incongruential.

The consequences of what you do right now, in this moment...
   Do they keep vibrating, like a pond surface shattered by water droplet?

Can we ever escape eating this figurative potato chip right now?
   Or will it all come crashing down onto the figurative scale that is ever increasing...

Me.  I want it; what happens later happens later.  I want it now.
   Come.  You can have it.  I know what happens later.  You know it not.

This isn't me.  What have I become?  Fix me.  I want to be fixed.
   You broke it.  You decided in every instance of your present to break yourself.  Fully.

No, no.  This is a terrible dream.  I need to find a needle.
   You are the dream factory.  Sleeping in your wakefulness, tempted, drawn, conquered.

I'm not this way.  I'm better than this.  We are better than this.  Farce.
   Come.  You can't have it.  You can't have what you need.  Destroy yourself.

... Living in the present is for __________

guest post #2 - [apple]crumble.

Her dad had been sick for a while. It seemed like a long while. Was it only for the past five months that she had been travelling to see him three times a week? But those 20 hours a week seemed such a big commitment – packing up lunches and the kids and arranging for dinner when she was away from home. For a while she had felt trapped. Why couldn’t they just put him in a nursing home and have them take care of him? Why did her mother want him to be cared for at home? That meant rearranging life.

This time when she visited and asked him how he was doing, he told her a story. She could see by his earnestness that it was important to him. He really wanted to tell her about what he had done earlier in the week.

“I went to see the doctor.”

“How did that go?”

“There was water.”

“What water, where?”

“Outside.”

“Oh, a lake?”

“And animals.”

“What animals were they?”

“They were…..there. They were by the water. They were in a group. They…”

“Were they geese?”

“They were together..”

“Were they ducks?”

“They were...”

He stumbled for the right words. He had never had this kind of difficulty telling a story before. He was frustrated…It bothered him that he couldn’t tell her what he had seen.

She was puzzled…and sad. She had known he wasn’t doing well. Perhaps for the first time, she wondered for how much longer he would be with her.

She tried to pick a new topic; something that they could talk about without him feeling bad.

“Dad, it’s Valentine’s Day today. I baked some brownies that I brought over to share. The girls helped me make them.”

He nodded, not comforted really. He knew something still wasn’t right and he remembered he couldn’t speak what was on his mind.

She knew, too. They sat together and watched TV.

An hour passed…or was it two? It was time for her to get ready to go…but wasn’t there some way she could connect before she left?

“I love you, Dad.” She couldn’t remember saying that to him before.

He paused, looked up and said, “I love you too.” She didn’t remember hearing those words before.



After all, it was Valentine’s Day.

                        - Equinox

workday.

"Censure me in my leisure, and awake your senses. ... No.  That doesn't sound right.  I can never remember when I need to."

Morgan turned toward me with an incredulous look, an awful smirk etched carefully on his face.  "That is, em, masterful, sir.  I must salute you for, em, managing to copy Shakespeare by misunderstanding and misquoting his work.  Truly, truly."  He struggled to keep his face straight.
      "Really, Morg, I can't do this.  How do I write something... like this... for anything... like this?  Eh?"
"It's a ruddy obituary, Sam.  Don't.  Use.  Shakespeare.  You'll regret it."
      "Mmmmm... mmm.  I can't.  I'--"
"Yes, you're having an existential crisis.  Don't deny it, man.  As Richard the Third said, em, 'chop off his head, man.'"
      "You scrub."
"Ah, us scrubs, the intellectual garbage of the news world.  Love it."
      Out of a sudden urge to act out a movie scene probably found in most modern romantic comedies, I crumpled the paper up, stood up to throw it into the waste basket, and stubbed my toe on Morgan's table leg.  The office buzzed with suppressed laughter.  Morgan smiled in an utterly condescending, charming way.
"At least, sir, I do my job with integrity and surety; I'm a perfect, em, scrub.  You got some work to do though."
     
      "Scrub."
"It's due before lunch break."
      "Oh."

caffeine flashback - 1.0

Inward gazing, mist hazing.

Life erasing, babes chastising?

No.

      Sullenly, I crumpled up the paper and threw it at the waste receptacle.  This was an awful way to start three hours of the so-called "relaxed song-writing time".  Sitting in Caribou, nothing left to write except awful words that wouldn't fit anywhere.  I realized I'd missed the rubbish box.  "Have to get up, too."  This phrase, muttered under my breath and followed with a sigh, was quite supposed to be a private statement.

"No, I'll get it."

"I'm sorry?"

      She stood, picked up the offending article, and placed it deftly inside the bin.  I realized I'd used three different words to describe a trash can.  Why...?  For both actions.

"Em, thank you."

      Smiles are the funniest things.  They can brighten your day, they can let you know that you no longer have to sit up straight since you won't be hired anyway, they can inspire you, they can make you walk into poles.  This one... was everything except one.  Guess.

"I'm sorry, I guess you didn't notice me staring at you.  I was sitting next to you and I couldn't help but notice...  Stephen?"  Her hands twisted together nervously.  My mind was doing the same thing, but more out of confusion.

"What?  I, I mean, yes.  You are...?"

"Oh you know me!  You don't... I mean you don't remember, but you do!  Really.  You know me.  Mmmm."

Mmmm.  That was familiar.  I'd picked up the habit from her.

"Julie?"

This was the walk-into-poles one.

"Yes."  

frustratii.

Excuses, excuses, fading into the darkness darker than black

  nails scratching against the blackboard remind me of dying screams.

Do we need to watch what words we say in our mouths and in our heads?

  it is just mumbling made up by fallen humans.

    Is it?

Christopher Columbus was actually Cristoforo Colombo.
  they gave him a Latin name to boost his status.
    What?

How do you connect this and that when your head doesn't screw on the right way?
  it goes on counterclockwise.  everyone else's goes the other way - the right
    Way?

This is no time to be thinking about that subject, these persons are talking about those things.
  but this is boring.  there is nothing for you here.  relinquish your command.
    Or else?

inspired tomorrow.

Tiny heart
Stuck inside yourself
When will you open up for me

I love you so
I wanna meet you again
Before one of us must go

Your lips touched every hand but mine
If you choose me, I’m waiting for you
Always waiting

Tiny heart
You're not by yourself
When will you recognize the beat

Of my own heart
Grieving in your hand
You crush me when you run that way

Your lips touched every hand but mine
If you choose me, I’m waiting for you
Always waiting

You will never know
What you have done to me
You will never know losing love from me
And you will never know a single day alone

Tiny heart
Stuck inside yourself
When will you open up

Your lips touched every hand but mine
If you choose me I’m waiting for you
Always waiting

- (c) F/L.  

manly.

where are you going, little man?
your head is in the clouds
it seems.

come back to sense, little man.
the chlorine clogged your ears
it seems.

cry out all your tears, man.
i give you my shoulder
it seems.

i didn't want to, but
it happens suddenly,
it seems.

come to my arms, little man.
tears, emotions, screams, angers
i'll take.

just remember the good
but relish the bad to learn
you must.

- Yoda [wrote the last line]

paraflox.

      "Comfortable?"  I rubbed my hands surreptitiously together, making sure they weren't sticky, then placed an arm around her.  The low light of the carriage helped disguise my blush for a natural face colour.  Nothing to see, just, normal.  Yes.  She smiled and glanced at my face.  "Now I am."  I paused. "Oh."  That was positive, yeah?  Well.  "Anyway, nice to meet you."  Leaning over, she whispered into my ear, "We've been married four days.  But I knew you for twelve before that.  Twelve years.  Take a deep breath."
   
      In, out.  Deep.  I cleared my throat.  Her dress rustled on the floor as she shifted her legs.  Everything was just so acute.  I needed to calm down.  "Em, so I searched up belligerence the other day."  She looked up.  "Sorry, what?"  Speak in a higher register.  Just speak normally, relax.  You've done it before.  But you've never done this before.  Shut up.  "I... looked up a word you told me to yesterday."  My voice cracked.  She smiled.  "But that wasn't quite what you said the first time?"  "You didn't hear what I said the first time."  "How do you know that?"  My eyebrows folded.  "Well you said, 'sorry, what?'  Or something to that effect."  Again.  She smiled.  Oh, that smile.  Her head fell softly against my arm.  I felt tall.

      Her voice broke the silence again.  "Hey."

      "Yeah."

      "I love you.  You know that?"

      "Yeah."

apollon.

They sat together on the rooftop.

"Days like these are long.  Not much to do, mm?"  The Thin one exhaled softly.  He had a peculiar dimpled face; it was a boyish cute face.  His side-swept bangs ruffled his eyes as the wind caught between the strands.

The Tall one sighed, longer.  Louder.  "You want to go down to the docks?"  His crew-cut fought with the gusts of wind, struggling to stay immobile.  He flexed unintentionally.

Thin adjusted his glasses, leaned back, said, "I'd rather go over to your place."  He blushed.

"Not for my sister, you don't.  We could just go to the station, see where that takes us?"  Tall frowned.

"Alright.  I have... eight dollars.  You're paying."  Thin rose, his knees cracking painfully.  He groaned.  "Must've gained weight."

The Tall one smirked.  "After you just implicitly harassed my sister by turning red after suggesting we go to my house?  Fat chance, baby girl."

"Oh, shut it.  We're both adults, aren't we?"  The wind blew.  "... When was the last time you went to the bathroom?"

"This morning."

cumulus.

      When my thoughts are clouded, I will be turned to hear the whispers of indecision.  Are they whispers of evil?  No.  They delay the good until such a time that the good cannot and will not be done.  Defiance is forced against my teeth, yet it is not defiance, but confidence.  Confidence that my indecision, my clouds, will cover the light shining the way until too late.

      Too late, and I have fallen into the great swamp of my own folly.  O, injurious murder is my sin: I wish.  Instead, the swamp forms from the smallest of mistakes made by my own white lies, so many white lies that the palette is no longer white, but grey, black.  Burnt out.

      Defiance clashes with defiance.  My body is weak.  How will I find peace?  How will I run from the sorrow of my swamp, my lies?

      There is a light shining in the dark.  I will never reach this light.  Until I blow away the clouds.  Until I blow away the cobwebs.

      One Breath.

surreel.

      It was... I was surrounded.  Great white sharks, circling me slowly, waiting for the first sign of fear, they were.  No more.  No more would I see my dear friends and family.  Shouldn't it be family and friends?  Well.  To our work alive.  What do you think of marching to Philippi presently?  I do not think it good.  Because... I am no narwhal.  I can fight no sharks.  Ooh, they're scary.  Blood.  Don't show fear, and don't bleed.  I have an open cut from last week.  Did I put a bandage on already?  It's on.  I can feel it.  Focus.  Relax.  Roll the shoulders back, roll with the punches, and punch them back.  Yes.  FOR A RED DAW-

"Sir?  Sir."

I started involuntarily.  A gnarly hand rested lightly on my shoulder.  "Yes!  I'm here!  What seems to be the problem?  Eh??"  Don't panic.  Get... ready... they'll pounce any minute.  Oh.  "Oh, I'm sorry!"

"Your audition was to start six minutes ago, sir.  You've been sitting staring at the keys vapidly for quite some time now."

Did he just say vapid?  Me, vapid?  Really.  Couldn't he find a better word, like... facetious.  Or maldovish.  Or thunderbolt-like.  Oh.  Wait.  "Audition?"

"Yes?"

a_sence.

      The sun rolled further down in the sky, lazing over a city block as he basked in his own warmth.  He adjusted the thermometer down a little: 5,502 degrees Celsius.

      "It's much too early for you too be up like this, sun.  It's only eleven in the morning."  I sighed.  Walking down twenty blocks from 63rd in this blistering weather wasn't particularly enjoyable.  It was these mornings that I took time off... But I'd used up all the sick days for this year last year.  Bother.  "Bother."  It made more sense when I said it out loud.  I sounded like one of the main male protagonists in one of those reverse harem role-playing games.  Well, why not.  I cleared my throat, remarking, more to myself than anyone else, "You... You're not hurt, are you?  If you... If anything had happened to you, I'd... I'd fall in love with you."  I glanced up and caught the gaze of the lady walking across the road, who immediately averted it.  Why had I chosen such a quiet intersection to relieve stress?  "Bother."

      "Morning, Missus Lumkee."  I always had to stop thinking "lumpy" when I said the name at looked at her hair at the same time.  "Stop smiling, stop smiling."  I muttered.  "I'm sorry, Mister Fung?"  She'd heard?  Well, I could pass it off as a careless comment about my own behavior with absolutely no relation to her hair.  "Oh, nothing.  Beautiful sun out today, isn't he?"  She smiled painfully.  "Mister Fung, you're eighty minutes late."

      "Oh, fudge."

baton-tachi.

"When we encounter the people in our lives, that's no coincidence.  There's a plan for you to influence that person's life, for better or for worse.  What are we going to do?  Are we sitting and waiting for the life to get sucked out of us because we dared to say no to Vitamin B12?  You'll be an influence, and you will be influenced.  This life isn't going to wait for you."

"When we see the justice going on in the world and spit at it in our self-righteousness, that's no coincidence.  There's a plan for you to see those rusty, hellish glasses you're looking through.  There's a plan for you to smash them.  You go to Burger King and try to get only the healthy things on the menu?  Don't go to Burger King."

"When we speak words and think different words to other people, that's no coincidence.  There's a plan for you to speak truth, when you realize the destruction your lies can cause.  I told my friends I'd love to hang out with them the same time I screamed at them in my mind to leave me in my shambles, alone..."

This life isn't going to wait for you.  

But it's hard to change.

unspoken.

The feeling you get when you write an email and decide not to send it. The feeling you get when you think of a birthday present for someone but never buy it. It’s because of precaution.  ‘Better safe than sorry’ the saying goes. Who knows where our words will land on the other person’s heart?

But I wonder what the world would be like if we always told people what we really thought? A lot more would be ugly. A lot more of hurt would be caused, I’m sure. But for the good things, should restraint be applied there? I hear a tongue shriller than all the music cry, ‘Yes, even there.’  Timing is crucial. So is the motivation behind our actions. Yet I mourn for the lost words of things unspoken. Instead, packed away in the hidden memories of eternity, they reside. 

May the Lord redeem the thoughts of His people.

keep running.

why give in now?
when you you've made it so far?
why give in now?
when you can feel the hand of God in the damp air?

why give in now?
when the lush spring flowers beckon you to smile
and you don't know what else you could ask for?
why give in now?
the end is not yet in sight
but hope assures us of things not seen.
so keep running.
keep running.

c_t.

She climbs onto the sheets
Deep, unfathomable
Eyes gaze across the room
At plushies and teddies.

Shaking off the summer's heat
She settles, finding a dent
In the impenetrable
Comforter.  Eyes close slowly.

Ruffling in the wind
Her fur won't lie flat
How, her ears wonder,
Will she sleep?  A bit.

purpose.

Is it to wait, and wait, and wait, until the right flash of inspiration comes along and laser beams fly out of your ears, the most magnificent of works taking shape as you release your final form and write the greatest... thing... man has ever seen?  Or is it to go on, regardless of consequence, regardless of how putrid and awful your work is, until you come across one jewel within the recesses of your head?

This isn't even my final form.

Is it to smile and say, "Not today", brushing it off like you brush off the offending strands of hair off your forehead?  Is it to avoid your cat because he makes your eyes well up with tears out of allergies, and not cuddle times?  Or is it to cuddle?

Can I haz cheezburger?

Or is it to lie defeated, tangled within the cavern that is your fluffy comforter, mocking yourself for producing the greatest of nothings?

I am no man.  Death!  Kill the halflings.  Where is Gandalf?  For I much desire to speak with him.  Frodo Baggins.  I don't know half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.  So it begins.  Gandalf Greyhame.  He has fallen, into shadow.  Look unto the east.  He was twitching.

everyone.

"Did you hear about the new patch in LoL?  I heard they made some new skins."  

"Ehhh, what's uh... lol?  Like an Mp3 player?"

"Naw, man, League of Legends.  You're behind."

"Hey, do you have the afternoon free today?  Let's go out."

"Mmmm... I should.  Where?"

"The usual.  You know how it goes."

"Hehehe.  I got you."

"Hey, how did your calc test go?"

"Bombed the quadratics.... But everything else, I think, pretty good."

"You have quadratics in a calc test...?"

"Oh.  Hmhmm.  I gotta go to the bathroom."

"Look at him, he's totally going to go to the staff office and try something crazy."

"I know, right?  What a lark."

      Walk around a less busy area of the hallways so that when I smile at someone, maybe they'll smile back at me, just because they don't know me.  Or because they're not busy talking to their own friends.  The ones they'd talk to first if they had to choose between them or me.

      Wish I could have a circle of friends to talk to.  Seeing the people congregating around that one guy, the one who can make everyone laugh, the one who's better than anyone else.  Thinking of something to say to fit in.  Walking away.

      Sitting at an ice cream parlour with my dad, wishing I were sitting at an ice cream parlour with my girlfriend.  Oh.  I don't have one.  Just wanting to be someone who's not me.  Just wanting to be better.  Just wanting to be nicer.  Just wanting to be less weird.  

      Talking to my friend about girls.  Why do we always talk about girls?  He's talking about how he wants to get a girlfriend.  Why would he want to get one?  Shouldn't he like... bump into one on a busy street corner in Chicago or on the "down" elevator when she's going down and he's trying to run up?  You don't get girls.  You realize. 

      Talking about life late at night with myself.  Wondering if I'm an idiot who counsels himself about how to live life and not procrastinate.  Thinking about God.  Does He care?  If He cares, does He care about the people who spit in His face with poisonous words?  What are poisonous words?  Do I speak those poisonous, blasphemous words?  Sure, yeah, sometimes.  

      

      Yeah, he cares.  Just got to find out how.  And sometimes, it's nicer not to have everyone.  Just someone.  Or just Someone.

opposite sides.

The middle-aged, existentially-crisis-ridden Woman sat at the far end of the Table.  In her hands, she held two lethal knitting needles, on which was impaled a black yarn.  Her hands moved nervously, trying to match the irregular rhythm of her clicking needles.

The young, procrastination-prone Man sat at the far end of the Table.  Under his hands lay an old, fractured keyboard.  He tapped absentmindedly at the keys: f, f, f, f.  j, j, j, j.  The steady beat syncopated with the needles' rhythms.  In his lap sat the Cat.

Time Passed.

"Twenty-one.... Twenty-two.... Twenty-three.... Twenty-four.... Placemarker.  Mmmmm."  The Woman's voice cracked.  "Can you get that Cat away from here?  My eyes are getting itchy just being near him.  And I... Wait.  Don't disturb me.  Thirty-three.... Thirty-four...."  Her voice faded.  The Man stayed silent, immobile.  His fingers feebly betrayed his statued-ness.  His eyelids drooped lower.

Time Passed.

The Cat's purring grew dimmer.  No hands were scratching at his chin.  No warm breath on his stomach.  This was no better than the floor.  He jumped.  The Man shuddered with a start.  The eyes snapped wide.  The Cat's hair found its target.

Time Passed.

The Woman sneezed.

ghost.

"For the Savage, life had been all too real.  Life was being all too real.  There were times... He wished he were on an earth filled with volcanoes, fighting off pirates to defend his honour and his homeland and his castle and his wife."

"For the Savage, death had been all too close.  Death would be all too real.  In a day, a year, right this instant.  It would come.  It will come.  There were times... He wished he were close enough to live his life fully, yet far enough... To pull out when he couldn't take any more."

H lifted the pen off paper.  A long, drawn-out, sigh.  Just more cliched story plots, beginnings that would never have a conclusion.  He'd used to like shutting a book on the third to last page, willing it not to end, willing the story to keep going until forever.  But now, being the writer, and not the writee... It was frustrating not to know the end.  It was frustrating not to know where to go.  It was frustrating holding this pen.

Why am I writing on paper?  Hasn't technology made the transition to paperless yet?  Am I looking for an archaic time writing these stories?  Not even stories.  All the fantasy books on the shelves are trash these days.  What do they call me?  Jaded.  Yah.  I'm destroying my livelihood like this.  Thousands and thousands...

The coffee pot whistled once.  H lifted the pen off paper.