The world is cloaked in sweetly bitter civilization….never free from the tooth-rotting ecstasy of that which it takes to make it possible. I see nothing but the heat in our brains that resembles the ferocity of cave-retreating dragons.
I see why people feel so bitingly beautiful and interesting. Like their actions are adorably haunted. Am I the only one who has the antidote?
Am I destined to only dream of something changing? In a moment of desperation, I stir an assortment. Here, five evidences of my theory, on this spooky day.
But first, I reiterate, I ask I beg. Why must things be so unpleasant in a world where we understand our own excessiveness? Why is attacking those who seem to be innocent and useless, so very sweet and justified in oh so many cases?
Why must we act this way when we know our expectations and our blame and praise and even forgiveness and redemption feel so very strange and off what is actually ideal?
Isn’t there some boring, soothing version of peace that we can sustain as people, striving for it?
Why does there seem to be a limit on how we are meant to be? We try hard, as a species, as a collective, to understand, finally see, how it is we’re supposed to shift ourselves and enter a state where we become impervious to human nastiness. There exists an idea in our minds of a well-adjusted person standing on top of a mountain, body straight and free of malice, ready to help everyone be better, breathing unto the skies.
And over and over that type of person fails, degenerates into something very ugly and obscene. At least, a large chunk of the population says so.
While to millions others, that someone hero with a strength above that of any monster.
What a phenomenon worth slaying.
Please forgive me if it seems for too cliche and outdated by now, but this is my goal,
find the spot at the center that makes us see ourselves as very not cruel and ghoulish.
There is hatred and pain inside of everyone, but exciting warm-feeling rainbows floating inside of that fury and disrespect.
Insightful, lovely, interesting sparks of human greatness. You, yes you, feel that way, right? The difference between you and the stereotype of cruelty.
I am a witch who longs to cast a spell to tame THAT once and for all.
That which is not the root of all evil, but the root that keeps it from being washed away.
The desire to be very hauntingly capable of getting around the depravity of others.
I want to exorcise it.
Because someone has to deconstruct and reconstruct what it means to feel above all criticism.
Someone has to bring us above the ceiling of what we call good behavior
I want to exceed that, so we can tumble in the autumn leaves together.
On this gloomy day, I make my attempt.
Read these five poems, if you think me a mere pontificator.
Here’s a few snacks for your bucket- five examples of what I’m talking about.
You at your most beautiful and hazardous,
your most scary and impossible to demean.
That which this fellow seeks to happily restrain.
#1 – The Haunted Laptop Memory Thing
Last year, my MacBook Pro had an issue with its memory.
I kept clearing data, but the remaining space kept running out,
going to just a few measly megabytes.
I couldn’t find help, I couldn’t find the right support.
This type of thing pushes your rage, finding no one to blame.
It stuffs you with some like superstition,
looking for strange solutions,
as well as some kind of catharsis.
When problems can’t be solved, we explode into flames,
feeling far from unjustified.
I would not blame anyone for their anger at tech support’s incompetence,
but I would also like to hold you until you are ready to not cause harm.
Between finding solutions and finding comeuppance,
we growl and grumble oh so very dragonlike.
The convergence of the inventive and the vindictive,
is us at our hardest to soothe.
#2 – The Ultra Rich Exploit Our Spooky Grip
They say that we should tax the rich, or eat the rich, or end the rich,
but from my perspective, we haven’t really corrected what lies within us
that makes wealthy businesspersons powerfully lacking in shame.
It could even cause something as horrifying as…..
that Nestle guy charging people in poor countries for water. Holy fuck.
But despite that horror,
I aspire to see what makes others burn with a sense of dignity.
My answer, that your average person is always, despite their passions for work and generosity, is always subtly wishing “can you give me that for less?”.
The greedy tycoon can sense the tempered desperation in your heart,
and is extracting from it in a way with a longing which just might be called
not particularly stronger than yours.
They can perform magic based upon your longing,
and in most cases, hold themselves back a lot,
and make big risks and tricky maneuvers,
rather than being simply greedy as can be.
We must change before any of us become that kind of monster.
We must see that hoarding riches is very often about
being able to make valuable experiences out of the cunning guile of our neighbor.
#3 – Beware the “Inner Child” Types
If you look far and wide,
if you have enough good luck and bad luck,
you just might become close to someone who likes to profess about
their “inner child”, or engages in some kind of “child like” form of creative expression.
Normally, that type of thing can be pretty cringey,
made by someone who is actually, indeed, very childish in how they are and how they act.
But sometimes, that type of person can become enormously endearing.
We all seem to get somehow, that you can barely say if any dream or desire has its true origins in a child’s desperation for closeness and comfort,
or an adult’s powerful longing for dignity and competence.
I would fault no one for trying to use the “inner child” angle in their artwork.
Even if I accuse them of actually being quite terribly adult,
in how they treat the people who have chosen to become close to them.
Children generally don’t reject others in a state of extreme composure.
They’ll do it in a fit of rage, or they’ll do it nonchalantly.
They generally don’t speak with intricately conjured confidence
in their most brutal of hateless condemnations.
A warning for your, stranger, sweet stranger.
If you feel comfortably distanced from your flaws as a pathetic kid,
and someone close to you still expresses that they might, and very often.
Do yourself a favor and run.
Not away, but sideways, sideways, sideways.
Let the relationship grow uninterestingly.
If you do wish to have that pleasant company.
Do not return compliments and sweetness with even greater niceties of your own.
As that person’s problems grow bigger and bigger,
your only chance is to serve them as a fond acquaintance,
with the courage to deflect their longing for closeness.
Because it’s ready to blow up in your face, like a fat ghoul.
Not many people will do that kind of thing very often- genuinely connect with someone harder and harder in a way they secretly want to destroy.
It’s not within the stereotype of toxic and pushy and manipulative,
but it is within that realm of dragon like behavior.
I could hardly deconstruct it, truly, but I can put a cage around it.
Would you take heed for me?
Make yourself a little more impervious to that awfulness
which might truly lie above all critique,
on the part of someone more interesting than you?
#4 – Trick-or-Treating is Pretty Deep
It’s Halloween, which means that kids are coming for candy.
But I live in an apartment, which is lame.
It feels kind of like Halloween in prison.
I did grow up in a good spot for Halloween,
and in fact, I lack a single truly unhappy memory of the day.
Yeah, we had our fun, our candy, our costumes, our dank evenings galore.
When the town transforms, it becomes something special.
I wanted to grow up and be on the other side of the ritual.
When you’re young, getting something for nearly nothing is a thing to be proud of.
When you’re older, giving someone something for nearly nothing is relief against the pains of responsibility.
And both parties seem to appreciate the other for the indulgence.
So it would be nice to be more immersed within the holiday.
But instead, the door opens and shuts so quickly.
There’s no one to blame, really, after all, anyone can live anywhere, right?
What’s a small pleasure or a big one is hard to say.
That is, as I have said, part of the essence of holidays.
Sometimes I think the holiday’s true form is what it might have been in some other time.
Did kids actually threaten to trick others if they didn’t get candy?
Is “pranks as a price for no confection concession” a thing in some few small communities?
I’d like to imagine that being scared NOT to give out candy would add some spookiness to this very holiday.
But of course, in a modern town, any such threats would be truly monstrous.
Do we not blame anyone for opting out, because there are just so many houses here?
You also have the option of going to parties or doing something at your source of employment!
But personally, that feels somehow….corporate? Like you’re putting the soul of Manhattan into my very Brooklyn holiday.
Now, here’s a story for you….a monster that hides inside of porches where no trick or treaters go.
Because it likes the smell of discarded garbage, but not candy.
Every year, it has to only forage in the abstinent from Hallow’s Eve.
And the little freak is discovered,
causing some high level squabbling to take place,
as the anti-hellish-holiday and pro-pumpkin-people have to make compromises to get the vermin away.
It could have a story arc in an apartment building, where it’s hard to tell who’s who.
I mean, I do secretly hope for everybody to lighten up and do American things, regardless of where they come from.
But that is a belligerence I can sacrifice. Even if I still believe, those of us with no strict attachments to our petty-but-not cultural restrictions
are destined to do the most genuine and useful civilizing.
#5 – The Garbageman’s Wrath Breaks My Heart and Inspires Me
I go outside with weary eyes and I can hereby see,
we’re stuck in the mires of attempting desperate harmony.
Men lifting mountains of waste for much of their whole life,
have sought to impose with ferocious wrath a clever kind of strife.
Stinky, festering garbage bags now piling on the street,
dank frustration added to the taste of all your treats.
Vengeance for the wrath of a vaccinating vial,
they’ve chosen to put the medical mandate on a nasty trial.
If a fictional race of dump-dwelling monsters did ever feed on trash,
it’d be an out-of-town sort of Halloween bash.
And I take to the internet and see cries and wails,
of “asshole” and “inconsiderate” and “hope they all fail”.
Now I myself am not overwhelmed with kindness,
and I do not mean they are so justify-ed by this.
But it’s my job at this point to gaze into a heart.
and see why someone feels like not a monster, but like art.
The horde of of rubbish-letters, in their own heads,
feel like the paragon of dignity-led.
Their own chests pumping with power,
they’ve turned this to a battling hour.
They see the need for a vaccine as disgustingly intrusive,
and their mission to leave garbage as lovely and elusive.
They are not oblivious to the extravagant submission,
of imposing all such medicine like it’s a fucking mission.
I want to say to them
“you’re not a moron, you’re not a loon”
“not a villain, nor buffoon”
“but if everyone were like you, throughout our history”
“we’d probably be in a whole lot more fucking misery”
and I’d tell them to overcome their frustration and their fury
that they carry with them day by day as they judge like juries,
which might not work at all until the people on the better side
change themselves to the point at which they properly strive
to break the conservative leaning ecstasy and its damnable feats
by actually finally making it become truly obsolete.
I plea to you with a a set calm and tired eyes,
there is only one way to improve our nation’s lives,
it’s to really tame the dragons in your head
till the source of that respectable belligerence is finally dead.
The burning urges wrapped in restraint
are running out there free and have yet to faint.
There is another level of dignity that you and I can be
and it necessitates a wry appreciation for the strongest wills you see.
If this is never to come and only dreaming,
I’ll wear the philosopher costume for as long as I am breathing.
The Found Emotion (Invoke Yourself) 