"Where did you come from?"

I came from midwestern, pentecostal christianity and bullheaded atheism.

I came from love and neglect; from joy and pain; from laughter and tears.

I came from the poor-house below the hill.

I came from the poor-house above of the hill.

I came from the greatest lie ever told.

I came from a forgotten history and an unknowable future.

I came from fear and regret.

I came from passion, rebellion, and resolve.

I came from the depths of doubt and self-loathing.

I came from a classical background with a rock and roll attitude.

I came from a struggle for dignity.

I came from below, and it is here I shall remain.

I came from a mistake of chemistry.

I came from one last hope; and it's dying breath.

I came from the end and then the beginning.

I came from history and it's aftermaths.

I came from civilization and it's discontents.

I came from barbarians and savages.

I came from the prairie and the moorland.

I came from feather and stone.

I came from a small town in a big city.

I came from somewhere inside.

Fuck.

I go back and forth between the feeling that melodrama is actually hugely important and that it is merely a symptom of such an atrocious form boredom. After all, is it wise to think of all the small and insignificant details as extremely important? Or, are those details better left as that, mere details. What of those events which come to you and change - even just briefly - the way you see the world? Your life? Yourself? Are these such grandiose events that we should treat them with semi-sacred reverence? Or maybe it's best to recognize them as the less than minor details that they will remain in the annals of history...

I'd like to propose a thought: in holding the lens that life is a joke (and a poor one, at that), I've become increasingly more convinced that life should be lived as if it were cosmically important. In the very least, this will keep things interesting; and in the very best, life may one day be important and worthwhile.

And then I remember that it's all been said before.

The door wouldn't lock.

And suddenly, I'm fucking 14 again. That really cool, more experienced and confident girl at the party picks me out. Sure, I'm funny and have a sharp wit, and I say what I mean and don't pull any punches about it. Right now, where I'm sitting in this illuminated room with a cool breeze coming in through the window, yeah - I'm fucking 28 folks. I've lived, I've cried, I've laughed - I'd like to think I've learned a thing or two - I've loved, and boy oh boy have I felt the embrace of a woman. So why do I suddenly feel like I'm 14?

Those beautiful eyes and passionate kiss.

Fuck me. Not in the, actually fuck me way, no this is a much bigger and complex issue. Well, maybe it is that issue because the middle of the story is the non-complex version of the story: the fuck me part.

How is it that there is nothing more intimidating than a beautiful, hilarious, intelligent, and brutally honest woman who wants me to drive her home because she's too drunk?? Why is it that I feel like an ass for being the person I know I am?

The road makes fools of us all. And here I am, sleeping alone in a big, empty bed. Dreaming of things that may never happen. Hoping for a tomorrow full of passion, vibrance and hope; thinking that it may all be a sick joke. Here I am, embracing that joke. Here I am, hoping that the joke ends up, just this once, with some unexpected and brilliant punchline; not the same old, unimaginative one dreamt up a long time ago by a person we'll never know. Here I am, waiting - not indignant or naively - for a joke that brings ruin to all we know and starts a whole new world. Words are supposed have power - and if they ever really have, then they should right fucking now.

What does it look like?

I often wonder about the soft spot right behind and above my eyes. Not quite the brow-line, but not centered right behind the iris. It often feels like my eyes are these "L" shaped monsters, with the bottom part of the "L" being what you can see, and the rest creeping up towards my brain like florescent light-blubs that have been molded to resemble hockey-sticks. This is where the pain lives; in these shriveled little tubes of membrane and goo. When I was in 3rd grade, I had a stress toy that was a rubber tube filled with sand. One day, in class, it popped all over my hands and inside of my open desk. Muddy sand got all over, as the rubber tube reverted to the size of a popped balloon; I stood there, not knowing what to do.

I think my eyes might pop in the same fashion; and I'll be left standing here, not knowing what he fuck to do. Still that child, I suppose, the anxiety and confusion never really went away. And as troubling as that sounds, I don't think it would work any other way. Unless that's just the fear talking...

to the end of the earth

If at any moment I were to collapse, under the weight of myself, or the whole fucking world, what would be left would be the husk of an empty threat. Vacant and empty in that way where it goes on forever, but a forever which cannot even begin to be navigated. Don't worry though, I'm not special, you too are filled with a void of space which is both infinite and nothing. Call it anti-matter. Call it a mathematical abstraction, seen only within the minds and on chalk-boards of abstract scientists. Or, call it the Abyss and wonder, with awe along with the philosophers and mystics, how we came to know a place of absolute nothingness. Wonder how this place of absolute nothingness came to know us, always.

Song and fucking dance.

When the voices rise up, in one unified chant, dictating in near inaudible tones those things which I can't understanding, on this day - on these days - time will cease to have any meaning. The veneer of to world will be chipped away and all things in space shall lose the context in which we have ever understood them. The apocalypse is funny that way. And life, well life is the greatest joke ever told, and we're always at the center of the punchline. Maybe it's like those jokes you would play on yourself as a lonely child. Anything for a brief moment of laughter and some reprieve from the numbing boredom.

An essay was once written, from an anthropological perspective, that we are continually re-living ancient religious rituals and rites in everyday society, as though this is something we cannot escape but also refuse to acknowledge. I wonder if the same could be said of the games and tricks we played as children; we continue to set these up and watch them unfold, if only for our own amusement. This may explain far too much.

I suppose, if we're unwilling to acknowledge that these patters continue to self-replicate, that we don't really need to be worried, as we can't tell their occurring. Maybe the best course of action is to just sit back, watch it all happen, and play the game. The same song and fucking dance, forever.