Gravity Files
Floating along in foggy bliss we know it's there. But we pretend, always pretending.
Preachers and personal trainers have the same message. Listen to us and reach inside and all will be right. 40 is the new 30. 50 is the new 40, I have been all those ages and nothing is the new nothing.
Shame oozes in, the second cousin of realization; shame comes in long after realization takes hold but reaches long into the past.
Other see through the fog that we cannot navigate, so easy to see in others, so hard to see in ourselves,
Realization is solitary, and lonely, shame is slicing public pain. Misunderstood by all who are not the shamed.
* * *
TWELVE
They tell me I have a condition. A condition, like a car before it's sold: Excellent, Good, or Needs Repair. I never thought of myself as old, but in car terms I am an antique. Not a classic but a true antique.50 and moving forward, there is no retreat.
The things I knew about this old body have been like evolution. Small and incremental changes until a complete transformation into an old person has emerged. Hinges and joints that squeak and creak, Wheels and shocks that are warn to the margin. An antique in need of repair,
Bipolar is what they said. Two poles, but don't we all have two poles, a north and south, a top and bottom. Looking down to the creatures below and up to the ones above. Everything is in twos, eyes, hands, feet and legs why not poles. But they say mine collide, not just coexist but intertwine. But opposite poles attract does than mean I'm exactly the way I should be? No is the answer from them and from inside my head. But if the two are separate but connected and there are two of me, does that make each of me 25 with the sum being 50? Now that is something I can live with. The feeling of 25 and the wisdom of 50, But I fear both sides are 50 and the sum is 100 and that's how I feel some days.
* * *
THIRTEEN
I can’t control it. I want to, but the words can’t come out right. I have never felt better but my words are poison. I want to sit alone in a room, but I want to share the feeling. My secret feeling, my feeling not of my own,
Manufactured feelings are fleeting, the second you feel, the wave of panic sets in that the feeling will end. When will it fade? How do I keep it alive? If I let it go I will be back in control, the control that I so desperately avoid. Control is not mine it belongs to feelings. The feelings I love are never mine. I never get up feeling good. I get up and have to think about what feeling I am having. When I can alter, I do, when I can’t I think about how I can.
I care about others more than I care about myself. I grieve the loss of friends and family, of good time and good people that are no more. I relish the thought of my own end. To be free of thought, of feeling, of a past, present or future,
Pretending is a skill. Pretending to live with passion, pretending to live with desire, and with purpose. To listen to pain is to heal. But healing is unknown and without a past. I live with past pain and future disappointment. There is no escape until my future is my present and the disappointment in me is the feeling of others
* * *
FOURTEEN
Reaching for a new day can cause stretch marks. Let it come like an orgasm, slowly and unexpected. The bright yellow of the sun turns black if you stare at it too long. But, the blinding black hole offers hope and omnipresent light to all who see in the dark.
Dark is power; light is knowledge, whoever said the evils of the night, has not witnessed the sins of the sun. No one ever died of darkness. Light is not knowledge but illumination of suffering. Darkness is not power it is the clothing of the naked light.
Willingness to pursue a dream is the desire to fly without wings. Dreams are magic and pure. Pursuit is tainted and without community. Unnaturally selfish acts of a naturally given life,
Dreams are conceived in the dark and attained in shadows behind the light. Power is an organic result of a primeval urge for domination of the dark and control of the light.
* * *
FIFTEEN
I love this song; I'm going to listen to it again as soon as it's over. Today is great; I can't believe I feel so good. I'm a lucky man. How did I get to have so much? There are things that aren't that great, but I still feel great. But there are things that are wrong...I hate my job and can't keep going there, but what am I supposed to do. This god damed song, I like it sometimes and sometimes it's so stupid. Where is that other one? Here it is, the one about reality? The one that brings me to reality, Life is ok, I should be grateful, but If only things would have been different, I could have really been grateful. Grateful and proud, that is the ultimate, no wait, grateful, proud and noticed.
How come I am not noticed? I have done some amazing things, jumped from planes, climbed mountains, made a film, published a piece of writing. I am proud, I endured when others quit, and I chased the dream and never gave up, left others to wonder what if while I was out doing.
But I never made it, I am where they are, what a complete waste of time to chase things that were never going to happen anyway. How embarrassing to think I could do something, that in some way I was better than them. That I was smarter than that, how could they see it when I could not? They knew I was like all the rest.
* * *
SIXTEEN
I want to live, to love, to experience the life that others tell me that I lead. I want their perception: witty, clever and adventurous. I don't see myself though that lens. Do others view themselves as I view myself? Can they see the virtues and the faults? Do they wonder of the world both past and long long past,
Sitting alone as the waves come in and the stream trickles. These chairs are strange, not horrible, but certainly uncomfortable. That one over there looks better. (Gets up and walks over) Yes, that is better. Old magazines and ultra modern glass tables are a faux attempt at comfort. Add the sounds of water and the aesthetic void is complete.
They want discomfort, we expect discomfort, and we’re not here to tell them great things are. This modesty of furnishings, this attempt at physical comfort is disconcerting. The plants that sit on middle shelves of tower lamps. The nearly good corporate art works that are impossible to understand there by increasing our anxiety and self doubt.
Living things mixing with lifeless art all viewed from a semi comfortable chair in an overly warm room with an uncomfortable silence that is washed by sounds of salt and fresh water rolling under my feet,
There is a water cooler with one cup left. Do I use it and throw it away, or put it back and pretend it was never used and have a secret joke on the next life questioning soul.
Time is up; another soul comes riding out on an artificial wave. Do they weep, smile with a new revelation or ponder the meaning of it all. I never feel the same coming out as I do going in. There is the best chance I will feel the opposite.
I have been called. Now the long walk to the comfy couch and the most difficult question in this human's history, "How are you?" I love and hate that question. It is the perfect question, it is impossible to answer, but I try, and I will try each week until that question is easy to answer. I think I will be coming hear a long long time.
* * *
SEVENTEEN
The clarity with which a child sees in both the physical and philosophical fades only with the optimistic pessimism of age. The clear waters of the stream that flow south are the adventure of youth, and the quickly passing time of those with graying temples.
As the breeze blows gently through what is left of this life, it fills a void of stillness that is sought but disappointing. The warmth of the past is not only the victories, but for experience and candor. Honesty comes easier when the talk is of yesterday.
Get up, and dust off your knees, a broken spirit is harder to heal. Step by step heel to toe your shadow is long though your impact light. Walk amongst us with will and vigor, confidence without fear. Rewards come to the eager and the revered. Becoming revered is to be asking f
or demolition, heroes are hated; the weak win the prizes the strong invent.
I live in a moment, a most terrible one. One that is told to me as a terrible thing, but freedom comes with knowledge. As I take off my glasses and search for the vision of a child, I see only faded and soft images. Images if experience of honesty and of yesterday. Tomorrow will not bring the clarity of sight but will leave behind the wisdom of remarkable events.
* * *
Chapter 2
ONE
Dirty windows show a filtered world
Living earth keeps a dead flower
Moving train holds a stand still life
Stopped clocks are right twice
Innocent bystander
Willing participant
Primary suspect
Convicted Perp
The middle of the night
and
the company I keep
Sally and Sue are the current two
Jackson Browne
argues
no difference
white and lean
reflected beauty
Front of the car
Back of the bar
It’s three AM
Gonna be a star
One more beer
and
just one more
one more for the road
where to next
Fuck
Fuck
Fuck
The sun is up
* * *
TWO
Grab tight
Pull close
Face to face
make me
want you
Don't let me go
If you hold me
You'll be safe
Pull me
I'll be pulled
I'll push back
But
Only to breath
I'll come back
If you don't let me go
You had your chance
I can
feel your breath
I know
you want to
One last chance
I hit you hard
Left hand to mouth
Your eyes glaze over
Like a lover in love
Your hands drop down
Like
A leaf in the fall
I hit you again now
You thought I would not
You made a mistake
You're bleeding and broke
Large talk and a body
Won't help you this time
You mistook this guy
For a person who cared
* * *
THREE
I wear a mask that covers no face.
Ever changing ever present
To reveal my secrets
is to die a slow death.
People see me
Mine is invisible
Mine is the me behind the mask
A weapon of the weak
A defense against a soul
Man on a corner
Woman on a train
People at a party
I am alone
Pull me from the corner
Put me on a train
Take me to a party
I am all alone
Masks are for children
Hiding what isn't there
Defenders of the lonely
Keeping safe the unforgiving self
* * *
FOUR
In alley’s rules change
No thought,
no shame
occasional regret
Back against the wall
Head back
What’s on your face
Pain?
Ecstasy?
Water slides
down the wall
Slipping into your shirt
Bricks grow moss
on the north side
Downspouts grow the mice
Light slashes
across your eye
Is it a glint
or a new tear
It pushes in you
Hard and fast
Glistening upon retreat
The sting is sharp
Penetration complete
Regret upon receipt
It slices through a vital part
Slurping as it does
Moaning comes naturally
Screams are over done
You should
have kept your mouth shut
You should
have seen the signs
Some live without respect for a life-force
The blade
has killed you now
* * *
FIVE
Living is not simply breathing or alert days broken up by inert nights.
Living unnoticed is a choice but not a desire.
Living unmotivated is not living nor is living with excess motivation
Living because you are alive is not living
Living in balance is a trick with an unrevealed secret
Is there more?
Is there more to living?
Is this the living that all experience?
Is this the normal?
Why is there happiness in others with the same experience that is my unhappiness?
Why are expectations unattainable?
Why with expectations so low can I not attain?
Why does motivation force unreasonable expectations and unreasonable expectations kill motivation?
Can I do what I say?
Can I say why I do what I do?
Can I be heard and then listened to?
Can I be understood when the words don’t come out right?
Can and action answer a question?
I have a plan
I will make a choice to be forgotten
I will take action
I will demonstrate motivation
I will use action to answer the question
It has come together
It feels so right
It brings comfort
It brings closure
* * *
SIX
Looking hard now
There is no truth in the mirror
Seeing only what I want to see
Like water
I am everywhere but going nowhere
Water is it’s own metaphor
Soft
Cool
Gentle
RAGING
Black ribbons offer hope
Rivers of destiny in their infinity
Navigation is easy
Destination impossible
They are only roads
Seeing the waves now
So ambitious
So Majestic
So Optimistic
Only to dissipate naively in the sand
Looking harder now
The mirror has truth
Unwelcome
Real
RAGING
* * *
SEVEN
Man on a barstool
Woman at a booth
Drinking away their future
Thinking about their youth
Whispering to his hand
Talking to her drink
Wondering where
it all ends
No one cares what they think
* * *
EIGHT
My vision
is clear
The image is numb
Feelings
are sharp
I wander
emotional deserts
Walking barefoot
miles to go
Standing tall
quaking in pain
Seeing ahead
not looking
but
seeing
How the world spins backwards in the pouring rain
Souls stack up
In a tenement house
living
to inhabit
The
Bodies
The bodies in the holes
He picks up a hammer
Or
A knife
Deadly both
In the hands
From the holes
Crushed and cut
Sliced and pulped
To those
Who've lost love
Seeds
will not grow
* * *
NINE
Pulling the rain from the sky
Holding my feet to the ground
Fighting always fighting
Up is down in another land
The fight is real there too
So strong but forgiving
Like the rain it pulls on my mind
Down
Down
Out and
Down
Punches are wasted
Air has no mass
Causing pain without blame
It pulls more than the rain
than my feet
than the light into the dark
Can it be real
Can gravity cause depression
* * *
TEN
Time
Time
Way too much and never enough
Stop for a smell
Hurry up
Early
Late
Never right on
Polite or rude
Is there
an in between
I want to go home
but a house is all I have
Planes fly fast
but move to slow
Trains speed
but never arrive
Cars never reach an end
Signs from the ground
move to fast to read
towns from the air never arrive
Sticks and stones
Knives and guns
Talk is cheap
but
action has a price
Time slows
in the face of forever
Decades speed by
Days drag on