How much could I add?

"...and the sound of distant thunder."

Because the burn inside of my chest is damaging my memory of you, I have to stop and remember that what you have told me is true. The burn is exploding, but the fact remains that the truth is imposing. The truth is that I have never left you wondering, and as I lay here, you leave my mind tumbling. As I'm tumbling, I wonder why you are miles away from my frozen heart. Miles away, I know that you're asleep and in the dark. I'm not losing this fight. I've gone to sleep and I will drench the burn. The truth may have found me, but now, it is my turn.

Impatience.

There is never a definite beginning. I can find the lines where things end, but not exactly how things begin.
I hate some people for ever beginning anything, like that time back in 2004. Sometimes, I hate that some people do not define endings, like my parents back in 2006.
I have a funny way with people. It isn't endearing or entertaining by any means.
I find myself excited by others exponentially more often than they are excited by me. I put time in watching their eyes and listening to their supposed intentions. It is always in vain. People love themselves, are obsessed with their own being, and I get frustrated when I am quieted because they are not finished.
I am moody in my intensity. I have vices, my biggest including my inability to forget or forgive. I think I may subconsciously hurt people to see if I deserve to be forgiven in their eyes, or if they are just like me.
I have a general compassion for humanity, but on bright days like today, I have contempt for them, and perhaps I'm not so keen on myself these kinds of days.
There are so many things that I expect from people when I listen to them, and it is never said. I do not know precisely what I'm waiting for, but I suspect that they may expect it of me too.

I would give anything to climb my way to the West, to where I am supposed to be. But I'll find come November that my heart has traveled to the East, and trying to keep up with it will take all of my energy and willpower. There is so much left unsaid. How could we ever say it? When would we ever say it?

These things, they don't shock or pain me anymore. Rather, they leave a deep-seeded anger, one that churns my stomach and leaves my head aching. And all I hear is, "It's going to be okay." It is a blinded, lazy gesture of comfort. No one ever really knows what is going to be.

So, you don't have to say anything, not a word. I would rather listen about your recent flat tire or lousy paycheck. We will begin where things seemed to end.

My One

Months of confusion
I've tried to avoid any contusions
I can't close my eyes any longer
I hear your voice every night and I'm not getting any stronger
The things you said float in and out of my memory
The way you laugh could satisfy me for centuries
But you have gone away; but you have promised to stay; and there isn't anything left to say.
You consume my memory, my dreams, my sky.
You are everywhere even when you forget to try.
And you're gone, but I'm not going to cry.
Months of confusion, I can't avoid these contusions.
I could be without anything, but I couldn't be without you.
I can wipe away the tears from your eyes
I don't hold on to you saying goodbye
After all these months of confusion
I'm going to heal from these contusions.

Howard Zinn on "War and Social Injustice" A lecture at Benghamton University, New York, November 2008

Why is all the political rhetoric limited? Why is the set of solutions given to social and economic issues so cramped and so short of what is needed, so short of what the Universal Declaration of Human Rights demands? And, yes, Obama, who obviously is more attuned to the needs of people than his opponent, Obama, who is more far-sighted, more thoughtful, more imaginative, why has he been limited in what he is saying? Why hasn't he come out for what is called a single-payer system in healthcare?
Why-you see, you all know what the single-payer system is. It's a sort of awkward term for it, maybe. It doesn't explain what it means. But a single-payer health system means-well, it will be sort of run like Social Security. It'll be a government system. It won't depend on intermediaries, on middle people, on insurance companies. You won't have to fill out forms and pay- and figure out whether you have a preexisting medical condition. You won't have to go through that rigmarole, that rigmarole which has kept 40 million people out of having health insurance. No, something happens, you just go to a doctor, you go to a hospital, you're taken care of, period. The government will pay for it. Yeah, the government will pay for it. That's what governments are for.

Governments, they do that for the military. Did you know that? That's what the military has. The military has free insurance. I was once in the military. I got pneumonia, which is easier to get in the military. I got pneumonia. I didn't have to fool around with deciding what health plan I'm in. No, I was totally taken care of. I didn't have to think about money. Just-you know, there are a million members of the armed forces who have that. But when you ask that the government do this for everybody else, they cry, "That's socialism!" Well, if that's socialism, it must mean socialism is good.
I was really gratified when Obama called for "Let's tax the rich more, and let's tax the poor and middle class less." And they said, "That's socialism." And I thought, "Whoa! I'm happy to hear that. Finally, socialism is getting a good name." You know, socialism has been given bad names, Stalin and all those socialists, so-called socialists. They weren't really socialist, but, you know, they called themselves socialist. But they weren't really, you see. And so, socialism got a bad name. It used to have a really good name. Here in the United States, the beginning of the twentieth century, before there was a Soviet Union to spoil it, socialism had a good name. Millions of people in the United States read socialist newspapers. They elected socialist members of Congress and socialist members of state legislatures. You know, there were like fourteen socialist chapters in Oklahoma. Really. Socialism-who stood for socialism? Eugene Debs, Helen Keller, Emma Goldman, Clarence Darrow, Jack London, Upton Sinclair. Yeah, socialism had a good name. It needs to be restored.

But Obama, with all of his, well, good will, intelligence, all those qualities that he has, and so on- you feel that he has a certain instinct for people in trouble. But still, he wouldn't come out for a single-payer health system, that is, for what I would call health security, to go along with Social Security, you see, wouldn't come out for that; wouldn't come out for the government creating jobs for millions of people, because that's what really is needed now. You see, the newspapers this morning report highest unemployment in decades, right? The government needs to create jobs. Private enterprise is not going to create jobs. Private enterprise fails, the so-called free market system fails, fails again and again. When the Depression hit in the 1930s, Roosevelt and the New Deal created jobs for millions of people. And, oh, there were people out there on the fringe who yelled "Socialism!" Didn't matter. People needed it. If people need something badly, and somebody does something for them, you can throw all the names you want at them, it won't matter. But that was needed in this campaign. Yes.
Instead of Obama and McCain joining together-I know some of you may be annoyed that I'm being critical of Obama, but that's my job. You know, I like him. I'm for him. I want him to do well. I'm happy he won. I'm delighted he won. But I'm a citizen. I have to speak my mind. OK? Yeah. But when I saw Obama and McCain sort of both together supporting the $700 billion bailout, I thought, "Uh-oh. No, no. Please don't do that. Please, Obama, step aside from that. I'm sure something in your instincts must tell you that there's something wrong with giving $700 billion to the same financial institutions which ruined us, which got us into this mess, something wrong with that." And it's not even politically viable. That is, you can't even say, "Oh, I'm doing it because people will then vote for me." No. It was very obvious when the $700 billion bailout was announced that the majority of people in the country were opposed to it. Instinctively, they said, "Something is wrong with this. Why give it to them? We need it."
Obama should have been saying, "No, let's take that $700 billion, let's give it to people who can't pay their mortgages. Let's create jobs, you know." You know, instead of pouring $700 billion into the top and hoping that it will trickle down to the bottom, no, go right to the bottom, where people need it and get-so, yes, that was a disappointment. So, I'm trying to indicate what we'll have to do now and to fulfill what Obama himself has promised: change, real change. You can say "change," but if you keep doing the old policies, it's not change, right?

So what stands in the way of Obama and the Democratic Party, and what stands in the way of them really going all out for a social and economic program that will fulfill the promise of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights? Well, I can think of two things that stand in the way. Maybe there or more, but I can only think of two things at a time. And, well, one of them is simply the great, powerful economic interests that don't want real economic change. Really, they don't. The powerful-I mean, you take in healthcare, there are powerful interests involved in the present healthcare system. People are making lots of money from the healthcare system as it is, making so much money, and that's why the costs of the healthcare system in the United States are double what the healthcare costs are-the percentage of money devoted to healthcare-percentage is double administrative costs in the United States, compared to countries that have the single-payer system, because there are people there who are siphoning off this money, who are making money. You know, they're health plans. They're insurance companies. They're health executives and CEOs, so that there are interests, economic interests that are in the way of real economic change.

And Obama so far has not challenged those economic interests. Roosevelt did challenge those economic interests, boldly, right frontally. He called them economic royalists. He wasn't worried that people would say, "Oh, you're appealing to class conflict," the kind of thing they pull out all the time, as if there isn't, hasn't always been class conflict, just something new. Class conflict. "You're creating class conflict. We've never had class conflict. We've always all been one happy family." No. And so, there are these interests standing in the way, and unfortunately, the Democratic Party is tied to many of those interests. Democratic Party is tied to a lot of corporate interests. I mean, look at the people who are on Obama's economics team, and they're Goldman Sachs people, and they're former-you know, people like that. They don't represent change. They represent the old-style Democratic stay-put leadership that's not good.

So, the other factor that stands in the way of a real bold economic and social program is the war. The war, the thing that has a $600 billion military budget. Now, how can you call for the government to take over the healthcare system? How can you call for the government to give jobs to millions of people? How can you do all that? How can you offer free education, free higher education, which is what we should have really? We should have free higher education. How can you double teachers' salaries? How can you do all these things, which will do away with poverty in the United States? It all costs money.
And so, where's that money going to come from? Well, it can come from two sources. One is the tax structure. And here, Obama [has] been moving in the right direction. When he talked about not giving the rich tax breaks and giving tax breaks to the poor-in the right direction, but not far enough, because the richest one percent of the country has gained several trillions of dollars in the last twenty, thirty years as a result of the tax system, which has favored them. And, you have a tax system where 200 of the richest corporations pay no taxes. You can't do that. You don't have their accountants. You don't have their legal teams, and so on and so forth. You don't have their loopholes.

The war, $600 billion, we need that. We need that money. But in order to say that, in order to say, "Well, one, we're going to increase taxes on the super rich," much more than Obama has proposed-and believe me, it won't make those people poor. They'll still be rich. They just won't be super rich. I don't care if there are some rich people around. But, no, we don't need super rich, not when that money is needed to take care of little kids in pre-school, and there's no money for pre-school. No, we need a radical change in the tax structure, which will immediately free huge amounts of money to do the things that need to be done, and then we have to get the money from the military budget. Well, how do you get money from the military budget? Don't we need $600 billion for a military budget? Don't we have to fight two wars? No. We don't have to fight any wars. You know.
And this is where Obama and the Democratic Party have been hesitant to talk about. But we're not hesitant to talk about it. The citizens should not be hesitant to talk about it. If the citizens are hesitant to talk about it, they would just reinforce the Democratic leadership and Obama in their hesitations. No, we have to speak what we believe is the truth. I think the truth is we should not be at war. We should not be at war at all. I mean, these wars are absurd. They're horrible also. They're horrible, and they're absurd. From a human, human point of view, they're horrible. The deaths and the mangled limbs and the blindness and the three million people in Iraq losing their homes, having to leave their homes, three million people-imagine?-having to look elsewhere to live because of our occupation, because of our war for democracy, our war for liberty, our war for whatever it is we're supposed to be fighting for.
No, we need a president who will say-yeah, I'm giving advice to Obama. I know he's listening. But, if enough people speak up, he will listen, right? If enough people speak up, he will listen. There's much more of a chance of him listening, right, than those other people. They're not listening. They wouldn't listen. Obama could possibly listen -and the thing to say is, we have to change our whole attitude as a nation towards war, militarism, violence. We have to declare that we are not going to engage in aggressive wars. We are going to renounce the Bush Doctrine of preventive war. "We have to go to war on this little pitiful country, because this little pitiful country might someday"-do what? Attack us? I mean, Iraq might attack us? "Well, they're developing a nuclear weapon"-one, which they may have in five or ten years. That's what all the experts said, even the experts on the government side. They may develop one nuclear weapon in five-wow! The United States has 10,000 nuclear weapons. Nobody says, "How about us?”. Well, you know all about that. Weapons of mass destruct, etc., etc. No reason for us to wage aggressive wars. We have to renounce war as an instrument of foreign policy.
A hundred different countries, we have military bases. That doesn't look like a peace-loving country. First of all, of course, it's very expensive. We save a lot of money. Do we really need those-what do we need those bases for? I can't figure out what we need those bases for. And, so we have to give that up, and we have to declare ourselves a peaceful nation. We will no longer be a military superpower. "Oh, that's terrible!" There are people who think we must be a military superpower. We don't have to be a military superpower. We don't have to be a military power at all. We can be a humanitarian superpower. We can. We'll still be powerful. We'll still be rich. But we can use that power and that wealth to help people all over the world. Instead of sending helicopters to bomb people, send helicopters when they face a hurricane or an earthquake and they desperately need helicopters. You know, you know. So, there's a lot of money available once you seriously fundamentally change the foreign policy of the United States.

Now, Obama has been hesitant to do that. And it has something to do with a certain mindset, because it doesn't have anything to do really with politics, that is, with more votes. I don't think-do you think most Americans know that we have bases in a hundred countries? I'll bet you if you took a poll and asked among the American people, "How many countries do you think we have bases in?" "No, I don't know exactly what the answer is. What I would guess, there'd be like five, ten." But I think most people would be surprised. In other words, there isn't a public demanding that we have bases in a hundred countries, so there's no political advantage to that. Well, of course, there's economic advantage to corporations that supply those bases and build those bases and make profit from those bases, you know.

I do believe that the American people would welcome a president who said, "We are not going to wage aggressive war anymore." The American people are not war-minded people. They become war-minded when a president gets up there and creates an atmosphere of hysteria and fear, you know, and says, "Well, we must go to war." Then people, without thinking about it, without thinking, you know, "Why are we bombing Afghanistan?" "Because, oh, Osama bin Laden is there." "Uh, where?" Well, they don't really know, so we'll bomb the country. You know, if we bomb the country, maybe we'll get him. Sure, in the process, thousands of Afghans will die, right? People didn't have time to stop and think, think. But the American people are not war-minded people. They would welcome, I believe, a turn away from war. So there's no real political advantage to that.

But it has to do with a mindset, a certain mindset that-well, that a lot of Americans have and that Obama, obviously, and the Democratic leadership, Pelosi and Harry Reid and the others, that they all still have. And when you talk about a mindset that they have, which stands in the way of the declaring against war, you're reminded that during the campaign-I don't know if you remember this-that at one point Obama said- there were many times in the campaign where he said really good things, if he had only followed up on them, you see, and if he only follows up on them now. But at one point in the campaign, he said, "It's not just a matter of getting out of Iraq. It's a matter of changing the mindset that got us into Iraq." You see? That was a very important statement. Unfortunately, he has not followed through by changing his mindset. He knows somewhere in-well, then he expressed it, that we have to change our mindset, but he hasn't done it. Why? I don't know. Is it because there are too many people around him and too many forces around him, and etc., etc., that? But, no, that mindset is still there. So I want to talk about what that mindset is, what the elements of that mindset are.
And I have to look at my watch, not that it matters, not that I care, but, you know, I feel conscience-stricken over keeping you here just to hear the truth.

Here are some of the elements of the mindset that stand in the way, in the way for Obama, in the way for the Democratic Party, in the way for many Americans, in the way for us. One of the elements in our mindset is the idea, somehow, that the United States is exceptional. In the world of social science, in that discipline called social science, there's actually a phrase for it. It's called American exceptionalism. And what it means is the idea that the United States is unique in the world, that we are different -not just different, we're better. Right? We are better than other people. Our society is better than other societies. This is a very dangerous thing to think. When you become so arrogant that you think you are better and different than other countries in the world, then that gives you a carte blanche to do nasty things. You can do nasty things, because you're better. You're justified in doing those things, because, yeah, you're-we're different. So we have to divest ourselves of the idea that we are somehow better and we are the "City on the Hill," which is what the first governor of Massachusetts, John Winthrop, said. "We are the"-Reagan also said that. Well, Reagan said lots of things, you know that. But we are-you know, we're- everybody looks to-no, we're an empire, like other empires.
There was a British empire. There was a Russian empire. There was a German empire and a Japanese empire and a French and a Belgian empire, the Dutch empire and the Spanish empire. And now there's the American empire. When we look at those empires, we say, "Oh, imperialism! But our empire, no." There was one sort of scholar who wrote in the New York Times, he said, "We are an empire lite." Lite? Tell that to the people of Iraq. Tell that to the people in Afghanistan. You know, we are an empire lite? No, we are heavy.

All you have to do is look at our history, and you'll see, no, our history does not show a beneficent country doing good all over the world. Our history shows expansion. Our history shows expansion. It shows us doubling our territory with the Louisiana Purchase, which I remember on our school maps looked very benign. "Oh, there's that, all that empty land, and now we have it." It wasn't empty! There were people living there. There were Indian tribes. Hundreds of Indian tribes were living there. And if it's going to be ours, we've got to get rid of them. And we did. And then, we instigated a war with Mexico in 1848, 1846 to 1848, and at the end of the war we take almost half of Mexico. And why? Well, we wanted that land. That's very simple. We want things. There's a drive of nations that have the power and the capacity to bully other nations, a tendency to expand into those-the areas that those other nations have. We see it all over the world. And the United States has done that again and again. And then we expanded into the Caribbean. Then we expanded out into the Pacific with Hawaii and the Philippines. And, of course, in the twentieth century, expanding our influence in Europe and Asia and now in the Middle East, everywhere. An expansionist country, an imperialist power.

For what? To do good things for these other people? Or is it because we coveted-when I say "we," I don't mean to include you and me. But I've gotten- they've gotten us so used to identifying with the government. You know, like we say "we," like the janitor at General Motors says "we." No. No, the CEO of General Motors and the janitor are not "we."

So, no, we're not-we're not-exceptionalism is one part of the mindset we have to get rid of. We have to see ourselves honestly for what we are. We're an empire like other empires. We're as aggressive and brutal and violent as the Belgians were in the Congo, as the British were in India, and all these other empires. Yeah, we're just like them. We have to face it. And when you face that, you sober up a little, and then you don't think you can just go all over the world and say, "Ah, we're doing this for liberty and democracy," because then, if you know your history, you know how many times that was said. "Oh, we're going into the Philippines to bring civilization and Christianity to the Filipinos." "We're going to bring civilization to the Mexicans," etc., etc. No. You'll understand that. That's one element in this mindset.

And then, of course, when you say this, when you say these things, when you go back into that history, when you try to give an honest recounting of what we have been-not "we," really-what the government, the government, has done, our government has done. The people haven't done it. People-we're just people. The government does these things, and then they try to include us, involve us in their criminal conspiracy. We didn't do this. But they're dragooning us into this.

But when you start criticizing, when you start making an honest assessment of what we have done in the world, they say you're being unpatriotic. Well, you have to-that's another part of the mindset you have to get rid of, because if you don't, then you think you have to wear a flag in your lapel or you think you have to always have American flags around you, and you have to show, by your love for all this meaningless paraphernalia, that you are patriotic. Well, an honest presidential candidate would not be afraid to say, "You know, patriotism is not a matter of wearing a flag in your lapel, not a matter of this or not-patriotism is not supporting the government. Patriotism is supporting the principles that the government is supposed to stand for." So we need to redefine these things which have been thrown at us and which we've imbibed without thinking, not thinking, "Oh, what really is patriotism?" If we start really thinking about what it is, then we will reject these cries that you're not patriotic, and we'll say, "Patriotism is not supporting the government." When the government does bad things, the most patriotic thing you can do is to criticize the government, because that's the Declaration of Independence. That's our basic democratic charter. The Declaration of Independence says governments are set up by the people to-they're artificial creations. They're set up to ensure certain rights, the equal right to life, liberty, pursuit of happiness. So when governments become destructive of those ends, the Declaration said, "it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish" the government. That's our basic democratic charter. People have forgotten what it is. It's OK to alter or abolish the government when the government violates its trust. And then you are being patriotic. I mean, the government violates its trust, the government is being unpatriotic.

Yeah, so we have to think about these words and phrases that are thrown at us without giving us a time to think. And, we have to redefine these words, like "national security." What is national security? Lawyers say, "Well, this is for national security." Well, that takes care of it. No, it doesn't take care of it. This national security means different things to different people. Ah, for some people, national security means having military bases all over the world. For other people, national security means having healthcare, having jobs. You know, that's security. And we need to sort of redefine these things.

We need to redefine "terrorism." Otherwise, the government can throw these words at us: "Oh, we're fighting against terrorism." Oh, well, then I guess we have to do this. Wait a while, what do you mean by "terrorism"? Well, we sort of have an idea what terrorism means. Terrorism means that you kill innocent people for some belief that you have. Yeah, sure, blowing up on 9/11, that was terrorist. But if that's the definition of "terrorism," killing innocent people for some belief you have, then war is terrorism.

We have to stop thinking that solutions to problems are military solutions, that you can solve problems with violence. You can't really. You don't really solve problems with violence. We have to change our definitions of "heroism." Heroism in American culture, so far, really-when people think of heroism, they think of military heroes. They think of the people whose statues are all over the country, and they think of medals and battles. And yeah, these are military heroes. And that's why Obama goes along with that definition of military-of "hero," by referring to John McCain, as a military hero, always feeling that he must do that. I never felt he must do that. John McCain, to my mind-and I know that this is a tough thing to accept and may make some of the people angry-John McCain was tortured and bore up under torture and was a victim of torture and imprisonment, and it takes fortitude to that. He's not a military hero. Before he was imprisoned, he dropped bombs on innocent people. He did what the other members of the Air Force did. They dropped bombs on peasant villages and killed a lot of innocent people. I don't consider that heroism. So, we have to redefine. To me, the great heroes are the people who have spoken out against war. Those are the heroes.

I think we have to change, change our mindset. We have to understand certain things that we haven't maybe thought about enough. I think one of the things we haven't thought about enough-because this is basic, and this is crucial-we haven't realized, or at least not expressed it consciously, that the government's interests are not the same as our interests. Really. And so, when they talk about the national interest, they're creating what Kurt Vonnegut used to call a "granfalloon." A granfalloon was a meaningless abstraction and when you put together that don't belong together, you see a "national security"-no- "national interest." No, there's no one national interest. There's the interest of the president of the United States, and then there's the interest of the young person he sends to war. They're different interests, you see? There is the interest of Exxon and Halliburton, and there's the interest of the worker, the nurse's aide, the teacher, the factory worker. Those are different interests. Once you recognize that you and the government have different interests, that's a very important step forward in your thinking, because if you think you have a common interest with the government, well, then it means that if the government says you must do this and you must do that, and it's a good idea to go to war here, well, the government is looking out for my interest. No, the government is not looking out for your interest. The government has its own interests, and they're not the interests of the people. Not just true in the United States, it's true everywhere in the world. Governments generally do not represent the interests of their people. That's why governments keep getting overthrown, because people at a certain point realize, "Hey! No, the government is not serving my interest."
That's also why governments lie. Why do governments lie? You must know that governments lie-not just our government; governments, in general, lie. Why do they lie? They have to lie, because their interests are different than the interests of ordinary people. If they told the truth, they would be out of office. So you have to recognize that the difference, difference in interest.

Well, I have to say something about war, a little more than I have said, and what I say about them, because I've been emphasizing the importance of renouncing war and not being a war-making nation, and because it will not be enough to get us out of Iraq. One of these days, we'll get out of Iraq. We have to get out of Iraq. We don't belong there. And we're going to have to get out of there. Sooner or later, we're going to have to get out of there. But-we don't want to get out of Iraq and then have to get out of somewhere else. We don't have to get out of Iraq but keep troops in Afghanistan, as unfortunately, you know, Obama said, troops in Afghanistan. No, no more-not just Iraq. We have to get into a mindset about renouncing war, period, which is a big step.

And my ideas about war, my thoughts about war, the sort of the conclusions that I've come to about war, they really come from two sources. One, from my study of history. Of course, not everybody who studies history comes to the same conclusions. But, you have to listen to various people who study history and decide what makes more sense, right? I've looked at various histories. I've concluded that my history makes more sense. And I've always been an objective student of these things, yes. But my ideas about war come from two sources. One of them is studying history, the history of wars, the history of governments, the history of empires. That history helps a lot in straightening out your thinking.

And the other is my own experience in war. I was in World War II. I was an Air Force bombardier. I dropped bombs on various cities in Europe. That doesn't make me an expert. Lots of people were in wars, and they all come out with different opinions. So all I can do is give you my opinion based on my thinking after having been in a war. I was an enthusiastic enlistee in the Air Force. I wanted to be in the war, war against fascism, the "good war," right? But at the end of the war, as I looked around and surveyed the world and thought about what I had done and thought about-and learned about Hiroshima and Nagasaki and learned about Dresden and learned about Hamburg and learned things I didn't even realize while I was bombing, because when you're involved in a military operation, you don't think. You just-you're an automaton, really. You may be a well-educated and technically competent automaton, but you aren't really-you're not questioning, not questioning why. "Why are they sending me to bomb this little town? When the war is almost over, there's no reason for dropping bombs on several thousand people." No, you don't think.

Well, I began to think after the war and began to think that-and I was thinking now about the good war, the best war, and I was thinking, "Oh." And then I began to see, no, this good war is not simply good. This best of wars, no. And if that's true of this war, imagine what is true of all the other obviously ugly wars about which you can't even use the word "good."

And I began to realize certain things, that war corrupts everybody, corrupts everybody who engages in it. You start off, they're the bad guys. You make an interesting psychological jump. The jump is this: since they're the bad guys, you must be the good guys. No, they may very well be the bad guys. They may be fascists and dictators and bad, really bad guys. That doesn't mean you're good, you know? And when I began to look at it that way, I realized that wars are fought by evils on both sides. You know, one is a little more evil than the other. But even though you start in a war with sort of good intentions-we're going to defeat fascism, we're going to do this-you end up being corrupted, you end up being violent, you end up killing a lot of innocent people, because you've decided from the beginning that you're right, and then you don't have to ask questions anymore. That's an interesting psychological thing that you-trick that you play. Well, you start out-you make a decision at the very beginning. The decision is: they're wrong, I'm right. Once you have made that decision, you don't have to think anymore. Then anything you do goes. Anything you do is OK, because you made the decision early on that they're bad, you're good. Then you can kill several hundred thousand people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Then you can kill 100,000 people in Dresden. It doesn't matter. You're not thinking about it. Yeah, war corrupts everybody who engages in it.

So what else can I say about war? Lots of things. But I took out my watch presumably because I care. And I don't. But people will present you with humanitarian awards. Oh, this is for a good cause. The thing about war is the outcome is unpredictable. The immediate thing you do is predictable. The immediate thing you do is horrible, because war is horrible. And if somebody promises you that, "Well, this is horrible, like we have to bomb these hundreds of thousands of people in Japan. This is horrible, but it's leading to a good thing," truth is, you never know what this is leading to. You never know the outcome. You never know what the future is. You know that the present is evil, and you're asked to commit this evil for some possible future good. Doesn't make sense, especially if you look at the history of wars, you find out that those so-called future goods don't materialize. You know, the future good of World War II was, "Oh, now we're rid of fascism. Now we're going to have a good world, a peaceful world. Now the UN Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. 50 million people died in World War II, but now it's going to be OK." Well, you've lived these years since World War II. Has it been OK? Can you say that those 50 million lives were- it had to be done because-because of what? No, the wars-violence in general is a quick fix. It may give you a feeling that you've accomplished something, but it's unpredictable in its ends. And because it's corrupting, the ends are usually bad.

So, OK, I won't say anything more about war. And, of course, it wastes people. It wastes wealth. It's an enormous, enormous waste.

And so, what is there to do? We need to educate ourselves and other people. We need to educate ourselves in history. History is very important. That's why I went into a little history, because if you don't know history, it's as if you were born yesterday. If you were born yesterday, then any leader can tell you anything, you have no way of checking up on it. History is very important. I don't mean formal history, what you learn in a classroom. No, history, if you're learning, go to the library. Go to the library and read, read, learn, learn history. So we have an educational job to do with history.

We have an educational job to do about our relationship to government, and to realize that disobedience is essential to democracy. And it's important to understand democracy is not the three branches of government. It's not what they told us in junior high school. "Oh, this is democracy. We have three branches of government, kiddos, the legislative, the executive, judicial. We have checks and balances that balance one another out. If somebody does something bad, it will be checked by"-wow! What a neat system! Nothing can go wrong. Well, now, those structures are not democracy. Democracy is the people. Democracy is social movements. That's what democracy is. And what history tells us is that when injustices have been remedied, they have not been remedied by the three branches of government. They've been remedied by great social movements, which then push and force and pressure and threaten the three branches of government until they finally do something. Really, that's democracy.

And no, we mustn't be pessimistic. We mustn't be cynical. We mustn't think we're powerless. We're not powerless. That's where history comes in. If you look at history, you see people felt powerless and felt powerless and felt powerless, until they organized, and they got together, and they persisted, and they didn't give up, and they built social movements. Whether it was the anti-slavery movement or the black movement of the 1960s or the antiwar movement in Vietnam or the women's movement, they started small and apparently helpless; they became powerful enough to have an effect on the nation and on national policy. We're not powerless. We just have to be persistent and patient, not patient in the passive sense, but patient in the active sense of having a kind of faith that if all of us do little things-well, if all of us do little things, at some point there will be a critical mass created. Those little things will add up. That's what has happened historically. People were disconsolate, and people thought they couldn't end, but they kept doing, doing, doing, and then something important happened.

And I'll leave you with just one more thought, that if you do that, if you join some group, if you join whatever the group is, a group that's working on gender equality or racism or immigrant rights or the environment or the war, whatever group you join or whatever little action you take, it will make you feel better. It will make you feel better. And I'm not saying we should do all these things just to make ourselves feel better, but it's good to know that life becomes more interesting and rewarding when you become involved with other people in some great social cause. Thank you.

I love music
It doens't love me back.
I like screaming and singing
I'm not any good.
I used to like love,
but it's hard to find
so I gave up looking.
I like to write,
I never say anything.
I text a lot,
my buttons are sticking.
I had friends,
lost a lot,
have a few.
Have a family,
they're broken.
I go with the flow,
and I don't think the flow is taking me anywhere.
I hope you need this now,
because I know that I still do.

Quarters

There's a greatness in the air outside, a greatness only unsuccessfully copied inside by cooling and heating systems. The smell of the air out here gets stuck on your face, pours into your lungs and awaits the arrival to the cranium.
The same could go for beauty, masked by make-up and cologne, its intentions to actually beautify.
The same could go for love and its romanticized imprint on persons in love, thought to be the best of all, the worst of all.


What is that chirping? Is it the birds, the crickets, the spiders?
Should I break a finger off to slap it with? If I do, would the chirper even be baited by it, killed by it, quieted by it?
Should I scream, or would he mock me? If I scream will I scare him? Or does he, Chirper, encounter far more frights than my vocal chords?
It isn't like I want to break a finger off or scream.
It isn't as if I want to be outside to experience the outside air drowning my lungs and the smog clogging the pores of my body and seeping into my brain. It isn't even as if I want this pen and this ridiculous paper and to call it beautiful or ugly or hopeless or wonderful or wretched.
It's just that if I were inside, I'd run. I'd run until I couldn't find my way back. I'd run until my ligaments broke like rubber bands and my eyes couldn't see five feet ahead. I'd run until I couldn't hear trains spewing in the air and until my feet crusted over and were padded with dead skin.
I'd run until the air felt different and the water tasted different and the people looked different and until God spoke in different pitch. I'd run until there was no such thing as running, and no one would know how to put me to a stop. I'd run until there were no breaks, no motors, no ink on paper, no paper holding ink, no leather belts holding up your pants, no ties around your neck, no baby occupying your womb, no ice cream cone in your hand, no IV in your arm, no knife to your neck, no bomb in a building, no head-on collision, no bone-breaking falls.
I'd run until the grass was evaporated and the air outside couldn't fill your lungs with such potential.

In THE dark of FUCK

In the midst of clouded perception and conception and detection, there is found the underlying of what is never said, never though, always felt. There isn't anything put in reverse of what there would never be.
It doesn't make sense.
For reasons I've found by heart, I've sworn to find the darkness through it's very interior being, to find bliss, to find shit, to find blood and death and life and greatness.
Because I can't spend forever in the dark.
So, i hold on to it for dear life, for its very dearness.
I've given it so many tries. It's here! Its hear!

Recently Went to Disney World

You're remembering back, right?
But no one really knows themselves.
I have these scents stuck in my nose and someone's hands in my hair and I just don't know who they belong to. I'm kissing boys who bleed and cry, but I never mean it.
I'm so stable, but I won't...I can't say anything. Because I'm unstable. I've got the past stuck in my throat. Here, now, never. I've got shimmer on my hands to spread all over drinking glasses. Now, I won't ever drink from them!
Tug it out of my hands, of my stomach. I want to give it away, but I'm so attatched, so unavailable. You're so far away, but I'm trying to get further. To whom I address is your pick, not mine.

You don't have a mailing address and I can't even feel if you're lying. I don't mind if you lie, I have so much I won't ever tell you because you'd hate it, or you'd love it, and you would consume it, and I have an issue with letting these things go as planned.
So, what do I really need? Well, what do you really need? I need to stand on the edge of something. I need to be scared, but you need to be stable. I have the past stuck in my throat and I'm...
I'm going to swallow it!
As far as hands and havens go, they're one in the same and I'll be announcing how much I miss them. No, do not miss them!
Would I like to touch you? Would you care how my skin really felt? Would you care to touch the sunburn behind my leg and ignore the awkward placement of my hips?
Would you wait for me? Would you force me? Would you push me along? push me back? stop? I've got this shimmer on my hands, enough to spread around where it shouldn't be.

Funny.

10/30/90 (child)
brown hair
brown eyes (I lie on my driver's license.)
5' 5"


I've got a ways to go.

(m) Emory

You see how right things have fallen?

There are deep impressions in places that I need to find, because I can feel them, but I can't find them. I love the exploration, and your face so close to mine.

I hate that everyone thinks that it's over. It's crumbled! It's your redemption, but redemption will quickly fade, and fading is such a long, drawn out process that no one ever gets into, but talks about. The world is going to be spinning, and you'll be living, I'll be living. There are many hearts, but only one that I'll be calling to.

The whole thing about this time is that I won't be finding a reason to go. I've always been looking for that reason, and always blaming someone else for it. I hate it.

It's over!

I love the feeling! It's a rain that I've never had before. It's a washing away that I never saw coming, and it's the redemption that I never knew could be.

And maybe I'll never know.

I used to want to be the first to know, but now, I don't ever want to know. I won't ever know.

There are times that I sit and I watch the gray walls and how they change in my eyes from what they have been. I wonder about the times that I stared at them with no purpose, and the difference in looking at them now. Their gray falls onto the floor and I wait for it to find me, and I laugh.

These walls, they know so much more than I ever will. They're laughing at me. It's a tune that I'm sleeping to.

No telling how many times I sat and I've cried for the things that I'll be persecuted to, and there have been so many times that I was alone for it. Now, you just whisper that I can do it, and I can make it. To stay. To watch the moon, to wait for you, to stay with you, to be with you, to cry with you, not to look at you.

"I close my eyes and sometimes see you in the shadows of this smoke filled room."

There's no telling how many times that I told myself how gone that I was, but I've been here.

And you were here too.

And now we can walk on. We have places to go. We have things to find that we haven't been able to see.

"Holding hands with you when we're out at night...well, this is just the beginning. We're already wet and we're going to go swimming."

It isn't to say that it's going to be perfect. It's just to say that what is going to come is always going to be.

Do you think you'll be able to?

Look to your left more often
I realized just the other day
How long it's been since I
Broke down and I had to tell
myself sorry for my lack of
baptism, of building back up
from my falling out, from my
breaking down.
I need to look to the left
because last week I found how
much balance I've lost, how
much I've fallen wrong.
Really, how do I run
to you, to Truth, when
I put up stone to hit
fortitude?
Water changes to vapor
while I fade with it to
the top, to ever-existant
non-existance to watch. And
I love it. Not you.

TAKE ME HOME, I KNEW IT

And they said...

"And you dropped the note and we changed key
You changed yourself
and i changed me
I really didn't see us singing through this
Then you screamed the bridge
And i cried the verse
And our chorus came out unrehearsed
And you smiled the whole way through it
I guess maybe that's what's worse"



You have to have the opposite to bring out the opposite.
Black cannot be black without white. There can be no light wihtout darkness.
No one knows bad without the good.
There could be no me without you.


With my eyes swollen like this, I think of something.
Maybe, this something is justifiably wonderful. Maybe, it's unjustifiably dark.
I've walked all these paths before, except this time, I'm scared to see it.

There could be no me without you.
If I could, I know that I would.

Held Responsible

"...she fell in love in the first place."

It's the general motif, don't you think?




I'd been falling, but I had never seen it happen. My tuning for self awareness had been off. I had given up before I even found where it was I had even left off. There are no specifics, no correct space. I can see myself falling for some false intentions of meaning.
"For the life of me, I cannot remember why we'd ever die for these sins..."
There is this darkened area about my anatomy I do not even recognize sometimes.
"We never talk of our lack in relationships."
I cannot even get the correct, simple aesthetic of the fundaments of my heart. I've grown acquired to the ones that go higher, then expire.
I am going crazy over nothing because that is what has always gotten to me all this time: NOTHING.
You are not the only one who has been shot down and attacked.
I hope that you find compassion and forgiveness, and I hope that you are aware of your inside demons. I hope that you hold things frustratingly dear. I hope that you let someone in with you, and I hope that they mean everything to you. I don't mean just the words, I want someone to take all of you and that they consume you in every lovely way that they could.
I'm splattered about the walls, but "the talk" never came. You cannot unlearn things.
I give myself restrictions that I do not follow, rules that I always break, and maps that I never use.
Just care! Just try! Just want to know me! Just tell me!
Just...just something.
It's simply pathetic because you don't have to mean it.
Just nothing.

I am crying all alone in my car after he hung up, and hung up.
Sometimes, when I cry, I wish that he could see it. I do not really know if it would mean anything. It isn't my vanity that drives that. Maybe I'm too detached.
Your exaggerated display of testosterone kills me. It doesn't make sense. It's defected and it's counterproductive.
Your narcissism! It screams, demanding everything of me, and I am tired. (There is a difference between being simply nice and being sincere.) You justify your crassness by loving me. Your insensitivity is biting, and it's biting deep. This degeneration of me that you thought you had scares you. It never existed!
But there I go just to acquiesce to all of you and what you have to say, no matter how much I don't want to...no matter how much I hate it. I try to ignore the more ignorant of thought, but it makes sense.
I've tried to reinforce this idea, this sense of security and of love, but I will not try to convince you of it. That is enough shock impact for me if you do not believe any of what I say, or if you lack the feeling of it all.
I have a sensitive and nostalgic nature, while you have impeccable taste and a drive to be heard.
It's quaking beneath our feet and it seems we're only shoving ourselves in the cracks.
I'm an advocate for us and our success. There comes a time when this either breaks or makes a person. How much can you handle?
You will see this again. We'll feel it, and it'll hurt all over again, and I'll hate it and you'll fight it and we'll try again.
But I've loved you since that year in July, and that sort of thing cannot happen the way that it did again.

"You're all I want. You're all I need. You're everything. Everything. And how can I stand here with you and not be moved by you? Would you tell me how could it be any better than this..."





It's in the stars, and it's in the light, it's written on the table, and in your hands and I'll have to remember: there are things that never change and things that always will.

Here I Am Just Writing You

Let me remind you of the time we had...
There is a definite way you have that I would love to hate. And I do. I haven't missed my chances. I have too many left.
I guess that is why I hate the way that you are.
In public, I want to put my hand over your mouth.
You do not raise your voice, go out on rants, or even scare me.
You never jump sentence to sentence.
Your thoughts are so organized and rational, honorable and intelligent, and I hate it.
You can't hear wha tI'm saying. Let's just drive on our way. I'm not screaming at you.
We will have to wait for the weekend. Maybe you'll be excited to see me.
I'm awfully peculiar. I feel I should keep on going. I've got this insane laugh. I want to shut up.
The terrible part of it all is that I meant it.
I mean it all. And I know what I want.
I don't make excuses. I just want to get to know you. I misread you.
Time is money, and I am losing it all. For what reason do you know me?
Isn't this the moment that we are all looking for? I cannot give you anything else.
Only myself.
He's not bashful, and he's red, and he's going back to what he knows. Let's throw things.
What a wonderful opportunity to explain the difference between love and sex; intimacy and intercourse. How tastfully done. I do not look at it as faulty and wrong.
I hate it when you say so. I didn't trust him.
If you need the truth, I'm not aware of myself and the intimacy issues.
Oh, but he tries on his innocence.
You can see the battle between what really is and the tricks.
The trouble are the apologies I say for nothing.
The trouble are your broken glasses.
Just like most XY's do.
The blame is going to be on you, not them.
In the end, he's proud. In the end, he has put alot of thought into it. He's been wishing, and he wishes that he wouldn't.
Could be.
What a romantic way to die. It's just playing out like a melodrama. To be suave and nonchalant.
It isn't true, you just don't care.
God, you hate people, but all you do is watch them.
You're playing a part, but it's you.
He does not see himself. He is so unaware.
In the movies, things just work out.
It just doesn't work out for him.
It just doesn't work out for me.
The glass case is on the floor.
The things you love should be able to be held up and be set in your closet. Let the memories be set aside for later visitations.
I just can't. It's not the way it used to be. He's not the same. He never will be. I want to freeze it, and preserve it, but I can't.
Connect it with us. What great memories we have. We need a meseum. I need a part packed away. I save every picture, every plane ticket, every movie stub, because I want to keep that time forever.
But you can't.
And I can't.
It's my way of losing it.
The problem I have...
It's just another one come and gone.
Your life is being made horrible if you can't be killed?
I want to go on. What a melting pot.
Life being such a blend of you and me, and I've got it, for now.
I won't deny what I have. It's not the lowest of low. It isn't as worse than where we came from. It isn't Angel Islands. I accept you for everything.
You can't go home again. You can't go home again.
You won't ever really come back.
And how much are you going to like that record?
Is it your one genuine intimate moment?
"Life avails, not the having lived." Do not recreate these moments. All we have is the present.
He can't find it.
And I realized it from the moment that I was passing by.
It is the predictability of it. There's something comforting in it. But life isn't.
It isn't going to happen that way. It never will.
But there is something genuine about him, and comforting. It just messes with my reasoning.
(For an atheist, you have an awful lot of religious thoughts.)
What sort of reasoning is that? Everybody is going to go up in one big bang, anyway?
We will all die off: the billions of us are on the same schedule.
And it feels right.
For this one night, I felt you. You could hear me.
I couldn't wait to get you alone.
I know what is going on with us.

Here

It's starting to feel more like home.

"There are years that ask questions and years that answer."

This isn't the first time around, and it's ungodly unnerving. I couldn't begin to list all the reasons why, but I feel it. Maybe I'm wrong, but I feel right.
"Fucking makeup."
It's easy for me to become broken, perhaps just cracked, really, and it's even easier for me to resist you afterwards. And maybe I only resist you for a few hours, few days. I wish I wasn't that way, but I am.
But how are you?
Extreme with your temper, and extreme with your want to make it better. At first, I find it laudable that you feel so guilty, and then you squash it, so I assume that perhaps it was never real?
Maybe I just lack dignity. Where have I been when things fall apart? That's right. I just back away, walk away, drive away.
Oh, well.
I know he doesn't appreciate my abstract way of expressing myself, but I understand. He just doesn't understand, and I also understand it's just because he's been so detailed in expressing himself.
Maybe I don't understand.
I'm never really going to assume I'm completely sure of anything, mostly. It usually makes for what you weren't expecting in the first place.


But my nighttime feelings usually change with my morning ones.

You Don't Have To Call

I am done with this, or as done as I possibly can be. I'm living this day, and giving back what it has given to me. I'm not looking for a quick fix, and I know when I do finally move out that everything will not fall perfectly into place. I know this. I won't anticipate these things.
But the independence that would come from it will be a much healthier life style as far as my personal relationships and psychological well being is concerned, though that is sad and a little mechanical and technological to say.
Everywhere I go for the rest of my life, the ones that I care about, they probably won't hear about everything, but I will try to make sure they don't see it from me.
Because I know she won't be living with the consequence of what happens tonight. I'll be getting out of this place with fleeting time.
It's just isn't me to wear what I feel so freely about my sleeve. I know I will be getting lessons of tolerance and perhaps some negotiating skills out of this, but I won't be saying any 'thank you's' for it, as immature it may be of me.

And everything said, I want to love you until I am ninety. Of all the things I've believed in, I believe in you. I frighten myself with reality, because people change. I don't want to change and have to say good-bye because of it. This is it.
This is what I can't live without. This is what I can't see or think without. I suppose I could blame your bright blue eyes, or the freckles about you I've tried to grow familiar with.
Maybe it's that he doesn't know.
I want to simply have him falling with me. Perhaps I'm falling apart. I'm right here. If I opened my eyes now, you'd have to wipe them away.
This isn't how I planned it, but I knew I never really could.
But I never expected you.

"And all she keeps inside isn't on the label...can I be your friend? We'll forget the past...Here and now, will we ever be again? ...She says that love is for fools that fall behind. I'm somewhere between..."

Keep Up

I could go on with the things that have gone wrong, and the things I could've said better, and the times you didn't have to speak of her. I'd usually swoon and be struck in awe of your voice and how you you place it when you sing half jokingly, and I'd have to speak of how you shine with undeniable amounts of light.
And instead I'll kiss you until I can't pull away. It's just the way the course usually takes. It wasn't any different today.

Cunning Words

She doesn't get it.
"Does every guy you meet fall in love with you?"
She doesn't get it. She's into the scars, she pushes the space further. She sat and waited in her room, while he waited in his. The older she gets, the continuous time that mockingly ticks on and on laughs. The time pushes itself between wounds; between you; between what it is she waits on. Why does she wait in the first place?
It makes me wonder.
What did he wait for? I hate California, and I hate Texas, and I hate India. I hate everywhere, because we're going to keep running.
I can't believe that it's still hurting like this.
Your voice calms me down. I'm going to be sleeping tomorrow, so you have one more night without me. I'm leaving on a Thursday, and you have plenty of bullets to shoot. Play a video game.
Am I burned? Nah.
I don't get it. I said the same thing, and it said nothing to you.
I'm leaving on a Thursday. Maybe I'm bitter and hateful. Maybe I'll someday get over it. (She's too laid back. We'll jerk it all around.)
I always wished I could somehow exert a moral influence, some kind of influence, with my silence, and instead I just get burned. "...dying of a secret illness or riding on some great accomplishment."
I could suggest a reason, but honestly, I'd have to invent one first.
It's implied that all these things are such necessary evils. I still wonder. I don't know how time has such a role in my memory, in our interpretations of value, and it's necessary. Does it make you hurt? I don't believe time heals all wounds. We still all sat and waited.
Some things are just more evil than necessary.
And then there is the light, and it always has to be hope to somebody; it has to be truth and security.
Light just magnified it all for me.
I'd live with the lights off.
Don't ever tell me that you'd wish for me when you have no intentions of thinking of me tonight, or last night, or tomorrow.
Were you burned that badly?
It is just a validation between two people that we need someone. I feel like apologizing. Apathy. I feel like sleeping. Slipping out of consciousness is to escape.
I have nothing to escape...except maybe the light. Maybe this. Maybe time. Maybe it encourages it.
It doesn't have to mean a thing. It's been way too long.
I could've been the best he ever had.
It's been entirely too long since the time we had.
I feel so free.

No way, you know it's not a secret!

I could be your girlfriend!

You see, I could take and absorb that pain of yours, and make it mine. And once I've got it...I could let it go.
He steps away, steps out of my car, and is walking away. His turquiose eyes, his honey speckled hair, drifting down the sidewalk...and then he turns back, and laughs. He smiles that perfect smile that he has.
The fancy footing of the course we walk down always finds me stumbling, even slightly.
I have humility to see our imperfections and still, perfection reigns
in the concious thoughts caught in my head
I don't need everything, I didn't need a savior
I don't need blue, or hazel, or green, or brown; I don't need
stubble to trace my finger along
I don't need you
but you gave it to me
We bicker; I cry; you shut down;
we laugh; we share.
I didn't know such things could be legitamite.
the pros and the cons
fall back onto time, odious time underserving of its power.

Only at particular times do I ward off the self-pity is when I feel exhilerated; like I'm all you need, and you for me. Times when we're dangling high on a thread, and that's when self-doubt consumes me.
"As I walked by myself
And talked to myself,
Myself said unto me,
Look to thyself,
Take care of thyself,
For nobody cares for thee."
As proven time and time again, when I fall, I'm scraped up and bruised about, and take a while to heal; patch up; scab. (Though, sometimes, I wish you'd lay with me, and get your lips bloody, and kiss it away...)
But why shouldn't I look out for myself?
Nobody else will.
I'm no pessimist, only nastalgic. I never seem to let things go.
(because not a day goes by I don't think of the ridiculous Violent Femmes and their introduction into my life.)
I separate the pages, I fall back on what could be happening, and I think that I should be able to cry, or be angry.
Here's the problem that I face:
I don't lack depth, but how am I to show it?
And I don't. Tone is nonchalant, and evanescent, you say I have none.
What should I give you?
What I'm feeling exactly?
That would just piss off your senses.
I want all of you
your wrongs, your rights
your coming-of-age, your immaturity
I want the words you think,
your knee-jerk reactions,
I want the tears I'll never see
and the past I'll never know
and when you think ahead, do you see anybody?
Conventional, tiresome.
He can say no.

Argue

I think that it's love...




tell me that it's love? Maybe.


It's too soon for this, isn't it? hah. Look at me. Look at this.

None of That Seems to Matter

No, I don't give a fuck about empathy; I don't give a fuck about consideration; I don't give a fuck.
(He knows this street well.)
I think it all up; I think what I want to feel; it's pretend.
(He says that he loves.)
It isn't pretend, but only my wanting of what I think I should feel; what I should have; what I want. Yes, then, pretend.
(He gives me a kiss. He gives me a kiss. He GIVES me a kiss.)
I want those lips more than what is overwhelming, and I still question their sincereity.
(He says that he's sorry that he'd forgotten.)
It's okay. Because I had forgotten too.
I'm not one to try to get you into trouble. I'm not one to demand, and I'm not the kind to expect unrealistic things from you, but I'm not a push-over.
(He laughs at me.)
I want to tell you everything.
What I've gotten into.
What I saw that he's talking about too.
(He says that he supposes that he'll open up to us.)
And so, with another notch notched, another heart opened, another possibilty of something so wonderful, something so drastic and tragic, I listen to the beat of his heart.
And fuck it.
Because who ever thought to listen to mine?
I'm the one that you just shrugged your shoulders at.
(He's the one that you bug out your eyes at. He knows it.)


We sit in a car with a breaking engine
We work at our job with a broken dishwasher
We lust with a broken heart
And you look up at me with the most beautiful of eyes I've ever seen, and you have to look back at my ordinary, not extraordinary eyes.
Perhaps it isn't fair.
Perhaps it's all just "karma".
Maybe just one for the lady...

"An ounce of love is worth a pound of knowledge."

A Day

What have I gotten into?
I like your lip, even when it's swollen or pierced

and where are you when I cannot find anything to throw at the past that I find myself looking down at
Just telling me to look up
I'm moving
and so are you.
"She was elusive; she was today; she was tomorrow..."

As precocious our relationship
(yes)
Never, in the years of kissing I've experimented with
No one ever, ever kissed me with the intentions of proving something; providing something; showing something
"Kiss me like it means something."
Maybe he was pretending to mean it
God, no one has ever kissed me like that.
I'm still in the air
I'm still closing my eyes to it, I'm shaking, I'm half smiling/half trying to breathe
The feel of everything sticks and I cannot think
No one ever kissed me like that.

Then, I Made New Friends 

Improved My Work Ethic 

Cut My Hair 

Arizona

What a gift to end 2006 with.
I cannot wait until the thirtieth.

Something was real and conventional between our mouths that I don't think I ever had, or ever noticed: a validation between two people that we need someone.
Overly used and typically verbalized? Maybe.
I may be wasting breath, maybe it's the wrong thing (again) at the wrong time (again), and I am only wanting this.
There's one last thing though: we don't care. We don't. We don't dwell on what we have to be, or what we will end up, we only say the things that we want.
Sure, we speak for hours of selfish things, of ourselves, or each other, and other times, we laugh.
Who last made me laugh over the phone?
Who last made me red?
Oh, I don't know.

[I just want to be next to you.]
[[...put your hand up.]]
[Okay, it's up.]
[[Now, put your other hand up against it.]]
[Done.]
[[Okay. Now all you have to do is pretend that one is mine.]]
[...it's working.]

But then she cries of how she loves him.





Fuck you. If ever there was a time that I had the will power to strangle myself, I would. I'd squeeze the life out of me, the sort of way you seem fit. (Only words are going to kill me.) If you were to be found an inconsiderate bitch, would you listen? (Only words would save you.)
The intensity burns and fills itself out, bubbling in my chest and shoots through the backs of my legs.
I breath the stench of carelessness from out of your throat, and exhale my fury. I could be the accepting one, but such the insidious, ridiculous nature of our relationship, shockingly, lacks the depth of what I expect from myself.
That blonde hair of yours swirls downward from your orange roots, only proving of your insides that you are red: you are on fire.
To patch things up, I cry. To vindicate yourself, you say you're dying.
Until the act of suffocation occurs, I willfully, unwillingly, scratch until I hit beneath the surface.
I prick you with the needles that I say. I make you cry. I make you splatter.






It was a validation that we all need someone.

"I'll see you next week, hopefully."

cliche and boring

i like a boy.

If You're Missing Out

I have the strawberry sundae all over my hands and your hands and your eyebrow and my knees and your neck and it's on the ground and we giggle and we disappear and we laugh and we lick face.
ANd we don't say it.
Unless you say sitting next to each other says it.
It does, does it?
It'll work out perfectly.
We smile a lot.

Thanksgiving

Now, upon seeing that no one knows each other's birthday or anything of the like, the whole concept of this particular turkey day is just shot out of the water.
I know Brianne's own grandpa's birthdate, where he grew up, and the sports he played in high school.
Shoot, I don't know that about my own grandpa.
Hell, he's in prison.
Enough for comic relief though, I'm more interested in the finer, more lurid aspect of what I'm getting at (and am I not always a bit dreary?)
Well, if I'm asking for myself to make a point, I suppose I cannot really find one.
"Oh, he likes you."
"Oh, he doesn't even know me."
"Oh, you're not the kind of person you have to know to like."
"Oh, see you later."
"Oh, I had a bad day."
Laying down, gosh, the times I've seen you naked.
But if we're talking reality, no, I never saw you without your clothes.
It's so cliche and boring to hear about, but I love it when you play guitar.
Everything is a cliche, isn't it?
So much for the scheduled paintballing together on Wednesday morning. That's come and it's passed, and I'm sure we won't really talk about it in serious again.
If we do though, I'll kick your ass.

Oh, here's a fun one: monogamy! Marriage!
Clearly, that means nothing to poor ****y because after all the kids and his wife and the job he has to have, he still puts it all on the line for his (much) younger girlfriend, though she probably wouldn't appreciate being dubbed as so.
Of course, I'm not defiling their emotional devotion to one another, girlfriend and Y, but can there be an emotional devotion?
I wouldn't know.

As for here, well, I'm sitting in a double wide, badly remodeled, with pig slop sitting out on the table for everyone, and I honestly couldn't tell you much of the person who made it.
Blood links us together, so we're supposed to be thankful together, and sometimes, I wish that I cared.
Perhaps that deems me a bad person, but I don't.
Sure, I'm thankful for some of the people there.
I appreciate my sister, and brother and his wife.
I'm going on yet again, would you look at that.

So really, here's a rant and a rave of the daily life I have yet to master.
And who am I kidding?

Perhaps, stuck in the corner and crammed under the coffee table, there is that one little part that we forgot that makes up the pieces that we are, and that when others ask, we simply have no answer.
Maybe we've only merely forgotten. Maybe it doesn't exist.


Off to another stanza...