The Atheniad
“But you’ve been hanging around that college town… Is this really what you want? Or are you just sticking with it now cause it’s all you got?” - Conor Oberst, “Southern State”
(Source: carbonrings)
a part of me wants to delete this blog.
i mostly use my other one, even though this last week has been pretty slow altogether. either way, i could just post my writing, which i need to post more of ‘cause i have plenty, on that one. i’d risk losing followers who don’t care for that kind of stuff, but then again, i don’t really care. so yeah.
i think tomorrow i might record a song.
even though i hate my voice, i really like this one.
simple, simple, melody-wise and lyrically,
but it was kind of one of those great moments of inspiration.
Where the stars are always out while the sun is up forever,
i’ve been assigned the moonlit corner where north and south meet,
the dark face of the bright sky
the worst night of the brightest light,
life
I think I watched you when you found yourself too far from home,
not realizing your home is where your heart is
and not the four walled trap you set
that defining yourself is less complicated than it seems
less poetic and more concrete
that definition is existence
and being lost might not be as far from the truth as you think
that sacrifices are the gifts we give to god
that surrender is supposed to be uplifting
that defeat is sometimes release
so I surrender
not to you
and not to me
but to the forces I cannot control
to the lives I could live without happiness
to the fact that just because I can doesn’t mean I do.
surrender to the fact that
“everything is permissible
but not everything is good”
that good and god are too close to be separate
and that my darkened corner is sometimes the best place to take in the brightest sun
I cannot find myself because I am already found
and I can’t define myself because I can’t be outlined
because when the choice between good and best comes along
it’s really no choice at all
and you’ve always been the best for me
and maybe i’m just good
maybe i’m not what I could or would or should be for you
but at least I can say that i’m on the up and up
and I was getting there at least,
at least until my feet were swept out from under me
but my bearings read straight
and my compass still points east
to the rising sun in a nightless place
to happiness even when that word means nothing
joy, oh joy, where have you been
god, oh god, what can I do with this?
Where is my pillar of fire?
of cloud?
My direction in my blindness
you gave me a home and now it’s been destroyed
exodus to a promise land I thought i’d already achieved
but maybe that pillar I built was nothing but smoke and mirrors
maybe the girl with the colors in her eyes never really existed
you might be the first true poet i’ve ever met
the last real prophet
because with you, i can hear the universe
in you, i can see the future
but the universe is nothing more than where we can see our breath
when the sun’s gone out and we’re sitting on my back porch
hoping and praying the night lasts a little longer
so we can sleep a little longer
dream a little longer
be a little longer in the silence your father hatesin the dark your kids will be afraid of
you’re most beautiful castle-builder
my head is full of cement,
my limbs are papier-mache imitations,
left lifeless and useless when it truly matters
like it truly mattered last winter
my fingers too dead to reach out, take hold, change everything
but life has a funny way of teaching us things
a cruel way of gift-giving and grave-digging
but i’ve plowed a hundred fields where i started that grave
and this spring, a thousand roses will bloom for you
a garden named Eden on the ruins of hell
because you’re the holiest saint i know
a martyr, sacrificed on the altar of divorce,
a divorce stained childhood,
remorse-filled years that taught you love and life don’t always rhyme
and your bare feet and holy hands point in all directions,
waiting for something to ease that great digression,
just stop and listen and wait
open your eyes and you might see
that while love and life might not rhyme, they sound a lot alike
and that kiss and a ring look real good next to each other
i don’t know how to convince you,
how to tell you what’s worth the wait is worth the risk
but i’d be lying if i said i wasn’t ready right now
to split the curtain to the holy place,
to see just how long we can breathe underwater when we’re underneath the surface of the sun
our light will never go out
i can’t find the best in all of this but i’m always looking out for you ‘cause you’re the one i miss and it’s driving me crazy.
they say that love doesn’t exist
it’s dividing zero in my arithmetic
it’s that feeling you get when they call your name at the lighthouse to tell you God is on the other line
it’s the logic in your parents’ “just because” and “in a minute”’
in other words, it just don’t exist
but i say it does
my numbers just go up that high
and i hear God in my sleep
and well, parents might just have a point or two to make
but then they’ll say that we’re too young,
and i’ll just say that they’re too dumb
and so what if i’m going on 19 writing this?
you’ll be going on 70 still reading it
and if they want to tell me what love is,
if they’re smart, they might say something like this:
it’s red and blue and yellow and all the colors in-between
on a once clean white blanket,
a dragon and a tiger,
colored to perfection for 5 bucks and some concentration
it’s being covered in paint and chasing one another with water balloons
and causing bruises and cuts
and grabbing my butt in public
and i ate all that chocolate and read all those notes and cried,
wanting to pick up the phone at 3 in the morning to wake you up with song
they might say, if they have any notion of what love is,
that it smells like a hundred roses and looks like your eyes
honestly, i doubt they could ever know what i know
they can’t count that high on their fingers and toes,
but i’ve numbered your breaths when you’ve slept on my chest
and i’ve seen God in the living room,
reading you His words
and i’ve been jealous of your faith,
but they’ve never even seen His face
and one day, we’ll be those parents,
whose “because”s and minutes reign supreme
and even if that means a few missed dates and “sorry we’re late”s
well, at least our kids will grow up knowing what we know
that love is that feeling in the pit of your stomach when your mouth can’t quite move
and it’s that clenched fist over her tears
it’s kisses before punches
“sorry”s before [sarcastic] “sooorrrryyyy”s
it’s knowing her like the back of her hand
and the nape of her neck
and the freckles on her lower back
it’s making cookies “from scratch”
or kissing the whole movie,
only to say “who’s that”
and “when did they die?”
at the end when we have to catch our breath
it’s two cars crashing in a storm
except the cars are our lips
and the storm is all that chaos around us
and in that split second,
we’re the single bit of warmth and light
and we slow people down while they rubberneck to see what they can’t believe just happened
it’s the edges of the maps before they filled them in
and the spaces in our a’s and e’s and o’s
and the dots in our i’s (eyes) and the curves in our (yo)u.
when we fell in love, it was the end of my life,
except instead of the end, it was the beginning,
and instead of my life, it’s our story
and i’ve got ink to last a lifetime
and a muse to fill the pages
that’s what love is
coming back from college to a warm body and a rose beneath my pillow
secret codes to decipher all about
and sweets to fill my hunger
except i’ve got a sweet tooth only for you
and my eyes stay glued to your legs
and i’ll only look away if you make me
and even then, i can’t make any promises except for one:
a four letter word encompassing twelve hours of the clock and every angle it can throw at you
one syllable that stops poverty
that breaks the swords of armies
no wonder they don’t believe in it
a myth,
a conspiracy,
a tale to tell their kids.
if that’s true
paint us in the sky,
send us to area 51,
and start practicing the lines,
‘cause have we got stories to tell
we’ll just tell them -
the wild west is delicious, it’s shrimp superb,
and while we’ve yet to taste a campsite, we like our fires warm,
our laughter might not flatter, our humor surely doomed,
but hearing you in nighttime, i’m convinced that we’re fine-tuned
so they might call us crazy, a childish, naïve display
and while we might fulfill all those words, we’re surely meant to stay
so stay, just stay, i swear that it’s that easy
i love you, i love you, just swear that you love me
too.
hey it’s me and that lady i like!
we’re just kids we sang
the lyrics of punk rock youth and rebellion filling the basement
of some sketchy building downtown
but you can’t just sing a song and expect it to change something
politicians and wall street
protesters – the TIME person of the year
picketing opinions for free speech
you can’t sing a song and expect it to change anything
believe me
but holding your hand as headlights passed
the black danger of the streets behind us
and the comfort and safety of home before us
miles later
years later?
I don’t know
because here, right now,
you are my safety,
you are my free speech,
my liberty
the freedom they fight for
in the sixties, buddhist monks set themselves on fire
their burning flesh a lantern of protest to the catholics in south vietnam
buddhist, forbidden from committing suicide or self-harm,
claimed their self-sacrifice reflected
the self-immolation of the medicine king in the lotus sutra,
his flame to light the dharma for twelve hundred years
he “shined his light about him so that everyone could see as he could see,
giving them the opportunity to see the deathless nature of the ultimate.”
needless to say, these protesters who martyred themselves shocked the world.
for freedom.
for truth.
today forest fires routinely wipe-out miles of the west,
turning green havens of nature into black ash.
where the sun once rose on a healthy human-free patch of earth,
it now rises on dead lifeless dirt.
maybe the forests are burning themselves
maybe the trees grab up matches from their branches,
pour the accelerator on,
and erupt in chaos and heat as a protest to our destruction
to our greed and our discontent for what we have
mother earth defending herself
god waving his own picket sign
driving home, my spine felt like fluid
the jellyfish my friend sang of echoing in my ears and crawling through my skin
not for politics and the angsty leftism of the kids we saw
not for religion or environment
but because I could never put flame to flesh
so this is my statement of purpose,
my letter of intent,
my goodbye note,
and declaration of independence
to burn my skin
to end my own selfishness
to burn my skin
to love you well.
to set myself aflame to light the world for twelve hundred years
to shine my light about me so that everyone can see as I see
to see the deathless nature of the ultimate
of love
my skin will not turn to ash,
but to oxygen,
you and I could set this whole world on fire
burning cities
not to the ground,
but to the sky
to heaven
to God
with love
with fire
with protest
so it’s christmas break,
my computer crashed on me twice last week
and i haven’t been writing much
so i’ve neglected this blog.
gonna get on that.
