His dream

"I have this reoccurring dream. I'm asleep, which is funny because I already am, but all of a sudden I'm woken up by a cold draft on my face. I open my eyes and its a group of people looking at me, leaning very close over me. They're talking to me and at first I can't hear them, only feel their breath on my face. Then my ears kick in and they're asking me if I'm okay. I sit up and see that I was laying on a tile floor. I don't know what they're talking about. They point to my arm. Its bleeding. The blood dosn't look real, it looks instead like movie blood or something like that, kind of like Kool Aide, red and runny. There's a gash in my arm, blood is coming from it, again they ask me if I'm ok. I nod and tell them its fine. They seem almost skeptical. I reach for a towl and rap it around the wound. They ask me how my head is and start examining it and I reach up and start feeling around too but can't feel anything; no bump, no gash, nothing. They ask about my arm and ask if I need to go to the hospital. I tell them its not a bad cut, I don't think, and that it just needs to cloat. I sit and wait. I wait for the blood to cloat, but it dosn't. It just keeps gushing. I tie the towl tighter and pretty soon its red and dripping with blood. All of a sudden no one seems to care anymore, but I'm freaking out. I say that I need to get help, they tell me I'm fine. A pool starts forming at my feet. I start to sweat. I say I need to get to a hospital and they tell me that they'd take me but all of their cars are broken. The wound keeps leaking. Panic sweat and blood almost seem to mix. I ask if it looks alright, they say yes, but hows the head? My head is fine, I think. Outside I hear sirenes. I wish one of them would stop. I start to panic and the sirenes get closer, but never stop. Soon after I wake up. What do you think?"
"I'm not Freud," I say. "Dreams are a thousand things."

On character

She says she misses my bitterness, I wonder how you can miss such a thing.
Whatever.
Its wierd when someone misses you, or an aspect of your personality in this case.
How can you miss biterness?
Whatever.
I shrug and keep typing away on instant messanger.
"She misses your bitterness?" My roommate says. "Thats a different thing to miss."
"Yeah," I say, "Really is."
"I guess you wouldn't really be you without it," he says.
Feeling defensive: "I'm not really bitter, I would say. Sometimes life throws me a curve ball or other times I'm cynical, but thats because the world needs it. You know I'm right."
"We still love you, and, hey at least your being missed. No one's even called me tonight. Own mother declined my call when I wanted to see if she'd get dinner with me."
"Hell."

Until we meet again

My stomach growls and I wonder why I'm hungary because I litterally just ate.
Anyways, thats what I'm thinking of when he leans over and offers me a cigarette.
"I don't smoke." I say.
And he says, "Come on and induldge me."
And I think about it.
"The thing with addictive substances and me is that if I start getting hooked I really don't want to stop," I say. It would feel great to take a long hard drag, blow a cloud of dark smoke into the night sky and lean back in my chair as the calming effects of the cancer stick kick in, but... " I'd love to, can't. You see I made a promise that I wouldn't smoke a while back. I like to keep promises."
"Whatever," he says.
"Bad day?
"Yeah, I'd say that. Found out about a few things that I wish I hadn't found out about. Girlfriend's cheating on me. She dosn't know that I know. I'm surprised I havn't hit the bottle yet. You know what I mean? Just a fucking bad day, man."
"I've had plenty of those days."
"Yeah. Sucks."
"What'll you do?"
"Never talk to her again."
"Thats one solution, I've heard of better ones."
"Yeah. Call this a quiet break up."
"Your not even going to talk to her about it?"
"No, I don't care if I ever see her again."
He didn't mean it. "You have to see her again sometime."
"We'll see."
My stomach growls and I say, "I'm going to get something to eat."
He nods. "I need to get out of here anyways. Got some stuff I need to take care of. Ok, well, until we meet again, man."
"Hopefully things will be better," I say.
"Maybe. We'll see."
And he walks away.
And I'm left thinking about a Citizen Cope song and the lyrics start randomly playing in my head:
"Something happens when you're caught searching for an answer
When you're stuck in the middle of a place that you don't belong
When you start to lose sight of what's right and wrong,"
Or something like that.

g v. e

"God sent those winds to clean out the sins that have tallied up in the south," he said. "Who cares if two thousand or two million people die. They're all atheists and devil lovers and probably communist, too. And you, you're just like them. Part of the profession of lies, those news reporters and anchormen down there. They're all sissys, would cry to their mothers if they went through half as much as real people. Damned lying cowards. They're part of the problem, too. Going against Bush and all the good he's done for us, his fight of good against evil. You say you help the world, ha! Why do you hate a man that wishes nothing more then to have a better life for you and your future family. The devil's workshop, that's what you're apart of. Damn liberal communist. Don't even know whats good for you. Find God, he'll still embrace you, he'll still shake your hand and send you down a path of rightousness. Think about it, how many...."
I starred at him, cold.
I picked up a chair that was right next to him and swung it cold into the back of his head and it sent him spiraling to the ground, blood gushing everywhere. He rolled over and I threw the chair on top of him and he began begging for his life.
No, thats not right.
He looked at me and kept talking and then he started to choke, I guess on his own spit. And he stopped talking and kept choking and reached out to me and I just stood there and in his last dying gasp I heard him say "help," and then he fell to his knees and I left.
No, no, thats not right either.
"Think about it, how many..." and he continued on and I looked at him. Then I began to walk away and he called after me and I left the room, went up the stairs, out he door, walked away, heard my phone ring, picked it up.
"Hello."
"Hey, we need you on this story. Its important. What are you doing tomorrow afternoon?"

sour feelings

Talking.
I've tuned out. Its nothing important anyways. Just empty words, or at least that's what I tell myself.
So I sit there and lay my head back on the wall and ***** keeps talking and I keep half listening.
A question is asked of me. Pointless. Confrontational. I answer, "Yes," and leave it at that. But the question still lingers in my mind and I feel I should have answered in another way.
Whatever.
I sit there and the light is dim and I have the feeling in me that something bad is about to happen, but I don't know what. I've had this feeling for the last three days. Don't know why.
The talking is unnerving.
Another questions is asked, again confrontational, at least thats what I think, and I don't like being confronted when I feel like this and I snap out an answer, this time, and its clear that I'm on the edge.
I sit there and ***** keeps talking. And I'm wondering why I have this feeling.
I stare, but look at nothing. I'm lucid. Usually its good to talk with *****. Makes me feel alright. Don't know why I don't feel alright tonight. And ***** sounds different anyways and theres' something in that voice that is sinister and cloaked and I can't think of what it is and that makes me wonder some more and that makes me affraid.
Then ***** is quiet. And its unbarable. And I feel like hell.
My stomach turns and the bitterness swells up so much in my mouth that I feel like I want to vomit. I sit, unmoving, and as I do that taste races through my veins. Its like being drunk without the good part. Just the hang over.
I want to yell out, "What do you want from me! What arn't you telling me!? WHY?" Because I know there's a 'why'. Always is. I can't stand cloak and dagger shit. I want ***** to do the worst. Give it to me straight, right to the face. Better to know then not. But....
But I can't bring myself to say it. I sit there and listen to the rain slash against the window and the thunder errupt in the distance and the lightening expolde in the sky.
I imagine myself filling up the sink with cold water and sticking my head in it and holding it there until I'm gasping for breath, to take this horrible edge off.
There's something sinister adrift. I can't say what.
The cloak starts talking again. I wait for the dagger, in the dark.

thoughts on a summer night

Came here on a whim.
I like whims. They're random.
They leave the best memories. Like this one:
I'm calm.
The skyline of the city is nice by the river. It's reflecting as the sun falls down. It's warm out.
You look nice by the river. You're wearing a wierd shade of blue. But it looks good on you.
Your smile makes it warm out.
You stand out more then the sparkling lights of the city, across the river.
I'm starring at you
and the city
and the night
and I think to myself that I could die here and everything would be alright.
I could die in this memory, tonight.
So the memory disappears and I'm thinking about the show Law and Order.
And that damned theme song.

After I rally

Ok, so I rally and start sobering up after I've blacked out for the first time tonight.
Ok, so, well then, where the hell am I?
"Man, you've been out there much lately?"
I was standing up over a couch and wondering how I got there.
"What?"
"California?"
Oh, thats what we were talking about, I think.
"No."
And I sit back down. "Where's my drink?" I say out loud and find out that no one is listening. It dosn't matter I find it on the coffee table in front of me and begin to sip.
And as I sip I wonder where I am because there is a girl laying down next to me and two guys on either side of her, touching her.
I'm scanning the crowd for a friend and some border-line whore strolls up and asks to have a sip of my drink.
"Take it." I say.
"So do you like it?"
"What? The drink is great, wouldn't have given it to you if it wasn't."
"No, California?"
"Honey, I havn't been out there in 19 years and probably won't see it before I die. Whats your name?"
"Claire. Like before."
"Oh." So we've met, but now she's offended and walking off and I say to myself that she's probably going to just get on one of those quote, unquote good looking guys on the other side of the room. Whatever.
So I'm sitting, wondering, waiting, not caring to socialize too much but I turn to one of the guys thats molesting the girl on the couch next to me and ask if he knows Clint and he dosn't and as it turns out Clint was at the party before this one and I'm all confused because I have no idea how I got here and he points to Ward, across the room.
"Ward, I need a drink," I say walking to his side, because it's been a bad day.
"Where's the last one?"
And I can't remember. "OK, over here." And he hands me a beer and I ask, "How the hell did we get here?" and he tells me that a sober driver got us here and I open the beer and realize that I shouldn't be here. Belly of the monster, the hornet's nest, I think to myself.
"What happened to the last party," I say.
"That was boring."
"Well I was having fun and at least no one was being rapped."
And right then a girl calls him into the bathroom and I'm left alone so I down the beer and go outside where my other two roomates are throwng rocks at the window of the house next door and I realize that I used to live at the house that is next door, and so did they, and I'm wondering what the hell is going on.
"Hey can we borrow that?" And some border-line whore is starring at me and pointing to something behind me and I notice that I'm wearing a backpack and I take it off and pull out the beer bong thats in it and hold it for her as she takes a hit and says "thank you" with her eyes.
"Those fuckers won't come out." My roommate tells me and points to our old house and shouts "Fuck you!" And I say, "You get mad way too easily," but apparently he's had a bad day so I'm like whatever.
And then we're leaving and I'm wondering where we're going and they keep throwing rocks as we walk past the old house and down the street where we split up and all of a sudden they are both in front of me and behind me respectivly and I've lost the beer bong and most of the beer that I was holding on my back so I figure that home isn't such a bad idea and I start heading there and my phone rings and its Ryan pretending to be drunk and I really am and thats how I know he's not but I'm talking to him anyways and he's telling me about his life and it seems sorrowful so I keep telling him that I'm sorry his night sucked and I really am and he tells me about how his friend is being an asshole and I tell him I can relate because one of mine is too and he gets angry way to easily and I tell Ryan that he's angry, my friend, becasue of his girlfriend and thats what women do to a man and it's kind of sad but thats the way the world works and sometimes I'm happy to be single, but then again often I'm not because nobody is these days and Ryan agrees and he often agrees way too easily and then we hang up and I'm walking home in the dark, alone again.

Real Wolrd

"Would you want anything, water, a soda, anything?"
I was wearing a shirt and tie and long pants and it was ninety degrees outside.
"Yeah, I'll take some water, if you have some."
I guess its dumb to say 'if you have some' when she already offered it.
But the secritary just smiled and she went in the back and come out again with a small cup.
"So what year are you?" She asked.
"Junior." I said.
"That was fun, for me anyways."
"Yeah, I agree."
And she stood there and just smiled and I said: "So you just graduated. I heard that was scarry."
"Yeah. It is. Don't know what to do anymore." And she just stood there and smiled.
Glad I have something to look forward to.

starring

I'm starring at a picture of a ship yard at night. A red glow baths the whole scene and sparkles on the water where a freight ship sits. A crane is sleeping above the ship, waiting for its driver to wake it up in the morning. And I'm wondering: do the guys using those giant cranes ever build giant forts out of the giant boxes on the freight ships.
hmmm.
I need to stop drinking cola at midnight.

two coordinations

So, finally, after we get everything in the damn trunk, the three of us pile into the car and hit the road north to Cincinnati, heading towards what has been hyped to be the most exciting part of our summer. I'm skeptical. So I'm in the back seat, looking out the window and the two of them are up front chatting away about how this band is the best that ever was and ever will be and how this concert will be the best that ever was and ever will be and I'm sitting in the back looking out the window and I'm skeptical. But, don't get me wrong, I'm down for the adventure anyways. So the phone rings up front and the passenger picks up and starts coordinating with his girl friend when and where we'll all meet once we get to Cicinnati. An hour later she's pulling into a parking space right next to ours, her best friend sitting shot gun next to her. I hate her best friend. I hate her sight. I hate her voice. And I don't see why I shouldn't be blunt about the things I'm passionate about.
Anyways, so her best friend starts talking the second she steps out of the car and, as mentioned, I hate the sound of her voice- not just because it sounds like a Frenchman vomiting- but also because she says the most stupid things known to man and it makes Gerorge W. Bush look good and I usually switch the channel when "W" talks but, sadly, I can't switch the channel when she talks. And she is talking a lot as she steps out of the car. And I'm getting annoyed very quickly. And she dosn't shut up.
And I'm now at the concert and I wish they would play the music louder just to drown her out. Hell, its not even good music and I'm wishing that I had gotten drunker or even high before I walked through the gates. When we leave I'm wanting a drink or a gun to put me out of my misery because that was a horrible concert and my friend is being an ass hole and his girl friend is not much better and her friend is making me want to step in on-coming traffic and my other friend is making a horrible display of hitting of her and that makes me sick, thinking of the two of them getting physical together. Maybe it would be better if I was drunk, but I'm the soberest here and just earned the right to be DD for the night and that is icing on the fucking cake. The night dosn't get better, because of all the reasons just mentioned. I leave cursing Cincinnati.
Coming back I searched for a bright spot in the whole adventure and came to the conclusion that it was when I made a phone call in the lobby next to a sleeping bell-hop, and the girl on the other end of the line picked up.
I think that was the only part of the night I smiled.
But there's more.
So fast forward now to a few weeks later when I'm going seventy on a straight stretch of fifty-five towards Cin-city, again, and the girl that made my night when she picked up my phone call in the lobby of that hotel is sitting shotgun next to me, smiling, and her hair is blowing with the wind, and we're laughing and the music is blarring and I just passed a cop and am wondering why the hell he didn't clock me for speeding.
Anyways.
I believe in second chances. And I'm glad I do.
Because after my first summer visit to Cinncy I never wanted to go back.
My second trip up there might be topping the list of best days in summer, though.
Weird how that works out.
I'm not going to lie. Sometimes I'm walking to class and I'm smiling because I remember that second night and how her teal blue purse matched her teal blue shoes. Such a weird color to coordinate.
You'd have to be there.
It would make you appreciate second chances too.

Written drunk, late

Yeah, this is all about you.
Listen though,
This is the last time, never mind.
Got caught up with a good crowd tonight.
Rolling with the thugs
Still tipsy from last light.
Still there, lost in a hangover.
Head dosn't hurt, but I only like certian things.
Like thinking about your sight.
Every where I go.
I think
I wonder
I see you.
Thats just the thing, you're nowhere. So I drink and smoke te stuff that getsme there. Fuck it. Its all about you.
Got sick from the tricks I pull, drinking four nights a week, still true,
Or is it the flu?
Fuck its you,
Every other place I go.
I see
I wonder
I think of you.
Gotta get out. Wanna quit, but tonight, with them, the guys, just too much fun.
Don't even call you.
Though, still thinking about you.
Its all about you,
Nate Dawg said its true.
You know, I'd pay for you,
ANYTIME.
Any where. Fucking Olive Garden. Got your meal covered.
Love it with you.
But what are holding out for,
Whats always in the way?
Why always so damn absent-fucking-minded
you break me, waste me, fake me, take me,
drum roll now please, I'm spinning, keep drinking.
Got my ass caugt up in this crowd
Music too loud.
Said it, say it again: still tipsy from last night.
Drunk fights
errupt all around. fun times. In the fucking lime light, rolling with the boys, the thugs, true thugs, cute mugs, all of us.
hey, hey, hey
now the girl beside me is hearing voices, crazy talk, drunk and wants the emotion in life so she tells me she just can't sleep and I need to keep her warm.
Fuck that,
Thinking of you and would much rather keep it that way.
Thats true.
And she's like:
"I just can't sleep, just need some... need some 'yeah'."
And I'm like, "yeah," and then I just walk away. Its midnight And I'm drowesy, thinking about the things in my head.
Want some coffee or tea, because I got this dream I just can't shake,
or make good on.
I walk away from that girl
And she's starring there and I'm rolling away with the thugs, smiling.
Drunk as something that shouldn't exisit.
Gun shots now, fuck things now, I'm hitting hard, up the bottle, up the take, up everything thats fake; them, me, her, us, it, hell, thinking hard now.
You said
a thousand times
you said, over all the gun shots and smoke
you said
a thousand times
not to smoke
And I havn't. Don't know why your words impact me.
Fuck.
~ Written drunk, late.

America dosn't exisit

Boom, boom, boom and there goes another one.
Don Rummy says, with his squintted eyes and high pitched voice at the press conference: "We hit an enemy target, head on, and completed the mission."
Thing about that is, the enemy target was right next to a school.
Yeah, "mission accomplished", but when did a "just" army ever have to get to that point by killing third graders?
Its kindda funny, actually.
I saw on CNN
Four brave men,
Fighter pilots,
Reviewing their checklists,
And then grouping together to pray that their bombs would be lead by the hand of God.
"Heavenly father, we hope that you give us strength to finish our mission, to guide us."
When did God guide bombs into schools?
Those piliots are every day Americans with a wife, a house, a daughter they kiss before they go to bed at night, a dog or cat, depending on what their allergies are, and cable television.
They're people doing a job, thats it.
And that reminds me of something, darkly.
Of the Nurnberg Nazi trials.
They said, back then, that: "We were people doing our job, what was told of us."
Those men, the Nazis, had wives, a house, a son they kissed before they went to bed at night and a dog or cat, depending on what their allergies were.
I guess they were men, too, the ones that shot Jewish women.
I guess American piliots are men, too, the one's that blow up Muslim women.
No grey area, black or white. Everyone is the same. Americans and Nazis.
A hurrican hit,
the biggest ever.
The Mexican army just crossed the border to help with relief efforts.
Where's our army?
Hell, we can't even help ourselves anymore.
America dosn't exisit.

On my career choice

Okay, I've just decided that I'm going to help save the world.
Don't know how yet, possibly by starting an alt-rock band designed at doing just that by raising money at our packed concerts.
I'm going to need a drummer.
"Ward, do you know a drummer?"
Ok, he's shaking his head no.

anti-climactic end

Outside Lexington rushes by. Typical Wednesday. Typical afternoon.
Its warm and sunny and there is not a cloud in the sky. Won't be for at least the next seven days, the weather man says. The park across from my house is filled with kids: playing on the playground, the basketball courts, skateboarding, tag, whatever. Some of the sorority girls were sun bathing on their roofs, care free. The blue courts are all filled up, guys taking advantage of the day. The birds are singing and a cat walks by a dog but the dog just lays there.
Nice day.
And I just got off the phone with my boss and am feeling kind of like the Spartans at Thermoploy: a martyr.
Dead for the sake of others.
I'm getting into my car wondering about things, alot of things. Alot of things that end in question marks. Don't know about this journalism project. Don't know if I actually understood my economics reading. Don't really understand what my Poli-Sci test will be on. When is that test, anyways? Don't know why the Brazilian national team has to cut one of their best players or how they ever came to the position where a good player had to be cut becuase there was just not enough room for that much talent. Fuck. Wondering how the UK football team will do on Saturday.
Wondering about paychecks.
Wondering how drunk I think I'd like to be tonight.
One things for sure though As I pull out of the drive way:
I need a new job.

I need a vacation

"I think I need a change."
"I understand." I think I really did, until...
"Lets get out of here. Lets blow this popsicle stand. You and me, we'll go to So-Cal together, L.A. or somewhere....fuck."
"?"
"Where are our lives going, you know? Fuck class man."
"Yeah, I agree."
"I think I'm becoming border-line schizophrenic. I'm fucking losing it, man, fucking losing it. You understand?"
"yep"
"Will you...will you visit me in the crazy house?"
"Yeah, man."
"Good. And bring some bitches, bitches and beer. Don't forget that. Remember the bitches and beer. Shit, you wanna get drunk tonight? Get fuuuuuucked up. Lets get some people together. You down?"
~A conversation between Brian L. and myself.
I think it pretty much defines what we, as juniors this year and getting into the "tail-end" of college and leaving the "happiest time of our lives", feel.
We're fucking losing it.
"I wanna get smashed tonight." He says.
"You got my number." I say. And I'm debating it because, till today, I'd been drunk for four days straight and didn't want to be excessive.
"You know, numb the emotion. There's too much emotion, you understand?"
"yep"
"Or get the fuck out of here, I have a friend in Colorodo, I could marry her. Live there, get out of this shit hole."
"I've never been to Colorodo," I say, "I have a friend there too."
How many times have we thought about the what-ifs in our lives?
How many times have we wanted to mix things up?
The two of us are talking about our weekend and he's explaining something that makes me remember another instance.
:
I'm running, sprinting, getting the fuck out of a house that just got busted by the cops. One of my friends had jumped out the window, another had gone out the back door and somehow gotten through a police net that was rounding us up. Another friend and I had stayed a little longer to see how things would turn out, then decided that we didn't need to go to the tank that night.
I've never been to the tank. My other two friends, though, had. That must be why they bolted so quickly.
Guess its not a fun place.
Anyways, so, we're outside running, sprinting, the cold night blistering our face and the darkness all around tripping us and for some reason, of all the things, I'm thinking about the what-ifs.
What if I get caught?
What if he gets caught?
Whats gonna happen when I turn around and get cuffed with him out of principle for our friendship?
What am I doing at this party, it's not even that great?
I'm not that drunk.
Why do I drink?
Why am I running through the cold?
I should have applied to a school with a warmer climate.
Why did I join up with these people?
Why did I quit?
What is She doing right now?
What if She's running from the cops too?
That would be cool, but unprobable. What if I'd never bought these shoes? What If I had dressed up? Where am I going now? Where am I going to sleep? Am I hungary? I need a drink. What does it take to get a drink in this place? What if I had a flask? Then it wouldn't be so cold. What if I had never met these people, where would I be? Shit, I need to be in class tomorrow, what if my major is wrong? What if my life is wrong? What if this is all wrong? Am I on the right path? Where am i going? Shit, its too dark to see. What if I don't make it there? What if I do? What if I'm alone when I get there? What can I do? What do I do? What should I do? What will I do? What if I'm not alone when I get there?
ahhh, there it is, optimisim.
I'm not alone now.
Why worry about then?
Shit, flashing lights, red and blue. What to do, what to do?
We're moving fast through the grass and I'm thinking about you.
I wonder what you're doing right now. Probably NOT running from the cops.
My phone rings and I hope its you. Fuck it, never is.
"Yeah," I say.
"Where are you?" He says.

The Thorn Bush in My Head, part 2

"You can't reason with them."
I keep thinking about what he told me the other night.
Its true.
Women can't be reasoned with.
Thats why we always lose.
Anyways, I'm not trying to attack anyone.
Let me say this: Not everything is true though.
It'd be great if you, like the rest of your kind, could get your head straight and not always assume.
Hell, it would be better if I could defend myself and you'd actually listen.
Again I have a thorn bush in my head.
Listen.
I think the red frogs tell the whole story.
Understand this on "intentions":
If they (the red frogs) are jumping from lilly pad to lilly pad, trying to get to the edge of the lake, then you're land.