What creased white crimed brow, derision ridden machianations dared dupe such an honest man ‚such as you.

What lies corn-fed and tongues hog-tied dripped from fat tongues, salacious blasphemes phemed through gnashed teeth, waitered to your table taking care you’re served.

I am a pauper impoverished disadvantaged unfortunate youth. Who am I to you. What tall tales tamed our myopic beast, rolling slop house hogs cudding one next morsel. Are you a farmer then? And slop to pigs?

I pity your consternation

foul unplumed un fumed smoky airway choking duct conduits, foul waterworks spewed shadows and lies. Ties, black suited head talking. You don’t exist outside your box. One by one we turn you off.

I had a dream that was not a dream, and everyone has turned you off. No one is watching.

David:

Sometimes, I get enough of a boost that I can feel the fruition of some crazy, insane, and altogether might-as-well-be impossible dream, and at the same time, a true glimpse into exactly how much work I am in for. Monuments are not built with one brick at a time, but miles, years before where they are dreamed and enabled one caring touch at a time.

Our actions today will build the monuments of tomorrow. It is up to us to decide what these monuments will be: monuments to our creative wonder, or memorials to our violent, destructive natures.

I have a scratch painting hanging in my apartment. Some people seem to really enjoy it. I put the one I enjoyed up as well, but I do not think they care about that one. How typical that is for an artist.

The love letters I’ve been writing for the City of Lost Children seem to be collecting all the things I’ve never said, but meant to. Engraving lost opportunities and hidden feelings gives them more weight and heft and makes my life worth more, monumental.

That all our lives bear as much significance… if we understood that all of our lives bore as much significance, that much wisdon would reshape our world.

Happy Buddha Pumima day. I do not know what that means, but other people’s words must be auspicious.

Completed Ginsberg’s Howl. How refreshing his words are. Common words rearranged in different forms and new juxtapositions. And like all great art, in his common observations of everyday things, he illuminates the universal.

Also finished Acker’s Great Expectations. An odd occurrence while reading: a portion of the end was duplicated and bound in with the rest of the book. The problem with avant grade writing is that you can’t separate intentional otherness from common mistakes. Either my version was bound incorrectly, or it wasn’t, but I have already gleaned my experience and meaning from the copy I had to read and that can never be erased. I don’t think she would mind. Part of postmodern reductionism is everything is art.

Everything is true. Everything is divine.

How pure that makes one’s meagre contribution to society.

She was quiet on the phone. She’s usually quiet at times like these. Times like these, they happen.

I should have known. She’d been more talkative lately. AIM. Email. The phone. Times like these, she’s more talkative.

She sniffled. Whispered something.

“What was that, again?”

She used to hate when I said that. I always say it. I never pay attention, and for three years we tried talking with our backs to each other. Maybe that was the problem. Too stupid to care enough to turn around before opening our big mouths. “Don’t fucking say that!” She’d say. “I hate it when you say that.” Quickly quelled. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to yell.”

“What was that again?” She wasn’t trying to restrain her tears. She was trying to restrain the sound of her tears, so they wouldn’t go running for help down the other end of the phone.

But times like these. Times like these, I eventually remember. Times like these I remember the quiet isn’t peace and the sniffles aren’t allergies, and the absentminded conversation isn’t her reading email while she’s on the phone.

Times like these it’s her, alone, crying, in the middle of a room that’s too big for such a little girl but still not big enough for the woman hiding inside.

She finds it easy to talk to me. I like to think it’s because we have some history, some spark. I like to think we have something special, even after the treading, the trampling, something sullied, walked-on, and flattened, but still special. But it’s probably not that special. Nothing special the way you’d want it to be special. A boy’s best friend, and then it makes you wonder if it was ever special, and you can remember. You can’t remember specifics, but you remember special. Times like these I remember something special.

But I can’t remember specifics. She can. All the little details. “…used to throw yourself on me… you’d just stare at me‚… always hold me‚… looked at me like I was the most beautiful woman in the world.”

Her mom said something like that once. Like she could trust me because of the way I looked at her daughter, like I cared, like I cared something more.

I get real surprised when people do something nice for me. It floors me, and my pride stands demanding immediate repayment. Something. Anything. It was my pride. My pride drove those years as much as anything. A constant drive to give something back. And on the other side, I can remember something special. Something special, so special I spent years trying to pay it back, but I never could.

I never can.

My roommate bought groceries. She bought me yogurt. Yoplait yogurt. Six little plastic, healthy, foil-topped breakfasts. Something floored me. Floored by yogurt. How much more floored I must’ve been when I was given a heart.

The other day I bought a magnet from Cities: “Dance like no one’s watching. Work like you don’t need the money. Sing like no one’s listening. Love like you’ve never been hurt.” Love like you’re not afraid.

Times like these, they happen. Times like these, I’m not afraid. Times like these, I’ve never been hurt.

Or, the I’ Ching said something along those lines, and in many ways, it is correct, as it always is. Continually, I am blown away by how dead on the readings are, and the Tao te ching is just jaw dropping.

To understand as much wisdom from the Bible, I think you really need to be in an altered state, where the Tao is just straightforward.