In an alternate universe...

"Could you describe, in terms of genre and intensity, your sexual "kinks" - please be thorough and honest."

It's an odd question for a design position, especially at a company that manufactured children's toys. 

My four-word reply: 

"Umm, is this legal?" 

didn't do me any favors.

"Yes absolutely! Gender is a protected class but sexual preferences are not - in fact, our insurance company requires these types of evaluations for our male staff."

"Wait, this is only for male staff? What does your insurance company have to do with this?"

"Did you crawl out from under a rock - two of the last four sitting presidents were involved in sexual scandals. The information age combined with the Me Too movement has blown the lid off of sexual misconduct and it has been quite costly to almost every company involved. One day you have a semi-normal System Administrator and the next day you find out he is violentacrez from Reddit."

"Who?" I asked incredulously.

"Exactly my point! 

No one knew then - but he was a moderator for internet forums where pictures of underage girls in semi-sexual positions or compromising clothes were posted. 

Someone like that would be a costly liability - a million dollar lawsuit waiting to happen. And even worse, we have a reputation to uphold, our customers are parents and they don't want their children playing with toys designed by someone like that. 

Of course, our insurance company would require us to do due diligence - to make sure predators don't slip through. Statistically speaking, female predators are very rare with males being responsible for the vast majority of sexual crime and misconduct.

You may be normally kinky, but we don't know that, and our search engine and browser history background check can only go so deep." 

My glazed over eyes suddenly focused with all the intensity I could muster

"Wait, stop - you have a browser history background check?" My voice cracking like I was back in middle school.

"Well yes, we work with all the major browser companies and search engines who collate information about the individuals we are looking to hire."

"So...... I already passed the background check?"

"Well not yet - we actually need your consent - privacy and all that - so if you could just sign here..."

An introduction to Zombie finance

I assure you that my brain is perfectly healthy

Top condition really - you'd be insane not to offer 2 million.

I'd be insane to accept any less - if I am going to work until my neurons die then I might as well get something for it and maybe pay down some school debt. Who's overeducated now!

Well, you'll have to excuse us - a Masters in Arts History is not the most valuable asset for The Engine, I guess we could use it for design consulting. We really prefer Physics and Math majors - helps with the engineering simulations - their design suggestions are often ingenious too - provided you can get them to suggest anything. Such divas. 

The Engine, distributed and intelligent virtualized minds - continuing their life's work when the body moves on. Who needs Artificial Intelligence when you have real intelligence decomposing and being buried every day? 

It's intelligence on tap - at a bargain price - brains are a buyers market with the debt economy. It's the newest fad really, if you don't have any debt then you must not be living! At least that's the catchphrase. The black market is booming too - legend has it that the Russia and China are educating and harvesting their prison population.

So here I am, amongst the desperate and intelligent, bargaining myself away "1.5 million - final offer"

Death has never looked so good.

TV sex

Well it is confirmed, I am yelling out into the void. A bit comforting actually; no one will read this for quite some time and by that time I will be someone else. Well here is the poem I promised, for all future friends to enjoy:

 I saw this today:

and I was so struck by it. It is such a profound piece of art. To you it may look like trash, like robots having sex or some sort of fetish or something. But this is deeper than all of that. Let me give you a glimpse. First off, notice they are stick figures. Simple, non-sensual, posed in a sexual position. This sets up the piece with a bite already: they are doing something associated with love (sex) without passion or sensuality. Next: Look closely, that is not just wire wrapped around them, it is barbed wire, as if they have a barrier around their body, they are not letting themselves be exposed by this normally intimate and vulnerable act. They are able to maintain their defenses regardless. There is so much barbed wire that it really fills in the form of the stick figures, as if to say "Keep out, no trespassers."

 Last but not least: The television heads. I am not quite as confident about this, but it is the idea that our idea of normality is often dictated by television and the media, so that is what we try to portray. We fit ourselves into tv stereotypes so that we are acceptable or attractive to others. None of the complexity of the unknown involved, our personalities are easily digestible.

Fickle hearts and lights

I wish on too many airplanes, going nowhere.
But those are easier to find than stars here:
Our own glow suffocates almost anything else.
And I would imagine that when you wish on stars,
on the graveyard of lights, older than the earth when finally seen,
we are praying to old gods: kindly, slow, and a bit stupid.
And they look down at us like children, experiencing everything for the first time
pain and war, explosions blowing up dust to dust, beauty and love and
everything else worthwhile, though I cannot think of much...
And they listen as carefully as they can, to our foolish thoughts,
Nodding in assent, and finally falling asleep mid-sentence; Our thoughts
finally conveyed to the universe, if it helps. But airplanes,

Airplanes are a whole 'nother dynamic.
Sudden urges come upon us all, while in flight,
the desire to go somewhere where we are not going,
To see someone we should not see, to fall in love again:
To fly to Portland and long for cute hipster chicks
and ironic hipster boys, to Hawaii to live and love with tan samoans
and sunlight, to NY to be a part of the chaos, get lost in the shadows
of brownstones and florescent lights, lining long boulevards, seeing love
in central park, I can glimpse their faces, mousy, brown black blonde hair,
and slender figures as if in silhouette on gauze curtains...
These flights of reverie, I am convinced, are wishes
put upon me by relentless pedestrians and tired cab drivers, going nowhere.
And so I fear, I have been driving the gray businessmen, sitting in first class,
quite mad with longing. So this is an apology of sorts, I suppose
I will burden the old ones carrying many little cares, peeking
and following us all until we are united, and recycled.

Sandcastles

My future is sitting on my desk,
passively staring at me as if wondering how it came to be,
and when did it take this form. I want to tell it,
that it was destiny, that it was inevitably made in this image
by God or science or the environment, or any higher power really.
But that would be a lie: a terrible, terrible fabrication.
Because that is all this placid future is; a plasticine invention
that I formed with thick and scarred hands, clumsily constructing an image
I happened upon in a dream, or a dream within a dream.

It has changed many times since its inception,
mis manos have refined it, cleaning the edges, creating greater detail, molding the contours.
And I have stared at it for so long, I began to believe
In my own fabrication, in this melting plasticine figure.
And now I need to remold it, into a brick for now,
Because I cannot make my future with these weak hands and this malleable substance,
Only metal, and stronger hands than mine,
can bend and shape a solid future.


The inspiration for this poems comes from a hunk of plasticine on my desk that I have been playing around with and molding into all sorts of things. I was thinking about how we try to shape the future into what we want rather than what is real or what God wants. We try to take control and pretend that we have all the power, but at the end of the day we are weak. I am weak. I am not afraid to say that, because in Christ our weakness becomes strength. He has control, even when we think that we do. I thank God for that and I want to trust in Him more and more. I need to keep running the race, doing my best, opening up new roads, but at the same time I need to listen to Him for all things, and allow Him to close doors when they need to be shut rather than to try to pry them open and force my will.

What Organ to Follow?

Desiccated- Was how I felt, and also
the first word I overheard from the boisterous tourists
talking with loud hawaiian shirts baseball caps sunglasses camera
and the occasional gesture. They went on to say that the only difference
between Egypt and the airplane was the temperature:
Desiccated- That was how the mummies were so well-preserved.
It dried out the skin, sucked the life out.
They would remove all the organs, threw away the brain:
the true center of thought. The fake, impulsive mind- the heart
they kept and embalmed separately, safe from being broken or rotting:
Desiccated- How foolish, if only the heart played such a role
instead of making us chase after... "How backwards"
I said aloud, and they stopped for a moment, looking at me.
Suddenly the older woman said with her flashing blue eyes:
"No, Not really."

So I wrote this one while flying to phoenix and thinking about the lack of moisture in the cabin. I personally like this one, it is a bit more like a story than anything else. It may need some more editing, but I do like it the way it is.

Breaking it out again

I have not been on here for a long time, I doubt anyone checks or notices, but at the same time I feel it my duty to myself to create. So this is my resolution: I will post at least one poem a week. No matter what.

So here we go, I have been reading the Lord of the Rings to my sisters (who love it) so my writing will probably be influenced by that. I apologize for any confusion or strange turns in grammar that arise from that.

Deaf I am Blind

There are two types of cold,
or at least that many, my southern climes teach me little
of ice and thaw, of frost and flame.
but my short time in the snow has taught me
that there is the cold that you sense
on the tips of your nose, on your ears as they turn red,
on hands numb and hard, feeling like limbs of rock.

Then there is the cold you truly feel in your chest
in your breath, in your lungs. That freezes your voice
until you think you will die of suffocation before hypothermia takes hold.
And fear at first takes hold as you feel your limbs die, one by one
then it just feels warm, as if this is home, a sense of acceptance.

Thankfully I have never gone past this point, nor reached it
in any meaningful way. But I think I do know how it feels,
to feel that suffocation, to desire speech, but stay mute.
My voice is frozen in my chest, and there it stays until it bursts
with melancholy and confusion, until my eyes slowly close, and it is warm.


On that note, I have been feeling like something is coming to a culmination, a sense of unease has been following me. I had deja vu yesterday. Now my deja vu moments are not videos nor are they just pictures; they ARE pictures, however a destination, a timeline is included with each. Certain people are often included as well. This one was as I was going to the library with my sisters and my brother. The temperature was well below freezing, so the ground is hard and the small puddles that fill in the potholes of the road have been frozen solid, or almost solid. My sisters are romping about trying to break the glass-like ice into shards, generally causing a ruckus, and suddenly I remember. From a far off memory or dream I recall us going to the library in these conditions, to get The Hobbit (which we were getting). This memory was deeply imprinted into my mind.

I do not know what it means, if anything, but it was so clear, and left me with such a definite impression that I feel that something will happen. Patience is one thing I am usually good with, but I do not enjoy it. I shall employ it now, until I see what or whether this comes to anything.

Bang

I am the trigger, you knew it
before the solid springs tightened
and the first piece of icy metal was chambered.

and we held on in these black hole streets,
running, metal clanging, legs springing forth
from the surface, manifesting in a sprint
through the heart of dirt, grime, decay, concrete machinations
this is downtown, do not ever forget.
We are sharks here, the moment you stop,
the moment you lose your spring, your step
becomes slow quicksand pulling and taking momentum.
It is not fatigue, the city is tasting you,
ready to swallow you whole. And now, tense,
rigid, the hammer being pulled back, cocked,
frigid springs tightening, ready for the first round,
I am the trigger, you knew it before it all began.

Rainy Eyes

Tonight your eyebrows are dark and furrowed
Clouds, the filling smell of humidity and wet earth came
On the eve of the evening showers, sliding
Down cheeks and quickly wiped away
Just trying to endure the heart of the storm,
Or maybe the other way around.
There is no umbrella, no protection this time
Only the emotional wind tossing you,
Like it cannot decide where you should go,
And the rain slowly hiding the tears
Falling and forgotten amongst the sorrow
Of the city who never sleeps.

New Poem on delirium, and an old rant on the nature of beauty

On the edge of quicksand or quicksilver,
we stop for a moment, to look within at the
nature of causality and other merry nonsense.
We say and we wander without purpose in sleep
and awake, or maybe on the edge
of the fire that burns before it was lit,
of things we convince ourselves are real.
And become real, as we are a form of reality
I think,
therefore I am more certain.
Yet the curtain is crashing, form is forcing itself back in,
on the edge of the morning light.

I wanted to publish this rant on here so it would not only be on facebook. I wrote this 2 years ago I believe.


The true nature of beauty
Some say that beauty is another form of truth, yet I would argue that beauty, by their implied definition, is the exact opposite, it is deception. In fact the only truthful works of art about humans, whether photography, literature, sculpture, etc, are ugly, for that is the heart of man, there is no beauty in mans dark and primal “Heart of Darkness” rather all perceived beauty merely masks the turmoil and imperfection of humankind.

True beauty is raw perfection, which of course is unattainable by humans, and therefore is distinctly inhuman. Therefore any beauty seen within humans, such as true empathy, and self-sacrificing love and the form that is the human body, is not human at all, it is divine.

Yet how can I find beauty to be in anything that is imperfect? That is ugly or crude? That is primal or dark? Because it is truthful, not truth, but truthful about itself. It is honest and unpretentious which is what I would prefer rather than the deceit of what men call beauty, which is selfish and vain. I can find beauty in honesty, whether or not it is perfect. Maybe that is what I have been searching for in my friends and others, I find those who are honest (or I believe are honest) about their shortcomings, and I stay away from those people who seem too good to be true (that is why I dislike david beckham). This is one trait I have to have in my spouse, an unpretentious, raw, honest ugliness. Not that they have to be physically or emotionally or mentally ugly, but rather they have to be human, not raised on any pedestal. I would like them to be slightly beautiful (in the most perfect sense of the word). But I must know that they are human (I know there are no aliens among us, I am just trying to exclude robots, :P )

Meekness

"Souls get trapped,
from time to time, in
fires" His face characatured by light thrown
across his wrinkled, bark-like skin;
Hands clasped for dramatic effect.
Standing there in the midst of the wood:
a leather scarecrow. "And you know how they are caught?"
we shook our cantaloupe heads vigorously.
His weathered, red-coal eyes smiled with mischief
"They go to roam the earth, before returning
from whence we came, and they are so attracted by the heat,
they are mesmerized, and caught in the white flame.
And when that mystical thing happens, the fire
ROARS" He threw some magical dust into the lava's palm,
And it rose up two stories tall, as tall as the pines,
pillar of flame, pillar of burning memories
White hot, and silent.

And now when you stand by the fire,
I wonder, what was burning?
Was it achievements? Was it pride?
Memories? Hope? I do not really know,
but I want to believe that it was love,
I want to believe that this humble, noiseless, ivory inferno
could only have been caused by something,
that burns in so many, for so short,
and burns in so few, for so long.

As Wise as Serpents, as Harmless as Doves

I know that not many people read this, maybe one or two, but I am still nervous whenever I post something. I feel this way even though this is supposed to be just for me creating whatever I can.

You can scroll down to the bottom to get a one-sentence summary, though you will miss some backstory.

One thing I want to share, that I have alluded to in my poems and my rants about Omni-benevolence etc., is my struggle with God. As you know, I have grown up in the church and going to Christian schools. I have always been a skeptical person, from the time I was very little until today. I needed reason, logic, to be on my side, I must have a reconcilable universe. I am usually not one of those people who could hold two opposing beliefs simultaneously and not question either of them.

I tried to shun anything that would lead me astray, I stayed away from girls from elementary school and even through high school because "no good could come of it" according to my parents and coaches, the idea of drinking was anathema until sophomore year of college, and drinking itself avoided until I was 21. I still refuse to do drugs or smoke, just on principle. My whole way of thinking is centered around my upbringing, do unto others as you would have them do unto you. That is still one of the things I live by.

But I have been really struggling with the idea that God exists. Every time I wonder that though, I strongly feel that there must be more than this material world, but then the skeptic in me yells at me saying "that is foolish, you cannot prove there is a god, it is a delusion." And I yell back that I know I cannot prove it, but I feel it must be so. I point to the beauty in the world, the wonder of our mind and photosynthesis, and he promptly explains the mechanisms behind it. Almost every time there is something inexplicable and "magical" that I can say "see God is responsible for that," soon after a reply with scientific documentation comes and shows me the exact mechanism and how it was put into place. There are still some things out there that have defied explanation, the origin of everything is one. That is always comforting as the big bang does not always make sense.

And I think about how I have been blessed with so much, a family, parents who love me, peace, food, I want for nothing. Is it because I am so good? no, is it because my family prayed? Maybe, but there are thousands of people praying to the same God in South Sudan right now, waiting to die from starvation. Why am I given so much? What is the purpose of this? Am I just to be thankful that I am not them? I can pray for them, I can send some aid, but it feels like throwing sand into the ocean. I really do not have an answer. He must have a purpose for all this but sometimes I don't see it.

I started just trying to understand things without assuming that God exists, or does not exist. I wanted to find Him without assuming His existence.

Really that led nowhere, I got a greater appreciation for the world maybe, but that is it. No proof was found either for or against His existence. I should have known this, He is not something that could be measured.

Being with my family had changed my mind. There are some things I will never understand (that is so hard for me to say), even though I want to understand everything, I will never understand Him, it is hard to accept but it is true. I still have those warring voices within me but I feel like I have some assurance that He is real, and really who He says He is, especially with the testimonies of those around me.

But believing something is not enough, if you truly believe that someone is going to suffer in Hell for all eternity for not believing in Jesus, then you should act on it. This is one place I get stuck, I am timid when it comes to asserting myself. Usually I do not try to convince people to believe how I believe. I listen to what they believe, and if they ask what I believe, I tell them. Is this enough? How should I speak and live? Some pastors say things I do not agree with, is that a problem with me? or with them? That scares me sometimes. I need something I am sure of, besides the fact He exists. My time with philosophy deconstructed my beliefs, and now I need something to replace them, this is where I am at right now.

As I grow more mature, I begin to see the human element in churches, and it makes it tough to see God in all this. My main example of a Godly man, is fortunately my father. He is so similar to me it scares me. He went libertarian in college (I have those tendencies), he tends to think rationally and we debate often, we are both honest to the point it hurts, and we both try to be intellectually honest. Not deceive ourselves, but allow the truth to be seen as such, not allow our preconceptions to reject the truth. I want to rebuild my belief system into something strong, something I can hold with intellectual honesty, yet be focused on Him. I need wisdom.

TL:DR I've struggled with belief in God, but I do believe and I want to have a stronger, yet more accurate belief in Him, one that I can act on without fear.

When my parents married, my father was not a christian and my mother was one. When he proposed the only condition she had for marriage, was that he seek after God.

I want to seek after Him.

Only the Fastest

Impaled snails, gurgling and bubbling
cheerfully almost, where you left them
on the palm spikes along the path.
Terrifying monuments of your godlike power
over all things slimy and slow.
A ward against more phlegm-like intruders.

So when you talked so happily of divorce
corporate, separation of business assets
and liabilities: "Lets really screw em!"
I was a little terrified, and not a little glad
to be on the right side

But I really could not help myself
for feeling a little sad
when the latest snail was found skewered like a trophy
on your dinner plate, as we discussed your
latest hostile takeover.

The wannabe comedian

Part of my sense of humor is to be able to laugh at anything and anyone, including myself. Even in very difficult situations I just laugh at myself, others, or the incongruities that are happening around me.

I still remember in football when one of our teammates messed up, did something he should not have, and the coach punished everyone except him. We got down and did more pushups than I could count, while the coach had him watch. This was far more painful to him than punishing just him or even punishing everyone together; it served to shame him.

I still do not know why I did this, but I broke out in shrill laughter in the middle of the drill. Everyone looked at me like I was insane, but I think I was just relieving the pressure, the tense environment we were caught in, the ironic situation we were in: the person responsible was the only one unpunished.

And I still laugh, bitterly many times. I laughed when I felt my ambitions were falling apart. Whenever I do something I later regret, I look back and laugh at myself, not with satisfaction, nor with joy really, just kind of a hollow, tense "well crap" laugh, and I slowly and bitterly smile at the difficulty of the situation.

The things we do

Sometimes humans just need someone to love them, a voice of acceptance, unconditional and open. Sometimes we need this to move on from past scars that hurt from time to time.

I want to be that voice.

Accidental Disconnects

Trembling at terrible choices,
portents as unknowable as my mind,
heart attacks, insomnia, and paralyzation
bitter tastes in my mouth
and in my mind,
Cornered in false dilemmas
I choose with fear and trembling.

I want nothing more than to embrace
to love, to cry these solder tears
scarring copper hearts, trying to establish connection
to get the electricity flowing again,
but a connection needs two sides.



the beautiful lyrics translated: http://www.netwave.or.jp/~tierra/Gipsy_Kings/lyric/pediratu.html

Alternate Endings

Dreaming for the first time in so long
in color even, though black and white features are all I see
ink alive with motion, curving into strands
strokes of hair and eyelashes blinking
and nearing to kiss, but right there our pupils meet
black holes absorbing the view.
And suddenly a smile, rose watercolor
splashed across the perfect canvas.
Colliding into supernovae
I woke up, and finally remembered.

Consumption

"We thrive on corpses"
Spring declared as she consumed the dead landscape, claiming
the decay as nourishment, I too, felt her pulling me under
gripping my chest, filling my lungs, luring me to the earth
with lavender scents that sensuously mixed with rosemary and sage,
with freshly cut grass, and freshly cut skin.
And now she has me, locked in with roots and nostalgia,
with the bones of my grandfather and my own weakness.
Let me have my hibernation after all, your dead
keratin has nothing on the weeping willow's long locks,
and our bed has nothing on the warmth
of the winters sweet decay.

Still working on this one, it will be alot of work too.

sometimes I wish to become nothing, to just kind of painlessly dissolve with no memory of me left behind, if you have read my other poems you would realize that I face these desolate feelings every once in a while. I am not entirely sure where it comes from, take a look at my "some thoughts on suicide" post if you want to know more about my past with this. It is not a "pretty" side of me, but if you are reading this then you know that I do not try to be a "pretty" person, I try to be an honest person, even if the truth is ugly.

For all of you Tuning in this Fine Evening

Maybe if we just run in one direction long enough
we will end up liking it.

Maybe that seemingly important question:
"What do you want from life?"
is an exercise in futility, because
whether we want it or not
Life is already here.
See? There, you are doing it right now.

It is made up of these insignificant moments,
a summation if you will, modeled by your path,
the one you accidentally took this morning
because of the traffic, your dog, and the caffeine content
of your bloodstream. And we keep on running from our shoes
but we are our biggest influence.

Maybe this road, this beauty, this pain
is its own reward. Or maybe not...

Blood Rust

Black bones and blood,
the creaking dinosaurs bobbing their triangular heads
pulling, sucking, with terrible purpose
their own essence from the earth.

Herds of them for miles and miles
stretching to the skyline, a desert necropolis,
mired in place in a graveyard of dust, the killing
rust stopping joints, grinding until
there is nothing left.

Today you bought the blood, I did too.
It runs through our asphalt veins and arteries,
fueling our vampire soul, if only we could be weaned.

The poetry I write is influenced heavily by the music I am listening to at the time. Which is why I often post what I have been listening to. Here it is