Served With a Side of Ego

You get yourself sold back to you today.  The lost generation: selling you shit is made easy when you’re pummeled by confusion, narcissism, and soul-homelessness.  Experience is obsolete in this world; being something is the current ideal to strive for.  Being for the sake of the disgusting self that believes it’s better than all the other disgusting selves.  Pure stupidity.  But then I think, who does anything for the experience- Chris McCandless?  Not even him.  His experience was served with a side of ego.  Every figure you’ve heard of, serves their work with a side of ego.  Is this just human nature, or are some people morally superior than others; like the farmer in Iowa who hunts muskrats, drinks beer, and fucks his wife.  My idea of idealism stifles me and consumes me with guilt.  It feels tangible- this idealism.  The belief that I can write to write, without my disgusting ego butting in, or leave it all to live out of a backpack and connect with nature.  But it’s all bullshit.  I’m not morally superior- I’m scum; then see how I self-deprecated just now to stroke my ego out of honesty.  Honesty is served with a side of ego too.  The ego is unescapable; now I’m turning into Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Underground Man.  Maybe I should kill muskrats, find one woman to fuck for the rest of my life, and procreate like the stupid ape I am. Served with a side of ego of course. 

Knowledge of one’s life- awareness, whatever you want to call it, this is the vile of my existence.  It leads to my ego creeping in.  It stupefies me feeling and experiencing by filling my head with thoughts.  With thoughts based out of this construct of self.  Fucking bullshit.  I’m nobody; and not in the pitiful sense, but in the philosophical sense.  I am nobody because the ego is a sly sham, a façade, an intangible virus that destroys the good in life.  But fuck does it make for some cathartic writing, while listening to Nevermind by Nirvana.  Listening to Nirvana is no chore either: the effort it took to subdue my ego into letting me listen to something unobscured, popular, and cool like Nirvana and then writing about it, was not easy.  Hopefully my honesty makes me more interesting now that I’m the guy listening to Nirvana.  Ego!  Ego!  Ego!  Ahhhh!

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Ron and a Hospice Chaplain

Life was straight forward to him.  If he knew what a paradigm was, his life would be marked by pleasure.  His hedonism wasn’t the least bit glorious; there were no jaunts, no benders, no adventures.  The life of Ron was a long-drawn-out ride.  Today, like any, he ordered pizza for delivery.  Despite his unstructured day, he always ate at the same time.  A chime interrupted Call of Duty Black Ops Time Travel Into The War of 1812; this game was a type of anachronism, where your character was from a different time period.  For twenty dollars more, Ron pre-ordered the special edition package with extra gun designs.  Ron was twenty pounds overweight, but he made his way to the front door as if seventy-five pounds overweight.  After the exchange of money for food, he resumed his game; sitting and eating in silence was torture to him; he always needed stimulated, even while eating.  Ron mashed on his controller, while hastily putting pizza in his mouth, as to not be too distracted from the game.  This long-drawn-out life continued for decades. 

He was older now.  Fifty-seven.  He was playing the latest Call of Duty, with cold pizza on the couch next to him.  The phone rang.  It was Ron’s doctor.

 ‘You have cancer.  Your life span is two months.  I’ve scheduled a meeting with a hospice chaplain for you next Tuesday.” 

“Okay”

“More information will be sent via email”

“Oh okay”

Next Tuesday arrived.  Ron made his way through an empty beige corridor.  At the end of the hallway on the right was an entrance with no door.  The room was desolate.  In the room was a desk and two chairs.  The juxtaposition between the two men’s appearance was strong.  Ron was a doughy body.  He had a round face that lacked any strong features; his eyes were dull yet innocent and kind.  Compared to Ron, the hospice chaplain was sparkling and glistening with life.  The chaplain was the same age as Ron but had aged well; his eyes were seated deeply and had a sort of madness and intelligence to them.  His face wasn’t slim, but neither round and featureless either.  His body was long and full, standing a few inches over Ron who was 5’10 or so.

“Have a seat”

“Okay” Ron said

“I’m here to console you, but you have to tell me about yourself.  What are your beliefs?  I mean to say, what are your beliefs of death, and does life have any significance to death?”

Sean was distraught, he never thought pensively about death.

“I’ve never thought about those things, why are you asking me!?” He said with anger and resentment.

“When death comes, you’ll have wished you came to terms with yourself.”

“Okay”

“Here take this.  This may kill your apathy.”

The hospice chaplain handed Ron, The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy.  When Ron arrived home, he read through the book with a voracious and hurried appetite.  Within eight hours he had finished the book.  The next day Ron was found on the city corner in a delirium; he was shouting incoherent ramblings at passersby. 

“All in a daze!  You’re all insulated, ignorant, and shielded from the inevitable!  Stop what you’re doing.  Stop your hurry and know yourself for once.  Know life, existence, the enigma of the world!  Ha!  Ha!  Death is the sign.  Death will show you to give thanks.  If your soul is too ill to give thanks, you must acknowledge…. yes!  Acknowledge at least.. acknowledge your life, death, regrets, wasted time, memories, people, the taste of an apple.  Ha!  Ha!  Yes.. madness, I’m thankful for my madness, because it is a part of life, and I’m thankful for life.”

During the rambling, the chaplain was walking back to his home in the city.  He heard a frenzy of madness that hinted of insight.  His inquisitiveness brought him to the voice on the corner of some street.  It was Ron.  They made eye contact with each other and smiled.  An hour later Ron was found dead on the street.  It was Thanksgiving Day

Accentuated Flesh

Accentuated Flesh

The well-shaped pieces of meat,
on their way somewhere.
They wiggle and strut along,
not wanting to be fucked, 
but wanting to want to be fucked.
There’s an ego to them,
It stifles and consumes me.
Somedays I give them my power.
Other days I put my head down,
and look at my feet.
Sometimes I approach them, to bring them into my world,
 to subdue their power and seduce them with mine.
Usually, their power is greater than mine,
but sometimes it’s not.
You can’t fear their power in this game,
they’ll sniff it out, then continue to strut.
It’s a matter of getting desensitized to their beauty,
Seeing them as pieces of meat just like you.
But those hips, 
chest accentuated and hanging out,
slender, toned limbs
the wiggle of their ass
the self-knowledge of their power which shines through their eyes,
Not innocent,
they know their power, and it subdues me every time. 
The slender ones
The buxom ones 
The coy ones hiding under their deceptive shield of modesty
All of them, I want to slay 
but it seems like it’s me being slayed most the time

A Game

Against things.  Hate things. Feel guilty, disgusting, pathetic when I give in.  The monk inside, ticks away from the pressure.  Soon, I will be living in a cupboard with nothing but a desk and twin-sized bed.  Holed up in a shack somewhere, deep in the woods or getting lost in the numbers of a city.  Can’t leave yet, despite my desire.  I must prove something to myself. 

I scrub up- feeling fresh and vigorous.  Self-mutilate prior, so their bullets deflect right off me.  I’m in my world now.  Turn into a solipsist for the night- needing a healthy dose of ego. It’s a power game.  If it wasn’t, every chick who found me attractive would be fucking me.  You have to make them want you.  Being entitled to pussy, because you want it, doesn’t work. 

Going out more because I’m moving soon.  Went to Ames yesterday.  College girls are desensitized to guys hitting on them.  Compliment shit is disgusting- never works.  Have to be intelligently sadistic: raise them up, then shoot them back down, neg them, be aloof enough so they’re questioning if you’re interested.  Shot down a lot last night.  Three out of maybe seven that could’ve worked.  Respectable on my part, but couldn’t hang in. Doing the things that you’re told by everyone else not to do works the best.  I took a bow in front of a girl, stuck out my hand then grabbed her hand and spun her like we weren’t living in decadent America.  She was into it, then her boyfriend came, and the switch turned off.  Gave her nerdy boyfriend a fist bump and joined my friends.  I concur that being forceful is attractive to women, if you have 185 pounds of muscle mass and have high cheek bones.  Being black works too.  Don’t have high cheek bones, but I’m jacked enough now to assert some dominance.  That’s what I’ll do.

This is the game.  Must win before I can live like an aesthetic recluse.  Have to indulge my animal before I can indulge my soul.  Sometimes I pretend I don’t know why this silly game is important to me, but I know.  This desire is more than libido; it’s based out of my past and ego. Killing my past, killing my identity, and creating something stronger out of the rubble. Really, It’s based out of self-hatred.

Serendipitous Breakfast Club at Walmart

Why is it all so peculiar? Why can’t I have a normal life, where I savagely hunt squirrels to bring back to my wife, who will then concoct squirrel-jumbo for me? Pretty much, I want to be a crude animal who has no thoughts at all. I guess working forty hours a week, watching shitty television, and drinking is the same thing as being a dumb animal; sounds like my dream isn’t too hard to achieve after all. Why complain though? My life may be slightly alienating, but at least I get to have genuine conversations with strangers at Walmart. People who drink and watch TV don’t.

A breakfast club ensued in the middle of a soap aisle in Walmart. I forgot how honest young people can be, before they get pummeled by work, 401ks, marriage, and alcohol. Kids are the real punk rockers of this world; they rebel and say fuck you to everything. Older people, fall in line like drones and say yes. The catalyst for the breakfast club was, me being cat-called by several 14- to 17-year-old girls. They began riffing on my well-trained ass; now I know what being hit on feels like. Sorry, not sorry to the girls I’ve hit on, in public; I slightly empathize with them, although an ass compliment isn’t too bad.

After several catcalls our platonic conversation ensued.  It’s trite to say, but some of the best conversations come from unexpected people.  On the other hand, conversations with my co-workers are dull and make me want to eat razorblades.  Our breakfast-club gaggle was constantly interrupted by the girls yelling obnoxiously at other strangers.  I think what it would be like to have no filter and yell at strangers too.  It would be ill-advised; I would be in prison.  Either way, the girls had the obnoxious yelling covered for me. 

They were interesting.  More interesting than most people their age.  Sometimes I wonder if the strange people I run into, are the only ones with souls: Rob from the Colorado Trail, Dean, the hippie from Pagosa Springs, the hospice chaplain from a gas station somewhere in Iowa-all are people that have had a strong force about them, to move me.  Inside the conversation, was a vague message to stop being an indolent fuck, and write more.  Maybe that’s what I’ll do.  Unless of course, I go to work tomorrow, and the drudgery murders my mind to the point were I can’t string together a coherent sentence.

To All Writers

I think I’m done writing. The truth is starting to unveil itself to me: it’s a clever sham that has me believing that I’m doing something. I am doing nothing. I am an indolent-inertia mass of shit. The effort it takes, is at best moderate. The courage it takes is none. It is a frivolity to pass the time and masturbate my ego. Only when I cum, do I realize it was based out of something fake. Poetry and this prose shit I enjoy writing is insolent. It is worthy of disrespect and contempt. Lifting weights seven days a week is more reverential than my writing. Two options call out to me: either stop this shit or write something with sustenance- like say, a novel.

Maybe I should submit. Realize that I’ll be a lost soul forever. Either God forgot to install the decision making quality in me, or he gave me too much information to process. Either way he’s an asshole, which follows with “God is dead”, and subsequently which follows with he’s dead because I killed him. I killed God, because he’s an asshole. I’ll never submit to a God who didn’t turn me into some great figure such as Mozart, Napoleon, Genghis Khan, or the like. For now I am an ant among a colony of “writers”. God help me. God fuck you.

An Anthology of Two

Woman in a Man’s Body

Muscles, pumps, scrutinizing one’s body in the mirror.  All are signs of being a pussy.  What is the being of a pussy ontologically?  Having a pussy and valuing it.  To be gifted something, and to be that which is gifted to you, is the epitome of being.  Well, muscles aren’t gifted, but when they are attained the effects are the same.  The validation acquired through muscles is something parallel to having a pussy.  People look at you with interest.  Your body is a source of eternal value.  It is an always present value, that can be discerned by anyone with sight.  I like being a pussy.

For Nothing

I write because of nothing.  I am nothing so I write.  Ostensibly it’s not based out of insecurity; instead it comes from the desire to do nothing.  This may be who I am- the nothing man.  It may be in my best interest to accept that I will become nothing.  Not an influencer, hustler, bodybuilder, worker, family man, skateboarder, artist.  I’ll do some of the things of these beings, but I will never give myself to something just to be it.  I see too well that indulgence in one will cause a lack of the other.  Eventually I’ll give my life to nothing.  I’ll leave everything and live as an outdoorsman-vagrant. My nothing destiny.

Ignorant to Ignorance

A spider made its way to me while I practiced guitar. When he got close he frantically climbed up its web and into the light fixture

It’s night. A little while ago I was in the restroom, and thought I heard a noise; my instinct was someone or something was there. The artificially created world took control of my brain and contradicted my instincts. It’s the wind, the AC, the washer, something that is easily discernable. Anything, like say, something undetectable to the senses is ludicrous. My inquisitiveness was murdered. The mystery forgotten. It means nothing that we don’t know. What means something is when the enigma of the world is taken away. The world turns grim, hopeless, boring, and seemingly knowable. Without being privy to something so enigmatic and mind-aweing is to be unwhole. Basking in this knowledge is part of what it means to be alive. To have the words flow to me from somewhere is surreal. It’s a romantic feeling, which seems to hint that something else is there, here, or out there. If I could only hang onto this feeling and the lucidity forever. To experience this even once a night. The possibilities of the unknowable murders death, work at 7, loneliness, 401k’s, Snapchat, holidays. Looking forward to holidays because what’s in front of us is no longer seen. Ignorant to ignorance.

Kieslowski and FRIENDS

These words are the result of binge watching The OA for the second time.  Can you believe this clever movie with a phenomenal plot got canceled?  Thanks Netflix.  The most watched films on Netflix are Atypical, Pineapple Express, and Grey’s Anatomy; I’m not surprised with Netflix’s decision.  These words are simply yin and yang.  A pitiful attempt at effort… to spite the binge watching of course.  The OA’s creator was influenced by Krzysztof Kieslowski.  Being in the privy of this, makes the series even better.  Kieslowski is amazing, and I have only begun watching his films.  But please don’t let me utter the words foreign films to people who watch FRIENDS.  Still, foreign films must be better: Ingmar Bergan and Kieslowski are evidence of this.  

A thought to God:  Yes, I adopted slave morality to fit into our relationship.  I want you to see how helpless I am; feel my pain; hear my cries.  It’s my way to profit don’t you see?  Maybe you’ll intervene or embrace me with your God arms when I die.  No, you won’t.  You know the truth about me.  You see past the sham.  Even this: you see how I’m trying to please you with my candidness?  I just can’t escape you.  Do I really write this bullshit for you?  No, I don’t; these words serve only me and my desire for truth. This is my clarity and creation.  If you find it obscure, fine.  I turn my mind into a companion because I enjoy what my self has to offer.  It offers a plethora of truth, clarity, creation, feelings, and life.  Writing can even be as good as movies and films when someone other than me is writing.

Pitiful Writing While Listening to Explosions In The Sky

I hate to write some pitiful and excessive indulging in my sadness shit, but I really cannot help myself: I want to kill myself. Yes, those trite words. Except I really want to. My mind wouldn’t let me sleep last night. Again tonight. And I’m helpless with this broken leg; can’t drive into town to look for something that can’t be found there- thanks Henry Rollins; can’t vent at the gym or on my skateboard. I lay in bed and cry, then shriek, then curl up into fetal position and convulse like a pitiful animal.

My prescription oxycodone and hydrocodone are inside my handmade night stand/book shelf. Fatal dosage of oxy is around 60-80mg for non users. I have exactly 60mg left of oxy and some hydro. I want to kill myself, but what of the dying part; I mean the pain of dying. The internet is telling me your heart and breathing slow down and eventually stop. Don’t really want to be conscious while I’m gasping for air.

Remington 870 with slugs in my closet. Last 4th of July I drove down to the river and had it pointed at my head while listening to Elliot Smith. Stayed long enough for the sun to rise. Am I glad I didn’t do it then? Yeah, I suppose. Still want to take all the pills after drinking a pint of Captain Morgan, regardless. That should do it. Keeping the 870 handy too, in case things get grim.

You know what it fucking is? I’ve got no lube in my engine. My mind is tearing itself apart. I feel bad for myself too; I mean I try; I have progressed my life, became mediocre at two instruments, delved into philosophy, turned my body lean and mean, backpacked by myself through 163 miles of the CT, danced with girls in OKC, asked girls out at the gym, became more courageous at skateboarding… and still nothing. No love, no intimacy, and I lost 15 pounds of muscle since surgery. So what’s the point of gaining the 15 pounds back, if I have no one to hold at night, no one to exchange secrets with, no one to love, no one to kiss, no one to experience life with. Love won’t fulfill you. Fuck you, yes it will. My life purpose could be unifying alien life throughout the cosmos, and I would still be lonely. The desire for love is so strong in my heart that my body’s homeostasis wants to burst into chaos until I eventually splatter my brains down by the river.