at the beach... not so sure what to say. im getting really bad at this yall. i see things all the time, hear things, feel things, think, get, dig, be... and i want to write it all down but i never have the chance. im thinking i should just go john mayer on life and carry a camera around. well maybe anti-john mayer in the context. i never liked that kid in person but his music is alright. just alright. he always seemed a bit stand-offish. an attitude i couldnt put my finger on, never was able to catch him red handed but never liked him for it either. whatever...

regardless, i need to remember this stuff. my father has a voice recorder he god a couple years ago for christmas from his own mother that he never used so i might have to steal it and stuff it in my pocket, always ready to figure out what to say when its fresh. maybe thats the answer. maybe photos and words, a combonation of the two would be the archived genius i am looking for. because i certainly dont have all the words now that i had back when.

a couple things i do remember, though. these being the parts of life that are moments only but the most important because the rest of it is not nearly as beautiful - admit it - unless you are really into that sort of thing... and i have before but now is really not the best time. i could say much more on the subject but i really dont think it would be a good idea.

i drove the first half of the trip (to kinston) fucked up on tryptophan and swaying a little. staying in the lane but all in fun. makes everyone else nervous. my mother says i will get pulled for that. my father sees a cop and realizes that twelve over in a fifty-five is too fast. wonder why he never noticed until he saw a cop... figures eh. since it gets dark at maybe... five these days (strange that is... nights feel so long) he drove the rest of the way cause i didnt feel like it. curled up in the backseat with the mp3 on some really really - you dont even know - ah wonderful music and a new c&d magazine. finally leaned on the window on my hand and fell almost asleep. close enough not to even appreciate the best song go on past. enough awake maybe to aknowledge its presence and realize i should appreciate it but without enough power to actually... well you know. get it. i had this vague idea of where we were but not enough to mean much. my father poked me from the drivers seat in time to get me to look out the window. for the first time in as long as i can remember we were crossing the east bridge to the island as the sun was setting over the inlet. i have never seen anything so beautiful (in nature, mind you) in all my life. the water glowed and the little scrubby islands and sand dunes were mere silouhettes, paper cutouts, against this powerful palette. i cant even begin to tell you... the colors stacked on the horizon, shimmering with waves and atmosphere. yellow to this brilliant burning red, brighter and oranger than any blood... more of a fruit color. but magnified a billion times a thick stripe across the sky. raging against the dying of the light. just as magnificent, on the left side the full moon was out and reflecting back at us deep blue and silver on the sound on the other side. we were driving slowly over a ridge between the two. the priceless transition between the light and the night. both equally brilliant at the same time. and descending into the urban jungle darkness of the island hurt... just as my song faded away. ah - it was too much to bear. if only i wasnt such an asshole later on. marred such a night.

this morning i took a stroll out to the wire-bound stake fence that seems to hold the beach-grassy ground back from eating the big whispy sea-grass dunes. you could tell from various gauges inside that the seaward side of the place (being insulated in a horseshoe) was a good ten degrees cooler than the mainland side. definitely the place to be. and my god - it was gorgeous out. bright blue sky, a couple bleached clouds, deep blue sea... yeah man. but as soon as i stepped out it was clear, even without the wind, the air bit my face and soaked my hoodie. not a human in sight. i sung to myself walking out there, checking out my reflection in the doors i passed. i walk leaning backward. i would say i am the reincarnation of shaggy from scooby doo. mixed with beck, forrest gump, and ringo starr of course. you know it. first time, though, i have really been cold without a stiff breeze. midday too... its winter. that realization, damn, its winter. so not many people were out on the beach, i didnt even stand out there long seeing that as soon as i escaped the protection of the five-story horseshoe i was bound stiff in place by a chill breeze. brilliant though, sun on the waves, people fishing, boats circling. finally some woman walked mechanically measuredly out from a bypass through the buildings in a warmup fleece and earphones tucked beneath a matching toboggan. typical, survival gear for the beach in november. she didnt really look at me and i didnt really give her much credit either. late twenties maybe, better stay in shape, kid. i murmered something like... 'god bless us all' as i turned to leave but i dont really know what to think about that anymore.

tonight i got near the same treatment, i guess, from the night before. its a spa for the eyes. i walked out with my mother to get out of the house. same place as before. past the high-tensile thick rusty wires ground and holding the people on the other side. construction in the off-season. my timing was impeccable... hell, i swear it was. not that i had anything to do with it. soons i stepped off the porch it was easy to find the little scars in the sky, growing and expanding and diminishing all over the place... the faint thick tails of the jetplanes from cherry point. counted one two three - a clawmark - to six or eight of them all at the same time. drawing some picture of power and might high in the sky for every nation in the world to see. but no, the really astounding part was, again, the sun. we rounded the corner of the field of vision of the conclave just as the top of the sun dipped below the watery horizon. again, the shifting waves against the brilliance of the fading sun. raging. dying. reflecting over everything in sight. you could see the red-purple of the sun move almost imperceptibly from the bottom of the sky, behind some clouds, to sitting on top of a deep evil blue on the opposite side. waves crashing, people scurrying around... fishing still. my mother thought she saw something fishy in the ocean (what are the chances of that?) so i turned to see. the red fins she saw was a pack of dolphins playing just outside the breakers. everytime they would surface the glistening black of their lazy dorsal fins would glow a slick deep red. bloody brilliant.

so i thought yall should appreciate this. whatever i remember of it anyway. i still have more posts and thoughts saved up for other times... better more deserving nights. maybe by then i will have more to say than just describing the glory of god's nature. maybe next time i will have a camera by my side since you cant be here. god bless us if you could be, though. a recorder at least. just searching for authenticity wherever i can find it. i found a rough bound version of a book my uncle wrote (apparently) back in the day. no date or anything, never published i guess. i had no idea. how do you write that many words? i will figure it out someday. i guess you guys will just have to look forward to it eh? haha, nite everyone.

stuck. runs dry tonight. words, fucking words collide and stumble out. stuck. in a house in a family in a state in a state of being alone in a hole in a ditch in canada. wish i was in canada. wish i was not... all i wanted to do, even now, but it doesnt work, is get it out. cant grow without catharsis, cant go on thinking and clearheaded without purging the slate... sometimes. sometimes, god, to be pure and right i cant even say the name. cant even think the word. violent daydreams. attacking players spitting. and i, in my own time, cant get it out. cut off irresponsible. i cant... deal with that. so i let go, dammit, i have to to good things, shudder and brace and rock solid adrenaline rush no violence, ignorance. ah dammit, rise and all i can do, all i can think to do is close the door, hard, with a tension, turn off the lights television and all. step back in though i dont want to it ruins the entire tense thing ive created to grab a book and again tensely... theres nowhere in this house i want to be. parents room busy loud bright dad and mom on vacuum and... this was it. what i was going to do - reversed. wander upstairs and brush mom and try and be invisible. try and let nobody see that im wandering aimlessly to the attic. that door never could seal right, suction everytime, crack of paint bonding every time. acts like it gets wet. same old creaky stairs no invisibility but nobody to bother me. rearrange the beanbags stacked between the table and the chair and no tv. god - with the same playlist and book doubled in distance and subtle fan i cant hear. i can hear all noises around through my body but not the fan. just the little breeze through hair. thinking death isnt ever far away. my feet are dead left finger on and off the two on and off again and again shifting. everytime brought back to life magically. its close. heartbreaking painful melodies that i have to close my eyes to see. and after... god knows when... finally close and shut off and stand up. heels of both feet flat from the cabinet. dead, the half of me and coming back with cool rush of blood - cool not hot - and cactus carpet. downstairs to the same situation i left but with more lights. back to someplace... i just dont want to be. fucking name. delegated to the kitchen i can force a smile because stupidity was is and always will be funny. till nine. my time again but still no, damned irresponsibility, fucked title. i cant even say. delegated to the only place i havent tried, the basement. but i grab a guitar, figuring to burn time down slowly at least where no one can see me break my heart. and i do, myself, alone, half in the earth... heated at least. twice then moved on to other things - capo not required. bored cokes gone and drymouthed cheese crackers and football and old magazine. dammit what to do but check the time and see none has passed. not nearly in time with reality. the eastern time zone is late. but after a time passes again and again and to nearly half time... i can try and see again. pack away the guitar - which i only now realize is a classical and dont like it as much, cant believe i have been playing a classical and never noticed - trudge to the door silently, not even allowing for the quiet deep reverberating non-chord it makes when the case is loose, pop the door open. noisy door and backtrack to turn off more lights. turning off lights is my specialty. upstairs and... its my time. but fucking biologicalness is... this isnt right. brewing hatred strong and clear and not fuzzbrained or scattered but focused. jesus, why? no, not in the kitchen wont work. walk in and close the door because open doorways are two way streets. opens back up. not to start a confrontation. lay down behind the table head on floor and mute the tv. that will show... damn well better show. sprawled in the shadows read the lips of the washed up pretty actress. speaks of some childrens project. chris berman yacks. replays show the right arm between the ball and the ground. no challenges allowed... doesnt matter. i lay there counting minutes. no, not counting minutes. looping sad verses with shattering painful choruses over and over. eyes closed and open staring and blank. time... stiff neck. hearing things. keys, groaning from upstairs, cat above my head sick sucking spitting burbling bubbling hissing sounds. just cleaning herself i tell me. its all natch. and dark... but for the light of the next room. i resent it so. finally its gone and i without reply stare reading the lips of those tired chris bermans until it is over.

amazing things are happening... all the time. amazing things keep happening over and over and over again and i cant remember. i dont remember a damn thing and i dont know why. its a mystery to me how little i know. but that little is still important in a strange way... that driving is dangerous and my moods can change like that ::bam::. i dont know how i can listen to a song and it drive me to depression just the bass and the distortion and the sad lights of my car in the dark back window of the bus and the screen is blacked out so you cant see the driver but the lights they shift, they slide and sway and flex with the bus and both appear and the sad car snarls and the groaning song moans. god bless you all for dealing with me in such the best way. i feel like james bond sometimes when i almost die, when i get in the wrong lane and have to swerve in front of other buses to miss parked cars and its not cool at all. and one line can kill me. dead. one line burns my nose from bridge to tip and fogs my head and moistens my eyes. one word. thats all it takes.

i dont know why working things out is never easy. why r is never here and j is and a is but i never see them. and i can love all three and spend time with none. and each is special and different and all i want is to hear that one word.

theres a scar on my arm that grows like a fingernail slipping down down down to my wrists and gone when i trim my fingers

i had a bad feeling that i was going to be shot when i got to my front door in the dark and i would know it all the way down flat against the door after a second's sway... almost home. spitting blood. leaking silent

you and i got something but its all and then its nothing to me. somewhy those words found their way to the surface just now after - years probably - drowning somewhere back in the murky depths. who is to say whether i am in the best or worst possible place in life? its no fun to complain all the time, i would rather write something beautiful or insightful but lately nothing seems to be the case. beauty is just words about feelings that i never wrote so i send them off. its always been the way we do. theres something holy about nights like this and books like that and music such as all this combined. and you are missing as usual - i would talk if someone would talk to me, i would laugh at someones joke, i would walk out if you gave me a reason to, i would cry if something hurt me that bad, i could smile at any little thing but nothing here does it for me. as for now i am shocked and horrified at the human condition, at myself for writing all this and feeling all i am feeling because there are billions of people that wish they were me. back all swollen puffy feeling and if i could see it now im sure it would look and feel like a burnt hotdog, black crackly skin flaking off pink core and its numb all at the same time. damn fireplace lowlight warm pepsi. i am well off middle class white and with prospects. i have everything to lose. well not everything, i stand to gain quite a bit too. its hard to say hell, i have an entire life ahead of me because i am just as liable as anyone else to die tomorrow and my entire life would be behind me. i cant look forward to the afterlife as hard as i try. whatever happens happens here. im not stupid or slow or fat or ugly or poor and i have a personality. im going places. i still dont deserve it. i dont deserve what i read or who i know - its why i am losing. the ability to write, to play, the interest whatever. if i had a riviera i might enjoy life a bit more. if cruising in a big steel cocoon could make me happier i would try it. according to those with say i dont deserve it. being a teenager automatically makes me incapable of surviving life. at least some power would make life more interesting. i apologize for being an asshole on purpose all those times and i hope you wont hold it against me. i know my limits and i havent lost any friends solely on that basis. i lose them because of who i am and who they are and the fact that those two just dont get a long anymore. its a shame too, all the prospects. all that future. maybe ill die tomorrow. i still havent played music live though ive been congratulated for smooth licks by those who seem to know. i wouldnt. i still admire those on television and hate it when someones beautiful personality turns into something less - attractive. shallow i know but its only human isnt it? i shouldnt worry. i am probably the same way in the passengers seat though. i sat down here with no idea what to write or how to go about doing it. now ive sat here and wrote like i knew i would figuring out what to say on the way and it doesnt look like i have written anything at all. just jumbled thoughts on a page. not explaining what i did today. at least i have a little dignity. i am no closer to writing a novel though i would love to someday. im no closer to owning a guitar with a cutaway thought i would love to someday. i am no closer to sex or a soulmate thought i would love to someday. the combonation of the two is something i look forward to. unless my life is behind me. i wish i knew. and im glad i dont. i dont wish to know what you are thinking because it might hurt my feelings and you sure as hell dont need to know any more than i tell you. ive grown tired of being wary of offending people unless it is in my best interests not to. and even then there is a limit to how much is acceptable and how long all this should apply for anyway. may maybe. june. by then i should have a speech prepared for graduation. i, the kid that writes sometimes, should write something. in truth, though, if it were to be me i think i should free-bullshit it. on stage in front of people, just stand and present thoughts on whatever the hell is happening. its overwhelming to say the least. maybe i will sit and play something and someone will sing for me. maybe it will be open-mic night. maybe my life is behind me already and i dont know it. you are lucky, you realize that? to be reading this on a computer. you have it all. i saw today that the war on iraq is costing us a lot of money. enough money already to immunize every child on the planet for every standard disease for forty-eight years. forty-eight years everyone, already, and we keep spending the money to kill middle-easternors and free oil and our own soldiers die.... but this isnt a political discussion, it is a collection of thoughts. deep thoughts, like that god hates me and my car and maybe we will perish together. wouldnt that be ironic? my sleeves are too short but i dont care. i can just roll them up and look like the same goof i have for the past couple years. maybe harrys will be open tomorrow. they always are. i dont know why i even ask. the night sky is one of the most beautiful things i have ever seen. supernovas blow my mind. space and time and stars that twinkle are uncertain. visits arent. i cant look forward to anything farther than wake for now but maybe farther later. farther north, farther west. studying abroad, studying abreast. visiting the nunnery/pirate school for dinosaurs and being shown new york city by someone that cares. all i can do to believe in that shit. if i make it that far it will be a miracle. if we make it that far. i told myself a long time ago you were worth being friends with but i never thought i would hear from you after a month or so had passed. how long has it been? years, kid, and i still know you, thought not as well. and from you another, thought we dont talk anymore. maybe there was a future sprown somewhere in there, prospects kid, prospects. prosthetics. i might bite your ear off. you will never know will you? you and your money. chills cross my back like hockey players. cake. i told myself i would eat pudding tonight but i didnt. i got beautifully and astoundingly sidetracked and ended up over pressure cooking myself with an uncold coke. a coke, jesus who am i. it should be a pepsi. but sometimes after fifty pepsis, a coke is a nice refreshing treat. i wish they still made them with cocaine. i remember a long time ago walking in and out of that macdonalds in fuquay before it closed down. they had these fake stone floors outside, that were warm and high and you had to step up to get to them. i have memories of the ball pit and being a pilot and a racecar driver and being scared to go down the slide at wet n wild. i always thought there would be some tiny plastic trim ground out that would tear me in two or at least gash my leg a little. and water splashes in my eyes and the fake stone ground is warm and i walk back to the car in the shade and climb in the back not the front. its closed now as is the old harris teeter which i claim my mother says i have memories about too. i just dont remember them. my fingers heavily dance over the keys in such precise practised calculated movements it amazes me. whatever i think is transferred to the screen quite expediently though my thoughts automatically slow down to type and stay the same to read. im pretty sure ive read so much that my mind has a hard time working any faster than i can read. and most of the time there is a little narrative voice inside me talking about my thoughts anyway. nothing i can do about that. im working toward comprehending thoughts and phrases and things on paper so i wont have to read anymore. i can just see and understand. i suppose hearing is a bit different unless it is a foreign or mysterious language and you have to hear it well and repeat it to yourself and analyze every syllable and make words and then translate and all instead of just thinking it in damned french to begin with. i can watch my typing with one eye - the left one, because the right one is closed shut and i cant get it open vary well, im not sure why this happens. im not sure why the devil touches me. im not sure why anything happens or where it is all going or where i came from. all i know is that the way things are going we will still be talking in ten years and i swear kid, ill tell you when i get there.

i never really thought about it before but it was pretty nice. walking around that womens college campus at eight this morning with just wet jeans, old sandals, and a bag over my shoulders. i guess it was fairly obvious what i was doing there: hat stuffed over wet hair, carrying my swimsuit rolled up in a damp towel. the more i think of it the more someone crazier than me might have seen it as some small creature i had murdered and was moving to dispose. someone crazier than me that is. it was nice though, the fog settling. a gray day, the clouds backlit by the sun. trace little rain-drizzle sweeping every now and then through the trees rustling leaves and haze. quite a contrast from the stuffy chemical pressurized sanitary atmosphere inside the gym-pool. where the sanitary smell seeps into the showers and makes you puke. ten times the pressure of the outside air and twice as hot and dead/clean from shock chemicals. its enough to make you stare hard in the mirror all alone all wet and sad and wonder why you are even there at all. but its fine back in the pool. the pool's water is just cooler than the stagnant air but when you surface the air is cooler. and when you are dry the outside air is clean and cool and much nicer because it is sweet smelling of rust and rain and natural in the trees like it was filtered by the last green leaves. and it hangs on you, your muscles seizing with every step and calms and cools so that you are all alone even if people walk by and it doesnt even matter.

on the other hand im changing. all my life i have appreciated myself for being a good kid, inwardly good, somehow divinely blessed to enjoy being kind and friendly and pacifist and whatever else is holy. and that still applies. i manage to suck it up without thinking about it, get along fine with my parents and most authority figures, make friends with just about anyone and mostly keep them... but im feeling like that little flame inside of me is flickering a bit. a breeze is trying to refresh me from the inside out, a cool upwelling that threatens the sheltered light. im feeling like an evil human being. im pretty sure this all sprung out of the original bad idea which i had no real say in. in some way i think we all know how that turned out, even if im never explicit about it. well it gave me a soft spot. a very specific soft spot. as much as i try not to be offended it makes me angry, bitter, violent inside when provoked in that one way. when you leave at night it kills me. pisses me off, makes me want to say things to hurt you back even though i know you are nothing more than a perpetual hard day, a tired kid, busy, fucking busy. i know all that and i get it, believe me i do, but it doesnt stop me from wanting to make your night a living hell because you have to leave. thanks for the terse conversation kid. bye. its what i would have said had i not been the caring stupid kind person i am. and someday its going to crack. that little glass barrier between the goodness within and the evil seeking to become my within will leak and splinter and i will be replaced by some heartless bastard. i can feel him inside me already. you always said you knew my thoughts even if i wasnt expressing them, that i never was really good at keeping things to myself anyway. well heres the deal. i work on concealing that and even if you enjoy it, to hell with it. you work on making yourself a little more available and somehow fulfilling this vacancy that was your fault to begin with. leave me something to feel and i will leave you peacefully. its all the hope ive got left.

bad daydreams

i never have decent thoughts anywhere near any good place to write them down. so i dont write as often as i should.

i have bad daydreams. i was out on the sea-doo saturday - halloween - and didnt drive. im not quite sure why seeing as it is probably the last time out this year and ill just have to pray that i live long enough to drive it again. but i just lounged on the back, not hanging onto anyone, arms spread behind me bracing against the rear sundeck and legs embracing the seat in front of me in a massive static clench that kept me planted when my dad got the urge to make things interesting. its nice out back though when you can close your eyes and just feel the motion and the warmth of the sun and thats when i start dreaming. my sister was driving and although i dont trust her much she was doing a straight line run so i wasnt freaking out or anything. eyes closed i had the idea that since i wasnt holding on if she stopped suddenly i might just go flying off the front. i could feel that simply by realizing it. and i thought - hell - what if i hit a wall. and eyes closed i saw this big shadow we just drove into and felt myself flying and seeing a massive dark cold damp brick wall looming over the lake and myself nothing to do but fly and smack into it at an angle and just... just crumple like a disregarded piece of paper. no bones anymore, just a sack of human stuff. barely conscious i would stick to the wall a second then gravity would take over again and i would plummet back to the water, breaking the surface tension with a ::crack:: just like hitting the wall all over again. and i would float there, a broken person, because it seems to me broken people wouldnt sink as easy.

i dont know why i think these things or why i am never in a good position to write them down because its never nearly as good three days later. i carved my pumpkin early that morning in the forgotten hour of daylight savings. i waited till everyone left for bed then drug it inside, cut it open, cleaned out its innards, and set it on the table and freestyled. i call it the forgotten hour because at two in the morning the clocks roll back to one again and you relive that hour. i carved the pumpkin in the first one-o-clock. so it didnt count in the grand scheme of things. almost like not growing any older. i kept fucking with the pumpkin though and in the end didnt like it terribly much - which is a shame because it is my last halloween at home - maybe i should have carved it with the family. ah well, my sister was being a bitch and my parents were out anyway. fuckit.

i have mixed emotions about william shatner

i am disappointed that kerry lost... and that he was such a pussy and threw the towel in so early. oh well, theres talk that he would have to be classy now if he wants a serious bid in 08. my god, four more years. i dont know how our country will survive four more years of the same shit thats been going on. already we have lost a thousand soldiers in a war that we have been involved in longer than WWI and the economy sucks. bush has no plan for the future. i have a bad feeling we are going to be nuked. he has pissed too many people off. the world hates us. it is agonizing to me that bush should be in office to begin with. how does a man with that intelligence - in a nation of literate adults - get elected to public office? he has never been really good at running things. he ran all his oil companies into the ground - funded and saved by saudi money from his daddy's friends no less. cant even talk correctly. overthrows the afghani government to install a halliburton advisor to 'president' who immediately allows a new natural gas pipeline to be put in. then goes off with a cowboy war on iraq - who had no connection to terror - overthrows it for oil. takes soldiers off the real war on terror. gets soldiers killed, manipulates the government, scares the people to rationalize it all, finds no weapons of mass destruction... and ahh the wmd's. to me it appears this way: bush knew there were no wmd's in iraq but he used it as an excuse to go cowboy and attack them. the nation wasnt entirely sure there wasnt any there so it was ok. he bucks our strong allies and goes it himself putting the entire load on our nation. manpower, aid, money, everything. and we get ourselves into this neo-vietnam and everyone hates us. now, everyone knows iran and north korea has wmd's. so what does bush do? insist on talks... utilizing other nations to our advantage. apparently we cant talk to north korea unless china is there and wont touch iran but will invade iraq no problem. its just a matter of where the weapons are and where the american public thinks they are. and, of course, during all this the saudis are harboring most of the terrorists but they are off limits. they control most of our oil. the saudi royal family invests trillions a year in bush family companies. bush makes $200,000 a year from the government and god knows how many millions from the saudis. so i guess it poses a new question: whos your daddy?

its not that i really liked kerry anyway but that i dont think our nation can survive another four years with this illiterate, cowboy, poor-soldier-cause-of-rich-tax-cut president. please, now is the time, god bless the usa.