Raining on Odinsday

I am stalking through your words, though perhaps stalking is not the right word. I glide through them soundlessly, save for when one brushes me and bursts inside my head. I linger near these the longest, watching the afterglow, like light from distant supernovae, begin to vanish, to coalesce until the explosion is a word again. I am marked, I think, by these eruptions of power. Changed in some fundamental way. Better, for having embraced it.

I'm wandering through your words with purpose, but without aim. Sometimes familiar places and sometimes new ones. It's dreary here today, the kind of day when I set aside most everything in favor of a long novel and a cup of tea. I should be working. There are weeds to wack and holes to dig. Dishes to be done. I should be curled up on the couch with a story and a hint of honey and cranberries. Instead, I'm wandering in your closets looking for monsters and through fields of fireflies. I'm wandering through deserts and old houses with floorboards cracked like fractured bones. Words are stories, and your words are each a story of your life. A thousand of them on your back, and still you are never bowed by them. Brought low by weight and time and miles. I never come here to watch you hurt, but sometimes the pain I see is a sort of euphoria. The ecstasy of creation.

I come more often to see you dance. There is a kind of recklessness to those words. A deep, intoxicating freedom in them that I find brings my tongue to life. It sparks and surges until new songs are pouring out of my lungs. Words of my own stories fluttering by and seizing upon the moment. Nuitari's unseen magic, perhaps. The dark moon hung in the sky and driving us mad.

I come to witness your desire, the way your skin looks flushed with need. The way your fingers wander. I have imagined putting words to you, as canvas, but what I really want is to write you. The way you taste to me. The way you sound. I can conjure the smell of roses on Friday morning, still wet with dew, growing in the foothills of my mountains. I can give you worlds of men and women, fantastic creatures, of war and sorcery and the evil that men do. Stories of redemption and love and pain. But you elude me.

Your gift to me is, has always been, the words. But never the ones I need to write you. Take heed, little muse.

Intrinsically Yours,
-S.R.

Shut Up When I'm Talking At You

All I hear is human noise
You made your own fucking choice
I belong to only me
Silence for my revelry

This world is so loud. Human beings are so much shouting and clattering, the cacophony is deafening. Everywhere a new voice shrieks into existence before being drowned out by the din, effectively silenced by the screaming mass of sound that humanity has become.

Sometimes, I wish you'd all just shut the fuck up.

I'm tired of the trod-upon holding up their hands, with teary eyes, begging me for equality, for rights, for what they know, what we all know, are theirs by birth. Stand on your feet. Brush your face clear. There is no victory in supplication. There is no savior here, no way by which your show of meekness, your humble bowing before the mercy of this established order will lead you into the light. Sometimes, you need to stop crying and start fighting.

I'm tired of civil rights movements. From a white man, I'm sure that sounds terrifically superior, but it's true. I'm sick of marching and speeches, of grand displays of affection and steadfast beleif in the universal application of basic rights. I'm tired of artists and con-artists showing their support for whatever group is the loudest in their weeping, melancholy pleas for whatever simple dignity they have been denied. Shut up, stand up.

The truth is, by marching and talking and litigating, you're putting the power in the hands of the very people who have denied you your rights. If you want to marry, then demand it. Don't wail and bemoan what you don't have. Seize it. Expect it. Take your own power, by whatever means necessary, and then the only one you can blame for its misuse is yourself.

I'm tired of feminism. In fact, I'm tired of any group big enough to have a name, an organization, a pristine ideal that's wasted on a black, twisted mass of miscommunication and corruption. Women are equal. Everyone knows that. Even the bigots and the misogynists know that, whether they admit it or not. In fact, if they refuse to admit it, then pull out their tongues and pull off their dicks and let them wander the trailer parks until they bleed out. Do anything, but do not let them decide your own worth.

I'm tired of hearing about how we should all love one another. No, I refuse. I refuse because I already hate you. I don't hate your skin color, or your gender, or your religion, or your country, or your sexual preference, or the cereal you eat. I hate you because you're a hypocrite of the worst kind. No one will ever love every single person. No one can. Even gods (whichever you believe in) have adversaries. Some will always preach hate, and those are as bad as those who preach love. Stop preaching and live. Stop hawking your fucking philosophies and your bullshit anecdotes. Your lies and your fairytales. Love or hate or utter indifference is based on the individual. In a country that exemplifies individuality, why are we painting such an all-encompassing portrait of unrealistic feelings? Shouldn't we embrace the idea that each and every one of us can decide on our own?

I'm tired of gossip. All gossip. Just shut up. If your life is so dull that you need to leech your enjoyment from the lives of others, I think you're technically some kind of succubus.

I'm tired of complaining, most of all. Your horseshit First World problems or your horseshit Third World problems are a poor excuse for conversation. When did discourse become a contest of who has the shittier life? Let's end this little contest and bring the level of public discussion back up to something approaching adulthood, shall we? Besides, listening to all of you brainless mutants and your endless prattling means that I have the shittiest life. There, I win. Game fucking over.


Outrageously Yours,
-SR

Social Networking: You're Doing It Wrong

I don't often post serious things here on the blog. Mostly I find that I don't need to. This is a wacky, creative, fun sort of place. Aside, of course, from the occasional somber piece or a ranting spat of expletives and fine-tuned, if crudely shouted, opinionated prose. I typically reserve more serious topics for my writing blog or, if they've nothing to do with writing, for conversations I have in my everyday life. Of course, by conversations, I mostly mean I talk at Samantha while she patiently nods until I shut up and let her go back to doing whatever it was she was doing before I burst into the room and started haranguing her. I'm needy that way.

I've been thinking, though, and that means you need to hear what I have to say. Needy, you know.

I think I'm doing this social networking stuff all wrong. See, I like Facebook. I like the idea behind it, of letting you keep in touch with family and friends despite the physical space between you, of finding old friends and re-kindling those relationships, of meeting new people and exploring new things, of sharing information and broadening horizons. I like the idea of it, and sites like it, but I don't think I'm utilizing them.

I don't post pictures. In fact, even four years after I left college, almost every picture of me on Facebook is at St. Andrews and just about all of them are Chantal's posts. This isn't because I'm ashamed of my appearance or anything. Anyone who sees or speaks to me knows I'm a fat guy now. I got over worrying about that...well, before I was actually a fat guy. No, I don't post pictures because I don't really see any reason to put them up. Hell, most of the time I don't see any reason to take them in the first place. Does anyone really give a shit what I wore to my mom's house last week? Do you actually want to know what my dinner looked like before I ate it last night?

I usually refrain from status updates as well. I used to think I did it because I had some celebrity-like need for privacy in a world where every living person wanted to know what I was doing at all times. Then I stopped being an idiot and thought I did it because I'm boring and I don't do enough to warrant sharing the news of my daily life with the world. I now know that was equally ridiculous. The real, honest reason is that I just don't want to. Most of my Facebook friends are, probably, not that interested. I know that because I'm not that interested. If I want to know what you're up to, chances are good that I'll ask you. In person. Or in a letter. Or an e-mail. Or a phone call, text, sext, Skype, Instant Message. Whatever.

For me, the problem I have with properly utilizing these social networks is that, frankly, I don't actually care that much. I don't give a shit what your outfits look like or what you had for dinner. I don't care that you got a puppy, and I don't give a single fuck that you hate your job. I just, and forgive my apathy, don't want to know.

Before you smirk, self-satisfied, and assume I'm talking exclusively to people I haven't seen since high school or fringe family that I only added because Facebook makes it harder to ignore requests than just accept them, I mean you. All of you. No matter how dearly I love you, I will never want to see a picture of your meals. I will never care how badly you slept the night before your physical. I do not care how you spent your lunch break.

Listen, it isn't that I don't want to hear about how shitty your day was, or how that awesome concert, walk, political event, afternoon bout of diarrhea, or newborn has impacted your life. I absolutely want to hear about those things. But, I mean, call me. With important stuff. I'm totally free if you just want to chat, but if you wouldn't bring it up in a conversation over the phone, or via text, or any of those other aforementioned methods of communication, why are you posting that shit to Facebook and cluttering up my life with things I will never, ever be interested in, Dad? I mean, uh, everyone.

I guess my issue is just oversharing. The complete saturation of the Internet with things that, well, no one wants to fucking see. A friend of mine raised a good point earlier today about how needy people get because our communication is so widespread and so instantaneous. We all want to be immediately gratified, and when you don't respond in a nanosecond, people will freak the fuck out. We don't take into account that sometimes that friend, or lover, or complete stranger you met at Chipotle last night while you were completely bombed out of your mind on peach schnapps and cheap gin is busy. Maybe they're at work. Or at a school play. Or they got mugged and their phone was stolen, or broken. Maybe they're getting some strange.

Or maybe, and I'm not ashamed of this, they just want to be left the fuck alone for an hour.

I'm not saying you shouldn't be upset if your friend bails on you without so much as a text and leaves you waiting outside the movie theater with two tickets to whatever Owen Wilson is doing these days, but going home and bombarding Facebook with pictures of your cat doing typical cat things isn't going to solve your problem. That's like solving childhood obesity by feeding every elementary school kid a spoonful of laxative with their lunch. Actually, that would be kind of hilarious at first. So your stupid binge-posting is nothing like that. But the horrible, stinky aftermath? That's your Facebook page.

And yes, I am absolutely a hypocrite. Every time I post something here, or on the other blogs, I do immediately upload it to Facebook. Technically, even my rants are hypocritical because I can bitch all I want about my "friends" and their moronic, run-on paragraphs about politics or economics or fucking rap music and how I loathe seeing that crap all over my News Feed, but if I then post that blog to Facebook, am I any better?

Yes, absolutely. Remember, I admitted that I'm needy. That makes it okay.

Right?

Don't take this too far, or too seriously, and stop using Facebook. I don't even think you should emulate me. If you all did that, Facebook would be a very boring place to lurk while I'm pretending to get work done. But stick to the good stuff. And for the love of Odin stay away from intimately personal things. If you chose abortion, maybe keep that off the Internet. It's not edgy or progressive to say those things. It's unnerving to some people, annoying to others, and kind of gross if you're my aunt.

Actually, now that I think of it, I'm not sure the problem is me. Or even you. At least, not those of you reading this (except those of you who post food pictures, because that shit needs to stop). I think the problem is stupid people. The solution, of course, is to just delete those people. Not because I disagree with them, but because they don't belong in such esteemed company.

See? You feed my ego and I'll compliment you. This works out well.

But gods help you if I see one more picture of a cake you made.

Self-righteously Yours,
-S.R.

Large

You've given me words. More appropriately, you've given me back my words. The days and weeks grew stale in my memory, in my imagination, and the rich, verdant worlds grew dark and drab. The endless plains replaced with stretches of grey desert, dead grass and wasted trees. The desiccated husk of a world. The dried up dust of a man.

I'd forgotten the sound of my own pulse. The feel of my own laughter on my tongue. I replaced it with a dry, wracking cough and that old irrational loathing.

Sometimes, we just need a reminder. Sometimes the universe needs to bend away from the dark.

The air is warmer here, and perhaps my mood with it. I've always felt that my chemistry was tied to the earth somehow. I revel in the thunderous temper of a lightning storm. I relish the clear skies and gentle breezes of spring and summer in this part of the world. I prefer to think that it had something to do with you, and those words. Something to do with a picnic, or a secret place, a strange hotel room and a stolen kiss. A missing winter coat or a quiet office.

I don't miss the stark, blank loneliness of it. The bone-deep weariness. The utter, hopeless stretch of road that sprawled out into the distance. The flat, featureless distance.

Today, I feel prolific. I feel breathless and empowered. I feel endless, like deep emerald forests.

Today, I contain multitudes.

Gratefully Yours,
-S.R.

Catching Eyes, or The Utter Silliness

I want to write you endless poems about kissing, dancing, spinning minds and whirlwinds of your fluttering skirts that tease and taunt and catch my eyes. I want to write to impress you, or divest you of your second skin, that I can spread my fingers from your painted toes to your silken tresses, memorizing all the way. Mesmerizing all the way.

I want you to adore me, to restore me to my former glory. Give me starry eyes and I will shower you with light. I want a smile and a fleeting glance, a catch of eyes as if by chance, where I can capture your attention, undivided, for a sliver of a second before I lose you in the crowd. I want to wade through the sea of man until you're in my arms again and laugh until we're drowning in the din.

I want to woo you with a silver tongue that tangles, knots and swells with blood, the moment that your fingers twine with mine. I want to feel a fool and see amusement turn the corners of your mouth up. To catch the glint of innocent laughter in your eyes.

I want to feel you breathe beside me, arms wrapped around my chest, and watch the light of the television dance across your shadowed face. I want your lips to find their way to throat, to jaw, to meet their match and spring their trap. An offer I would never dare refuse. I want your eyes to catch me, like prey trapped in a web, then bare your claws and fangs and have your feast.

I want to rise in threat to overtake your shores and pull you out to sea, then smash your tiny vessel with the gale of my desire. I want to spatter old clichés and turns of phrase until I've made all the blank pages in the world a canvas for you. I want to draw you in and drown you with me, surely I am drowning in this, and the endless ocean's embrace will give you life.

You've caught me at a loss for words, for once, and I am not ashamed.

If I've deranged, or ranged beyond the need for stage and page then I am sincere in the telling, if not always quite compelling. I will sing for you, if you will dance, and if you won't I'll write, perchance, to Chance or fancy.

I've burned in effigy, ephemeral incandescence bursting, evanescent, all my untapped power spent and poured like honey tears. Your eyes are brilliant stars. And such clichés are both a nightmare and a dream. At the risk of sounding silly, I would compile them in compendium and scatter the pages to the wind. Dust, like the ashes of my fathers.

I will glorify you, if nonsensically.

Ebulliently Yours,
-S.R.

Down Where I Am

I can feel myself decaying. A slow, black rot from the inside. Dark moods hang over me like a shroud, and I can taste myself. Rancid, infected, festering. I can almost smell the sick, sweet stink of death. Something is wrong.

I have always flirted with death, always had a sincere fantasy for it. A fascination with the way it would end. I never thought I'd go swiftly. I'm far too strong to die fast. So I fight, clutching at life and death equally, crushing them in my lover's embrace. I will be burned down to ash before they take me and bury me in my grave. I will die hard, and leave a scarred reminder of how I went.

Once, I thought I was bound for greatness. My mind, my strength, my will could somehow change this world. I would do something meaningful. Whether with cunning or storytelling, by seizing power or by writing of those who are powerful. I thought I would be magnificent. I never dreamed of it, because dreams are for those who will live, and death has always been a part of me. But I knew that when I hurled open the gates of Valhalla, I would be welcomed. Now, I feel saddened.

Thoughts of greatness are for the bold, the capable. The infirm, those cursed with this gradual decline and decay, we are no more capable of greatness than the lowest slave. The most base of urges. I will not be welcomed. I will be revolting to my dearest gods.

There is a thinness to my being. Not in flesh or bone, but a thinness nonetheless. The tether that holds me bound to this world, this plane, this realm, is thinning. My body strains through the days, lumbering on in the absence of direction. My sails are in tatters, my rudder is smashed. The ship is taking on water. But it plods on toward shore. Clawing for purchase. Gasping for breath. Labored, straining, and failing.

The land is distant, yet.

Wretchedly Yours,
-S.R.