Sunday, December 31, 2017
Thursday, November 30, 2017
Mundane Rotten Gray Words
What does it take to travel far without leaving oneself behind? Bright colors lie beyond the horizon but they can seem so far away when sleep beckons from less than a room away. I'm searching for something unknown in my mind and so how am I to know when to call back the search party? How do I know when to stop and where to go? Will I ever even know if I've found it?
What am I looking for? Daily my movements are full of bright colors and big ideas but once I wake from the exhaustion after work I can't seem to find them anymore. I return to my notebooks, my journals, or any other outlets and there is very little left save for a few mundane tints and shades of gray. I want to paint the walls but not to paint myself into a corner unless someone else is nearby. I'm like a disaster movie playing on a VCR with the sound on mute. It's grainy and there is some semblance of ripe ideas but they can't escape if no one can find the remote, or perhaps even better if someone could find a digital copy of this film and a television that isn't analog on which we could enjoy it.
No one will read this for clues, and even if they do their search will likely be fruitless.
Gray words slipping through my fingertips, dripping down my brow, and falling onto deaf ears. Are you listening or just hearing? And even more, am I speaking or just making grunting and groaning sounds? Catch the vaporous smoke escaping that is all that remains from the once lit match.
Slippery.
Elusive.
Unsubstantial.
Gone.
A pigeon feather floating just above the fresh volcanic ash.
What am I looking for? Daily my movements are full of bright colors and big ideas but once I wake from the exhaustion after work I can't seem to find them anymore. I return to my notebooks, my journals, or any other outlets and there is very little left save for a few mundane tints and shades of gray. I want to paint the walls but not to paint myself into a corner unless someone else is nearby. I'm like a disaster movie playing on a VCR with the sound on mute. It's grainy and there is some semblance of ripe ideas but they can't escape if no one can find the remote, or perhaps even better if someone could find a digital copy of this film and a television that isn't analog on which we could enjoy it.
No one will read this for clues, and even if they do their search will likely be fruitless.
Gray words slipping through my fingertips, dripping down my brow, and falling onto deaf ears. Are you listening or just hearing? And even more, am I speaking or just making grunting and groaning sounds? Catch the vaporous smoke escaping that is all that remains from the once lit match.
Slippery.
Elusive.
Unsubstantial.
Gone.
A pigeon feather floating just above the fresh volcanic ash.
Sunday, October 15, 2017
Even Big Buildings Tumble
Chains outside the beautiful stone wall. A man stands at the door greeting passersby. As the masses enter they tie their masks around their faces. Only a lonely few step inside faceless. These lonesome few try to keep their heads from falling off their shoulders all the while they are pierced with judgmental glares from the corners of masqueraded eyes.
Inside the laser light show blinds any sense of true vision that may remain from the outside world. Neon signs flash in all corners, blaring propaganda of positivity in the faces of guests and members alike. The music, when not blaring overproduced self-indulgent praises, is set on turning any and all frowns upside down. No one frowns, unless of course they are a part of the charade. In fact, frowning is all but forbidden within the old wooden doors of the open gymnasium/chapel.
As the crowd settles in and the applause dies down the people adjust their masks and rush to their invisibly assigned seats. The older middle age man fake jogs onto the stage and makes a poorly timed joke and the crowd laughs on cue. The onlookers quickly quiet down and he says a few more words as the onlookers bow their heads. The tattered leather jacket of a giant antique of a book sits on a podium in front of him. Not once in the presenter's forty-five minute motivational speech does he even open the book. Instead, he refers regularly to trendy slides designed by a struggling or aspiring (it's hard to tell the difference sometimes) graphic designer and urges the crowd to follow along with him on their smartphones. The book on his podium is more like a visual sound block that the speaker strikes vigorously like a judge with his gavel, only this man does so emphatically spewing rhetoric to rile up the crowd rather than calm them down (if only to ignite their nerves inside).
Inside the laser light show blinds any sense of true vision that may remain from the outside world. Neon signs flash in all corners, blaring propaganda of positivity in the faces of guests and members alike. The music, when not blaring overproduced self-indulgent praises, is set on turning any and all frowns upside down. No one frowns, unless of course they are a part of the charade. In fact, frowning is all but forbidden within the old wooden doors of the open gymnasium/chapel.
As the crowd settles in and the applause dies down the people adjust their masks and rush to their invisibly assigned seats. The older middle age man fake jogs onto the stage and makes a poorly timed joke and the crowd laughs on cue. The onlookers quickly quiet down and he says a few more words as the onlookers bow their heads. The tattered leather jacket of a giant antique of a book sits on a podium in front of him. Not once in the presenter's forty-five minute motivational speech does he even open the book. Instead, he refers regularly to trendy slides designed by a struggling or aspiring (it's hard to tell the difference sometimes) graphic designer and urges the crowd to follow along with him on their smartphones. The book on his podium is more like a visual sound block that the speaker strikes vigorously like a judge with his gavel, only this man does so emphatically spewing rhetoric to rile up the crowd rather than calm them down (if only to ignite their nerves inside).
Monday, September 4, 2017
The Sly Smile of Betrayal
Is it true? Did you lie to me? How can you instruct me on how to live with your words and paint lies my hopeful heart with lies? I pushed myself away from my goals and my ambition because of you. I thought I was to blame for the extension because of you. I sat and soaked in my shame for years because I thought what you said was true.
Then you sanded down my only true Hope to help me feel "positive." You painted over my emotions with a thick silver lining that I could not see through. It has taken years, and perhaps there will be more to come, for me to be able to peel back the layers of falsities and thinly veiled promises. I'm a product of my environment but that is not all I am.
I'm growing stronger and more set in my convictions everyday. I cannot continue to sleep here with your artificial lights and lampposts. I cannot let you tuck my sisters and brothers in to sleep each night with your smallpox-laced blankets. Your comfort is not comfortable; it's complacency. You whittle down profound truths to bite size snippets and do not replace the pieces that you've shaved off. Or you replace them with your own thoughts and with your own opinions.
We must not all be like you. We were made different intentionally. Thank God not a stroke will be added, nor even a mark be truly taken away. I'm afraid that I too am guilty but I cannot absolve you or me. I won't paint the shadows with glowing hues just to hide their true identity and I won't be serenaded to sleep with your fables of fictitious freedom fighters. We all have faith in something and I won't let you rob me of mine.
Then you sanded down my only true Hope to help me feel "positive." You painted over my emotions with a thick silver lining that I could not see through. It has taken years, and perhaps there will be more to come, for me to be able to peel back the layers of falsities and thinly veiled promises. I'm a product of my environment but that is not all I am.
I'm growing stronger and more set in my convictions everyday. I cannot continue to sleep here with your artificial lights and lampposts. I cannot let you tuck my sisters and brothers in to sleep each night with your smallpox-laced blankets. Your comfort is not comfortable; it's complacency. You whittle down profound truths to bite size snippets and do not replace the pieces that you've shaved off. Or you replace them with your own thoughts and with your own opinions.
We must not all be like you. We were made different intentionally. Thank God not a stroke will be added, nor even a mark be truly taken away. I'm afraid that I too am guilty but I cannot absolve you or me. I won't paint the shadows with glowing hues just to hide their true identity and I won't be serenaded to sleep with your fables of fictitious freedom fighters. We all have faith in something and I won't let you rob me of mine.
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