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birthday blog

one year ago

today
another year has come and gone. a lot has changed.
last night was fun, but i got too drunk, too fast, and have some gaps in my memory. i like to think that those gaps are there for a reason, so that i don't have to think about the things i may have said or done. i wish i could at least remember blowing out my birthday candles. this year was one of the first times i had really thought about what i would wish for, and looked forward to the opportunity to have a clear and distinct moment in which i gathered the strength and determination to ask for something that would be good for me. just one moment in time in which i had the power to put out the fires, but instead all i have is a distorted image of candles coming at me and a vague recollection of them going out.
it was a fun night, and i don't want my birthday blues to wash away the fact that i did have fun, but doesn't everyone just get at least a little depressed on their birthday?

internal affairs

it was a quiet night and nothing of consequence had occurred, so we had no reason to think anything would. and as it grew later, the noise of the street grew fainter and fainter until it was limited to an occasional passing car or pedestrians carrying on a conversation. it was the kind of quiet you can only appreciate after you have lived the lives of all those on the street below simply through the sounds that they make, as they penetrate walls and reverberate through you. in retrospect, it was also the kind of quiet that should have been understood as a sign, in a movie this would be brought to light when a side character who is about to die says something to the effect of "its a little too quiet." but no symbolist could have deciphered the meaning in the silence, no one could have really predicted what happened next.
that divine silence was soon broken by the shouts and calls of four black men on the street below. and as i looked out the window, one of them locked eyes with me and started shouting in my direction. the words were unclear, but the intent was so powerful that i recoiled in terror. i dropped to the ground and told my friends to do the same, but someone was either shocked or stupid because they weren't moving. i feared for his life, and risked another look out the window and found that one of the men outside had managed to get to the level of my apartment and was now standing at the window, aiming a shotgun at my friend.
i don't know what happened next...i heard a gunshot, followed by trampling and thumping as the four men worked their way into the apartment through the shattered glass. i continued to lay on the ground, thinking that my only chance of survival was rooted in appeasement. but it soon became clear that there was never any chance of survival. i watched as he stood over me and passed the shotgun down my body from the top of my head down to my torso, where the barrels i had just gazed into came to rest and pushed into my stomach. as the barrels thrust deeper into the pit of my anxiety, all fear dropped away and i accepted an untimely end to my life.
i heard another gun go off, but somehow i was alive and my attacker was gone. it seems as though the police arrived just in time and soon dissipated. as i began to clean up the mess, the events of the evening returned on me with an intensity that once again brought me to the floor. so i sat on the ground amidst the broken glass and tried to collect myself. eventually i found the strength to get up once again, and when i looked up i saw a woman. i saw the most beautiful woman i've ever known...and i did know her, and i loved her, but we hadn't seen each other in some time. few words were exchanged, we simply kissed, and when we did, nothing else mattered.
when i woke up, i could still feel where the barrels of the shotgun dug into me. i could feel them yesterday before i even had this dream, and i can still feel them now.

spaceballs

remember in spaceballs when mel brooks gets beamed from his office to central control and his head ends up backwards and he looks down at his ass and says "why didn't anyone tell me my ass was so big?"
well...i just saw my ass in a mirror in such a way that god never intended a man to see his own ass. why didn't anyone tell me my ass was so big?
yes, this is what i'm thinking about at 2:07 in the morning after doing my laundry and smoking several cigarettes.

the anti-hour

here i am. it is 3:05 am. i don't know what to say at this hour. it feels bewitched, but perhaps i only notice it now because of the inflammatory A&E melodrama of paranormal psychology that i have recently ingested.

nonetheless, i find myself staring at a passage on my table that now makes more sense to me than anything i've i ever read...except for this:

the tiny seed
the seeds are blowing in the sky.
the seeds are growing into a flower.
then the petals are blowing away.

that was written by a fucking six year old named ava!

there is as much eloquence above as there exists in any great lifetime.

"despair is a free man - hope is a slave." seriously...say that to yourself one more time out loud. honestly, who would rather be a free man in despair than a slave to hope. if slavery means hope, give me slavery. does that sound ridiculous? of course it does, but i'm ridiculous. that's what's great about me.

maybe i really am arrogant, but i'm just afraid to own it.

i really wish that i could focus whatever is going on inside of me right now. i know it is powerful, but i don't know if it is eloquent yet. and even if it is eloquent, i don't know if it is meaningful. i hope that it is, because it feels like it is, and if i can give it an appropriate philosophic voice maybe it will actually mean something.

again...arrogance and self indulgence. why should i think any experience of mine should have any more meaning than anything else; than a rat, taking a shit, right beneath the statue of mother and child, with john the baptist at the corner of union square west and 15th street.

the only reason that exists to not kill yourself is that if there is no point in going on, there is also no point in stopping. that is so depressing that i kinda want to kill myself. i'm not going to, but jesus fucking christ...ultimately what do i really think that i have to contribute to this gigantic cluster-fuck we call civilization?

so here i am...the barber shop downstairs is throwing another party. i am privy to a non-stop droning bass beat that will no doubt continue until 5 in the morning. one day, i swear to god i'm going to go down there and just say, "i live upstairs, i can hear your party all night long, can i at least come hang out?" but to do that, i'd have to actually exist, and somehow i'm not actually sure i'm doing that right now.

wow...no one should ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever read this.

what to do

i've developed the nasty habit of staying out too late, getting way too drunk, falling asleep on the train and ending up anywhere but home. as much as i'm willing to admit that this is not a good habit, there's something about waking up in canarsie and realizing that i now have another half hour train ride before i'm home that makes me feel strangely ok. being so completely along and having no responsibility to anything is freeing, and devastating. once i finally make it to my subway stop, i have a cold lonely walk to my apartment, and the streets are usually empty because its so late. it gives me the time and silence to think about what it is i think i'm accomplishing through this behavior. i usually avoid thinking about such things simply because i know that what i'm doing can't accomplish anything. but almost every night for the past week i repeat this pattern and hope for a moment of clarity. it never comes, but then i walk into my apartment, and am greeted by the overwhelming emptiness contained within its walls, i know i'm just trying to fill the emptiness.
i ride the empty subway alone. i drink whatever cup is set before me, and fill it with my emptiness. i walk the frozen streets alone and offer myself up to give an empty voice to the cracked pavement. everything around me will seem empty for as long as i deny any substance that may or may not already fill me. there is an overwhelming absence that fills the emptiness in and around me, wherever i go. i carry it with me and refuse to set it aside. the pain can only last as long as you hold your hand over the flame. the scars may stay with you as a constant reminder, but pain only exists in the memory as an idea, not as a feeling. pick at the scab, renew the wound, open it up and watch yourself bleed onto the frozen empty streets. what comfort comes from that? a temporary annihilation of self that dances on the line between god and man, but stops itself before the two can become one. the body does not listen to the rational soul, so why would it listen to the irrational?
i embrace the torment as it tries to leave me, and push it away when it won't let me go. my soul savors the torture, and the torture savors my soul. each destroys and nourishes the other simultaneously in a vicious cycle that cannot find its end. what to do...what to do? i can't go on; i must go on. my hunger for death is somehow the greatest affirmation of my thirst for life.

as i walk into my apartment i'm greeted by someone i've never met before. i ask how the fuck she got into my apartment, but the answer escapes me. as i move beyond the hallway, i realize that there's a party going on, and i'm apparently the last to arrive. the initial shock of coming home to an apartment that is supposed to be empty, but is instead filled with strangers, dissolves quickly as i begin to enjoy the atmosphere that has been created around me, though i've had no part in its design. the party, as it turns out, is awesome, and everyone is having a great time, but as i eventually walk toward my bedroom i start to hear whispers, and then screams..."someone is out on the window sill!" at first my fear is that i'm dealing with a jumper, but as i draw back the curtain, the severe truth is revealed. standing outside the window is a woman dressed in mechanic's coverall's, and she's pointing a gun at me. i immediately drop to the floor and hide, as does everyone else. i can see the dancing red and blue lights of the police on the street below as they bounce off the walls, and before i know it, the gun-woman has somehow descended to the street and is about to escape. i run downstairs and as i hit the street i see her climbing into a horse-drawn carriage. as she sits down i see her place the gun on the seat at her side, and the carriage begins to move toward me. as she approaches i realize that the outcome of this exchange rests in my hands. i seize the opportunity, and as the carriage passes, i grab the gun sitting on the street, and pull the woman from the carriage. no one seems to realize what i've just done, and i have to tell the police to get the woman while she's vulnerable. soon she's detained and i'm eager to get back to the party, so i jump in the air. somehow the power of disarming this woman gives me the strength to jump beyond my second floor window, and as i float through the air, slowly descending, as if in flight, i yell to my guests that they better get ready. i'm full of life, and can't stop jumping...the party has just begun...but then i wake up.
if only i could dream like that when i'm awake, maybe i wouldn't spend so much time sleeping. when consciousness seems like an unending nightmare and sleep reflects the truth of one's inner strength, what motivation is there to wake up? can dreams become reality, and if they do, could they ever live up to the ideal created in unconscious thought?