Burushit
I don't have time for your mickey-mouse burushit.
- Something I read the other day. Anything we really want to say is unsayable.
- “There is no joy in the brilliance of sunshine.” — Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. I read this while I was taking my test yesterday. This particular line struck me; it’s a great sentence.
- When you’ve been disappointed by people constantly, each subsequent attempt to actually give a fuck about them becomes increasingly harder.
- I’ve been napping a lot these days. I tend to end up napping once each day. Does this mean I’m getting older? More tired? I wish I was a cat.
- I’d try to explain, but you wouldn’t listen anyway.
- I’ve been on this urge to leave town. I’m thinking of leaving for a few days, maybe head to Austin on my own, meet a friend there and just explore. Maybe at the beginning of June, if a job doesn’t come up. I just need a new place, a change of scenery. Breathe some new air.
- I’ve been thinking about home a lot. It’s always on my mind. I wish it wasn’t so far away.
- “Amazing still it seems: I’ll be 23. I won’t always love what I’ll never have; I won’t always live in my regrets.”
- Dallas, June 15th man. That’s the day.
- Solar Eclipse today. On certain afternoons like this — the sun sunk behind the clouds, blocking the entire view — I trace the length of my shadow. I notice the empty space when it reaches out, and I notice the way the fingers drop into emptiness, slicing through molecules of air. And I notice the way they hang there, enervated from reaching for something but always having things slip out of their grasp.
- There are two things that keep me content or at least remind me that it’s not too bad.
- At times I think, doing things alone isn’t that bad. There are times when I really just wanna be on my own, read a book, not see anyone for a while. Yet there are times when I burn inside when I see two people enjoying a conversation together over a quiet dinner. They lean in close, smile from their eyes and their lips. Then I fight off every collective effort to prevent myself from walking over and flipping the shit off their table, before the staff hauls me away while I yell in a sort of delusional laughter, “Why can’t I have what you have?!”
- In all honesty, it just feels better when you share moments with people.
- Then I put myself together, remask, rebuild the cold and calculated composure. The muse prods, “Who said you needed anyone to be happy?”
- Trying to convert this all into something productive. Filter in all the disappointment and turn it into something that pushes me to create something hopeful.
How much of what you perceive is an illusion, or a construct of your mind that is unable to face the reality you sunk yourself into?
There’s a someone outside my window, her left hand waving back and forth. The blinds segment her body into barely discernible pieces, but I can see her smiling through her eyes.
While I was working today, a student asked me, “Uh, sir… what do I put for country?” I told him, “America, son. Grand old Amurrica.” I thought about it for a second and laughed, “Now this just popped up, but it’d be pretty funny if someone actually spelled Amurrica like that, A-M-U-R-R-I-C-A.” I got some good laughs from them.
I was done for the day, and I was walking down the hallway to get to my car and two of the students that took the test looked at me and nodded, even smiled a little. One of the kids said, “The test you gave today was fun! Amurrica!” I nodded back, tempted to give them a salute.
I guess it’s small moments like that that make working with younger people worth it. How often do you hear a student say that the test YOU gave THEM was actually kind of fun? Of course, I’m sure it was a half sarcastic, but what sounded true was that their testing experience was a little less traumatic because they were given a moment of respite.
Precision form up
assemble the structure
cold air fills the space
where the heart eagerly awaits
to replace all the emptiness
Bless me with fire
That I may create
Gold redefined, souls purified
sleep by day, walk by night
thread the world til the end
I know not the internal clock
to which I am bound to spend
Come now hold the minutes in your hands
Watch the seconds spilling out to the floor
Tired. I just wanna go away for a bit and sink into things as I reevaluate the way things are going, the way music is going, the way writing is going, and the people that constantly come and go, in and out.
I’ve been trying to convert these moments of low confidence into bursts of anger strong enough to propel my way into the upper strata of the spectrum. The opposite end where no fucks are given because in the free fall of things when you come crashing down, nothing really matters. The view is nice though: the way everything zooms past by you, and how the atmosphere feels like it’s closing up on you. The rush of the wind blows past your ears, whipping threads of hair all around, as you let gravity take you down. Reality becomes numbing for a little while — and that’s the thrill to seek.
Twenty-Six Letters →
There’s twenty-six letters that I have at my disposable—twenty-six—and that’s barely enough to explain the weakness that quivers in the back of my knees when your eyes catch mine. You’ll scoff cynically, like usual, with the bitter sting of romantics falling in the paper-cuts of your tongue and becoming swallowed down as a syrup to surround your heart. What lies between us in bed is inches of oceans, is gutters filled with the smoldering wreckage of a bad history and the weekday tar that bubbles over lips, black and sticky run-off at our fingers when we try to wipe away the acrid taste that builds day-by-day. Complacency keeps us anchored at the hips, keeps us grounded to the bottom of sea beds, unready and unwilling to fight our way to the surface — it weighs on our spines until we become crippled with dejection and soul eating decay. Love and romance becomes rolled like tobacco in a cigarette, an inhale and exhale of our own destruction, lit with the embers of last weeks lust-driven dalliance against the bathroom wall. It whittles down to ash, while slowly burning our insides into smoke; we all choke on it, whether its our own or a strangers. And when it grows out of control, when the flicks land on dry bushland and summer winds push it to our homes — we run, eyes stung by the smoke and throats raw from screaming for help.
I received this in the mail today. After recovering from a momentary heart attack, I read the note taped to the front: “Congratulations on publishing your first novel. You now have 4 days to read through it for any errors. Then the book goes to the printer for the last time.” Wow. Thank you to everyone who has supported me during this long journey. I really couldn’t have gotten through this without you.
Very excited for Nick Miller’s novel, Isn’t it pretty to think so? Congrats!
I’m tempted to give myself a swift death. By death, I mean a swift call to reality. That everything I’ve been feeling is simply an illusion I created, and that the entire time there is really nothing. Just me feeding emotions, feeding possibilities, feeding lies, feeding dreams, feeding myself bullshit, which this blog was been named after.
In fact, I think I’ll do it. When the time is right. Just to get over it. Expound these words, everything I hoped for just so I can resurface back to reality, back to the truth of things. That way I can move on. That way I don’t have to feel too guilty about being on my own.
