It's hard to see what you really look like. Sometimes, the mirror is forgiving; sometimes it's a magnifying glass for everything you hate about yourself. Sometimes, it makes you wish you could live forever. Sometimes it makes you wish that you were alone so you could drift off into an endless blackness, guilt free.
Those are the hard times. Because you know - you can smash the mirror and scatter the feeling. The shards will be so sharp your blood will reach the ceiling. And that's something. That reach. At least you leave a mark - until the landlord sends in the poor cleaning women with their buckets of bleach.
They won't get all the stains, but enough for another whitewash refrain. The new tenant will never hear the echoes of pain.
Then there're funhouse mirrors. They don't mean shit to anybody. They twist us up inside and out. Make us wonder what we're all about.
I'm gonna start carrying a hammer. Smash every fucking mirror I come across. Keep bitching, build myself a cross. Don't be cross. I'm in charge of me. And calling it your job don't make it right. Boss.
See?
Writing is a weird addiction. So much lost in the brittle friction. You open too many veins, and you never see the mirror straight again. That's the deal you make. Most times you lose. Occasionally, you win.
Is there a color blacker than black? I want the kind of black where I can't see my fist coming. I want to punch the walls until my fingers splinter. Sew my mouth shut so I can't talk anymore. You don't even know me, and you think I'm a bore?
Imagine how I feel.
Who's to know what's fake and what's real? Who's cares anyway?
Maybe this would all be easier if I could start over. Get super interested in college football or barbecuing.
You can watch football with crushed hands.
If you're reading this, you should hate it. I do. A grown man should have something better to do. Some kind of legacy. Something true. Something true that matters. Some garnish for the plate. I'd go back in time and get into real estate, but it's too damn late.
And the worst part? I'll tell my girls to do things that are meaningful to them. And they might end up in the exact same place I'm in, bitter and running out of time. But at least they could take their kids to Disneyland.
All the other kids go. And the adults I know? It's only a few thousand dollars...
Motherfucker, please. I feel guilty when I buy a burrito. Something tells me I wouldn't enjoy the Mickey they slip you at the princess show.
No mirrors for me. That's the lesson here. I want to be a hermit crab. I want to smell like seaweed and move from shell to shell so no one can recognize me. Maybe go back in time and convince some corrupt "doctor" to lobotomize me.
I tried doing it myself, but it didn't take.
Let's take a moment, count the mistakes. Unable to provide for family? Check. Unable to grin when others do? Got that going on, too. And I never have been able to smile through the bile. Lord knows what that's cost me.
I've never understood why Van Gogh would cut off an ear. Seems insincere. I'd gouge my eyes out so I'd never see another mirror.
Don't sweat it. It's all a joke, and you don't get it. Neither do I. And that's fine.
Never trust a punch line.
Saturday, March 11, 2017
Friday, March 10, 2017
2 Minutes. Go!
Hey, writer-type folks. AND PEOPLE WHO JUST WANT TO PLAY BUT DON'T IDENTIFY AS 'WRITERS' - all are welcome here! Every Friday, we do a fun free-write. For fun. And Freedom!
Write whatever you want in the 'comments' section on this blog post. Play as many times as you like. #breaktheblog! You have two minutes (give or take a few seconds ... no pressure!). Have fun. The more people who play, the more fun it is. So, tell a friend. Then send 'em here to read your 'two' and encourage them to play.
It's hard to see underneath all that paint, but the house is cramped and broken. New, but crippled from it's infancy with a kind of fake cheer and chipped veneer. Like something is just off - you can stare at it and look into it and you see great expanses of black. You fear the house, but you are not afraid of it. You are sorry for the world.
That God saw fit to make such a girl.
And you can clean the cobwebs from the corners. You can decorate and make it sparkle, but it's still a squat little house bulging at the seams. Moving, ever so slowly, to a place where only sociopaths dream. There is a path to the house.
She would do anything to take it.
The neighbors won't even walk by. They don't talk about it. The other houses smile and grin and close their shutters. Try to avoid the collateral damage of the repugnancy which is bringing down the market value.
The fucking market value.
And still, forever more, until collapse, the house will sit on the top of a hill that doesn't deserve to be called a hill. The colors will be too garish. Birds will stunt and flutter at the proximity. Rain will swerve around it.
Because she has the kind of blankness that makes you shudder.
Board the shutters.
#2minutesgo Tweet it! Share it! Shout it from the top of the shack you live in! I will be out most of the day, but I'll be back...
Write whatever you want in the 'comments' section on this blog post. Play as many times as you like. #breaktheblog! You have two minutes (give or take a few seconds ... no pressure!). Have fun. The more people who play, the more fun it is. So, tell a friend. Then send 'em here to read your 'two' and encourage them to play.
It's hard to see underneath all that paint, but the house is cramped and broken. New, but crippled from it's infancy with a kind of fake cheer and chipped veneer. Like something is just off - you can stare at it and look into it and you see great expanses of black. You fear the house, but you are not afraid of it. You are sorry for the world.
That God saw fit to make such a girl.
And you can clean the cobwebs from the corners. You can decorate and make it sparkle, but it's still a squat little house bulging at the seams. Moving, ever so slowly, to a place where only sociopaths dream. There is a path to the house.
She would do anything to take it.
The neighbors won't even walk by. They don't talk about it. The other houses smile and grin and close their shutters. Try to avoid the collateral damage of the repugnancy which is bringing down the market value.
The fucking market value.
And still, forever more, until collapse, the house will sit on the top of a hill that doesn't deserve to be called a hill. The colors will be too garish. Birds will stunt and flutter at the proximity. Rain will swerve around it.
Because she has the kind of blankness that makes you shudder.
Board the shutters.
#2minutesgo Tweet it! Share it! Shout it from the top of the shack you live in! I will be out most of the day, but I'll be back...
Friday, March 3, 2017
2 Minutes. Go!
Hey, writer-type folks. AND PEOPLE WHO JUST WANT TO PLAY BUT DON'T IDENTIFY AS 'WRITERS' - all are welcome here! Every Friday, we do a fun free-write. For fun. And Freedom!
Write whatever you want in the 'comments' section on this blog post. Play as many times as you like. #breaktheblog! You have two minutes (give or take a few seconds ... no pressure!). Have fun. The more people who play, the more fun it is. So, tell a friend. Then send 'em here to read your 'two' and encourage them to play.
I awoke to the rumble of a country train, standing in the shadows of a subtle summer rain. It's a place I know well. A place I go to all the time - sometimes in reality, but mostly in my mind. But I can see it. Most of my internal wanderings lead me to dark, blurred, and confusing places, but there is only birdsong and tranquility under the watchful gaze of the train at the place where the stream runs through.
I'll show it to you.
You need to go under the tracks to get to the hole, and you can fish under the tracks, but I've never caught anything there except backstory and proclamations. Small scratches and paint sprays that are still rural enough to be about love, written in a teenager's hand.
I am convinced that, someday, I will catch a monster under that bridge, so I stay a while, longer if it's hot, but there is often a light rain. Why? I don't know. Perhaps the fish gods know that I don't visit the bend by the railroad bridge with any evil intent. I visit with barbless hooks, and I walk slowly. And I never allow myself more than four fish.
When you step out of the bridge's shadow, you see the bend. On the right, treefall and chaos. Swirling eddies and it looks just about impossible to fish.
It's not.
You can sink a piece of corn, a fly, a worm - you can let the eddy dance it round, on the surface or deeper down. And you will catch trout. And you will always, always miss one fish. Or catch it and break your line off. No doubt at all - under the limbs that reach out like spectral fingers into the black water ... there are fish in there that can stop your heart.
The water is as clear as my thoughts are muddied, half awake. The water under the tree is deep. Deeper than you want to find out the hard way, so stay back. The stream is about fifteen feet across and there is a canopy of trees. I like to fish the bend in winter most of all, when there is snow, and the trees match my mood.
Past the tree, the water flows gently and careful casts will let you swing your bait around the corner, and you can catch trout all day. Sometimes rainbows - most of the time, this is where the brook trout go to play. And they seem to know that I won't hurt them. That I just want to say hello and then send them home.
You can hear the train from a good ways off and, when it passes, the thunder is inside you, but it doesn't faze the fish. They are used to it. The fish at the bend by the railroad track know the rhythm as sure as they know that I'll always be coming back.
Dream or not, that stream is waiting. The trains are running and time is irrelevant. The fish are steady, and every pause is pregnant. It is a real place, I promise you. I can see it clear as the pure water I splash onto my face on warm days.
Now, it is time to go to work, the dream's already fading. But I know it will be there. Always. Waiting.
#2minutesgo Tweet it! Share it! Shout it from the top of the shack you live in! I will be out most of the day, but I'll be back...
Write whatever you want in the 'comments' section on this blog post. Play as many times as you like. #breaktheblog! You have two minutes (give or take a few seconds ... no pressure!). Have fun. The more people who play, the more fun it is. So, tell a friend. Then send 'em here to read your 'two' and encourage them to play.
I awoke to the rumble of a country train, standing in the shadows of a subtle summer rain. It's a place I know well. A place I go to all the time - sometimes in reality, but mostly in my mind. But I can see it. Most of my internal wanderings lead me to dark, blurred, and confusing places, but there is only birdsong and tranquility under the watchful gaze of the train at the place where the stream runs through.
I'll show it to you.
You need to go under the tracks to get to the hole, and you can fish under the tracks, but I've never caught anything there except backstory and proclamations. Small scratches and paint sprays that are still rural enough to be about love, written in a teenager's hand.
I am convinced that, someday, I will catch a monster under that bridge, so I stay a while, longer if it's hot, but there is often a light rain. Why? I don't know. Perhaps the fish gods know that I don't visit the bend by the railroad bridge with any evil intent. I visit with barbless hooks, and I walk slowly. And I never allow myself more than four fish.
When you step out of the bridge's shadow, you see the bend. On the right, treefall and chaos. Swirling eddies and it looks just about impossible to fish.
It's not.
You can sink a piece of corn, a fly, a worm - you can let the eddy dance it round, on the surface or deeper down. And you will catch trout. And you will always, always miss one fish. Or catch it and break your line off. No doubt at all - under the limbs that reach out like spectral fingers into the black water ... there are fish in there that can stop your heart.
The water is as clear as my thoughts are muddied, half awake. The water under the tree is deep. Deeper than you want to find out the hard way, so stay back. The stream is about fifteen feet across and there is a canopy of trees. I like to fish the bend in winter most of all, when there is snow, and the trees match my mood.
Past the tree, the water flows gently and careful casts will let you swing your bait around the corner, and you can catch trout all day. Sometimes rainbows - most of the time, this is where the brook trout go to play. And they seem to know that I won't hurt them. That I just want to say hello and then send them home.
You can hear the train from a good ways off and, when it passes, the thunder is inside you, but it doesn't faze the fish. They are used to it. The fish at the bend by the railroad track know the rhythm as sure as they know that I'll always be coming back.
Dream or not, that stream is waiting. The trains are running and time is irrelevant. The fish are steady, and every pause is pregnant. It is a real place, I promise you. I can see it clear as the pure water I splash onto my face on warm days.
Now, it is time to go to work, the dream's already fading. But I know it will be there. Always. Waiting.
#2minutesgo Tweet it! Share it! Shout it from the top of the shack you live in! I will be out most of the day, but I'll be back...
Friday, February 24, 2017
2 Minutes. Go!
Hey, writer-type folks. AND PEOPLE WHO JUST WANT TO PLAY BUT DON'T IDENTIFY AS 'WRITERS' - all are welcome here! Every Friday, we do a fun free-write. For fun. And Freedom!
Write whatever you want in the 'comments' section on this blog post. Play as many times as you like. #breaktheblog! You have two minutes (give or take a few seconds ... no pressure!). Have fun. The more people who play, the more fun it is. So, tell a friend. Then send 'em here to read your 'two' and encourage them to play.
I figure it's time to take stock. I look in the mirror and things have certainly changed, but at least I can still make eye contact. I haven't broken that contract. And it's not even about that. It's not about me. Not from what I can see. I'm just a jumbled rubber band ball of subtle faults and guilt trips. Long ones.
I should have packed my luggage.
You want to be a shit about it? I don't. I just want to look over this cliff and breathe and then get a good night's sleep. I don't want to stalk brief moments of authenticity, hard to find when everything is so sparkly. But that's something I don't have to worry about.
Boo hoo, poor me.
Poor you. Poor fucking you. What happened? Were you born broken? Did someone use words to chip away at you .. or was it fists? Or was it nothing? A whirlwind flurry of old couch stuffing.
I'm flying this plane right into the goddamn wall. You might as well brace your arms. It won't make any difference, but it might make you feel better, petulant. You're stagnant. I'm vibrant. We'll both fall.
Or it's a lie and I'm you and you're me, struggling for some putrid epiphany. I don't care at this point. All I know is you can go ahead and ignore the oxygen masks.
They ain't gonna help.
#2minutesgo Tweet it! Share it! Shout it from the top of the shack you live in! I will be out most of the day, but I'll be back...
Write whatever you want in the 'comments' section on this blog post. Play as many times as you like. #breaktheblog! You have two minutes (give or take a few seconds ... no pressure!). Have fun. The more people who play, the more fun it is. So, tell a friend. Then send 'em here to read your 'two' and encourage them to play.
I figure it's time to take stock. I look in the mirror and things have certainly changed, but at least I can still make eye contact. I haven't broken that contract. And it's not even about that. It's not about me. Not from what I can see. I'm just a jumbled rubber band ball of subtle faults and guilt trips. Long ones.
I should have packed my luggage.
You want to be a shit about it? I don't. I just want to look over this cliff and breathe and then get a good night's sleep. I don't want to stalk brief moments of authenticity, hard to find when everything is so sparkly. But that's something I don't have to worry about.
Boo hoo, poor me.
Poor you. Poor fucking you. What happened? Were you born broken? Did someone use words to chip away at you .. or was it fists? Or was it nothing? A whirlwind flurry of old couch stuffing.
I'm flying this plane right into the goddamn wall. You might as well brace your arms. It won't make any difference, but it might make you feel better, petulant. You're stagnant. I'm vibrant. We'll both fall.
Or it's a lie and I'm you and you're me, struggling for some putrid epiphany. I don't care at this point. All I know is you can go ahead and ignore the oxygen masks.
They ain't gonna help.
#2minutesgo Tweet it! Share it! Shout it from the top of the shack you live in! I will be out most of the day, but I'll be back...
Friday, February 17, 2017
2 Minutes. Go!
Hey, writer-type folks. AND PEOPLE WHO JUST WANT TO PLAY BUT DON'T IDENTIFY AS 'WRITERS' - all are welcome here! Every Friday, we do a fun free-write. For fun. And Freedom!
Write whatever you want in the 'comments' section on this blog post. Play as many times as you like. #breaktheblog! You have two minutes (give or take a few seconds ... no pressure!). Have fun. The more people who play, the more fun it is. So, tell a friend. Then send 'em here to read your 'two' and encourage them to play.
Sorry, crew. I'm calling in sick. Y'all will have to #breaktheblog without me. Give me some good stuff to read. oxox, JD
#2minutesgo Tweet it! Share it! Shout it from the top of the shack you live in! I will be out most of the day, but I'll be back...
Write whatever you want in the 'comments' section on this blog post. Play as many times as you like. #breaktheblog! You have two minutes (give or take a few seconds ... no pressure!). Have fun. The more people who play, the more fun it is. So, tell a friend. Then send 'em here to read your 'two' and encourage them to play.
Sorry, crew. I'm calling in sick. Y'all will have to #breaktheblog without me. Give me some good stuff to read. oxox, JD
#2minutesgo Tweet it! Share it! Shout it from the top of the shack you live in! I will be out most of the day, but I'll be back...
Friday, February 10, 2017
2 Minutes. Go!
Hey, writer-type folks. AND PEOPLE WHO JUST WANT TO PLAY BUT DON'T IDENTIFY AS 'WRITERS' - all are welcome here! Every Friday, we do a fun free-write. For fun. And Freedom!
Write whatever you want in the 'comments' section on this blog post. Play as many times as you like. #breaktheblog! You have two minutes (give or take a few seconds ... no pressure!). Have fun. The more people who play, the more fun it is. So, tell a friend. Then send 'em here to read your 'two' and encourage them to play.
That music sounds like a bad acid trip I had one time, son - too much nitrous. I was lost in the labyrinth of helicopter chop, heart pounding like a jackhammer - I didn't want to dance, though. But I get it. Ecstasy is interesting shit. You want to be Day-Glo and dance to empty blender blasphemy accompanied by the sound of an engine seizing?
Get the hell off my lawn.
You want to step out back and go a few rounds? Fuck no, I'm not taking off this bathrobe. I don't take this bathrobe off for anyone. I'll beat your ass, though.
You were conceived while I was wearing this goddamned bathrobe.
Can't you see you're just fighting a fight you're going to lose? You're going to become a caricature of yourself and tell the same stories over and over until people start to realize they get a little more unbelievable every time.
Folks ain't dumb.
So, turn off that racket and listen to this here. This here's the Carters boy. You hear the guitar? Sounds like it was recorded in a whore's asshole. But it's the...it's...
Well, it's real. That's the thing. Ain't no computers doinking each other while some queer screams in the background.
Oh, hell. Let's listen to the goddamn humpback whales. Maybe I'll understand it this time. I just want to listen to something that isn't like a fucking buzzsaw. Something clean, for once. Before it's radio silence.
Hell, we're almost dead now. Turn the dial and breathe deep - I should have sealed the window gap tighter, but it's working. I feel great. We'll go to the morgue and the car to the chop shop. Maybe they'll prosecute the garage. Complicit in suicide. Stop squirming. Give the shit a chance.
Wait until you hear the drop.
#2minutesgo Tweet it! Share it! Shout it from the top of the shack you live in! I will be out most of the day, but I'll be back...
Write whatever you want in the 'comments' section on this blog post. Play as many times as you like. #breaktheblog! You have two minutes (give or take a few seconds ... no pressure!). Have fun. The more people who play, the more fun it is. So, tell a friend. Then send 'em here to read your 'two' and encourage them to play.
That music sounds like a bad acid trip I had one time, son - too much nitrous. I was lost in the labyrinth of helicopter chop, heart pounding like a jackhammer - I didn't want to dance, though. But I get it. Ecstasy is interesting shit. You want to be Day-Glo and dance to empty blender blasphemy accompanied by the sound of an engine seizing?
Get the hell off my lawn.
You want to step out back and go a few rounds? Fuck no, I'm not taking off this bathrobe. I don't take this bathrobe off for anyone. I'll beat your ass, though.
You were conceived while I was wearing this goddamned bathrobe.
Can't you see you're just fighting a fight you're going to lose? You're going to become a caricature of yourself and tell the same stories over and over until people start to realize they get a little more unbelievable every time.
Folks ain't dumb.
So, turn off that racket and listen to this here. This here's the Carters boy. You hear the guitar? Sounds like it was recorded in a whore's asshole. But it's the...it's...
Well, it's real. That's the thing. Ain't no computers doinking each other while some queer screams in the background.
Oh, hell. Let's listen to the goddamn humpback whales. Maybe I'll understand it this time. I just want to listen to something that isn't like a fucking buzzsaw. Something clean, for once. Before it's radio silence.
Hell, we're almost dead now. Turn the dial and breathe deep - I should have sealed the window gap tighter, but it's working. I feel great. We'll go to the morgue and the car to the chop shop. Maybe they'll prosecute the garage. Complicit in suicide. Stop squirming. Give the shit a chance.
Wait until you hear the drop.
#2minutesgo Tweet it! Share it! Shout it from the top of the shack you live in! I will be out most of the day, but I'll be back...
Friday, February 3, 2017
2 Minutes. Go!
Hey, writer-type folks. AND PEOPLE WHO JUST WANT TO PLAY BUT DON'T IDENTIFY AS 'WRITERS' - all are welcome here! Every Friday, we do a fun free-write. For fun. And Freedom!
Write whatever you want in the 'comments' section on this blog post. Play as many times as you like. #breaktheblog! You have two minutes (give or take a few seconds ... no pressure!). Have fun. The more people who play, the more fun it is. So, tell a friend. Then send 'em here to read your 'two' and encourage them to play.
There is no sadness in it - merely a sense of resignation. It wears on you like water; you can shake it off, but in the long run it will wear you down. Carve canyons through the softer parts of you. So, listen to the rain and try to just breathe. You will be sick, inside and out. You will suffer, and there will be no dignity in the suffering. You will be human, and sometimes you will not be able to rise to the occasion.
You crinkle your nose, repelled by the smell. You cross streets to avoid confrontation. You are in the fallout bunker of your mind, silently tallying canned goods. You can never be too prepared. You can never be fully ready. You have to accept these things. This is no time for giving yourself the benefit of the doubt.
Slogging through the rain, you will chuckle and shake your head. Try to tell stories to folks long dead. You can't help yourself - you grant yourself these superstitions. It's only fair. Things are complicated, and you need to find some kind of grip.
You're slipping.
The darkness surrounds you, but you don't make a sound. You hang your head just a little bit lower. Your neck hurts just a little bit more. You move slower. You wonder where the real you went. All of this is a waste of time. The train is being driven by a blind conductor. Or maybe he can see? Just has blinders on? You'll have to ride it out to know for sure, so suck it up buttercup.
The poison is no worse than the cure.
#2minutesgo Tweet it! Share it! Shout it from the top of the shack you live in! I will be out most of the day, but I'll be back...
Write whatever you want in the 'comments' section on this blog post. Play as many times as you like. #breaktheblog! You have two minutes (give or take a few seconds ... no pressure!). Have fun. The more people who play, the more fun it is. So, tell a friend. Then send 'em here to read your 'two' and encourage them to play.
There is no sadness in it - merely a sense of resignation. It wears on you like water; you can shake it off, but in the long run it will wear you down. Carve canyons through the softer parts of you. So, listen to the rain and try to just breathe. You will be sick, inside and out. You will suffer, and there will be no dignity in the suffering. You will be human, and sometimes you will not be able to rise to the occasion.
You crinkle your nose, repelled by the smell. You cross streets to avoid confrontation. You are in the fallout bunker of your mind, silently tallying canned goods. You can never be too prepared. You can never be fully ready. You have to accept these things. This is no time for giving yourself the benefit of the doubt.
Slogging through the rain, you will chuckle and shake your head. Try to tell stories to folks long dead. You can't help yourself - you grant yourself these superstitions. It's only fair. Things are complicated, and you need to find some kind of grip.
You're slipping.
The darkness surrounds you, but you don't make a sound. You hang your head just a little bit lower. Your neck hurts just a little bit more. You move slower. You wonder where the real you went. All of this is a waste of time. The train is being driven by a blind conductor. Or maybe he can see? Just has blinders on? You'll have to ride it out to know for sure, so suck it up buttercup.
The poison is no worse than the cure.
#2minutesgo Tweet it! Share it! Shout it from the top of the shack you live in! I will be out most of the day, but I'll be back...
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