understand me?
yes, uncle, he said. i understand sins is wrong. but i like the idea of lover's leap all the same.
uncle laughed.
well, you know something. that's ok. cause you're too dumb and worthless yourself to ever get an opportunity to consider something like lover's leap for real. you understand me, fonzie? you're too stupid and ugly, you wouldn't know what to do with a girl if you got one. she says jump and you stay-put and there she goes a-plummeting to her death. you want that on your conscience, fonzie? you want that on your mind come judgement day?
no.
imagine how stupid you're gonna feel when here comes God and he's reading back to you how you couldn't even think to jump to your death when you're supposed to on account of you being so dumb and ugly and that poor soul wasting her life in your name.
in the name of love?
no. not in the name of love. in the moron-name of fonzie. imagine someone throwing it all to piss for a dumb-old name like fonzie.
he looked up, visibly hurt and somewhat confused.
forget it, uncle snapped. eat your taters.

vanishing persons

I.
he leads her on a walk, early morning, through the fog and stops at a stream. she is looking fondly into his mogoloid-eyes. he senses her undying devotion and wonders what is that makes animals so seemingly human. it's uncanny, he thinks, though he doesn't know the word for it. she has no name. he calls her betsy. betsy the cow, like in a book.
their relationship is strictly platonic, let's establish that right off the bat. no funny business about it.
she's not eating today. maybe she knows. her soul is mostly hypothetical. a projection. this is how he'll remember her. each one, he remembers differently. but it always feels the same.
later, he is sitting at the table, betsy reconfigured on his plate. her memory is staring straight back at him, right in the eyes. her memory and her meat. uncle is blood-stained. he picks up the machete.
and this is how i did it, he says.
thwack. he makes the sound. a crude replication.
he imagines an explosive firework-display of blood and carnage. uncle laughing, red in the teeth. his apron smattered in grease and pulp. in every direction, blood splatters.
this is how i did it, he says. well, boy--ain't you gonna eat?

glib and garrulous

it happens to you then and you realize its devastation
in a while yet, i'll block it out--involuntarily
i'll no longer remember the initial sting--the unexpected
she'd been saying it for years and now it's finally happening
change through conflict
i'd like to think it's all a dream
wouldn't that be something?
but, no, this is happening
for better or worse
i hope she finds happiness
i know she's thought about this for a very long time
weighed the consequences of her actions
at least to some extent
i wonder, not if, but how it affects her
that he is no longer eating or sleeping or fucking her and what kinds of
crazy thoughts go swirling around in their respective heads
during that superannuated process
is it love-making? is it sex? does it change from day to day?
i don't know. i don't want to know.
but it's important that i look at this candidly--without restraint
it's important that i look at it from a vantage point
of objectivity
if that's a vantage point at all
i want to feel this--full-on
like a semi-on-semi collision
a nasty freak wave of tried and trite and tired
emotions
this happens all the time
you are not an isolated case
but that's how it feels
there is no grand scheme of things
when you're entire world gets
thrown for a loop and turned in on itself
of course, it's not my problem
but i want to help i want to provide counsel and console him
and tell him what he needs to hear
but then i have my reservations
and he, his own
i don't want to care but i do so i want to feel it absolutely
i want to vanish
in the middle of the night
like a voice in the fog
and reappear on christmas island
or antarctica
and one day wash ashore on the flannan isles
my soul spread so thin and particular to the occasional
being the author of his corpse
wherever it turns up someday, maybe

munchkin diaspora

the last of the little men
is gone

the organ

ever since she was a little girl, she dreamed of becoming a performer. she liked that she had the ability to make people laugh or cry--as if by some strange or occult superpower. and it was through her art, her chosen path as an organist, that she was able to exploit this gift.
she liked playing alone--the freedom it allowed her to improvise, to risk making a mistake without having to face the consequences, the cringing mouths and furrowed brows of a congregation which depended upon the ostensible and expected ease with which she played--the grace which she exuded naturally while playing a traditional simple or well-rehearsed piece of music.
when she was alone, the music was permitted to flow freely, directly from her mind and into her fingers. from there, it would reverberate off the walls of the auditorium and immediately, like an obedient child, come coursing back into her mind, as if bound to return to that source which birthed it and into its very conception breathed life.
she liked the capacity she had to translate or synthesize vague or vivid sensations into orchestrated noise. when she was alone, this was her joy and her escape.
the church provided her with an instrument. they gave her a key so that she could come in at all hours of the day or night and practice. they even provided housing for her, in exchange for services every wednesday night and sunday. she had no particular conviction either way when it came to matters of religion or faith or theology and felt a bit guilty exploiting the church's goodwill, but this was the life she wanted to live, the life she chose, and her happiness was supreme.
she played many funerals. weddings, too. most of her work involved jukeboxing a set list designed by the party concerned. usually, this meant the same five songs per traditional service. people, she found out, were unoriginal and generally held a play-it-safe mentality when it came to important events in their lives.
she dreaded each event but, in the moment, being well-rehearsed as she was, soaked it up, with all eyes upon her, swayed by the unconscious assault of enhanced emotions via musical accompaniment. she liked that she was able to so immediately see the results of her playing in the tear-soaked eyes of the congregation, whether it was for a wedding or funeral or sunday morning service--the immovable half-smile, genuine, with eyes-crinkled, that stemmed from her playing--the physical act of pushing down keys in a particular order, from her mind and into the minds of the congregation--that strange form of telepathy, the language of the sensational. and all happening right before her eyes. she could see the graph in her mind, crudely drawn arrows, people reduced to points marked A and B, performer and audience, indistinguishable save for their clearly-defined relationship within this model.

....more to come.

dr. mengele, pt. 1

when i was younger, satan used to appear at my bedside nearly every night. of course, he couldn't be there every night, he said, because my soul mattered so little to him, but he made an effort, in part due to the rapport we struck up, to be there as much as possible. often we'd go on journeys, flitting about via teleportation, to places i never thought imaginable and he'd show me things--sights i'd never seen. it was a magical time in my life. but there was always a barrier of dissension in our relationship--a source of irritation for me, being so young and stubborn--as satan was always going on and on about wanting my soul. he promised that my life here on earth would be filled with happiness if i'd only forfeit this one trifling facet of my being. i, of course, knew from the stories my mother told me that this was forbidden. she warned me about satan. and i always listened. but i couldn't help feeling some sort of sympathy for the guy. he looked like death, to be perfectly honest, and went out of his way to entertain me on a regular basis. it was a great friendship, in my opinion. but a one-way street all the same. i had nothing to offer satan--nothing i could give freely or wanted to give up freely, save for my time and energy--time, of course, i could have been sleeping, getting adequate rest before school.
eventually, it got to be a burden--this constant horsing around every night. i'd go to the schoolhouse spent and lethargic, my eyes dragging to the floor. it was a nightmare--the daytime, anyway. but at night, i couldn't help it. the possibilities were seemingly endless. satan always had some new scheme or fit of inspiration up his sleeve. one day, we'd journey back and time and hide in the bushes as dinosaurs brawled like savages right before our very eyes. the next, he'd take me to the future where, despite conventional foresight, people never rode around in flying cars or ceased making wars in the name of God and selfishness. it was quite a stroke of good fortune to be selected, by satan himself, to see all these wondrous sights and experience all these things.
of course, as all things go, it got old after a while. i grew tired of the constant assault of new stimuli and voiced this to satan. he knelt at my bedside pleadingly and implored me to join him for just one more adventure. i agreed, though reluctantly, and we set about in typical fashion.

tbc...

inspiration

she had a tattoo on the side of her face with an arrow pointing to her lips that said: this is where dicks go and nothing intelligent ever comes out.

not my type of gal.

an exercise in metacognition: an exorcise in thining about thinking

she nuzzled up close to him as they passed an indistinguishable carnival tent on main street--one of many populating the area. it was the day of the city fair. the smell of summer and smoked things drifting in the air and impressing upon their senses drew to mind many vague sensations and memories--all of which seemed impossible to peg down or fully explore. the man, somewhat reluctantly, drew her closer to himself and kissed her--a frivolous gesture, a routine display of affection. he didn't know why, but it made him feel better about everything. about her. this day. the horde of people. everything.
she talked emphatically about elephant ears and asked if he'd ever had one. no, he said. never. oh, you must, she replied. ok, then, he replied. they got an elephant ear at a nearby booth and split it between them. he liked it. it tasted sweet. but he liked it more because she liked it and because she'd always liked them, since she was a little kid. it had been a tradition in her family, she said, to go to the fair and get an elephant ear, every year, every time.
navigating their way through the frenzy of densely populated human-traffic, he was stopped by a man in pale-face--a sordid sort of clown.
"from the time you were a little boy, you've dreamed of this day."
"i'm sorry," he said.
he was horrified at the sight of the man-clown's grotesque museum of rotted teeth.
"i said, 'from the time you were a little boy, you've dreamed of this day, of me and this interaction."
the man was dumbfounded. she, equally so. he had a queer feeling in his stomach--sparks sent flying in his head. he wasn't sure what the man-clown was talking about but he was hooked.
"i'll tell you. i know everything. all your past. the dark. the light. your shadow is illuminated in this noggin of mine."
"is that so?" he said.
"yes. and i will prove it, if you'd like."
sure, he said. he had nothing to lose and he was fairly intrigued. he doubted very much that the man was telling the truth but he wanted it to be true all the same.
"i want you to reach in," he said, "as far back in your mind as you are capable--and i mean really plunge in there deep--and find that memory which has become a dream to you: the day of the downtown fair and the ride home with your mother, how seemingly dispensable it has become, though you cling to it like it was your very lifeblood."
the man was astonished. he knew exactly the memory the man was talking about.
"it was raining that day, wasn't it?"
"well...yes. yes, it was raining that day. but how--"
"never mind how. i do. and that's all that matters."
"well, what's the significance of it? how about that?"
"everything."
the man was growing irritated at this pompous display of vaguery masquerading as profound insight, though he knew the man knew something, so he felt it followed that he must be speaking some sort of truth in his evasive responses, as pesteringly trite and ostensibly put-on as they appeared.
"how do you mean?" he said.
"everything you are and will ever be is determined by that link in the chain--as unimportant as it may seem. tell me, why do you hold on to it so?"
the man had to think about this question. "well, i'm not sure."
"therein lies the significance. figure this out and your dreams are as good as real. this girl you're with, your unhappiness with her, though a fine-looking specimen she may be, is all a product of your inability to recognize--to actually sit down and calculate--the significance of this one seemingly mundane event."
naturally, she took offense to this last remark. and the man felt obligated to say something but he dare not break the spell of this odd little sidewalk spectre. he'd kill himself and betray his very foundation to know more.
"you are a mystery, even unto yourself, and all because you haven't allowed yourself the time to think this event, one of many which populate the carnival in your head, all the way and properly through. think of how much happier and self-realized you could be. you could trade this life in so very easily--trade it in for the life you want to live--if only you could stop and think it out once in a while. there is no solution, but there is a better approach, my friend. and it's in your immediate capacity to find it."
the man walked away, wondering how the grotesque man-clown knew as much as he did and what it meant that he knew this and what anything meant, really. she followed behind. what a kook, she said. yeah, he said. he lit a cigarette, a futile attempt to stifle her hand from enmeshing his own.

peripheral ephemera

"eyes aren't the same as fingers"

"i'm not just blowing shit out my ass...i don't love you"

hazel

punch in through the world
red-fisted/bloody-knuckled
& step into the light