Last Century Love

Pre Internet engagement

Leaving messages that never were answered

Dial tones that broke hearts or were the time that you built your confidence

A great leap of faith

Writing love letters that were never read or that were and made the ink run

Telling someone how you felt right then and there on that rainy street corner because you might never see them again

Lost in translation and never knowing when you’d hear back

Not taking time or their smell for granted

Never changing the sheets because that meant they were gone forever

Crumpled photographs in wallets that said:

“she’s my doll”

‘“that’s my man”

“she’s my old lady”

“the bread winner and all”

My sweetheart that I’ll love till the next life

Fear and Loathing: 2014

It seems if the world is burning once again. The recent grand jury decisions in Ferguson, MO have started a wildfire across the stars and stripes that previously were just a flame in the belly of the people: outrage, disbelief, and injustice of a cop who killed an innocent unarmed young black man in broad daylight. It seems that these trigger finger happy law enforcers are not complacent but ready to jump at any action. Certain citizens in Southern, and Midwestern states, and cities are in complete uproar with the fact that these black fearing and hating white officers go into heavily black neighborhoods to patrol and end up leaving with a full body bag. I don’t know if this is white vs. black, authority vs. citizen, law vs. reason, or guns vs. rationale. It’s likely to be a cacophony of it all in a dizzying chaotic shit storm. Yet it’s not only in the nucleus of the fire but other cities that usually seem to care such as DC, LA, NYC, Oakland, Seattle, places of upstart and political awareness, places in which people are at least attempting to see thru the clutter and bullshit.

However, I am not completely knowledgeable in every facet of every political movement nor am I completely likely to be in the position to truly feel the crumble of these decisions being made. Here I am in my warm apartment in Seattle, completely unaffected by pretty much anything. A white male that has never been questioned or stopped by cops, never felt a fear from the ones who are supposedly in a position to help rather than kill. Listening to the distant sirens through the dripping of the rain, I look out over towards the city with a dissonant view of the real issues that real people are faced with. A detachment to the necessity of looking over my shoulder for not just criminals but the enforcers of crime, a thing that I don’t think I ever will have to consider. I walked to class today and saw groups and masses of people marching to who knows where. I open up twitter on my phone and there are protests in the city, kids walking out of their high schools to march, gatherings going on since 1 am, and this is in a west coast liberal city. In Missouri, however, Ferguson is in flames, people are looting and burning establishments down, as well as many peaceful protests yet most news suppliers are turning their attention to what sells air time, which is of course the violence and continual burning.

At the same time and not even a world away in Mexico, the USA’s southern neighbor, the people are demanding answers of the disappearance of 43 college students. Allegedly the students were offed by the imploding drug cartels within the nation, which are intrinsically connected to the government and officials within the state. 43 lives executed and dumped in shallow mass graves. In the heart of the nation, Mexico City, there are tears of mothers, fathers, and loved ones wanting answers of their lost young family members, and friends. The sickening contrast of me walking safely to campus observing a protest of maybe 100 while an even smaller group of students complaining about their state in just a country away end up being executed in the jungle by soulless savages too concerned with financial dependencies, greed, and power. The dichotomy is something too far from realistic comprehension.

In continuation to the middle east, where many citizens have been questioning and protesting their government’s rule for the past years, or where Islamic Extremists are cutting off the heads of American and Western aid workers, soldiers, and journalists to raise awareness of their own. Headless marketing of their attempt to cleanse their regions of foreign rule and religion. Or in Ukraine where there is unrest in the position of Russia and their constant drive to conquer and rule foreign nations. Then farther to the east in Hong Kong where there has been clashes and protests between the capacities of Chinese communist influence.

I read articles, look at tweets, absorb images, and yet it’s so easy to click out of the window, or flip the page. There is this detachment from the entire world that drives me a little crazy. Of course geographic positions play heavily into this, but after a certain point I come to the realization that it’s all just numbers and statistics, body counts, broken windows and overturned cars, molotov cocktails and the necessity of emotional retaliation.

Perhaps it isn’t the 60s, I don’t know if it’s worse now or then or there is just more exposure to things than anytime before because of the internet boom and technological industrialization. Even so, things are erratic; there are shades of beauty in people, and brilliance in ideas, yet unspeakable horrors, and monstrous crimes occurring every day and moment.

The world is still burning, and will continue to until the unfeasible disconnect between a nation’s doctrines, and lawmakers is relinquished, which will never transpire. History is eating itself again in different manifestations of the same. We say we have changed, evolved, and moved on yet the same devastations are happening since the genesis of the human race; we just have become more efficient at speaking about them for the few weeks or months that we care.

Shades of Light

Shapeless dreams,
Divine memories of the ocean's choir,
Tepid air flowing around,
We were there,
We ran with the sea, and slept with the stars,
Bombing down the highway, sunglasses on, looking at the road ahead,

It all felt real

CURRENTLY WRITING MY FIRST NOVEL

Temporary/speculative title is:


ALL THE REAL COLORS 


So that means no more short stories for a while unless I write a piece because one of my classes, however I will be posting excerpts from the novel and here is a short short that I typed up from a conversation with a woman who will remain nameless . . .

Hey you, yeah you

Hey

I have the same tattoo as you

Oh yeah

Yeah

The anchor?

Yeah wanna see it

Sure

She pulls down her pants and the anchor is sitting right below her ass, with a rope flowing in and around it

Oh well that’s fantastic

Yah you like that?

Sure yeah

You want to see everything else?

What . . . . ooooh

I like you, how old are you?

Connor comes in from wherever he was, and shouts OLD ENOUGH!

Really how old are you?

21

Oh my gaawwd you’re a baby

Oh whatever

No no no it’s fine, I like it

Okay

You want my number?

Sure

Tells me her number and looks up at me with those big blue eyes

Look, hit me up whenever. I just moved here from the east coast and I’m not looking for anything serious I just want to fuck and have some fun 

Oh alright yeah

Text me

NAMELESS: OPTIC STROBES OF THE NIGHT

Individuals hanging in a trance swaying with the rhythm of what they know and what we’ve seen but nothing choreographed or planned but simple random happenings of life. Moving like the waves of the sea rippling and clashing together creating one out of many

This is fucking perfect isn’t it man

WHAT???

THIS IS PERFECT

YES IT IS! HAPPY BIRTHDAY BROTHER!

Perhaps we are sisters of mercy and brothers of holy galaxies, all trancing together in the night running arm in arm and hand in hand to the horizon or the sun set wherever and whenever it might be:

Running from fears, and tomorrow

Man I gotta go grab another drink and take a piss

WHAT???

ONE SEC

Walking to the bathroom underneath the distorted flashing of the lights and the sweat and humidity filling every void and every inch of the room, I look to my right and I couldn’t make out faces but I just see people and individuals from the world doing what they seem fits, and keeping up with the noises from the speakers and the drumming into their skulls thru their minds and into their souls

AND WHAT MIGHT YOUR NAME BE?

She throws her arms around my shoulders and pulls me into the masses

UH, COLTER, MY NAMES COLTER

IT’S HIS BIRTHDAY!

OH AINT THAT SWELL, HAPPY BIRTHDAY! HOW YOUNG ARE YOU?

IM 21, TODAY

NO .. FUCKING WAY!

SHUT UP, YOU ARE NOT 21!

HAHAHAHA

HE IS

I AM

WELL HAPPY FUCKING BIRTHDAY, LETS DANCE AND LET ME BUY YOU A DRINK

Alright

And maybe life has no point and maybe we shouldn’t wake up every morning and instead live in our beds and stare at the ceiling but then we’d miss the sunsets and sunrises and sure tomorrow might be here too soon or too late but it’s another story and another thing to see

She pulled my necktie tighter and yanked me towards her to kiss and smell her perfume, just like I’ve seen in the movies and just like what she had seen in the movies. It was chaotic romance and brought together by the swaying of the neon lights above us guiding us to the next move and the pulsing music keeping us grounded to some kind of reality, some alternate galaxy or alien planet unknown to me or any man, only the god of that world or the maker and creator of that, only conceivable in that moment. I didn’t know then and I’m not sure I totally know now but

The music wrapped us together and the pulsing lights and pulsing music were moving at their own separate heart beat unconfirmed or known by anyone else but only myself and her and the dripping souls of the dance floor moving in and out, it didn’t seem as if there were any others there but me and this random being interwoven together for the sake of happiness and tomorrow

LETS GO GRAB YOU THAT DRINK

SURE

COLTERRRRRRRRRRRRR

Oh hey! GOOD TO SEE YOU!!!

HOWS YOUR BIRTHDAY BEEN???

ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC, ONE SEC I’LL BE RIGHT BACK

I looked to my right and she wasn’t there anymore, I couldn’t even pick her out of the masses while standing on my toes looking out over all the faces and personalities. Maybe we never danced maybe we never kissed maybe it was some crazed dream brought on by consumption of spirited sensations, and romantic yearnings. Well “alright” I thought to myself. I didn’t know her name and perhaps its better that way and I don’t remember her face and perhaps it’s easier that way. No bullshit and no thinking but just pulsing with lights and the music and the drinks in hand, the things that matter, the things that hold substance and make us forget there is a tomorrow, and that the sun will set and the moon will rise and vice versa until we don’t wake with it but only sleep along side the shadows

WHO WAS THAT WOMAN YOU WERE WITH?

I WASN’T WITH ANY WOMAN

OH HAHA ALRIGHT, WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DRINK?

GIN & TONIC!

WHAT?

I’LL BE RIGHT BACK

I went out to have a smoke or just to get out of the crazed pulsing reverie that I felt like I was in. I walked down a long hallway that funneled out into the smoke filled city streets. It was a portal between reality and the outside world swirling around the voids and bounds of the tomorrow land, and the consistent thumping of the sounds and music

The sisters of mercy and brothers of the holy galaxies praising the moon god and with ignited eyes setting the stars back into their sockets, lighting their paths with hopes, dreams, aspirations not thinking of tomorrow but only for today and the night and the things we don’t see, the things we don’t predict and the disorderly concoction of beings swaying with the sounds of life only taking a break to feel the confused cadence of the city streets

COLTERRRRRRRRRR

Hey!

Where have you been?

Uh just in there, dancing like every one else

Are you having a good time?

Yeah, excellent

Are you drunk enough?

Not nearly

COLTER!!! OH MY GOD!!!

Hey hey!

Hello!

Who were you dancing with? She was beautiful!

She was?

And just then, its funny how life works in the way that it does sometimes because I saw a beautiful woman walking from whatever heaven had placed her here, daughter of the dance floor, sister of mercy, cigarette in hand, pious to the world in every inch of her being from the tip of her toes to the end of each individual piece of dark hair up to moon throughout the stars and back here to this sidewalk looking into my eyes and past them.

I’m sorry, but do you have a light?

Yeah, here yah go

You look familiar

I do?

Yeah, you come here often?

This is my first time actually

You’re tie.. it's all messed up

Oh yeah

Here let me just

Thanks

What’s your name?

Colter, and you?

It was her and I knew. She knew too but for some reason she didn’t want to admit it. I was thinking how stupid it was to give her any credit for her beauty or attitude, but people are here and they aren’t here. Some run from tomorrow and some embrace it, she seemed like the type that was always fleeting, and running to the next spontaneous sentiment.

And that’s fine with me, as I said “alright” to myself one last time

I drifted down the long hallway back into the pulsing colorful reverie, back to my sisters of mercy and brothers of the holy galaxies arm in arm, hand in hand, on an odyssey to fight the morning off.

Remembrance of Some Lost Bliss

The sun dove behind the clouds and only shot individual rays down onto the water. As the water swayed nonsensically in its random way the jets of lights would bounce off to the reflection in our eyes. I squinted even with wearing sunglasses and looked down at her.

She was to my right and looking at the water as well as it was washing up onto the beach and between her toes mixing in with the sand.

Don’t you wish you could just stretch certain moments out?

Haha, what are you saying Colter?

I mean that I wish certain great moments in life would just take the place of other times and we could just make the better moments last longer

--

Stretch moments out into distortion till the edges blur, and there isn’t any night or day or time and reality is realized till you can’t see anything anymore and its just chaotic bliss

--

Isn’t it already like that, in a way?

I don’t think so?

I mean you hold important events in your memory for longer than shitty moments making the better moments actually last longer

Fuck, okay, yeah, good point. But that’s only in memory, I want to stretch my arms out and pinch my fingers together so everything will just shut the hell up and it would just be you and I watching the sound and the light and clouds and fuck everyone else

--

I looked down at the water as I saw her looking off into the distance. I watched the water flow in between my toes, I could feel the smooth rocks beneath my feet, I looked over at her and her dark hair blew with the breeze off of the sound. I took in a deep breath to smell and taste the salt. It was beautiful, it all is beautiful.

--

But I mean I was listening to the radio the other day and they were talking about this family that died all together in a car crash, 4 people died, the mom and dad and the children all just fucking died, and these school shootings, or cancer or whatever the fuck it’s all shit yet here we are

Yeah, its weird, I don’t know, I try not to think about those things. It doesn’t do any good.

I agree, but I guess it makes you appreciate things a bit more. Like this moment right here, looking out over the water, I appreciate this. The little things yah know? I want take it slow, soak up every moment because you really don’t know what will happen. We’re just lucky.

Yeah, I guess we are

Now I don’t want to sound pretentious or arrogant but I think I find most things underwhelming, maybe I don’t live a crazy enough life style but I can recognize the moments that really matter, at least I think so

Is this one of those moments?

--

She stepped sideways and put her arm around my lower back and looked up at me. I could see myself in the reflection of her sunglasses, me looking down, her looking up mirroring each other. I could now smell her perfume mixed with the salty air. It was just us there on the beach, nobody else. I wanted long mornings and late nights. Taking every sip and bit and trickling moment of life. Life and its moments and the moments that matter, stretched to fit my liking.

--

It is. I don’t know if I’ve seen perfect. I don’t even know if perfection is a thing, a real thing but it seems like this is pretty close, it happens more than we realize but we’re just moving too quick to notice.

It doesn’t take much does it?

No it really doesn’t

--

The ocean foam started to congeal around our ankles and my feet became numb. It was summer but not a true summer, not the deep summer where your legs, and shoulders and feet are bare to the sun and darkened by its rays, not yet. It was overcast with those jets of light bouncing off of the sound. It’s funny, or ironic or perhaps just odd that the dullest of days can be the brightest because you don’t expect as much, but things just happen. Things just happen without any sort of idea or plan of action but they just happen and we are witness to this.

What is time, what is real, what is essence, what is true, what is purpose, what is conviction, and what is all of this we call home?

Us children of the sun, witness to beauty and dumbed brains to the drumming of the man made concrete jungles and sweet sunsets that ooh and ahh us.

I want to harness it all, feel every rhythm, but its god’s work or some god’s work or the cosmos random looming’s in the constellations above us past the clouds, sun, and any intellect of man. It’s just here and we’re just here,

and it was just us on that beach watching the gorgeous clashing of the waves

--

Lets take the long way home