bump

often i am afraid to write because music is a stronger medium. mere silence i feel is more powerful than any number of words (or absence of words). should i be playing music, which is often, then i will be more than intimidated. my inspiration will generally be blown away by the emotional power of the music; my mind does not rest on letters but on notes. they lift me up, so to speak, higher than the lines of my paper.

but yet i am always compelled to speak in words and not music; my expression comes through characters forming words forming tales. they are written down, paper or screen. each time i cry out soundlessly that no word could ever trump a noise in a rigorous demonstration of pathos; each time i do not cry out soundlessly for that in itself is music which is beyond my ability.

the catharsis of writing is then replaced with that of music. an overwhelming flood replaces a burning pen, and the soothing gushing melody comes through my ears to put out a flaming passion of dictional momentum. time and time again, you will not read of me for i am too busy hearing of you.

nontheless, here am i, the perpetrator of his own words, themselves paradoxical. i am writing to say that i cannot use words for i can hear well enough. for it must be done, as i am capable of no other route; i am a locomotive with motivation and here in this paper is my destination. my pen hangs over the paper through any blows and down always it goes to make ink splotches and run rivers of images where you can drink lots of literal anecdotes, rhymes that float, poems that rhyme, and please excuse me if this is no masterpiece, for everybody has their fair share of mistakes and botches. and now that here i am, please stand back as i prepare to generate a mass of prose that will inundate each line and page; no, i'm not one of the pros, but on it goes, saturating and liberating prisoners of the dictionary, words risen from the pages into fiction, diction coming out now to serve from previous dereliction. but i do not write to bring peace: i am not here to put you at ease; please, this piece will subject you to gees, will charge you to fees, will take out your knees. it's just not feasible to cater to all when there are just haters, but i do something greater because i move in one direction, like an elevator, which is up in perfection. you can dissect this all you like and sooner or later you will find that i am but a traiter, using unjust beats and unowned treats to achieve a feat of musical production which is this.

so i find that regardless, there is music greater than any set of words i can produce. i myself am prone to falling into lyrical production instead of simply writing. but perhaps there is no right and wrong.

music is an essay

music is an essay that i cannot find myself to write. i don't have a paper to write on, nor do i have a pen with which to mark. not that it matters. there are infinite combinations that could be laid out. sequences and patterns never before thought of, never imagined, that don't exist until they suddenly do.

but they never will, because i will not write them. music is an essay that i cannot find myself to write. i cannot find myself to write. i cannot find myself. i cannot. find myself. but i could, before. before, i found myself to write a essay of music that was merely an essay. can i not find myself, or can i not write the essay? or can i not find myself to write the essay?

sloth is an essay that i can find myself to write. i write it each day, each hour, with my still eyeballs that scribble madly, lazily, nothing. i write this essay of meaninglessness so that i need not write anything else. my pen is a paint roller, my paper not important. i write while lying down | i write while standing up | i write while sitting down | i write while writing | i write in my sleep | i write incessantly as if running in place will win me a marathon where the reward is a single step forward.

evil is an essay that i can find myself to write. sometimes it sneaks up on me; i write this essay accidentally. i write an essay so dark and drenching that the pen is my blood and the paper is my life. it soils my soul to write this essay. but this accident is not the careless tipping of my inkwell; when i spill my blood there i have known for days, years, and eons that it is to be spilled. the blood falls from my every orifice: i speak in blood, hear in blood, smell in blood, see in blood, urinate in blood. the sweat from writing this paper is not blood; it is bile, a noxious odor that destroys the fat of life. it stains me when i sweat, a stain not easily removed by any means. i do not wish to write this essay.

soon i wish to not write any essays. soon i will not need to write any essays, because they will be beneath me. i will write music, and you will hear it. it will be a song of heaven, and then you will know that a single note is better than any number of words however beautiful.

where you are

imagine for a minute that you are in a swamp. imagine the emptiest, most colorless landscape possible. this is where you are. this is your current surroundings. the trees are a mush green, as is the ground, and the sky. is it night or day? doesn't matter. it's just blackness here. you might as well have no soul. who needs one, anyway.

anyway. there you are. are you physically there? you might as well be a floating eyeball. one of those floating camera robots form movies and imagination. never mind that this is imagination. imagine that this is not imagined. this landscape? this is who you are. be there. be here.

there is no sound. like you're in space. so silent, you've probably just gone deaf. but you can hear the faint sounds of some small voice nibbling at your sureness. you might as well be blind, because there is nothing worth seeing.

then, there is somebody else here. where? how do you even know that another person is here? who is it? is this person... kind? or cruel? foolish? amicable? reticent? tempered? tolerant? able? reserved? alive?


after a moment or infinity, the sensation of the muck inside your guts changes. not murky, not a cluttering, but a jerking of tendons and creaking. suddenly there is something sought. suddenly satiated senses are unsatisfiable. suddenly, you crave it all: a raw sensual mourning, a deep thirst in the bottom of yourself that threatens to creep over the edge and saturate. you need anything and everything. it is not merely hunger, greed, or lust. it is a yearning so strong that it borders on apathy. to care so much that you do not care at all.

you realize that this desire, it seeks what was already had. you want a state of nothingness, a soullessness, an independence. you were not searching for the somebody else, because you found yourself. you know, now. you know. and that is not enough.

alone in the dark; foibles; my soul sings

sometimes, i'm alone in the dark. i will sit with all the lights off in my room, and pretend that the computer screen lit up ahead of me is my personal and only window into the world. how amazing it is that my mind can so quickly accept that small rectangle in my vision as my total perception of my world. soon i don't even know that there is a setting for this: my darkened room, the desk cluttered with overdue papers, my clothes strewn upon the floor... here, i'm able to train my senses to interact directly with my window. when i type words, it's a complete extension of my speech. when i switch to a different page, it is actually my head turning to look in another direction. the computer is a part of me, and i see what it shows me. welcome to the matrix, no?

but then, something incredible happens. my mind, though bonded, flesh and machine, starts in sudden activity. it is as though a buzzing swarm of bees has entered into my head, each drone carrying its pheromone message and honeyed load. my fingers and mouth are the exits, and my eyes are entrances to this hive. there are thoughts alive in my brain.

in this out of body experience, i forget who i am. all i know is the screen in front of me, and it is then nothing more than a game, a puzzle, a riddle that has challenged me. i am confident and determined. no task however ambiguous can overpower me. i have every tool at my disposal, with the adept hands to handle them. i grimly set upon the task. this me is my worst enemy.

who am i? i don't know who... so i should ask you? do you know who i am? if i don't know who i am, how would you know who i am? do i even know who you are? if i don't know you, then how can you know me? are you you? am i me? we are each other, but flawed, so we are not each other.

-

the driver who hits the gas between red lights and stop signs. a man who eats two lunches for lunch to fill his stomach every day. a high five ignored. a extra pair of woolen socks sitting comfortably in the drawer back home. a thick textbook. a helmet left in the backseat. the two day trip to Tokyo from JFK. ethanol. a pack of ramen without a bowl. peanut butter and the allergic. the itsy-bitsy spider.

when i brought my umbrella every day but today when it poured. when i kept those games installed after swearing them off. when i went back to my room early to sleep early to wake early only to procrastinate and miss a good time with my friends that i denied myself. when i said i would write that paper on the weekend so that i could be with those friends now. when i missed the movie writing the paper. when everybody went to the club and i stayed behind (what a great time they said).

when i won that gum ball machine in fourth grade and left it in the open at school and had it stolen. when my best friend came over suddenly to proudly announce that he got into Harvard. when i listened patiently to her complain about her boyfriend again, and again. when i wrote over sixty pages of a novel about my high school life only to graduate from it and become unable to continue. when my friends were all at governor's school and i was mowing lawns.

when i lied and said that it wasn't my first kiss because my pride said that i had to be better. when i didn't go to ultimate after fighting with my dad so nobody would see the bandages on my neck. when i learned that she was still hurting from the breakup, more than two years later. the day my grandparents left me in america with parents i hadn't known for four years. when i said goodbye to my violin teacher after years of blood sweat and tears. when my parents used to lock me in the basement because i didn't get all A's in elementary school. when she said that maybe things had been different before, but we were just friends now. when my grandfather was battling prostate cancer. when you just don't trust me, and when i just can't trust you.

when i'm here, that's when i need You.

-

at times, my soul cries. you can't see it, because i'm good at that. it's because of a spiritual spear that's been left in my heart. splinters going everywhere. my arms tug weakly. a single drop of blood collects at the left corner of my mouth. my brow is sweaty. but you don't see, because i'm good at that.

and yet, my soul cries. there are no tears when a soul cries. you know when your soul is crying because your stomach doesn't know hunger. you know when your soul is crying because your face is hot with frustration. you know, because you want to speak but you are afraid to shout. you know, don't you? you don't, because i'm good at that.

still, my soul cries. a heartbeat here, a heartbeat there. don't skip a single one, or it will be the death of you. don't miss a single beat here. don't miss a single beat. a single beat. a. single. beat. don't miss it. or else my soul might cry.

right now, my soul cries. you can't hear it, because my soul does not sob. it weeps a dry weeping, it sings a sad song. my soul sings a melancholy tune, a funeral dirge. are you conducting my soul?

so then, my soul cries. you don't have my soul. it sings, not for you, not for me. because this is no dirge or tune, this is not a mourning song or a happy ballad. my soul sings a song that is indescribable, that is celestial, that is above and beyond recognition. i do not know what song this is, and neither do you.

finally, my soul sings. we listen to it by paying close attention, lest we once again believe that it is crying. what does my soul say? let's take care and listen.

-
please let me know what you think! =)

the word supple and a walk in the rain

there is one word that always catches me off guard, simply because it is surprising. "supple". when i say this word, it gives me a feeling that one gets when they know that they are putting their life in the narrow palm of one person who they know is the strongest person in the world. why? because that's just what you do; that's what that person is there to do, hold you.

when people talk about supple ropes or whips or wires, i think that they are thick but thin, and they feel weak but strong. there's just no simple way to understand how a single twine could hold an entire grand piano (which is not nearly as heavy as a human life. if you've ever worn the albatross, then you'll know. not that i have).

so aside from being unable to comprehend a good length of cord, what else has supple done in my life? am i supple? no, my back is a mess of aches, and i can't even touch my toes anymore. but am i supple? yes. i can see what grows in between your ears, what falls from your lips and tongue, what climbs into your thoughts and what color colors your worst nightmares. i am supple like no whip ever was, that can crack and cause you to dance the macarena, a rope that can tie your mind into knots, a snake slithering among the crevasses of your brain and intercepting each and every synapse.

but enough boasting. i riddle in fantasies, and you gape at my "suppleness" that extends as far as the tips of my eyeballs and the back playroom of my imagination.

-

i was leaving work the other day, and it began to rain. i had only walked down the stairs to find that the sky had simply died and was letting go of whatever perch it usually perches upon, leaving instead to find a suitable nest on the top of my head, my shoulders, my chest, my back and subsequently every other part of me.

suffice to say, normal folk generally decide to wait it out. suffice to say, i am not a normal folk. i felt that since i was armed with a sweater for the cold lab, flip-flops for my laziness, an excellently stocked mp3 player, and a not a single care for any normal comfort, it would be safe to take a dip in the pool of the sidewalk.

a man looked from the stairway above on my right outwards, then decided to go back to the safety of convention. i would not be so daring as he.

each step was bliss. at first i wondered how much water was in my hair, my sweater, my bag with lovely computers in it, but then i got to wondering if it was good to walk in water up to my ankles and if i might contract parasitic organisms from aquatic snails; eventually i got to wondering if the song playing was right for the atmosphere.

i began with a quick and upbeat pop song, which easily gave way to the melancholy and thoughtful crooning of a personal favorite that likely none of you know, as it is my personal gem. this not fitting quite well enough, i changed onward towards instrumental cacophony, which was perhaps not as brooding as electronic grumbling and rumbling and rising and climbing and exploding. but that was still not quite the right noise for my ears, and after attempting a simple piano waltz, i removed my ears from my head to hear the sounds of millions and millions of spheres of molecules of water of the sky of everything of everything plopping splatting plipping smushing smashing dropping down and down and still and more and endlessly! how endless it was. there had been symphony before, but here was a symphony of symphonies! the rain needs no soundtrack.

i strode down and down past buildings and under trees which reveal bass beats that surprise you by falling into your eyes. as i walked along the curb a car drove through a puddle and i was splashed quite literally as those people in cartoons or the movies are splashed by an absurd amount of water, and yet i couldn't help but feel so please to make the acquaintance of each sensation upon my face and my hands, sad that i could not feel the vibrations against my chest but for my shirt and the heavy sweater. it was more than just sound, more than music, it was alive! and i do not mean in the sense of a multitude of microorganisms.

at that moment, standing on the curb and reveling in the muddy water that a passing car had driven into my face, i knew exactly who i was and exactly where i was headed. i was a wet 19 year old college student, and i was headed back to my dorm to get a change of clothes. and that was quite enough for me. that moment of lucidness opened the way for cascades and cascades of revelations, from the location of my extra set of car keys that had been lost days before to the knowledge that i would could be the most caring husband and father that any family could ever want or need. while i rubbed wetness from my eyes and wondered if my mp3 player would short circuit, my mind mulled the meaning of life and my stomach mulled a croissant and a danish.

i was content, for the first time in days and weeks, and i decided then that i enjoyed rain, as well as music and thinking. there was little to be gained without any of the three, though the need of thinking is debatable. nonetheless, there were things to be done, and i pulled my tongue from my cheek, stepped down to cross the street only to put myself in the muddy puddle that had just splashed me, and proceeded with caution. why? because i was crossing the street.

-------

=) yay for writing. again, i would appreciate comments! i love feedback... and i swear that every time i look at my closet, my suit hanging there seems to be swinging on its hanger like somebody just tipped it. i'm scared.