Why you gotta be like that Chi-chi?

Chi-chi!

 

4 a.m.

Talk yourself out of it, but you can’t. One thousand questions asked with one kiss on the cheek. One thousand more with a single stare; a void. Those eyes relishing each second, licking their lips, dying to taste the possible outcome of certain disaster. You can’t help but let the gluttony penetrate your dreams for the future; hopes and illusions. All that which you know is right there in front of you, but lying is still a better option. When does on truly know that they are wrong? 

The cost of needing to find out is an incomprehensible sum. How would one know, never having been there before? You cannot ask because it does not feel right. You cannot ask because a part of you knows it never did. That’s precisely what brought on the rush of gluttony; a need to belong to someone. The illusion equally as weak as the symbol melted down.

Out of context.

What to do when  found out of touch and in crass contrast? In, out, between conversations. Stark reminders serving-up blows to the head one by one, after each word leaves the mouth, after each completed gesture and animated expression is played out on the face. 

An ant-hill of comparison, neither a good thing, and you’re every deconstructed granule of sugar being brought down to the Queen; a bi-product of environment. Sounding loud, the awareness carries no language but a familiar voice: your own, but unlike ever listened to before. Unlikeable, foreign and certainly not going unnoticed by anyone. Lacking the grace to carry itself through fingertips, ears,and minds to gently and forgivingly resonate up and out of the room. 

Though in good company, we rush like fools to grasp at the skirts of what we know and pay never-mind to the loose threads held limp in our fists. It’s just too painful, too lonely, too naked a journey returning to the I in the We.

Stand back to look at it.

Amassed in our own productivity lurks the misconception of indolence or lack of achievement. We don’t take note of our ambitions and reached goals, until we slow down to stop and stand; a moments chance to feel into it. Everything is not as it appeared. Once thinking we were not going anywhere, motionless even, is now the recognition of having been moving too fast.

Obsessed with humor. Sincerely, The Scribbler Extraordinaire

Uncoupled.

An uncoupled sex. A disconnect.

If only the body next to his could feel the discontent, hear the quiet desire, the electrical pitch pronouncing single letters held high in the silence by each risen hair.

A puzzle. A sea of stranded letters but no sign of words, only dulled pain amplified by needs not yet met. The key to unfold it all, lies beneath the sheets sleeping, or otherwise waiting for something they each possess to break the spell.

Their ability to reach out from the clout of doubt, touch and understand, is meeting half-way to find the good again.

Waking sleep.

I lay, incapable of shutting my eyes and falling asleep. Shadows dance from floor, to door frame, to window pane, to finally landing and resting on my cheek, where half of me pretends to sleep. My face, planted deep in the belly of my pillow is restless but refusing to lift. The closest link I have to dreams.

Seagull squawk hangs in mid-air like clothes drying, doing their time, sentenced to one day of windy interrogation and pinched shoulders on the line. Now comes the push of a shapeless hand, causing thoughts to descend and dive deep to connect the broken ends of words and their meaning.  The exchange is something I will never understand.

Thoughts of other worlds and alternate dimensions distract the mind from winged talk and the drip, drip, drip, coming from the kitchen sink. The empty sound filling up on silence becoming more hollow, takes me on a trip through mental exhaustion and a thirst for sleep, with each sip. Both, pre-requisites for embarking on a highway, lead to a gateway through parallel worlds heard so much about, but never explored. It is now 4 am, but don’t ask me what time really is, or if it even exists. That  depends on where I stand. Surely one foot in irrelevance.

Exasperated tones.

Moans, groans, whining pleas escaping ungrateful metallic teeth. Incapable of speech, yet managing, somehow, to push the words to the surface of a lip-less mouth reaching strangers bodies, limbs and fingertips. Each time left indifferent and surrendered, paralyzed in eternal shapelessness, conducive to its and all the others fear of undeniable incapability, of flexibility.

The only hope for change is by the familiar press of  heavy-hearted human weight, sharing more secrets than lies, not by way of fleshy mouth, tongue and lips in tact; do not dare to utter the passing of words, out-loud. With a constant rising and falling, the encounter not lasting more than 64 seconds is timed without miscalculation for opportunity. Light is equal to darkness, each meaning nothing, yet everything at once when the teeth quit grinding and cease to disappear into one and itself. 

No more moaning, relentless groaning or whining pleas, escaping ungrateful metallic teeth. Just exasperated tones fleeing the lips on heavy-hearted feet, climbing motionless steps to a top they may, or may never reach.

The here and now.

I have 30 minutes to make good use of and I couldn’t have found a more suitable place for me to write. Grey slats of old cedar line beneath me, this old bench knows a lot and it’s only hope for a voice is a vandalized splatter of aquamarine blue paint; adding still life and personality to it’s weathered skin. 

The canopies of trees crowd and reach over my head, the sun brightens and dims in two…three…four-count pulses; the mother of all lighthouses. When I said that I found this perfect spot, in actuality it found me. The gentle murmurs of the whispering winds of change sway through the giants above me, effortlessly raising their voices to make their point. Only it doesn’t have to, I already know. I’ve been here so many times before.

But this time it’s different.

On the bus.

The innocence of our youth is not lost in those never ceasing to engage their imagination, and viewing their world through eyes of wonder and beauty.

“POp, pOp, poP,” sounds the epitome of teenage language evaporating into the air, like smoke from a pistol fired into the still night. A firecracker pose is frank in telling its story, but the shades covering her adolescent face writes the other half. Silver Converse shoes with their tongues all out, suffocating with embroidered jeans stuffed in them, barely manage to speak in sneaker squeak. The white man-beater wrapped tightly around her maturing torso, is making a last ditch effort to distract wandering eyes from the anomaly of someone whose age may already be tainted, with too much experience of that world. She talks of things that young girls do, like what a massacre her last ear-piercing was, and had it been done with a needle not a gun, things would have turned out differently…”POp, pOp, poP,” announces her exasperated chewing gum.

First night.

Cimetière Père lachaise, Paris.

Never has the air smelled so good as this night. Its potency is a warm embrace, gently guiding the soul back to remembering. A single scent molecule is breaking down into one million memories, clutching onto the deeper senses, just to say ‘hello’. A dog’s bark is followed by a camaraderie of howls, someone coughs, a rooster is sounding the alarm at the break of light, the sun is coming up slowly, and everything wakes in its own time.

Much to lose.

Chance de lise, Paris.

The bus is a vessel of body heat and sun. A little girl wearing a lime green dress, changes colorful expressions every five seconds, frankness so far perfected only by a chameleon. No one dares to stare or give those candid convulsions a go, looking most awkward but fun. A man declaring with one missing leg that he hasn’t much else  to lose, steps onto the bus without a need to sit, he’s fine to stand, hopping off at the next stop. A woman with much to lose is struggling to get on, in exchange for his place, squeezing herself between myself and a man who is a stranger in every way, aside from the interest he’s taken to what is written on this page. Stepping off, the breeze is a cooling lover to beads of sweat.

Free-willed eggs.

Wloclawek, Poland. Wisla.

Surround yourself with those that show up as their authentic selves, motivating the best in you; bringing happiness to your life. That’s how we encourage positive change, inevitably reaching out to everyone, spreading it like wild fire.

We are all experimental eggs.

The same kind you got to take home in High school, carrying around for however long, making sure it didn’t crack and bleed its golden yolk all over the floor, staining your hands with feelings of incompetence and thinking you had just committed some form of murder. I think we are all those eggs, and assigned to each of us are what we call ‘angels,’ who are responsible for our survival when shit goes down, making sure that their hands don’t share the gold-stained fate.

But sometimes, when their backs are turned, that’s when it happens. In a blink.

We stain ourselves.

What makes you happy? Whatever it is, create a condition for your happiness and keep it that way.

I know, but I still wait.

Musée National d’Art Moderne-Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris.

There’s something inside you, ready to make a bust. You’re clutching the key, yet wait to be rescued, despite the onset of premature rust. Freedom sits slumped by the door, scratching its head in confusion, asking, “aren’t I at my best out there?” Mustering the courage to stutter your plea, you say, “but, but, it never works for me.”

Both freedom and courage this time, rebut in reply, “when the conditions are right, the wind is up, and the lights lay low, you’ll feel your feet move toward the door, the key slips from your hands, first to your head, the lips and then chest.”

Your hands they are shaking, you’re buzzing with fear, but suddenly there’s a voice that says, “just let go, my dear.” In this moment, it becomes so clear.

Follow your bliss, without fear.

La moustache.

 

Passerelle des Arts, Paris.

He’s sitting with three women, this man. A white t-shirt overrun by turquoise stripes and sweat, grey khaki jeans, and brown leather sandals worn and desperate from the summer heat; cling to his feet. Adorning his neck is what once were shimmering flecks of gold, now making a lackluster effort to shine; the perfect complement to his flawlessly gelled hair and primped blonde moustache. Squeezed between his right elbow and ribs is a black purse. Effortlessly, this man is who he is.

Silent cars.

Musée National d’Art Moderne-Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris.

If those who drive, drove silent cars, nothing would be missed. Talking trees dropping their acorn tears and summer leaves, conversations coming unbound with a glimpse of a stranger, and his dog Sam on the street, every spark in someone’s eye; every fuse lit by the sound of joy in a wrinkle, handmade by a smile. The abandoning of headphones; defeated slithering snakes with two heads, line our sidewalks, and the rising and falling breath of the ocean and the storytelling of the wind, is now finally being heard, whispering life’s secrets into our eager ears. Childhood dreams wake from deep slumber by the single turning of a bike wheel. The spokes echoing a cricket’s melody, loosening memories of summers spent sitting in the middle of a field; you wanted to, so you could, and so you did. The comedic unraveling of our nuances don’t skip a beat, flailing their arms, demanding for your attention to take a front-row seat. Harmonies emitting from grief worn on faces, reminding us of our own noise we hide behind, composed by all too often self-inflicted doubt, pain, and fear. No need for traffic in our heads, there’s enough on our streets. Choose to be acutely aware of what is within your willing reach. Just listen.

How private a thing.

It is amazing how private a thing the face is. No one would think it right to see the heart, beating, which is not all so different really from the expressions of the face. The inner being should not have to be revealed like that. In the twitches, stretches and curves of the face. The worst place for anger is, of course, when it is worn on the surface of the skin. Imagine it to be made of the powder found on moth’s wings; touch it and the insect can no longer fly. I needed to find out. Remarkably, shortly after the fact, I realized that maybe  it’s keeping it all in, that seems rather grim.

The importance of Jimi Hendrix.

Indulge in the purple haze, but find your way back to the fire. And if the wind cries mary, don’t be swayed because you’ve got us standing by your side all along the watchtower. And though crosstown traffic can cause you manic depression, all you need to do is spread your little wing and coast for a while. And if six were nine, well that’d be fine. So here’s my point, be bold as love and build your castles made of sand …voodoo child, enjoy your freedom like a night bird flying.