heel turn 2

when i hear this song, it’s a gut punch

not so much the theme of the song, though it does a lot to represent the ensuing most difficult years of my life, but the feelings and images that come along with it. it represents one of the happiest years and summers of my life. every image in my mind associated with it is almost totally gone, and it’s not even been a full five years since.

this is painful to think about, and painful to write about, and i usually wouldn’t. but i also don’t want to forget that this song was ever a gut punch. i don’t want to forget its importance. i tend to forget things like this, and i don’t want to.

the names, the times, the memories that come with this song. watching wrestling, spending almost every weekend with everyone during the summer, swimming, laughing, cooking, it was the closest my then wife and i came to what we truly wanted, which i think was a community of the family of our choosing, and the constant kind of easy support that comes along with it, that nobody actually thinks about when it’s happening. it just comes so easy, and although i’ve written about this before and won’t touch on it again, i took it for granted that everyone involved felt the same way, and it was gone just as easily.

it kinda came out of nowhere, and by december had disappeared back to that nowhere. i don’t have anyone to throw blame on for that, and it’s not any one person’s fault. it was, i guess, a flash in the pan, and although it’s somewhat painful that it couldn’t continue that way, i’m thankful that i have it. i’m thankful that most of the people involved are actually still in my life, in some way, even if separation and growing older are massive monoliths to overcome. 

the truth is i’ve never stopped feeling like i’m just a young kid, confused by the world. and in the song, the president of the fan club choking on this tears is the part inside of you that realizes what growing older actually sometimes requires.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJH_mxz-QvU

barely living room

in my bad dream 

there's a hallway to

a barely living room

tv’s on

dirty flower curtains drawn

and I hate you

but I feel so bad for you too

we're in a 

flat fescue meadow

browned by the cold

wearing the 

clothes of a ghost

and in my dream, 

you are me

and I am 

sort of you

and I'm thinking about 

some of the things 

that you did

and it 

sort of feels like abuse

still 

I can 

smell the ocean

a thousand miles 

from any coast

wearing the clothes of a ghost

in a 

flat fescue meadow

frozen dead

by the cold

wearing the clothes of a ghost

- fruit bats

acceptance

i guess

,

that's it,

then

footage from the surface of a comet

i wonder if i'll see

any faces above me

or just cracks in the ceiling

nobody else to blame

For Thine is

    Life is

    For Thine is the

       This is the way the world ends

    This is the way the world ends

    This is the way the world ends

    Not with a bang but a whimper.

I used to bend the will of rivers And send them flooding in the fields where delicate things grew I never noticed above Dark rain clouds like bruises in the sky I kept my eye on the prize

I ground down to the gum Milky young teeth at the bit My whole world was in my room Playing both sides of a magic game

- Wild Pink, Wanting Things Makes You Shittier

at Van Buren, Arkansas

at Savoy Tea Company

To my friends

You are some of the most compassionate, caring, inclusive, understanding, bright and approachable people I know. You listen to me ramble, make a hospital room feel like home, reduce stress through humor and listening. The best part is I know you’re not really trying. This is just who you are.

I’m also patting myself on the back for subconsciously choosing you to be my family, my accidental support system in stressful times. You feel like what it feels like to see a bright, crisp day after a long period of dulled senses.

When I see environments of people I could have in my life, when I see their vitriol, their basic motivation that everyone wants something from them, that people are fundamentally some sort of financial and emotional leech, that they can be nothing more than that - and I see you guys with your basic instinct of understanding, and even if you don’t understand, you’re there anyway, I just want you to know that I see it. I see your kindness. The knowing that life is short and difficult without this kind of connection.

You keep the conversation weird in the best way. You make the room brighter. You’re like how I feel about the scientific method in human form. That may be the most heavy handed sentence I’ve ever written.

Anyway, I love and appreciate you guys.

Now is the envy of all of the dead.

“Do not lose time on daily trivialities. Do not dwell on petty detail. For all of these things melt away and drift apart within the obscure traffic of time. Live well and live broadly.You are alive and living now. Now is the envy of all of the dead.”

at Wild Things Farm

at Wild Things Farm

at City of Holdenville

at City of Holdenville

at Savoy Tea Company