What is your position in life? What do we do? Where do we go? How far do we walk? This is a life of constant realization and understanding. Experiences and new beginnings. We fight for so long against ourselves and find out in the end, giving up is what mended the hurt, and made us whole. Sometimes I wonder why we're here on this planet, and wonder what's the point? Why do we continue? I think about happiness and how rare it is becoming, true happiness. When you break it down it does seem like about 90% of the day is spent in some level of negative emotion. Things that don't at the time feel 'good.' That goes to why we create patterns. When we have patterns in our lives we get used to them, they become cosy, but they aren't real. The feeling is real, but repeating a pattern is just a way of controlling a person. Getting them to feel comfortable with what they have now. Change is just as important as patterns. Change can often feel just as right as a pattern, and just as often, it can feel very uncomfortable, but be rewarding in the end. That's how patterns are formed. An uncomfortable process is repeated day after day after day, it feels awkward and dumb, and ridiculous, and eventually it feels right and true and essential and habitual and addictive.

All the rocks they're sharp, they lead to the cusps of the mountains round looking out on the crowded tree-lands and the burning lights of the city as the sun comes down. Remembering all crashes and all the breaks, all the stupid mistakes, down to the street lights where the cool as black hondas hit the streets burning up the pavement on the last sunny days of this approaching fall, and cut the wake lines through the same pavement on the last rainy days of this approaching fall. It's been a crazy ride so far, all up in my arms, you were there, as I held you, you held me, and it felt like something could be right. It could be right, after all the conversations where we'd stripped down the world to thumb nails and tacks, stacks of broken legos and vanilla cookie cake snacks. Those were the good days we'd say, back when the world felt new, and all the city lights were adventures, all the forests filled with goblins and trolls to the distant battlefields where the steel cannons roar and explosions tore through bodies of those painted in trenches of red and blue. Now we feel less real, except in memory, and retrospection to the same very times when we felt less we'd recall so much more.. And all those moments behind closed doors when we cried so hard it felt good, the time when Ashton and I stood adjacent facing opposite directions in an empty driveway as it rained the coldest rain into our hair and our eyes (we felt we deserved it) and talked endless of the depths of this world and our luck and our love and the things that matter the most about good people in good places meeting good faces and feeling all anew. To the hugs and cries out in complete and utter frustration, but you know, you know deep down the one holding you knows, just as you know, so you're not quite as alone. All the lies and immorality, temptation to do wrong and hurt strangers for nothing but the rush and the feeling. Losing hope in humanity and bringing it back out in force, to conversations against giant elm trees in the dark of night. Forgiveness, love, virtue, peace, empathy, all those things I'd like to do as I watch the leaves flutter down from the trees in magnificent coloring in red and brown and orange.

I feel weird sometimes, unreal sometimes, a bit tense at moments, melancholy hours and content in a dark room, candles burning, hair matted, incense smoke filling the air, sitting comfortably, cigarette in my hand, orange light glowing as I press my lips to the cigarette, inhaling the soft smoke.  Green smell in my nose, taste of menthol down my throat to my lungs.. What’s going on.. What’s going on.. It’s all alright, a bit of peace now here in my collection and heartbreak has no home, no room to come in the dim light.  The low rumbling music playing, it feels in the air, among it, with it.. In my ears.  Here.
    Then I think.. Life is cartwheels.  Everything goes in long circles.  Events, happenings, relationships, groups of friends.  Just the events of a single day.  We’ll know some day why all these things happened just the way they did.  Different for everyone.. As for me.. Some reason always shows it’s face.  Coffee now, Bear Mccreary on repeat

The past had pushed the present circumstance forward.  It gave it character, it gave it urgency, despair.. It blossomed in all corners of this dark circle flowering buds of something more than angst or regret, not even desire, but requirement.. need. 

Every step he took on the cold city concrete was a heavy response to his melancholy, a punch back and a breath of relief in action.  He feared the moments when his feet stuttered, when he stood still.  In those moments he felt the full weight returning.

There was a pack of people ahead holding beers and lit cigarettes, yet it was so quiet.  They only spoke in whispers.  Had something happened?  Some unnamed event that had left this soft spoken?  These people were all colored in black, as if they echoed the night.  They belonged to it, as much as it belonged to them. 

He passed the ominous scene quietly, down and down the long empty boulevard, street lamp after street lamp following silently, a few buzzing with electricity, nats and moths circling. 

"Walker!"

Three lads about Crandon's age approached from the opposite side of the road.  They were wearing black jackets with shirts in the color green underneath. 

"Night army," said Crandon.  "Have you found a cause worth fighting yet, or have you resorted to inventing one?"

"You don't wear it tonight?" Asked one of them, by the name of David.

"That isn't my purpose," replied Crandon.

Crandon continued walking.  David quickly followed.

"Then what is?"

Crandon sighed.

"I don't know."

"That's how it all began-"

"I know.. It's something else.  Everything tonight is starting to seem so.."

"..Synchronis?"

Crandon turned and stared.

"Yes."

"Yes," David smiled and clasp Crandon on the back.

"Go find her."

Crandon stopped in his steps.

"..What..?"  Crandon turned and they were gone, all of them. 

Find who?  He wondered to himself.  The question had been left in his mind, but it would not be pondered. 

There was a small rock glowing with light, in colors of white, brown and gold sitting in the corner of the room.  Candles burned in opposing corners.  Stacks of books lay spread across the floor, piles of notebooks and brown paper bags full of random junk sat across the stained gray carpets.  A storm raged outside.  The window was open a crack, thunder echoing, the patter of rain into the street walks soothed the mood within the apartment.  There were paintings covering the walls, inch by inch, colors that did not mesh, ideas cut within that did not compliment one another. 
    An uneasy scent of something essential seemed missing, something vital and breathing, that choked the life from the room.  The building was empty and meaningless, full of empty meaningless people living drab lives devoid of purpose, but full of misguided intent.  The emotional residue seemed to hang in the air like thick poisonous gas, intermingling with the incense and cigarette smoke. 
    Crandon was his name, a boy in the body of a young man, the one who lived there.  His eyes hit a spot blank on the floor, thoughts running through his head.  I cigarette hung from his fingers, burnt down to the filter.  There was a burst of lightning from the window, followed by the rumble of thunder.  It felt warm and calming, yet distant and untouchable, like a hand reaches into dense fog, to pull away a sensation of dew, but no substance. 
    “You’re not here,” Said Crandon.
    A young woman, dressed in brown jeans and a checkered jacket, sitting on a blue recliner glanced over.  The light from the flickering candles shined into her maroon dyed hair, and across her face, producing a ghostly image.
    “I’m always with you,” She spoke.  Her words seemed to knife through the smoggy air, her mouth seemed to move in perfect rthyms.  He longed for her lips, her face touching his.
    “The part of her you loved,” said a young man sitting on the floor.  “That person is gone.”
    Her gaze shifted to the man on the floor.
    Crandon stood up, knocking a glass ash tray to the floor, scattering cigarette butts and ashes.  He slipped out the door, down a long line of unlit steps, and onto the streets.  Ten foot street lights stood to his right in a long line heading straight into the heart of the city.  The rain had ceased, but the thunder and lightning still came and went, a bit to the west.

Jobe woke up suddenly, in a haze of confusion.
    “What the fuck!” He shouted.
    No one was anywhere near him.  There was a counter where a nurse sat behind a desk typing at a computer.
    “Hey... fat man...” said Jobe.  “Where am I?”   
    The burly nurse ignored him.
    “Son of a bitch..” He mumbled to himself.
    Jobe could barely see.  His vision was blurred, his emotions were bouncing all over the place and it seemed a great fog had fallen over everything and everyone. 
    “..Greg?”
    His old friend was walking over swiftly from out of the great fog surrounding. 
    “Man am I glad to see yo-“
    Greg punched Jobe square in the gut and he fell over coughing onto the floor.  He turned to swing at Greg, but there was no one around.  There was no sign of Greg. 
    “Get off the floor,” ordered the burly nurse from behind the desk.
    Jobe stood up, wobbling, and fell over.  The fat nurse snapped his fingers and two mean looking men appeared and grabbed Jobe by his arms and dragged him into a chair. 

The lines in these situations, these people, groups of people, sits and talks, deep conversations, constant laughter at tables and in circles around campfires.. They blur as we get closer.  The rules change, they no longer apply.  Do we have the courage to let lines fade, rules that have stood forever?  These ancient taboos of innocence and church law.. Is it right, is it wrong?  Just looking into the sky clears me to an extent.  Just releasing myself from the crowd speaking back and forth around me. . let my head hang up and watch the darkness, the sky.  I leave the ground then. 

I’ve been home so little, if you can call it home.  I’ve been away and honestly I love it.  No one knows exactly where I am.  I’m off the radar, no responsibilities.  I find true freedom in it.. Just traveling from place to place.  That’s why I refuse to buy a house, have a family, I would only wrap my spirit in chains.  Chains not easily released from.  Someday perhaps, but these days.. Its bound to be this way.  It should be this way. 

leading up to the events..

I remember waking up.. somewhere swimming in my head.  The bright sunlight making me toss and turn had faded to a late day.  I could feel the heat sifting through the open window next to my bed.

What the hell had been happening?  The summer had taken on a tone so twisted, it seemed wrong to think about.  Beyond consideration lay a place of acceptance where I sat smoking anxiety cigarette number one of that day.

The lighting disturbed me.  The entire room did.  It seemed too old, too new, too covered in layers of time.  Some things still lingered within the sandy white paint and floor boards.
I slapped the keyboard violently and a tune by Explosions in the Sky began playing on the surround sound speaker system.    Where now it would have been Mum, a year ago it would have been 'Short Story' by The Album Leaf.

Where does all this time go?  It flies by, and it crawls on.

I can't recall clearly what has happened over the past 11 days, most if it now lays in smudges in the corners of my brain, to rot away further.. but I will paint the pictures the best I can.  A series of moments, of days in this summer..  Like a flowing sewage tunnel beneath the city, it's always dark where we mingle.

It began that morning, just as I described.. in red boxers and a black t-shirt.  I was combing over the previous two months.. all the insanity that had blown by so fast.  All of my own familiar doing, so unaware.  The streak strikes through my memory like a wave of hot neon lights like aurora straight and long as a butcher knife jammed into my brain matter and left to be pondered and destroyed.

A month on the hot bed, twisting and turning in agony as I was burned slowly, from the inside out, left alone in the wilderness, catatonic, to be chewed to pieces by wild dogs.  I was cast off in this state by the treachery and cunning of Gemini.

The pack circled me, out there in that warm field and I stood to my feet, wiping blood from my lip, my shoulder, lifting up my arms.  I shouted a bellow with blood-shot eyes, that made the dogs back off a few feet.  They growled angrily in my defiance.  I was exhausted, my body felt shaky, my bones thin, like they might crack to pieces.  I was covered in the wounds of the previous, but I had gathered leather, muscle in those times and I grasped at energy levels that seemed at a balance of being declined by a factor of 10 and resupplied by a factor of 7. 

Time was against me, as moment drew more away from me.  The wild beasts circled, among the trees, testing my fear and resolve, but I showed no fear to their eyes, only held it deep within as a source of further energy, though the poisonous nature of it only sapped my spirit more quickly at it's place within.  So close to my broken heart.. I shouted out again, daring them nearer. 

The beast to my rear jumped onto my back, tearing at my shirt, and breaking into flesh  I swung away with the full force of my body, throwing my self sideways to the ground and the beast slammed hard against the turf, bouncing off into a tree.  I had quickly regained my feet when two more swarmed in, one latching to my right leg, the other lunging straight at my chest.  I rolled down directly onto the beast that had latched onto my leg, making the second miss.  I growled in pain and angst, and grabbed it's throat, twisting it's neck.  Another of the beasts charged right at me, and I punched it in the head, but it came down on me, snarling and tearing into my chest.  I felt fresh blood draining as I rolled away, attempting to catch my feet, but falling to one knee. 

They were circling again.. several more had arrived.. and a giant beast had appeared, twice as big as the previous dogs.  My spirit fell, as it had been waiting to fall since the fight began.  I could not hold out any longer.  They all circled now, so many.. with more barking and approaching from the woods beyond.  I crawled toward the giant beastly animal, so huge, vicious and terrible.  It's eyes glowed red.  I stared it directly in the eyes, the darkest stare I had ever given to another pair of eyes in my time.  I crawled to it, on my hands and knees, letting out a breath, coughing lightly.. and turned my head, offering it my neck.  The beast lunged forward and I swiftly swung my head into it's path.  We cracked skulls, and I fell over, fading from consciousness, to see the giant beast laying dead next to me.  The rest swarmed, 8 or 9 of them.. devouring me there in the emptiness.. as I lay weeping, then silent.. silence overcoming.

That is how it happened.. I tried so hard to fight it, but in the end, it had been inevitable.  A new course for me to take,  a new trial, and a new adventure.

The next months were filled with many dark days, bright moments, sadness and insanity. Much was lost.  I was a walking ghost for many weeks.  All my friends could see it.  They asked me to stop, but I could not.  They asked if they could help, they could not.  They feared my death, as many nights I contemplated it.. but in the end I knew, that all of this was meant to happen, it had to happen and it would happen, as much as the sun would rise the next morning.

Many days I spent speaking to counsel, my dear friend Josi, who helped me so much through those times.  My dear friend Danny, who stood with me despite all the confusion and all the loss I felt.  To all those who stood with me and vowed to take up arms against those who had left me where I had come, and held me up with their very strength, their very arms.. I most deeply thank you.

It took one person and one week in Eau Claire for me to come free.  To process and move forward, as it were.. it took a part of me, that existed out side of me.  A girl by the name of Stephanie.  As much as my own clear voice in my head, she was as much like me and attuned to me as any human could hope to be.  When I heard her words, I knew for certain, she spoke truth.  It took a voice from without, with a tone from within, to come out.   I spent a week in Eau Claire with her.. sorting it all out, and having real fun, away.

I knew the worst time was ahead, the final cut away.  I spent it in Tampa Bay over the last week in July.  I spent it with my father and sister, among white sand beaches, and humid days, palm trees and salty ocean water.

This is where the next phase began.  My return home, after being away for so long.  After only a few days, these 11 days occurred.  Strange turns and events, hanging with old friends and new friends, experiencing the weird.. the conversations by firelight.. the absence as well as presence of those who understand me, and seek to understand.

Somewhere in those insane weeks, where I walked around as a ghost, I had met a guy named Ashton.  And that morning, as I described it.. he called me up, and invited me over.  I had just had my license returned to me, and my car was functioning as well as it could.  I took a shower, got dressed in blue cords and a radiohead t-shirt, and headed over.

To fields of gray where children play
all the time, they come alive
hold us close, keep us tight

we've fought a battle, an endless fight
tired and cold, ration packs, loaded guns
and all this time just pushing on

all our lives just moving on
counting steps from a to b
fixing up disasters, feeling bad
rotten, melancholy and completely sad

This man this man
deserves a break..

To fields of gray where children play
alll the time, we come alive
hold them close, keep them right

we've had our lives in constant flight
a broken remnant of a fading dream
longing for disaster and moving on

all these times we're passing by
counting signs from up on high
bleeding cuts and bruising sides

feeling sad, we don't know why
all the steps in circled paths
relentless dreams of something

something we used to have

this man this man
deserves a break..

in all his flights from here to there
living as a fly in the atmosphere
stringing along for something new

always tired, too tired to remember
the blooms of spring
the bottom nexus of defeat

and all's been had in constant in-completes
day dreamed memories of nights without sleep
all in all, just cutting paths through wicked trees

to fields of gray, where children play
fields of white, where the fallen cry..
hold them close.. keep us tight.

This rain, this storm is amazing.  It's really stoking my creativity.  I must say I love it.. there is no feeling I love more than (perhaps being in love or going crazy) being in this page.. writing it.. building it, molding it.. shaping it.. making love to the page.  Like something sweeps through my head.. scanning all that I am, and squirting it onto the page.. a stream of ink from my soul..  I love it.  You ever get that feeling.. like you're doing exactly what you're meant to be doing in life?  Yeah, that's it.  It's so amazing.

Yeah.. it's never late enough here.  I was just discussing a difficult question with a friend of mine: If Chuck Norris fought Chuck Norris who would win?  That would be me.  Yes.. the lights go low, the roads turn dark.. the sky fills with stars.. but the night owls are busy.  This one is writing.  Poking and prodding random individuals over the inner webs..

If only sleep were unnecessary.. though, then think about all the weird fuckin dreams we'd be missing.  Seriously.. this storm is making sweet love to my soul.  Even if it's just heavy winds now.

Can you feel the moments passing as you read these words?  Can you feel life happening as you're right here right now reading this sentence and you're existing in the moment of reading it?  I can feel it right now, smoking my cheap Dominican cigarette, typing the words out one by one and another and another.  I'm right here, and it's happening.  I'm alive.

I'm alive.  And there is a sky right now, and streets and cars and buzzing gas pumps and screaming children in the McDonald's play lands.. it's all happening right now.  People are dying, people are being born.  Every moment.  Yes.. I'm here, we're here.  Is it good?  I think so.  You decide.

Moving on, I was just discussing my preferred method of death with an old friend of mine.  Allow me to explain.  Say.. you've got a high bridge over water, with thick trees on both sides.  And I'm headed down this road in a car, no seat belt on at say.. 60.. 70.. 80.. but not over 80.. I don't want it to be too quick.  And wham, nail the right side of the bridge, smash through the windshield.. go flying.  Really, flying.  Luckily, a tree would catch me, and yes, I would be hung like a fuckin Christmas ornament.  Impaled through the chest by a large branch.  Enough to crush in my chest, and I would hang there for a moment, just a few moments, and look down to see it.. And feel the giddy warmth through my chest, touch my own blood with my left hand ring finger, eyes wide.. And slump down, and die.

See that may be incredibly morbid, sure.  But I don't really take it seriously, and of course I wouldn't do it.  But it fascinates me.  Would that not be a beautiful death?  Yes, sure, in many or most schools of thought death is 'not to be joked about' it is 'very serious'  and I will no doubt have several friends messaging me after this post asking "Justin are you really ok? I mean reallllyyy ok?"  And before you ask, yes, I'm great.  I feel really good right now.  I must've hit a manic plus phase.  Hah!  "Justin you are an insane genius and I am slightly afraid of you."  Yeah, well that's your loss.  I'm not afraid to kick over a few taboos in pursuit of creativity.

Sure everything should be taken seriously.. but at the same time nothing should be taken seriously, and nothing should be off the table.  If you have an exception for me, I'd love to hear it. You could fall in love with me as much as I could fall in love with you.  And that's usually how it goes.  Or one less than the other.. or neither.

Alright.. I am very tired.  Things are blurring a bit.. but that's ok.  Must mean I've almost pushed past exhaustion to delirious.  Delirium is good, release of inhibitions, generally very strange mind-set, I've mentioned it before I'm sure.. hundreds of times.

Invisible readers.. lots of them, out there.. reading. and not telling me.  When I see 275 views in one day, and one comment.. oh, and three kudos.  I'm wondering.. who are these people.. What are they thinking?  What are they taking from what I say?  Does it really hit them?  Better question.. if and when I publish a book, will they buy it?  I will not get an answer to any of those questions.  These peepers.. voyeurs, and such, prefer to remain anonymous.  Though one time.. I faked my own suicide on my space, and a few of them came out of hiding to say a few words over my faustian grave, then I showed up again and half my friends deleted me.  I still laughed very hard.

My energy is intense, some can't really handle it.  That's fine.  More cake for me.  And I have this tendency to burn bridges and fuck up my life all the time, and make these very interesting mistakes that require a lot of duct tape.. It happens a lot.  I'm patching leaks while rocking the boat.  Contradiction, lots of it.  We're all full of it.  If someone declares 'I am not!'  They are.. dilluted, confused, delirious, or.. lying.

Golden rule, we are all saints and sinners. Though.. I don't like those terms with their attached religious connotations.. So, just.. forget the religious aspects to them.  'Amen' is simply a strong "I agree!"

It's getting light out now.. just barely.. That weird darkness that hangs just before the dawn.. like a heavy fog over nothingness.. like the world isn't quite there yet.  I'd prefer it stay dark, because.. once it gets light, I start to feel the press of society, and the normies next door telling me to shut the fuck up, turn off the confounded music and go to bed like a good American.  That just makes me sick.

But.. I am exhausted.  So this morning I will be a good American.  No promises on when I wake up, wherever I happen to wake up.. Or if I wake up.  Sweet dreams my friends.  Or good morning..? Good evening.. And of course, goodnight.