Home
Revisions   
05:23am 13/02/2007
  I got a little depressed when I realized I haven't worked on anything original in about two years. I remembered this story and I did a read through of what I had written and decided it was all complete and utter shit.

These are some revisions, none of which are complete. Some even leave off in the middle of a sentence. I don't know if these are going to go anywhere, and I'm probably going to revise them again before they'll even be a part of the story - if I ever write the story.

Anyway, I'm going to just throw out what I had posted already. I'll keep the posts up, just for future reference for me, but I took everything I wanted out of them. The rest was flowery crap.

Tales of a Modern Day Pirate: Revisions

---------

I'd love to lie and say it was peer pressure. I'd really like to be able to blame it on the same mother-fucking scapegoat that everyone used at that age.

'But, mom, I didn't want to smoke that blunt! Jack made me do it, honest!'

'Mom, I swear, I didn't want to steal your money! They made me!'

The fact of the matter is that I did it all of my own goddamn accord. I wanted it - ALL of it - I just didn't want to deal with the aftermath.

Would I have done it the same if I'd have known how this all ends? Yeah. I'd love to say no or that I'm not sure, but what's the point in lying now?

Will I do it again? Yeah. Sometimes, I really want to be clean, but you know what? More often than not I realize that I've already wasted my fucking life. Why not enjoy the bit I have left?

I've lived more in my 21 years of life than most people live in a life time. I've tried to kill myself three times, but it didn't work. At this point, I'm kind of convinced I'm fucking invincible or something. Maybe there IS a god and maybe he's just a sick fuck that likes watching me suffer - it's as probable as any explanation of why I'm still around.

I'm sick now and it's really just a matter of time before I die. You'd think I'd be happy to finally die, but I'm fucking terrified. I guess that's why I feel like I have to tell my story. Maybe remembering everything will make me feel better about it. I doubt it. I guess I just want there to be something left of me when I go. Whatever.

Sometimes, I try to look back and see how I started down this path. It's hard to see back that far. Every day, it just gets harder to remember everything that's gone on in my life, but there are a few things that I'll never be able to forget.

If there's a real beginning to my story, I don't know how it goes. Mostly everything's jumbled together in my mind with no real time line to it. It's kind of like, in those years, time didn't really pass. It feels like it was another life completely. I feel like it was someone else who lived the bulk of my life and now I'm taking his place, when he's just a broken, shell of a man with nothing left.

I remember my life like it's some twisted Terrantino flick. It's like a bunch of scenes pieced together in the wrong order. It always eventually comes together at the end. Only, it's like the movie never got finished, so the notes don't really make any sense.

Sometimes I feel like I was just an innocent bystander, watching my life from the outside. I couldn't stop the bad decisions that were being made - that I made.

Am I really John? I don't see how I could be. I really don't see how anyone could be.

How can there be a beginning to something that was always just happening? Maybe I could start off by telling you about when I started dope. Maybe you just want to know the darkest and dirtiest bits. It'd all be very vogue, wouldn't it? I could leave out all the boring parts and just tell the stories with the running from the cops and the deals going down in the shady parts of town. I could make myself out to be the villain or the unfortunate victim of circumstance.

Hah. Now those would make good movies.

I'm still trying to come up with some kind of beginning for you. Is it possible to tell a story without ever actually starting it? So should I tell you the dirty bits you really want to hear about? Or should I just say everything how it comes to me?

----------------

It always used to be me, Rob, Chris and Jack. A lot of the time it was even just the three of us, me Rob and Chris.

Chris was my older cousin and we'd known each other since I was in diapers. Even when we were little, before all the drugs and shit, he roped me into a lot of straight up insanity. At one point it might have been me trying to impress him, but I was always willing to go along and we always had fun, fuck the consequences. And anyway, this is who I am. Influences, instinct, whatever, I'm me and I can't really blame anyone for that. I think I'd have gotten to be like this Chris, but I wouldn't have lived this long.

Despite all the strange shit we did when we were kids, Chris has always been the level-headed one. He knows where to draw the lines and when we'd cross the lines anyway, he'd come up with ways out. He's a good guy, really, and probably the only one out of all of us that actually is. See, Chris has a really twisted sense of humor, but it's not like he's ever actually gone around committing random acts of violence. He's never started a fight, but when he gets into one, it's over. A lot of times just the threat of having him on my side's kept me out of trouble.

I met Rob through Chris. We called him the Fademan. He was the classic angry Italian-Irish drinker and he was ALWAYS getting drunk. I can have a short fuse, but I'm a fucking pussy cat compared to Rob. His nickname was Fademan because he really had a thing for pills. We all had our own poison, you know? Mine was heroin and Rob's was pills. He'd eat them like candy. It didn't matter what kind or how they'd fuck him up, he just wanted to get faded. That's what we called the feeling you'd get from most pills. They'd get you faded, you know? Like, nodding out and just kind of comfortable and numb.

I rolled with Rob for a long time. I met him when I was just getting started with pot and booze and he was one of the people that went all out with me. He was kind of one of the core members of my crew. We had a falling out, though. He did dope with me for a while, but then he quit. It just wasn't his thing, I guess.

And then there's Jack. I met him in middle school when were both just fat geeks and we just kind of always stayed friends. He

---------------

My kingdom, or one of my seven seas to conquer, or whatever fucked up metaphor you want to use, was Deercreek. It was the land of the most rich assholes crammed together in such tight quarters that some law had to be on the verge of being broken. From the time I turned fifteen until I was like, nineteen or so, any reported crime in that area was probably the fault of me directly or one of my crew. The thefts? That was all us.

Drugs have a fucking price. Even if heroin was the cheapest shit you could get, it still cost. I didn't work and my parents weren't fucking rich or anything, so I did what I had to do. I took advantage of the stick-up-the-ass yuppies that were too stuck-up to take the necessary precautions in guarding their homes. That's their fucking fault.

Ha. Like it really would have made any difference. I've never met a house I couldn't break into undetected.

---------------

Everything kind of ended when I was nineteen. I got caught. Haha! Me, the fucking self-proclaimed master of stealth. I really thought that I was invincible. I fucking got out of so many situations I shouldn't have. Why would I think the law could catch me?

But there are definitely things that can catch a foolhardy teenager off-guard. My parents. My own fucking father turned me in, and for what? A couple of fucking stolen checks. He doted on my little sister and gave her cash whenever she wanted, and I steal a couple of fucking checks and I'm suddenly the worst son in the world. Whatever, he raised me.

When he turned me in, I was doing so much heroin that I didn't know up from down. And thus began my first stay in the hell they call rehab.

The intervention was of grand proportions, of course. All of my uncles were called in, I guess because they wanted to make sure I couldn't fight my way out. My sobbing, broken bitch of a mother was the one who really approached me about it. It was for my own good, they said. I was a hopeless junkie who didn't know what he'd gotten himself into, in their eyes.

Ha! Rehab. What a fucking joke! How can you throw a bunch of unwilling junkies in a building and call it a positive change for society? Heroin was almost easier to get on the inside than it was on the streets. It was like the black market was an actual place. And they fucking called it rehabilitating us!

I was only nineteen, like I said. I didn't want to quit. I liked my life, then. It was full of adventure and pleasure. I only needed to be clean long enough to get released, so I could resume my seat on my throne on the outside. Why the fuck should I clean up and fly straight when my whole crew was still on the outside, living it up?

As long as I can remember, I've been a manipulative, lying bastard. I know what to say to get out of trouble. I play people like fucking fiddles. I made the most of my time in the institutions. I made new connections with scum that would benefit me and my crew when I got out. It's always about me. I really couldn't give a fuck about what anyone else needs.

I became the fucking master of that place. Even the diluted staff loved me and was sure I was some kind of golden child who had just been dragged into shit because of peer pressure. I had a whole new crew on the inside. None of them were people I'd take a bullet for, or anything. It was more like a mess of fucking idiots who would give their lives for me. I played them all to my advantage, bartering promises and cigarettes to get whatever the hell I wanted.

But I'm making it sound like it was fun, and it wasn't. Like I said, I had to be clean to get out of there and I wanted the fuck out. The dope sickness was a hell of it's own. Still, all I could think about was how fucking awesome it would be when I got out and could finally shoot up again. I didn't think I'd be stupid enough to get caught twice and I sure as fucking hell wasn't thinking I'd feel that bad ever again. I had this theory that it was like lightning never striking the same place. Like hell I'd get burned again.


---------------

Heroin was always something I was going to do, really. It was the next big venture. I was kind of proud of the fact that I'd done and survived everything up to heroin, so eventually it was just time to include it.

I remember the first time I saw heroin. I was a kid then and I wasn't ready for it yet. I'd just started to go out and buy my own pot. I hadn't even tripped for the first time when I saw it. I remember it was the third time I ever went out to buy my pot.

Isn't it so fucking stupid that I can remember a dumb detail like that? I don't even know what fucking day of the week it is, but I know exactly when I first saw heroin.

----------

How many great people could you name that met with some tragic, depressing end? Kurt Cobain went out with the ultimate bang. He never faded away, that's for fucking sure. I like things like that. BOOM. An abrupt ending. Just when things were getting great. It's more appealing now, when I'm fading away.

It might seem all glory and stupid to you, but when your life begins to taper off and there's nothing worth fucking living for, you'll wish you'd gone out with a bang. I wish. I wish it so bad. Fading away like this without anything left to look forward to is torture.

Some day, you'll know. You'll just know it's over. Some people, I guess it doesn't happen until they're good and old. Not me. Not Kurt Cobain, either. All he had was to fall from fame. I never liked Nirvana, but I can relate, one junkie to the next. Sometimes your brain just can't take it anymore, and you're done.

I'm doomed to die all decrepit and pent up in a fucking hospital bed. Maybe it's karma or some shit and maybe I deserve it.

How do you end a story that you never really started right?

Bang.		  
     Post
 
Grounded   
05:25am 17/04/2006
  Don't know when I wrote this. Pulled it off of my old wcooler.com account.

I'm going too fast while rooted in place. I should be able to see the obstacles coming, but my brain can't process what's heading my way. I'm covered in bruises and scrapes from tripping and falling over the same damn mistakes. Everything's uphill until the bottom drops out and I'm smashed on the pavement like rotten fruit, stuck to the bottom of your shoe like the shit I am. I force myself to go on, not wanting to be fazed by the fall, but I'm weak, and I'm human and somewhere underneath, I realize that I'll never have it all. Just when I think I've gotten back on track, I turn my head to glance and laugh at my stupidity in the past and I'm stopped in my tracks by a fucking brick wall that spans my entire path. I climb and I scramble to make it to the other side, but I'm taking too long and I know I'm missing something vital, something I need to feel, need to see. My crippling fears grip at my throat and try to force me back down, then the bottom drops out.

Something sudden, something forceful, something wholly unexpected twists and turns and strains and snaps and just when I think I've sunk as low as I can, something ; someONE weighs me down and drags me deeper. I'm struggling under the pressure of the depths, but my air tank is empty and I can't quite rise to the surface, can't quite grasp what's not there. The anchors aren't laughing, but they're mocking while they're breathing and just watching me drown, bringing me down.		  
     Post
 
Tales of a Modern Day Pirate   
12:56pm 04/10/2005
  Hey, I just wanted to thank you guys for reading. I've been getting a lot of positive feedback and I really appreciate it. It's not often anymore that I really pour myself into my writing, but this piece is very important to me. The Preface says it all, really. So, thanks. You all rock.  
     Post
 
Preface   
08:01pm 03/10/2005
  Based on a true story? Loosely. Maybe. I wrote this with my brother and his friends in mind, and I based the characters off of them to the best of my abilities. The stories and legends are worked into the text, but the truth of the matter is that I wasn't always there. At the height of the insanity, I was never there. There are things that I would not speak to my brother about for his sanity's sake. Things have happened that no one should be forced to relive. For the reson that I am not omniscient, fiction and embellishment have been helpful tools in writing this piece. I will let you be the judge of what you believe to be true, but sometimes the things that are the hardest to believe are the honest-to-god truth. If you were one of the crew, then I can only hope you find my re-teling an interesting read. You were gods, and so this is a fable to tell the followers about your crusades. I'm not proud of much of what I do, but this is my masterpiece. I thank you all for reading.

Cheers.

Manda.		  
     Post
 
Just Another Kingdom to Conquer   
07:54pm 03/10/2005
  My kingdom, or one of my seven seas to conquer, was Deercreek, the land of the most rich assholes crammed together in such tight quarters that some law had to be on the verge of being broken. From the time I turned fifteen to the time I was nineteen, any reported crime in the area was likely the fault of me directly or one of my crew. The thefts? All us. I don't know if you've realized it, but drugs have a price. Even if, at the time, heroin was the cheapest shit you could get - and, oh, was it everywhere! - it still cost a pretty penny. Jobless and without rich parents of my own, I took heavy advantage of the stick-up-the-ass yuppies that were too stuck-up to take all the necessary precautions in gaurding their homes. Ha. Like it would have made a difference. I've never met a house I couldn't break into undetected.

- There's totally a bunch more that goes here. I haven't written it yet. God. Get off my back. >> -

Everything ended when I was nineteen because I got caught. Haha! Me, the master of stealth, the one who snuck away from the police, escaping while they thought they had their eyes on me. The law couldn't catch me, I was invincible! But there are low things that can catch a foolhardy teenager off-guard. My parents! My own fucking father turned me in, and for what? A lot fucking less than what I'd actually done. I was still Mr. Lucky, I suppose. I don't think I would have gotten caught if I hadn't been such a bastard. At the time my dad did turn me in - mind you, only after I stole a nice chunk of change from him personally - I was doing so much heroin that I didn't know up from down. And thus began my first stay in the hell they call rehab.

The intervention was of grand proportions, of course. I'd taken to work with my uncle, who owned his own business and was rennovating this big, old building so he could move his family in to live with him. They came to me there, all of my uncles and my sobbing, broken bitch of a mother. It was for my own good, they said. In their eyes, I was a hopeless junky and a helpless little boy who didn't know what he'd gotten himself into. I was a five year old with my hand caught in the cookie jar, but was it really my fault? Had they yet taught me 'no sweets before dinner?'

Ha! Rehab. What a fucking joke! How can you cram a bunch of unwilling junkies under one roof and call it a positive change for society? Heroin was almost easier to get in rehab than it was on the outside. It was like the black market had become an actual place, a gathering in an actual building. And they called it rehabilitating us!

I was only nineteen, just old enough to get into legal trouble the first time I hit rehab. I had no desire to quit, no want to stop living the life I considered full of adventure and satsifying. I only needed to be clean long enough to get released, so I could resume my seat on my throne, my glorified position of power. Why should I clean up and fly straight when my whole crew was still on the outside, living it up to the max? As long as I can remember, I've been a manipulative lying bastard. I know what to say to get out of trouble, and I know how to play people like fucking fiddles. I was determined to get out of rehab as quickly as possible and return to the life I left on hold on the outside. So I made the most of my time in the institution, making new connections with scum that would benefit me when I got out - it's always about me. I couldn't give a fuck what any one else needs.

And just the same as I was in any other situation, I became the master of that place. Even the diluted fucking staff loved me and was sure I was some kind of golden child who had just been dragged into shit because of peer pressure, because I was young and impressionable at the time. I had a whole new crew on the inside - no one I would ever take a bullet for, but a mess of idiots who would gladly give their lives for me. I played them all to my advantage, bartering promises and cigarettes to get whatever I wanted.

But it wasn't all glory, not in the least. The dope sickness I felt, the shock to my system after robbing it of that heavanly substance was a hell all in its own. And still the whole time, all I could think was how great it would be to finally shoot up again when I got out. I didn't care, didn't think I'd get caught twice and I sure as hell wasn't thinking I'd feel that bad ever again. I had this theory that it was like lightning never striking the same place twice. Like hell I'd get burned again.		  
     Post
 
The Blood Brothers: The Real Ship-Shape Crew   
07:13pm 03/10/2005
  I don't consider myself a very loving person. I don't love my parents, I can hardly stand, let alone care for either of them. I don't think I could ever love a woman, not unless she was real exceptional. What do you even call love? I call love the willingness to give up my life for a person. I call it doing anything to keep that person safe and sane. Everyone has come and gone in my life over the years, but never these two.

Fademan. Ah, the Fademan. The classic angry Italian drinker, and always getting drunk. It may seem like I have a short fuse and am quick to anger, but I'm a fucking pussy cat in comparison to Mike. Back before the empire fell and re-assembled into a vague echo of what it used to be, he was the real Fademan, the pill-popping homicidal maniac. We were like some fucked up super hero time, fighting for our own best interests and mother-fucking the law all the way. I guess we were villains, but in our own minds, we could do no wrong. We were the gods of the battlefield and we did as we fucking pleased.

The one thing about Fademan that always got on my nerves was his lack of dedication. Don't get me wrong. If it involved getting fucked up, watching my back or taking revenge, he was all in, the scheming mother-fucker. But he always had all these grand ideas, all these golden plans that he never carried out. Maybe it was the weed, the pills, or the dope, maybe the combination, but he was difficult as hell to jump start. When he got started, though, man, he was insane.

Mike was all gust, all glory. Once that short fuse was lit, you could expect one hell of an explosion. Something out of this world.

Jack was my soulmate, Mike was my brother, and Tony was family. He was my older cousin, born to much cooler parents, and we'd known each other since I was in diapers. Even at a young age, he roped me into a lot of bullshit, mischief and mayhem and straight up insanity. At one point, I'm sure it was all to impress him, but this is who I've become. Influences, instinct, whatever, I'm the person I am. I believe I would have gotten this way without Tony - but I'd never have lived so long.		  
     Post
 
Tales of a Modern Day Pirate - A Beginning? (In Progress)   
07:41pm 22/09/2005
  I'd love to lie and say it was peer pressure, to blame it on the same goddamn scapegoat everyone used at that age. But mom, I didn't want to smoke that blunt. Jack made me, honest. Mom, I swear, I didn't even touch the needle, they held me down and forced me. The fact of the matter is I did it of my own damn accord. I wanted it. All of it. I just didn't want to deal with the aftermath. Would I have done it the same if I'd have known how this all aends? Yes. I want to say no, I don't know, anything but the affirmative, but what's the point now in lying to you? To myself? Will I do it again? I'm no tstrong enough not to. I'll try to stay clean, but more of me wants it than not.

I remember the first time I saw heroin. I was a naive little teen, just starting to go out in the world and buy my own pot. It was the very third time I did that. Funny how I remember such a dumb detail but I can't even recall what day of the week it is. When's my own mother's birthday? I don't fucking know, but I remember the first time I saw heroin.

Jorgan always sold us the tree. I don't know how I got to know him, he was just someone that was always there.		  
     Post
 
Tales of a Modern Day Pirate - The Ending   
09:12pm 15/09/2005
  || I wrote the ending before I wrote the bulk of it. Weird. ||

I never wanted to live this long. I've tried so hard and so many times to end it. Do you remember when I told you I was invincible? How many great people could you name that met with some tragic, depressing end? Kurt Cobain went out with the ultimate bang - he never faded away, that's for fucking sure. I admire things like that. Boom. An abrupt ending. Just when things were getting great. I admire it all the more, now - now that I'm fading away. It may seem all glory and stupid to you, but when your life begins to taper off and there's less and less to live for, you'll wish you'd gone out with a bang. I wish. I wish it so bad. Fading away like this - time ticking by so stupidly slow, not a thing to look forward to - it's torture. I'm not saying that if you have some future, that you should kill yourself. I've got a sister who'll be great some day - I've told her so - I don't think she should die now, even when she wants.

Some day, you'll know. You'll just know it's over, when there's nothing left to look forward to. Some people, it doesn't happen until they're good and old. Not me. Not Kurt Cobain, either. All he had was to fall from fame. Maybe it wouldn't have worked out that way - who knows? He's gone. I was never big into Nirvana - but I can relate, one junkie to the next. Sometimes, your body just can't take it anymore, and you're done.

I'm invincible, and I hate it. Chemical death won't do me in. Hell. I've tried the bloody road, too. If all of the exploits I've told you about haven't convinved you that I should be dead by now, then nothing will. My last attempt was one big horror freak show. Bottles, bags, a knife and I'm still here. My last hurrah won't be an exclamation of joy, after all. I'm doomed to die all decrepit and pent up in a hospital bed. Maybe it's karma. Maybe I deserve it.

How do you end something that's never properly started?

Bang.		  
     Post
 
Every Captain Needs a Crew. ( Part 1 )   
11:58pm 26/08/2005
  Jack. Have you ever felt like you had a soulmate? I don't mean in the Disney romantic-lover kind of way. I mean in the best buddies sort of way; just someone you can relate to and share the good times with. And in the bad times, they're the one that knows your deepest secrets and can hold your hand and help you through. That's what I think of Jack. Most of the time, at least. It's a confusing situation, where things have ended up now between us. There are certain things best left unspoken that were said aloud, and now I'm at a loss as to what to think. Now and then things seem back to the way they were, but once heroin entered and left the equation, everything changed. Everything always changes.

I sound gay here, don't I? There are things that don't concern sexuality on any level. I never wanted Jack in that way, and I can't think of any man I've ever wanted to screw. I'm just straight, that's just how it is. And Jack is just my friend.

All of my adventures, or at least the bulk of them that were worthwhile, occured in part because of Jack or at least with him beside me. If I had to pick one person as the biggest influence in my life, someone who is and was more important than anyone else I've ever met, that would be Jack. The Beast. God, the times we had. The memories I share with him could fill a book of their own. Maybe I should start with when I met Jack - no. That's too fuzzy. I couldn't if I tried.

I've always figured that two brains are better than one, and Jack was the second brain I collaborated with. My partner in crime. Every big venture was Johnny and Jack, first and foremost. Sometimes I just wish the circumstances could have been different. There's no denying it, though: we had fun. Would I do it all again? I don't know. There are some memories that I wouldn't trade for anything, then there are others I would do anything to get rid of. Was the good worth the bad? It depends on the mood I'm in.		  
     Read 2 - Post
 
Tales of a Modern Day Pirate   
11:40pm 26/08/2005
  There are so many millions of memories bottled up inside this decaying lump of brain of mine that if anyone ever asked me to sort through them, it woudl take me years. I have lived more in my twenty one years than most people live in an entire life time. I grew up always hearing that only the good die young. If that's true, then I've dedicated years of my life trying to be good. I'm invincible. I can prove it to you.

Sometimes I try to look back and see how it all began, but chemicals have dulled my wit, and it's difficult to see back that far. Every day it gets harder to recall all that went on, but there are some things that I just can't ever forget. If there is a beginning to my story, I don't know how it goes. Mostly everything is jumbled together in a messy heap with no discernable time line. It's like in those years, time didn't actually pass. It was all a stand still that eventually lurched back into motion, leaving me a broken shell of a man with nothing more than a vague idea as to how I got here. I remember, but not in the way you do. I remember my life as if it were some twisted Terrantino movie, fictional fragments, and I was the innocent bystander who was helpless to do anything but watch all of the bad decisions and wicked plot twists as if they were happening to someone else.

Am I really John?

I don't see how I could be. I don't see how anyone could.

How can there be a beginning to something that was just always happening? I can't think to start it the same way as I can't explain how the universe came to be. Maybe you mean when I started dope. Maybe you just want to know the darkest and dirtiest bits. I couldn't bore you with how I started to party or how I became a thief and a liar, even if I wanted to. I can't remember what I was before. I only know then and now, and then bgins the very first time I did heroin.

By that point, I was already the great Johnny, king of shot-gunning beers and master of the bong. I won't say what else I'd done - I'm sure it's implied.

Heroin was always something I was going to do. It was the stuff of the gods and the legends. It was the next big venture, and I wanted to taste it in all of its wretched glory. I was royalty, a king in my mind - I wanted to be a god. I would be great.

And, oh, the feeling - the feeling I dream about and pine for and always have and always will for the rest of my life. There's no words good enough to describe it - euphoria doesn't do it justice. Any attempt at description falls way too short. The only ones who can understand are those who have felt it. This feeling consumed me at the very first and it continues to consume me today. It's all I want - all I can think about when I am alone. Despite myself, I'm inclined to try to put it into words: Imagine the world melting away into a warm fuzz that fills your body with the most amazingly -good- feeling you've ever felt. There's nothing but you and this inner peace - nothing matters anymore because everything is perfect. It's like god himself came down from heaven to hug you.

That's what I felt. That's all I want to feel. It's an obsession that will never go away and never be fulfilled, no matter how much I feed it. I have a beast inside of me - but I don't know what's worse, it or me. I am a terrible person. I have been for as long as I've known. I remember that, one time, I found myself. I detested hat I found. It made me realize, though, that I've spent a lot of my time here running from who I am. I'll never be able to embrace it. To divulge all of this on paper makes me feel a creeping sickness inside. I've heard that everyone feels at least a little uncomfortable in their skin. My feelings go far beyond that. I feel like some parasite who latched onto this horrible human without realizing what I was getting myself into. I feel like someone else made me this way, and I'm always looking for that scapegoat. I can't be me. I just can't. I can't live with the thought of it.

And still I'm searching for some beginning for you. Is it possible to tell a story without ever actually starting it? So should I tell the dirty bits as chronologically as I can arrange them? Or should I present everything as it comes to me - a jumbled mess of confusing fragments?		  
     Post
 
the all   
09:22pm 21/05/2005
  quiet

a world devoid of sound and cheer
filled with piercing shades of grey
dull absence of light
the lack of color
burns and fills my eyes with tears


heavy

unnatural pressure bearing down
weighing and pushing me to my knees
forced to grovel
forced to bow
i'm forced to kiss the devil's feet


broken

tears drip down the cherub's cheeks
as hope is lost it's mother weeps
purity swallowed
innocence gone
a veritable ghost town
the absence of son


empty

an abandoned kingdom now ruins and lies
slaughtered before its mother's eyes
the natural paradise
a utopian hell
damned the day the seraph fell


regret

the death of the gods meant nothing to her
her indifference will fend off her memories
death is essential, she knows all too well
and she smiles as she watches us bleed

the all		  
     Read 1 - Post
 
   
10:08pm 17/05/2005
  To be beautiful, to be able. I would that I could but mimic the beauty upon which daily my eyes come to rest. A poor echo, a pale reflection of the original in its fractional and subjective imaging lends to me something worthwhile, something stable and concrete to hold onto while my mind and being spin increasingly out of reach.

Beyond the boundaries of close-mindedness and ignorance lies a land of awe-inspiring harmony all "love your fellow man" and "follow, take my hand, I'll show you how and where and when" and if only I could put faith in the place where my faith lies its strongest, then maybe I could share the belief of true beauty waiting in like minds to be discovered.

Nothing decent, I instead decree, nothing sacred when corruption slowly creeps from every corner, every niche and every where unexpected. Tainted minds cannot together unite to create anything pure.

Two wrongs don't make a right. Two rights don't even begin to repent for all of the wrongs the world has committed.

Every moment of life is defined by something good and a thousand things bad. For every milestone there are a countless many hardships to overcome.

I'm too timid to overcome.

I'm too tired to overcome.

It's too hard to hold on. I'm done.		  
     Read 1 - Post
 
Unfinished   
10:56pm 16/04/2005
  Hello?

Such potential in a greeting word, absence of hostility, indifference all around.

Poised, an interest, a question of reciprocity, a brief recognition of a like-minded being occupying the space right in front of you. Not yet have emotions clouded the in-between, possibilities are open-wide, stretching, endless, off into the far reaches of "maybe" and "it could." Hello, two strangers on a street, if nothing more than a word, have shared, have connected, have accomplished. Something profound passes from lips and mouth, intimmate to the ears of another, a person, the person right in front of you. Hello.

Illustrate.

Breathe life into the abstract, build something out of nothing, live to believe in what isn't there, imagine.

Flow ink from the pen to stain the blank pages of a yet unborn symphony, visual melody, vivid and colorful harmony, a pictoral metaphor for life. Bend the lines and blur the boundaries between what is and what isn't, deem yourself creator, the informal god of your own mind. Conquer by fabrication, fight negativity with the ultimate positive means, the truth of yourself made tangible, shown, real, born for others to see. Illustrate.

Lose myself.

I'm trying to fall into the paper and hide there from the world.

The words cloud and clutter, rattling around inside my head, accumulating, building up until I am full and I explode. Emotions over-complicate the most simple and most sacred rituals of every day life, stranding peace utterly unattainable in any fragment, in any form, in any shape. The blank paper offers solace, an indifferent judge to any and all, embracing, fairly, every point of view without ever a hint of discrimination. I hide in-between my own words, navigating my way through my thoughts as through a dense forest closed, with foliage, off from light. Lose myself.

Demonstrate.

Blow the colors from the pages as tangible into the faces of the skeptics and the criminally uninformed.		  
     Post
 
Mind   
10:40pm 03/03/2005
  DON'T READ THIS. Please. I'm only keeping it here because I want a journal of all the writing I've finished in the past few years. It's crappy and very personal and I guarantee you won't enjoy reading it much.

There is a King and Queen that rule over the kingdom, perhaps not always in the public eye, but always somewhere in the shadows. They are ruthless and cold, manipulative and very bold... being royalty, they always get what they wish. They live in a castle in the middle of it all - no one knows how the castle came to be or when they moved in, and no one knows how they were appointed to a position that never used to be.

A Screaming Lady lives in a tower, in the eastern-most wing of the castle. Her pain has no name, no words, just torture. This woman has borne more disaster than the queen. Her prison now, is locked.

The Drunkard stumbles over cobblestone streets, tripping and falling flat on his face. All the day, he disappears, returning only at nightfall into the taverns, cast out at last bell to stumble the streets again.

There is a Laughing Man, jolly and pleasant. He rounds through the village, spreading good cheer and giving presents, repenting for the sins of his past.

The Most Beautiful Maiden lives in the west wing, deprived of the knowledge of her fortune. Cruel sorcery has transformed her vision, leaving her view herself wrinkled and old. The maiden found freedom from her chambers, but still is confined to the west wing, unable to roam with the villagers. The Most Beautiful Maiden is kindly, though worn, wise before her time.

A Jester lives in the tower abover her, painted with coy smile, always a-grin, despite the gashes and bruises that cover her skin. Nobody quite cares to heal the Jester's pain.

Villagers crowd the streets and the houses, faces - many, and names - very few.

The Crying Lady cries for sickness and health, she cries for poverty, as well as for wealth. Her tears fall like rain, filling rivers and streams, soaking into the earth to nourish the trees.

A Bartender serves his customers with a smile, sometimes lending an ear, sometimes bumbling advice. His will is always good and his goals are very big, but tending bar is where his destiny has landed him.

There is a Dancer, who spends her life looking for love, striving to entertain. She attempts perfection, but can never quite attain it, so she dances, and dances and never stops.

The Good Girl may not be quite as innocent as she seems. She works hard, but plays just as vigorously.

A Noble Woman frowns on the faces of the stupid, closing her purse to the neediest dolts. She feels not an ounce of sympathy for the inferiors - in her mind, their number is great.

There is a Bard and his Wife, who live far from the castle, on the very tippy outskirts on the very edge of town. They are very kindly folk and welcome all into their home who have lost their ways. I have been there, and I have enjoyed their hospitality. They are truly among the gentlest folk in the kingdom.

I wander these streets, these tall-ceilinged halls, these beaten forest paths...		  
     Post
 
In Progress   
10:38pm 03/03/2005
  THIS IS CRAP. Crap, crap, crap, crap, crap. It needs work and maybe some day I'll work on it. It was an adventure into a different writing style that didn't quite work. It's not an enjoyable read at all.

On the roof, on a clear day, the sky seemed to go on uninterrupted forever. The sun would warm the rough black shingles and you could stretch out just like a cat and lay there all warm and cozy, wasting away a whole day sometimes. We always went up there to get away from everything, me and Ben. Me and Ben were always trying to get away.

I remember up there one time, Ben promised me he’d never leave me alone. He said if he got away, if he finally made it, he’d take me right along with him. He was always talking about leaving and starting our own lives. He said he just wanted me to be happy some day. He always wanted me to smile. I never much felt like smiling.

Ben made a lot of promises. He never really kept them, but I never really expected it. I learned a long time ago that he liked to wish and he liked to dream a lot. I did too, but not like Ben. Sometimes he’d get so caught up in a dream that he wouldn’t remember what life was really like. He’d forget all about being stuck and being miserable. I tried, but I could never forget.

We were up there at night time, laying and staring off into the stars. When the sun went down, it got cold and sometimes windy on the roof. You got very aware of how tough the shingles were on your skin and how high up you were, how you could stumble in the dark and fall and maybe break your neck and die. I didn’t like being up there at night, but Ben was with me, so I didn’t mind so much. He kept his arm around me, keeping me all up and close to him, making me feel safe. He loved to look at the stars, but he knew I was afraid, so he’d sort of hold me like that when we were up there after dark.

I thought the stars were pretty, but I couldn’t stare like he could. He watched like he could read them, like there was some secret language I couldn’t understand, but I should want to be able to understand. I didn’t mind that I couldn’t, though. I just liked being with Ben. Sometimes I’d watch his face, watch him concentrate on secret things, and find him terribly attractive. He had these wide sort of eyes, very pretty with heavy lashes for a boy. They were a cool blue that sometimes changed with his moods. I liked them very much. I liked his lips, and full, pouty, like model’s. His father used to tell him he had girl’s lips. I didn’t mind. They felt nice to kiss.

I wanted to kiss him then, only I didn’t want to interrupt him. He looked to be concentrating so hard, and I hated to make him lose track of whatever he was thinking. I threaded my fingers through his hair, which was thick and long and sometimes got really curly. I moved closer to him, thinking I could maybe ease his attention back to me.

“Ben?” I asked in a soft tone after a minute when I got impatient. I tried to sound real sweet and cute and content, not impatient because he wasn’t paying attention to me. “What are you thinking about?”

He heaved a sigh, closing his eyes and looking half-annoyed, but just for a second. When he opened his eyes back up, he gave me a smile and a kiss with those soft lips of his before saying anything.

“Do you wanna know what I’m thinking?” he asked in that tired voice he used sometimes, when I knew something was really wrong. He didn’t even let me answer him, he just went on, sounding so sad. “I was thinking about dying. About how sometimes I think it’s the only sure way to get out of this goddamned place.”

It scared me when he said things like that. Even with all of his escaping and dreaming, he could be more morbid than I could sometimes. “Don’t say that,” I tried to pretend I thought he was joking, even though I knew he wasn’t, and he knew I knew.

Ben just smiled sadly and changed the subject just like he did any time he made me worry. “I think you should wear that pretty green dress of yours when we go out Saturday. I really like that one.”

I nodded, but I didn’t want to talk anymore.

That was the last time Ben and I went up on the roof together. It isn’t a very good memory, not compared to the other memories. Sometimes we had a lot of fun up there, kissing and laughing and talking about nothing. But I can’t think of the other times without remember that last one and how morbid Ben had been.

I dressed up for Ben on Saturday. I wore the green dress and put my hair up all nice like he liked best. He was late picking me up, but I didn’t worry. Sometimes he just ran late, trying to fix up that thick, curly hair of his. I waited for him a while, but I’m impatient and when I get to waiting, I get to worrying and thinking of all the things that could go wrong in the world. Ben lived only a short walk away from me, so I went to his house to help him with his hair like I always did. He didn’t let me in when I came to the door, which was strange, but not that strange. I tried not to worry. Ben hated to upset me like that.

I walked right on into the house and to his bedroom, where I knew he’d be getting dressed. I waited outside the door and knocked, starting to worry when I didn’t hear him respond like usual.

“Ben? Are you in there?” I tried not to sound impatient with him. He was always so understanding with me, not minding waiting or slowing things down so I could catch up. I hated to rush him when HE needed ME to wait.

Ben still didn’t answer me. I was real scared, because he’d never done that before. He’d never ignored me when I needed him.
I tried the bedroom door, and it was unlocked. “Ben?” I called again, unable to keep from sounding as frightened as I was. I stepped into the bedroom and it was like stepping into some mixed-up fantasy world, only it wasn’t at all fantastic. Ben wasn’t fussing with his hair. He wasn’t even getting ready. Instead, he was lying on the floor, trying weakly to push himself to his feet.
I think I screamed. I know I must have, because nobody could see what I saw and not be scared witless. Ben’s arms and carpet were covered in dark red. Blood. His blood. I’m not so naive that I didn’t realize what was going on. I remembered that last night on the roof.
“Go home, Lori,” I think Ben said. I remember he told me to leave, and then gave up on getting up.
I was wild with emotion, and I remember shouting at him. I remember bringing up all of those promises he’d made me. He just stared at me, all the nice color gone out of his eyes, making them dull and grey.
I remember his voice and what he said next. I’ll never forget the sound of those last words. “You were so hard to love.”
I wanted to shout at him more, only I felt all of the anger go out of me just the, leaving behind a sort of empty sadness that was so big it hurt. I watched him as I started to shake and the tears started to fall. I saw those full lips of his curl into a smile. I’ll never forget what it looked like to watch him die. All of the sudden, the life just went out of his eyes. One second he was there, and the next he was limp, like some empty shell.
I don’t remember much of what happened next. I remember by the time anyone got there, I was holding onto Ben and begging him to come back. He promised he’d never leave me alone. He promised me. He lied.
I’m alone. I’ll never get out of this place now. I’m hopeless by myself.
But it’s my fault. If I hadn’t been so hard to love, then maybe Ben would have stuck around.		  
     Post
 
   
06:40pm 25/01/2005
  words lie in wait, quivering on the tip of my pen, but the whiteness of a blank page intimidates me into silence. my shaking hand will try in vain to grasp the ideas babbling through my head and wrestle them unwillingly into the concrete, but the current is wild and cannot be tamed. brilliant images, smooth phrasing runs through my fingers and into oblivion, leaving residue that isn't suffice to construct a picture remotely reiniscent of the whole.

fighting for air, i find that this river never calms, never slows, and never stops, and there is no way to satisfy its raw need for an outlet, no way to make its brilliance known to the masses. frustration builds up and the river rises, slipping its skin, swelling past the breaking point and still my hand is, for the better part, motionless, unable to convey the fury of the rapids, unable to do the phenomenon any justice, as useless as a pencil is to an illiterate man. the absence of a start, the drama of no end leaves me baffled; i am a mute prophet to the glorious notions in my head - all media turn to dust at my hands, leaving me with no way to spread the word of what i am.		  
     Post
 
   
11:49pm 24/01/2005
  in this age of Botox and plastic surgery, anyone can stay young forever. science has spouted an artificial fountain of youth and opened its gates to anyone with a big enough wad of cash. yes, that's right - you CAN buy eternal youth. life may not yet last forever, but as long as your heart beats and your lungs suck air, you can put your mind at ease knowing you look just as good - maybe even better than you did twenty years ago. ah, the miracles of modern science - ah, the brilliance of silicone and plastic.  
     Post
 
   
11:49pm 24/01/2005
  freedom is an illusion, they say, created in the minds of hopeful children who have not yet been dulled by the persistent edge of this cold, self-serving society.  
     Post
 
   
11:49pm 24/01/2005
  december 3rd 2004. 7:45am.

i always get the feeling that no matter what i write on the first page of a new journal, i ruin it. the second page may be brilliant, but if someone were to begin reading this, what's to say they'd get that far? my illusions of becoming loved, hell, noticed even, make me hesitant to ever write anything on these blank pages. non-existant critics always on my mind, i find myself thinking 'good lord, what would they think of that? they'd never approve!' i hate that i care, but i hate even more that i can't satisfy an audience who's not really there. i wrote in pen here because i wanted to get this first page over with - fill it up with crap, then get on with my life. i know, in time, that i'll despise the idea of this introduction despite that it will never reach anyone's eyes but mine. for now, i bid my readers - myself included - to forget this first page and go on to the magnificent page 2.

----

And so began the laying to waste of another new journal.		  
     Post
 
  liquid_humor
 
 

Advertisement