5th and 20

We used to be able to make up in a couple minutes,
We used to make food in your grandmother’s kitchen.
We used to seem strong, even though I was so submissive,
You used to say I love you and I knew you meant it.

I used to obey traffic laws,
And I’m only going 45 but it still makes me wonder
If crash collision, twisted metal would be enough,
Would make a masterpiece, of beauty that you might make you
Stop by
And give me the time you never seemed to have enough of.

I wonder if the sirens would reach you where you’re sitting,
From where I’m sitting
Cause now I cant stand the distance,
But I’m closing it, closing in,
The accelerator making my V6 hum a little louder

But life seems to have a way of not making enough noise,
And I’ve screamed my doubts when there was no one there to listen,
Echoes.

I have watched them fade from the wings,
Stared at the mourning dove after ceremony,
And we had both forgotten how to sing. 

The Irony of Pride forced through a lens

So many people do not know this as much as when I was in high school, but I absolutely love “screamo music,” music with a vocalist who taps into a part of their voice for raw expression and angst.  I remember learning to scream from the vocalist in the middle of Riverfront Park with the vocalist of the band I was in at the time (also named Evan.)

I remember pushing myself for days and days until I finally managed to make a guttural, growl that left my throat raw and my speech sounding like an ex-chain smoker.

Fast forward a year and a half later and I started working on my first “metal” album in my friend’s house.  Slaving hours over the right riffs, right lyrics and drum parts.

I put down my first vocal track, and albeit how subpar I believe it was now, looking back, I obtained a method of expression that I have never had.

Pretty soon I started finding songs with lyrics that resonated within me, songs that I could scream out, expelling some inner demon of myself, or sating it to say the least.

Recently I finished working on a simple cover with one of my roommates.  In my excitement and with true joy in preparation of unveiling to my parents one of the things that I love doing the most; creating music, I was left at a bitter impasse.

My roommate began singing the first few lines of the song and a smile made its elastic approach across my lips as I knew the drop would come and I could hear myself screaming.  I looked to my mother to see her reaction and hard lines drew across her face, her lips turned to a scowl.  Without even caring for the rest of the song she turns to me and says, “I really wish that you would keep that screaming stuff out of your songs, it just doesn’t sound good.”

Years of dedicated effort and pouring my emotions and talent into a craft to have it regurgitated within a matter of words vocalized.

I scream for a part of myself that needs out, feral and wild.

I scream for a part of myself that wants to howl in the night,

A part that needs to shout when all the world has forced me to be still.

I guess I’ll go back to just screaming in my car.

My Last Nights

This day is harder than the last ones,
This night is darker than the last ones.

There was a time that emotion swelled my ranks to a point where all I knew was to exhale the charge upon parchment,

I put logical expression to indescribable elation and sorrow.

What I would only give to have that back now;

The nights are longer now,
Sleep comes with more effort now

I have counted all my sheep
And named my favorites

All thoughts, all existence, all purpose
Smothered

I sleep without blankets now,

I remember a time where I felt vulnerable if I slept naked,
A time when something was always waiting to grab me if I let my foot hang off the mattress.
The subtle caress of the breeze from my ceiling fan meant that I was exposed to the claws and razor teeth of the grotesque concoction of my boyish fantasies.

I used to clothe myself in a t-shirt and briefs,
Just the briefs if it was too hot outside.

I’m still afraid to sleep naked,
But I hope that monster is still under my bed.

I’ll hang my feet off and tease him.

To Pipestem I

And all I wanted was for you to care,
But why use a language
That men fabricated
To explain the way I felt the first time our lips met,
The way you tucked your knees against your chest
and lay your head back against my shoulder.

Where is the diction for the yearning
When I got that message and you were four tires to Concord.

Do I only exist between elevator songs
And the lack of conversation,
Or am I swimming in your thoughts too?

The white waters of my mind, raging
And I have forgotten my canoe

It’s you,
Damned if any different
Than heaven sent
But perhaps Fate meant
‘For a Moment…
now give her back.’

Lessalove

What would come without words as a means of expression?
How would one paint without a proper palette?
To sing without scale or speak without proper subject,
How would you deconstruct a love to glances and movements?

What then would be the same,
A  gravitational force linking two bodies like an invisible, shrinking cord nearing them upon their own beating hearts.

And his eyes would be fixed, but upon what,
How should she be found beautiful to him,
As a whole, as the entirety of herself
A holy visage, purity within the edification of the masterpiece,
Or as we see, deconstructing her image like broken colored glass,
Making a filter for which light could arrive, transpose and make new.
Would she then merely be a matter of illusory?

And without gesture or expression upon the face
Would she know cause for his uninterrupted gaze?
Would she be so inclined to return,
Or would she fear him as he draws near?

Would there be many within this space
Or just two, so inclined towards one another
To have this moment of visceral discovery.

How then to love, to carry weight of emotion through hand or thigh,
Would their attraction then be so carnal, so one-sidedly predominant,
Void of touch or motioning.

How would they exchange but to keep contact of eyes,
To try and convince themselves from within,
Without embrace, without touch or caress
That this is real.

I suppose we are not far off then…

The Barrier-Built

There are so many structures,

And perhaps that is why I never liked to rhyme.

But now we give it bait and sway,

And time unfurls the things I cannot mark.

The pinpricks of conscious barriers

As I realize the walls of my cage

surrounding…

damn

“Use your words…”

God Save the Waiting Room

There is something completely unnatural about a hospital wing.

The dulling hum from the ventilation system

That seems to impede upon the vehicles on conscience,

TV monitors too quiet to bring forward any discernible syllables,

Morphing English into a new language of mumbled syntax and juxtaposed vowels.

Always the waiting patients stare at one another,

Playing ‘Guess Who’ with disease and plague.

We are the weakened lot of the earth

Dependent upon the miracles of science,

The curative tendencies of overcompensation.

Here time weaves in and out of itself,

For some, the seconds crawl like a slow-killing bacteria,

Settling within the muscles and marrow,

Devouring the hope of a God-pleading family from within.

For others, they pass like racing comets,

Too few between the first mumbled goodbye and the last breath,

Colliding with violent eruption and silent brevity.

What is this that lingers around the dying?

This ambiguous cloud that silences the soul,

Drains emotion.

There is something completely unnatural about a hospital wing.

Freeze-Frames

Every so often in a life
One can feel the pause of time,
Where the friction of the sand in its
Houred-glass wear the grains to a standstill.

It is within these moments,
Contained inside blurred snapshots of the conscious
Memory and emotion have, at first glance
A sunset’s worth of vibrancy.

Standing beside a hospital bed,
Holding a swollen hand
And watching her face tremor like a gentle earthquake.

The smooth touch of a Kawai’s ivory,
The caressing shimmer of a minor-seventh
Wrapping the unfurling hearts in a sense of understanding.

How the hell could I understand?

I watched him pace the corridors,
Leaving our family’s side
As if he was trying to politely outrun the ghost of a dead brother.
“Maybe this’ll give July Fourth a new meaning.”

Is this how you cope?
How are we expected to outrun the ghosts
That mean to catch us in our dreams?
Transfigured by pipelines carved through
Your twitching flesh.

Whose network of artificial arteries
Lead to every broken heart of the family
You are leaving behind.
And you dump your bleeding brain,
The moments and memories
Like parchment without cipher.

How the hell am I supposed to understand?

And my heart burns,
My words, flitting bat wings which carry
Their meaning away from that deposit box
Where the images gained their purpose.

And suddenly the bleeding stops,
The tubes run dry,
The well empties

And what then are words?

Were I once the curator,
Now spectator to the exhibition of life and love,
Reaching towards the glass,
Till hand’s collision leaves whirlpool tracks of engraved flesh.
My fingertips traced your cold skin
Yet I could not reach out to you when your body was trapped in oak,
When they dolled you up to mask death,
To guise the very harbinger of brevity and immaterialism.

And I waited for you to open your eyes,
Hammered the keys when the words held in my throat,
Heaved when the sobs caught in my chest,
Broke when I realized that my mother had just become an orphan.

Yet there he stands,
Hood over his eyes
Weaving through the crowd
And the familiarity of this mournful spectacle.
He took her days ago,
Yet he listened to the sonata of a soul
Grasping to understand.
Rests a hand on my shoulder while each tearful eye is pressed into embracing shoulder.

“I will be waiting,” he says.
“For the day your hands grow stiff,
When your fingers cannot move like they use to,
And you remember those moments
When the sand finally stopped.
And I’ll lead you to her,
Taking many more
Before the song ends.”

How the hell am I supposed to live?

Aphonia

How then am I to write?
What, then am I to say?

The meanings of things,
Purposes for interactions slip like grains of sand
Form the desert of my desolate mind.

My fingers delete more than they create,
The eraser finds more mark than the lead.

Sentences vanish from the corners of my mind,
Bleak intentions.

How to word,
How to convey,
How to speak a goddamn thing that will matter.
My mind dilutes itself,
And I choke on syntax and syllables

Nothing makes sense anymore.

Blink (Chapter 8)

Chapter 8

†Ѡ†

There was once a time that Daniel could remember wanting to know his father.  He used to spend nights staring at the ceiling of his room working himself to tears trying to remember his face, feeling like perhaps memories of him were locked inside of some deep recess of his mind.  Daniel knew that his mother kept a photograph of him in her room inside of a chest that sat in front of her bed.  One night he had tried to sneak into her room and unlock the chest, perhaps once he would be able to have a tangible image of his father that could reanimate the lost memories of him from Daniel’s mind.

He searched for hours through her room trying to find a key to the chest with no avail.  Finally, his mother came barging into her room shouting, wondering why Daniel had been in there in the first place.

“I just wanted to see the picture of dad,” Daniel had told her, almost to tears with frustration.

They stood there, an ominous silence filled with frustration and apprehension began to thicken like a visible fog.  Finally his mother spoke, soft, methodical words that cut like daggers.  “Your father is dead,” she told him.  “Best to forget about him.”

Daniel and Hade were led into the village of the Arutabari by the old man, his helper now braced against the old man’s withered frame.  The villagers followed behind them, their austere expressions as vigilant as when they had first arrived.  They now stopped at the door of a hut in the center of the village.  It was not large, in fact it seemed smaller than most of the other buildings in the village.  A small cloud of smoke danced in the night sky, visible from the casted amber lights of the torches and the azure wash of the moon.

An unfamiliar feeling began to rise in Daniel’s stomach.  It lodged itself in his throat, making it hard to breathe or swallow the anxiety that began to wash over him like a rising tide.  He tried to find something to anchor the flurry of thoughts in his racing mind.  What does he look like now?  Does he really want to see me?  Should I even be here?

Uncertainty inhibited Daniel’s senses but still his feet carried him into the house of his father.  Strange, Daniel thought to himself that I should see my father for the first time in what—for all I know—could be a dream.

The house was small and dark. A few candles sat on a wooden table opposite the large, open flame of the fireplace. Everything was made of wood or stone, yet not as artfully crafted as the furniture with which he had seen in medieval films. There were no beautiful ornamentation, just the mere rub of woodworking to satisfy the need of practicality and function. 

            There was a room separate the main living space of the house where Daniel could see the kitchen. It was merely a wooden table and a wood-burning stove made of stone. The walls of the living space were lined with rolled parchments, several of which were sprawled across the table in the center of the room and were being written on by a man sitting in a small, wooden chair. His father.

One of the villagers spoke in a native tongue and everyone except for Daniel, Hade, the old man and Augsten remained inside. They all paused for a moment letting silence wash in. Daniel could not take his eyes off his father, who had set his quill back inside of the small wooden bowl which was his ink well.

Augsten kept his head low, staring at the parchment he had been writing on. His hair was much longer than it was in the picture Daniel had seen in the passport. It was darker and tied back except for two long strands that fell on either side of his face. There was a long streak of silver which he tucked back with the rest. He had a short beard that was well trimmed and two piercing, gray eyes that slowly lifted from the page to meet Daniel’s gaze.

His mind scrambled for words, but Daniel could not think of anything appropriate to say.  His mind was conflicted with feelings of joy and fear which he did not fully understand.  The candle light flickered upon the far wall casting shadows that danced upon his father’s face.

“Daniel,” Augsten was the first to break the silence.  For the first time in his life, Daniel had heard his father say his name.  Somehow it felt right to him.  Augsten’s voice was low and warming, like standing next to a fire in a snowstorm.  Daniel knew that he belonged inside of this moment.  He had finally come home.

Augsten rose and crossed the house, his arms beginning to open in a gesture of embrace.  He wrapped Daniel tightly.  Although Daniel wanted to hug his father back, he could not raise his good arm to embrace him.  Father or not, this man was still unfamiliar to Daniel, a stranger.

“Father,” Daniel managed.  The words seemed so foreign to him.  Augsten pulled back, his hands still firm upon Daniel’s sides.  Augsten’s eyes seemed to be reading Daniel’s face.  Daniel tried to mask his fear and uncertainty of the moment with a faint smile.  He was glad to see his father, but there was an opening pit in his stomach.  The room left in his heart betrayed his feelings of safety and made his body feel alert at all times.  It was as if his body knew that this was too good to be true.

“I am glad to see you.  It has been so long Daniel, too long.”  Augsten looked at Daniel’s broken arm still wrapped in the sling.  “Though I wish you had been unharmed.  Still, one must learn of the dangers of Acrya as well as its beauty.”  He turned towards Hade.  “Thank you for protecting my son.”  Hade nodded in silence.

“Augst—father, we came here because we are being pursued.  Heresy’s home has been destroyed.  Hade took me into the forest to protect me while his brother stayed back to give us time to escape from whoever was chasing us.”

Augsten ran his hand through his beard slowly, his mind racked in contemplation.  “Heseya,” he paused.  “We would best assume that she has been taken captive and proceed accordingly.  Did you make sure to check her home, and did you happen to see whomever or whatever was pursuing you?”

“It was on fire by the time that I arrived, and whoever was following us stayed far enough in the woods that we could not see them,” Daniel replied.

“She was not there,” Hade growled.  “Heseya had gone to find herbs for her medicine.  She should have been back in a short amount of time.  However, when she did not return I began to search for her in the forest.  After some searching I had hoped that she had merely returned home and that I had missed her upon the trail, but when I returned the house was ablaze.

I ran into the house and searched inside but there was no evidence that she had come back.  Although, I did find a set of footprints that led into the house and I began to track them.  When I left the house I saw Daniel and my brother.  I went to make sure they were alright.  Something was following them in the wood.  The smoke of the fire did a good job of masking it, but I could smell an unfamiliar scent in the air.  Whatever was following them was something I have not seen or heard before.  I had asked Vaelin what it was but he did not know.  He told me to take Daniel into the forest but the next day he never came to rejoin us.  The only thing that I knew to do was to come here and seek your aid.”

“You thought right in doing so,” Augsten replied as he crossed over to Hade and placed his hand upon Hade’s massive shoulder.  “I am sorry about your brother.  If you believe him to still be alive, then in the morning I will send out a party to search with you.  But first you need rest, the journey over the mountains must have been an arduous one.  Arucan,” the old man turned to face Augsten. “Take Hade and bring him some food and drink.  Let him rest wherever he chooses, I need to speak with my son, privately.”

The old man, Arucan, bowed and gestured to Hade who followed him out of the house.  Daniel was left staring into the candles, watching their guttering flames and remembering the massive fire that had engulfed Heseya’s home.  It had all seemed so far away now, and even more miraculous was the thought that in another life on Earth, none of this was happening at all.

Augsten let out an exasperated sigh and Daniel turned around to face him.  He was running a hand through his hair, a curious expression upon his face.  Daniel thought that his father’s eyes seemed to have dulled and grown dark for a moment before Augsten finally spoke.

“Heseya,” he murmured.  “I had tried so hard to keep you from this.  Now, it seems as though you are stuck in the middle of it all.”  He bought Daniel’s inquisitive stare and glanced back.  “We will get her back.  But first, there are some things we must teach you.”

“Teach me,” Daniel asked.  He wondered what his father could possibly have to show him at a time like this.

“I cannot imagine that you got that,” Augsten began, pointing at Daniel’s broken arm.  “From ‘valiantly’ defending yourself.”

Daniel rubbed the sling holding his right arm.  His mind flashed to a picture of Sain, and how Daniel was tossed in the air like a rag doll before crashing into the ground, an attack he had never seen coming.  “Your point,” Daniel snapped fractiously.

“My point is that it is time to teach you how to defend yourself.”  Augsten began to walk towards the door.

Daniel turned and began to try to reassure his father.  “I can take care of—“

Suddenly, Daniel felt his back collide with the floor, knocking the air out of his lungs.  He had not seen his father move to attack.  Augsten was grinning a smug grin that would have churned Daniel’s insides were he not gasping for oxygen.

“It is time to show you what a Dream Walker can really do,” Augsten said.

†Ѡ†

The light of the torch fires danced across the ground, the flames guttering in a gentle, evening breeze.  “The Testing Ground,” Augsten had called it.

“The Arutabari are a strong, proud people.  To ask for their assistance, you must prove that you have something to offer; your strength for their strength.”

Daniel stared through the light of the fires to the few members of the village that were watching.  Arucan, the old man, was sitting on a fallen tree trunk.  His black covering making him invisible were it not for the antlers cresting off the back of his head.  A few other village members were sitting around him, their blank faces devoid of emotion, just as when he had first arrived at the village.  Hade sat next to Arucan at attention, his massive chest protruding in anxious alert.  Daniel felt just as uneasy.

A villager handed Augsten two staffs.  They were about six feet in length made of wood.  Augsten measured them in his hands and threw one to Daniel who caught it with his unbroken arm.  Augsten took the staff in both hands and took several steps toward Daniel.

“Wait,” Daniel exclaimed.  “We have to fight?  I have a broken arm!”

Augsten stared at Daniel sternly.  “Do you really think that your arm is broken, Daniel?”

Daniel thought for a moment.  “Do you think this is some kind of Matrix bull crap where if I just believe I don’t feel pain I won’t or something?  Yes, my arm is broken!”

A sly grin rose from the corner of Augsten’s mouth.  Daniel did not share his father’s amusement.  “The arm may seem broken, yes,” Augsten began.  “But that does not mean that it cannot be healed.

Dream Walkers exist somewhere between worlds, neither fully attached to one place.  Being this ‘untethered’ allows us to treat the world we go to with the same apprehension one would have when entering a dream.  It is a lucid state that allows for supernatural events to occur.  I have not quite been able to fully understand it, but I have learned of a few perks of this state.  Just like the paraplegics that were taught to fly or learned how to walk in their dreams, Walkers have the ability to transcend mortal affliction.  To put it simply; we can heal ourselves.  So if you want to fix that arm of yours, you are going to have to do it yourself.”

Daniel stared at his father and then looked to his right arm.  The break in the bones was very real, and any time that Daniel had tried to move it he was accompanied by searing pain.  He’s freaking delusional, Daniel thought to himself.  He looked up just in time to see Augsten begin to charge, staff at the ready.  Daniel tried to dodge but his father’s swing came too fast, and he felt solid wood collide with his broken arm.  The sent him spiraling to the ground and Daniel shrieked in pain, gritting his teeth as he rolled upon the ground, wary of another attack.

He held the staff in his left hand while Daniel hugged his right arm to his side.  The pain was shooting into his shoulder and up his neck in bolts of electricity.  Augsten spun his staff a few times and prepared to advance again.  Daniel tried to move his right arm to grip the staff but the pain in his arm kept him from moving it at all.  He bit his cheek in frustration.

Augsten had decided that he had waited long enough and walked slowly toward Daniel.  His original expression of solid austerity was replaced by an animalistic gaze, feral and merciless.  Daniel took a step back and braced himself.  He knew it was either defend or continue to get attacked.

His father slowly raised his staff and Daniel did the same.  They paused for a moment, sweat cascading down Daniel’s face in beads as he clenched his teeth to try and ebb the pain.  Augsten brought his staff crashing down and Daniel tried to block the attack.  He heard the clapping of wood and his arm jolted under the strength of the blow.  Suddenly, Daniel felt as though he had been punched in the ribs.  He looked down to see the back end of his father’s staff buried in Daniel’s stomach.  All the air escaped his lungs in a wheeze and Daniel doubled over.  Augsten swung his staff again and it connected with Daniel’s broken arm.  Daniel collapsed and rolled upon the floor of the Testing Ground.

Pain shot through Daniel’s entire body.  He could not scream from the loss of air in his lungs.  The world was beginning to grow dizzy.  Daniel knew that he must do something, he knew that he was being tested to prove himself worthy, but all that Daniel could do was writhe in pain underneath the amber light of the torches.

He anticipated the chiding laugher of the villagers but no sound came.  Daniel tried to see through the torches to the faces of those around, Arucan, Hade, but he could only see the darkness through the swirling mist of his distorted vision.  His right arm swelled in pain synched to the beating of his racing heartbeat.

“Get up, Daniel.”  Augsten’s voice cut through the tidal waves of pain that were racking Daniel’s body and dulling his senses.  Daniel heard a low rumbling and recognized it as Hade growling in anger, possibly preparing to leap into the Testing Ground to defend him.  Daniel reached out with his good arm toward the direction of the sound to try and soothe Hade before grabbing the staff and heaving himself up using the staff as a crutch.

Augsten stared at him with his gray eyes, his gaze unwavering.  His face seemed soft as though he had a sliver of compassion that was beginning to surface.  His temporal mercy enraged Daniel and he pushed off of the staff, standing on his own shaking legs.  Daniel knew that he had lost all energy to fight, but something in the back of his mind was beginning to grow like a raging fire.  He could feel his heartbeat escalating, his breathing slowing into deep, unforced breaths.

His father began to walk towards him.  His footsteps echoed like thunder in Daniel’s ears.   Daniel felt as though the world was closing in, causing him to intimately focus on this particular this particular scene, this particular moment.  Everything else was beginning to fade to blackness outside the light of the torches.  Anger swelled in the pit of Daniel’s stomach like a quiet rage, a vicious beast yearning to be set free.  Daniel gripped the staff with his left hand.

Augsten was now in range and raised his weapon to attack.  The staff swung in a circular motion, aiming for Daniel’s head.  He ducked under the blow and the staff whizzed by sounding like a massive gust of wind in his ears.  He shifted his weight as he anticipated a second blow.  Augsten swung the back of the staff towards Daniel’s face and he side stepped away.  With all of the strength he could muster, Daniel swung the staff towards his father.  Augsten was prepared for the blow and reached with his right hand to catch the attack, dropping his own staff into his left hand.  As soon as Augsten caught the staff Daniel knew that he had him.

His right arm exploded out of the sling and Daniel felt a crack in his arm.  He clenched his hand into a fist and felt it connect with the side of Augsten’s face.  The blow sent him staggering backwards.  Daniel had landed a blow.

He had expected severe pain to shoot through his body from using his right arm at all, but Daniel was surprised when nothing came.  He stared at his naked arm resting by his side, the sling now empty and noticed that his arm had completely healed.  He felt a hand rest against his shoulder and Daniel turned to see the dark eyes of Arucan which seemed to be shimmering in the torch light.  “Well done,” he said and smiled a wide, closed-eyed smile.  Daniel nodded in thanks and smiled back.

The villagers emerged, one after another, into the Testing Ground, placing their hands on Daniel’s back and shoulders as he rested on his knees.  Daniel rubbed his right arm and nodded to each of the villagers as they muttered what he could only assume to be words of congratulations.

Augsten walked through the crowd and crouched in front of Daniel.  “That was a good swing,” he said grinning.  “Too bad I let you land it.”

Daniel smirked.  “Just don’t let me see you go crying to mom when I knock you on your ass again.”

Augsten laughed and hugged Daniel.  He hesitated for a moment before reaching up to hug him back.

They separated and Augsten helped Daniel to his feet.  Hade walked toward them in slow strides.  Daniel noticed the concern in his eyes.  He rested a hand on Hade’s snout and smiled at him reassuringly.

“Let’s go,” Augsten said.  “I imagine they have already begun to prepare for your Testing Ceremony.”