Roast Beef has a point.

ghost in a shell

it started in 5th grade, when my band teacher told my mom, "she just needs to come out of her shell." there was all the time in the world for that back then, i guess.
then we moved when i was in 6th grade. in the cafeteria line, they called me "ghost." and i drifted around that ghetto school full of dust inside and oak trees outside and hated north carolina with all of my heart. i saw 2 different doctors who told my mom, "she just needs to come out of her shell." in high school, i got a job at an independent movie theater, the galaxy, and they gave super hero names to everyone. there was "the seductress", "the shocker", and "the projectionist". i was dubbed "the galaxy ghost."
someone said recently, "you're pretty funny if you just come out of your shell."
at age 23, I doubt i'll be coming out anytime soon. i reckon this is just the personality i was served up with and i'm fine with it.
if i'm in a shell, or a ghost, or a transient being just experiencing the lives around me i wonder what i would be like if i was a real person.

ichat conversation

josh: gotta go on a date

josh: with some nasty ol'

josh: brother toadstool

me: what does that mean?

me: i dreamed about black men attacking me

josh: there was that little toadstool man

me: am i racist?

josh: who i date?

josh: yeah you are

sometimes there's not, though.

to self: remind self daily:

things are just not that tragic.
there might be a cat in the guitar case
but that is okay.

easterly.

What a strange little half-feeling
the sun through leaves and gone
and we are winding up a dirt hill, drinking deep pine air
dust hangs like happiness for a while in our wake
then- spooked like a stray, gray cat in a rock garden
it disappears.

confession

those are not my words,
they fell out in the shakedown
of your arms.
I will take credit,
but not responsibility.
he never did, either.

cinder & smoke

let's just burn the past all the way down.

the best advice.

You were a problem.
At a party, I introduced you to the girl that I wanted to be.
She knew everything that had passed between us, because I related it to her on a porch, in the summer.
And when you went to the bathroom, she took my elbow and said,
"Nah. You are hotter than that."

I know, I know.

After five beers and Roman Candle
it becomes clear that Elliott Smith is the
only man I could ever love.

morning.

I just heard a car door slam outside and thought,
"I hope that is someone I hate driving far away from me forever."

armstrong

we went to the moon in the 60s
shouldn't we be warping around space by now?
i thought this was the future

phantom sex

when she woke up, she noticed an unusual pain.
the whole lower body ached like she'd been riding a mechanical bull in a poorly lit, red rodeo bar.
after limping around her apartment and trying to ignore the twinges shooting up the insides and backs of her thighs, she decided to go to the clinic.
she waited for an hour, wearing an impersonal paper dress in a cold room. the doctor entered looking serious and white.
"judging from your symptoms, it seems you've been having phantom sex."
she blinked,"what does this mean?"
the doctor looked at the chart in his hand and squinted.
"well, you make reckless love with no abandon to nothing at all...all night long."
she stared, confused.
the doctor lowered the chart then met her eyes, "and I am sorry to tell you, but you have phantom AIDS."

the pattern

Roughly thirty minutes after the bars close, I will often receive a message informing me that I am "missed."
And even though I won't respond,
I am a living, breathing, fallback plan.

There is Always Nothing

Happening in Raleigh.

That is why everyone I know is depressed
or recovering from a heroin addiction.

my superpower

i have the ability to delude myself into thinking
there is more to a person than
is so obviously there

never mind that when you and i talk
you must become derailed and speak
excessively to at least three other people
(strangers, sometimes.)
at speeds that exceed a speeding train

you cannot remember what it was that i do with my time
or that i am in school
or that i like to look at the sky too much

your blue eyes freeze me
your inked skin in the sun
i am left imagining what it would be like
if we could spend more than a spasm
of ten minutes alone together

what it would be like is
how it is already:
pretty shitty.

names have been changed to protect the innocent.

he said aloud,
"i do not have a bank account."
and she thought, "well, that's stupid and does not make sense."
they walked five more steps to the corner.
then she thought, stealing a sideways glance at him
while he was smoking, "well, you are stupid. so i guess that does make sense."

we're in this one together.

I fell down in the crosswalk.
look directly at my bruises for a change.
it's like a damn pain nebula.

the mountains

are a good place to go
to remember that
you do not hate everything

Bad Feelings About Poodles

It started a few summers ago (affectionately referred to as "The Summer of My Discontent") when I was going for a walk around the block.
I saw a lady taking her poodle for a stroll and had one of those Bell Jar moments when the world is revealed as a sham and you are merely caught up in its game of
waking up
pretending
and going to bed
then doing that again
For endless days.
"What is the point of having a poodle?"
That was the hinge on which the door opened for
"What is the point of being alive?"
Reality sort of became transparent that June and I felt like I was floating most of the time.
All tied to a pole and up in the air. My head full of static.
I had not felt that way in a while, with the help of distractions and medications.
But this morning it was cloudy
and I saw a lady with a tiny poodle dog.
She was squatting and picking up its poop
and I thought,
"What is the fucking point?"

i am in love

i would travel
18 + hours on a train
and pay $77.00
just to smell your basement
in Portland.

i would rent a bike
and spend a week alone
if you were busy
and that little wet city would hug me so tight
with its christmas lights, guitars, and chocolate beer.

and it's not like I'm cheating
on an opportunity or anything;
I'm not the one who rejected me.
San Francisco.
You fickle bitch.

3:10 am.

I woke up early
in order to get a head start
on accepting the day's
sad truths

20 seagulls saw it.

I was sitting there at the beach, after the rain, eating a vegetarian vietnamese sub.
I was biting off the paper in my teeth and spitting out your name into the waves.
I smiled at an old woman and the wind blew my hair all around.
She did not return my smile.
So I counted seagulls.
twenty of them.
The old woman came back and said something foreign and put
five caramels from the ukraine in my lap
and walked away.

it was about 70 degrees and i was not dressed in white.

There were some people standing outside in their driveway having a BBQ and I parked a few feet away. I averted my eyes because of the way the man was standing there with a hose, pointed out toward the street.

"Hey."

I looked over. "yeah."

He said, "Come over here."

and I said, "I do not know if that's a good idea."

and the other party people there with him said, "Yeah, cross the street!"

so I was like, "ok."

I went over and said, "Hello."

and he said "Let me spray you with this hose here."

and I said "No. I have groceries and I will also get wet."

and he whined, "C'mon. it's hot as shit."

the sun was indeed out in force.

and his friends said, "C'mon!"

and one held up a boogieboard with the ocean on it and said,

"You can pretend it is the spray of the waves."

So I said, "ok." and a girl took my groceries

and then the man sprayed me with cold water mist while his friends cheered.

Then I took my groceries, thanked them, and went to the house to make fresh basil pizza.

pretty good shirt.

i snuck down to ameoba music on my break and saw this dude working there wearing a shirt that said:

ELIOT SMITH'S

HOLIDAY BASKETBALL CAMP

with a tiger in the middle.

with his paw on a basketball.

with a santa hat on.

So I was all, "What is your shirt. Where did it come from. Why is it."

and he said, "Got it at a thrift store down the street."

Then I bought a terrible album by some local asshole named Ty Segall for fourteen fifty six. Yeah, no. Good job, Ty. Way to sing through a filter so distorted your pathetic, one minute and thirty second masterbations almost sound like passable songs when played through the din and clatter of a coffee shop.

One who did not know any better would probably invest fourteen fifty six in your album, hardly expecting to experience one of the most truly insipid, played-out, echo-fuck, power chord, mumbledrumcrumblecore bullshit albums ever excreted.

If I ever see you in public I am going to ask you for money.

true stories from across the divide.

Today I ignored a crackhead who had an important message.

It was so important that he rasped, "miss!" multiple times even though his voice was surely almost spent. He tapped on my window after I'd run to the car, locked the door, and turned to scream, "I DO NOT KNOW YOU! GET AWAY FROM MY CAR! I DO NOT KNOW YOU!" through the glass.

He held up two fingers- not a peace sign. he had two teeth. he tapped again. two fingers. I drove away as his friend waved traffic into my now open spot.

I know I missed something.

meanwhile:

my father is in the locker room at the gym and a large man approaches him, trying to include him in some joke about lawyers.

the man says, "didn't mean to offend you, buddy. If you're a law--"

and my dad yells, "FUCK that SHIT." and proceeds to towel his head dry.

and the man has not talked to him since.

what the world needs now

is more simple people. 

not long now