Stop Sign. Yield Light.

Stay inside; it's falling sky outside. Stay in your apartment and wrap yourself from the inside-out.

Go through things. Entertainment is a process which enables us to believe in the self, now, and me. Never, never alone.

A quick game of solitare will sober up that fickle brain.

That stingy brain, keeping it's secrets hidden in it's nooks, it's dirty alley ways.

Ways above the electric railroad tracks, sending its fickle blue collars and white collars and red collars and dead collars to their places--respectively.

Pull out your old Valentines; your sugary wash-aways and textbook erotics.

A swollen heart isn't always a good thing.

Study your sciences and pull up the graves of Aristotle and Bohr.

A birthmark is a young cancer, never alive enough to grab the chokehold, but never dead enough to leave you without his phone card.

Read. Read their teeth. Their smile makes for cozy by the fire. Or a bulimic beach sit.

Glazed over and soft to the touch, my eyes breathe in injections-- glaring, gazing, gaping, gasping for art.

Stop signs and yield lights don't change color under upcoming brights.

Rain makes things shiny.
Glossy.
Wet.
Cold.
Brave.
Slippery.
Scary.
Messy.
Romantic.
Art.

My ears are itchy

I think it's really started to break in. You know, the whole alone thing. So, instead of sounding pathetically pathetic here are some songs that have really kept the clouds moving.

Regina Spektor-Somedays
The Beatles-The Ballad of John and Yoko
Death From Above 1979- Romantic Rights
The Roots- You Got Me
Ratatat- Seventeen Years
Interpol- Take You On a Cruise
Boredoms-Seadrum
Taking Back Sunday- Cute Without the 'E'

^say what you want about that last one bitches, I happen to like nostalgia.

I'm also really starting to think about next semester and drool at the mouth with the thought of Austin approaching. When I think about it, the scene is always set like this:

-7:15 P.M.- Sun's set pretty low in the horizon; total makeout kind-of sun, you know?

- 7:30 P.M.- People are moving real fast (below the make-out sun). Kind of like in those videos where you're walking normal pace and everyone else is on speed or 3 and a half red bulls. Red bulls are dangerous.

- *:30 P.M. My hair is badass. It's that kind of badass hair that waves in front of your face and makes your eyes look mystic--hidden from view.

-LCD Soundsystem is in the background, followed by that cool Ratatat song.

-10:30 P.M.- We are all sitting on one of those awesome old couches that feel more like one of those old family dogs that is so old that it won't even bark; it just lets you pet its soft, worn-in back.

-None of our socks match. Neat.

- 1:30 A.M.- We catch up with our old friends from Bloc Party and have what else-- a house partay.

- 3:30 A.M.- Blurred visions of The Office fade into the distance, while lucid dreams engulf the living room.




*Anytime my hair looks cool

Writing on a Large Block of Dammit

I've seriously had some doubts lately about my current hobby and/also writing project--see: I Built This Treehouse in the Ground. Whether or not it is because of the pure lack of excitement which day by day molds over my skull-- I don't know. In essence, this boredom-triggered fungal attack on my brain is lagging my creativity down to almost null or whatever else--hell, I'm even having a hard time writing this digital chicken scratch down.

I've been spending the last few days rearranging, renumbering, and rewriting various chapters; plus, I am adding a couple of new ones. I'm aiming at more continuity and, mostly, allowing readers to at least grasp what's going on in the story without the illustrations. However, I don't want to overwrite it to where I am missing my original target-- a graphic illustrated story written in tones of a children's fairytale. I'm aiming at getting the whole sha-bang done by at least fall semester, but we'll see.

Who knows, maybe I'll pick it back up next week or even tonight. Spontaneity is for lovers.

I like my iPod, so much that I bought an f-ing case for it from a company called Incase. Asian in Austin with a badass iPod on his beltloop next semester--yeah, you know who I be.

Lately,--other than pulling my hair out and yelling at the computer screen in lucid disgust (directed towards my writer's block)-- I have really gotten into reading underground online magazines, music reviews, and discovering online attire shops. No, that doesn't mean porn (Andrew). Pitchforkmedia.com is a great indie music read--type in as many variations of hipped out music as you want and it is delivered at Fast food breaking speed (without the calories or the greasy faced cashier). TheMorningnews.org gets "you" to focus on entertaining banter and readable essay-like articles-- "you" as in "me" as in "pickle-brained, Bohemian-lacking, dirty-south-dude-trapped-on-boring-east-coast-town, asian hipster wannabe." Finally, check out americanapparelstore.com for clothes that actually are free of Paul Frank humor and can still be considered "cool" or "neat". Don't worry, they aren't the older, ugly, beef-headed stepbrother of American Eagle.

So, I'll be back, probably writing some more about how I want attention--and hoping silently that you will give it to me, even though I want to present myself as if I didn't.

P.S. I am coming back to the Bubble for a brief four day stint, starting on June 30th. I like that, and I hope you do too.

Perfect

Behind that mask is beauty unimaginable.

Under that dress is grey shorts and knee-high socks.

Holes in the socks and holes between the sheets.

Laying in patterns which are 'round and 'round.

Under the mass forest of cotton and linen.

That bassinet swallows us whole.

Both fall into that hole, unraveling at the hem.

As the sunlight creeps in through the caves that bury us both,

we run deeper into pillowcases--

saving ourselves from another lonely hour away.

1986

1. Ma.
2. Krystle.
3. Stuman.
4. J-dash.
5. Bekah.
6. Kelli.
7. Rick.
8. Mindy
9. Moni
10. Di
11. Eddie
12. Jeans
13. Brian
14. Andrew
15. the numerous facebookies.

Thanks guys, you make my face grin.

I Built this Treehouse in the Ground

Chp. 14: Snow White

And there I was.

Mouthful of mothball shaped medicines,
masticating to the manic musical of the masterbation of our menstural millenia.

Up through the right, as I pushed down my left,
nostrils become nemesis to nostalgia night and night again.

Credit cards kill, yet can't be as cancerous as a carnivore.
Canines which carve curiously throughout cocaine cured corridors.

In insipid instances, why must one insist in intentional idiosyncrasy.
Idle measures increase the chance of inert indecisions, while powdered ice suffocates the inverted room infested with inverted introverts--interested only in instigating the ideal life insurance.

Breathe in the booze of the beaten babe.
Biting down bare fisted in backdoor basements, leaving banshees to bid you adieu.

Adieu my dear, abducted by the adulterated anthologies of our asterisk ridden age, I will end.

And now I am here.

Cocaine does not kill. Ignorance does.

iPodish

I got an iPod as an early birthday gift. I'm chipper.

Comb, water, desk, morning

Clutter mind.
Tapered ears.
Mended mouth.
Crooked nose.

My eyes are like those ancient zeppelins, floating majestic, waiting to burst.

Only after it hurts can I write.
My mind clutter falls out onto the page. My tapered ears rip open old wounds. My mended mouth chews through. My nose--well, that's my nose.

You breathe to wait and you wait for nothing. Your face is in black and white. Your toes are constantly on point. Your crotch is a beating living piece of coal. Your soul is squeezed until all the liquor runs into your brain. Water passes through without harming a cell. Smoke pulls through the lungs and out the posterior. You stare at the clock and state that it will never happen again. Yet you can't write. You can't write without it. You can't live--and then you hold your breath. You don't realize how important that song is until you hear it for the fifth, sixth time. You pass out. Everything falls back into place. You wake up tommorow and start over.

Desperate Realms of the Outer Suburbia

After a week of tireless waiting, I finally have in my control the power of the greatly underappreciated device-- the internet. The cell phone and internet define us as college students, but that is something I'll blab about in another millennia. Anyways, here's a bit of what I have jotted down over the past few days.


6/16

I check my phone to distinguish yesterday from today. Time moves with less urgency in a town like this. After playing nomad and searching for an outlet to my idle insanity, I have realized a few things about this Frederick, Maryland that I now inhabit:

-There are no asian folk-- culture shock is an understatement in this Orient-lacking town.

-All--or close to it-- streets seem to have worked the word "wood" into them.
(Clearwood, Chancewood, Greatwood, Morningwood...)

-The postal system sucks. My disability to communicate with the desperate realms of the Outer Suburbia has prolonged due to the ever slow-paced postal service that seems to pace itself through the sticky streets of the cornfields.

-Roy Rogers is the dominant fast food chain here. 99 cent crab cakes do not satisfy no matter how cheap. I would rather eat gag.

- Hot Topic rules the urban attire of these kids. With so many witty tee-shirts, who needs late night comedy?

- Old people outnumber young people. It wasnt until the third day that I spotted someone remotely close to my age. Either, you stay here until you die (slowly rotting away in this lovely east coast weather), or the parents realize how God-awful guardians they would be for letting their offspring develop any sense of the world enveloped in this damn cornfield of a boondock.

Really, write me, call me, leave me a message, do something. I would love to hear from you.

girl and boy

You're so beautiful, yet, you don't even know it.

Maybe once, once before things started to happen, you knew. Before certain eyes looked certain ways. Before certain boys caught certain eyes. Before everything that was once quiet became loud and raucous. It was in your face, grabbing it by the lashes and telling them to curl to that perfect crescent. Before the moon left your side and instead night lights lit the strobe to blocky midnight memories. Before certain foods contained certain dangers, and certain dangers caused certain shame. Before danger left and became a muse of that certain forgotten shame. Before class rank dealt with class itself, and parents were reasons for certain debts that pulled that rank down. Before those certain boys told you that the life of the party was more than life itself after that certain gulp. Before that certain curb became your certain couch. Before certain eyes looked certain ways. Ways away from what is so beautiful.

You're so charming, yet, you don't even know it.

Maybe before, once before things started to grab your attention, you knew. Before certain beautiful images fiddled across the hall before fluttering eyes. Before certain suits meant certain implications. Before certain torn up pants became rich and famous. Before certain genes meant certain heights, but certain heights came only in inches and the others were ignored. Before certain love became a fashion and the attire was interchangable. Before enhancement this and enhancement that became under weight and under matched. Before certain skin meant certain glances and certain talk became certain chances. Before "Nothing else matters" became the slogan of Wednesday night parties. And parties were the society that chased you down that hole. Before they pulled, and matted, and strectched, and beat your inner strengths until they were nothing but like everything else that is lonely and depressed and strickened with anxiety. Before the anti became in. Before life seemed to mean so much less. Before certain eyes looked certain ways. Ways away from what is so charming.

You're somebody, but nobody knows it for certain.

I Built This Treehouse in the Ground

Ch. 13- Return of They

To delve away--
To strand astray--
cigarette burntout of ashtrays--
fill a void in memory bays--

"Away," I thought--
from paces gones--
and six months passing--
the thought stretched so long--

--ago, as it fell, the dirt burying--
They.

But back it returns for sakes of revenge--
Of the purest of forms seperated by this pen--
alone.

I Built This Treehouse in the Ground

Ch. 12- Dirty Romantics Yield Dirty Thoughts Find Dirty Pictures Lose Dirty Sleep

Away from reality, away from my sanity.
Against the ivory floor, back pressed up against cold linen sheets.
Sheets that wrap my bathtub and cry tears of loss and rage.
I am lost the millionth time, as my knees press into my chest.

Just bare in my underwear, just bare in my shame.
Just lit in my empathy, just sit till I am tame.
But lost in reality, and shunned by myself.
As I delve through these mysteries of this heaven, so called hell.

Because bent on this hell am I frothing the lip.
And slash my incentives as heaven falls down my steps.
And breed immaculate peoples, breed sheppards and whores.
Because all I need is cinema, a camera, and no more.

But love is now a shadow, because lust is now my game.
And cinema is my longing, and deep throat my crave.
And falling into deeper holes I find myself dug in.
I dug while I was lost away, away trapped in my sin.
The green that rolls away my tips, these fingers sit elsewhere.
Alone I find myself this room, alone I do not care.

For friends are ones on trashy beds, shackled lights, with four scored titles, and mountains of lead.

I spin and spin and spin into this silent addiction.
This is my anti-drug.

Goodbye

Sometimes I get that funny feeling-- when I'm alone, when I'm tired, when my eyes are closed. It's like everything slows down, maybe just a little. When your clothes ruffle slower, but your eyes can move just fine. They can dart to the side and catch a moth floating in midair, no flapping, just floating. Mesmerized by heat, there is no constant to his life--except the end.

Because what is really constant other than the end? Well, the beginning you can argue, but who's a cynic? Sure, you can argue for love, but love may only come once in many lives, sometimes disguised as a rogue liver, beating to the music of a tainted heart.

Your eyes dart to the other side and your room is just this mess. This mess of your life, not in a negative aspect in any sort of way, just this vortex of who you are--or were. What you live in is what you are, really don't give me any of that food bullshit. If you're messy, you're eccentric; if you're clean, you're organized. Because when you clean your room, you always have to focus. No matter how silly or stupid that seems, it always occurs to you that you have to focus.

Anyways, I'm leaving this Saturday to Maryland, so if you would like to stop by or give me a call, I hope you will. I guess this is my end or even my beginning, but once I get up there hopefully I'll focus this mess of my life and stay away from that damn heat.

I Built This Treehouse in the Ground

Chp 11: Fashion Mold

As 10 o'clock feeds hungers growl,
I sit and watch, alone I prowl.

Through cupboards pass
my hand grows lonely.

Through bones I seep,
my face not only.

But through my arms and down my legs,
and ask not my chest, for none remains.

But it growls I hear, a tumultuous temper.
I shush my intestines, I bleed my own sweater.

Through skin like rice paper,
though uneaten, left undead,
I pull through this acid, running down porcelain threads.

And shaped like an "O", but oval in shape,
I sleep through this gift, like a manic escape.

Because pages and pages, they cut through my eyelids.
And what I am left with is imperfect, stiff silent.

And down the drain, swivel, and shaking, and dancing,
I find myself quiver with remorse and romantics.

Romancing my dance with the oval and threads,
as pages and pages run amuck in my head.

Of smiles and relaxing, of endless affairs, of dashing
camaraderies, of life without care.

A hidden remark, a lavish parade,
a full on pursuit of this tainted mistake.

Removed from this cupboard are dreams all run out,
with families disconnected and fathers thinning out.

With lists of repairments, with holes in the sky,
away from these dangers, these fears I would fly.

Alone is the hippie, depressed is the punk,
remorse is dance music, and demise is all the funk.

So step off this cupboard, and breathe in the night,
and jump off this cupboard into diamonds and bright light.

The flash of photography, the lust of the heat,
produced by these products, discharged by my feet.

It dribbled off the seat, was an accident for sure,
off that oval of a smile, threads of porcelain for this whore.

But I smile when I'm hurting, and I eat when I'm dying,
But I cake my own scars to daub my own crying.

Because bones are my fashion, and my bruised knees like the cold
of the linoleum floor that my body will soon enfold.

I'll shower tommorow

Maybe if you whisper to me more often I'll fall asleep.

I Built this Treehouse in the Ground

Chp. 10: Repeat to Forget

Remember.

I will not remember what you needed, what you ask of me, or of what would have never been mentioned until now.

My mind shakes.

It shakes its dark magnetic pieces into oblivion-- of what is now just this pile of ashes by my feet. That is why my name is a ______, my past is a b-l-u-r, and my future slips to crash in your hands. The second you leave is the second I pass.

I crawled and I crawled, but the floor, anyways, it moved underneath my feet. I tried to remember but what was left was scratching in Fall's Broken Retreat. I clawed and I clawed until my nails bled and my nose dug the dirt.

The monster could smell the back of my shirt.

I was only down to my last second, my last turn, my last mile--before the monster clawed my threads and slipped me into its lair. This lair was deep in the ground. Its ceilings were dirt, its walls were dirt, its pictures were dirt, and food was available in sorts. And quarts, quarts were left of the red leftovers of past friends and handsomes. They took me for granted. They shook me as my whites rolled over like a glass ball in a lubricated cupped hand.

Before the monster took its last shake and grasped my shirt. Before my head met the ground and my hair dug the dirt. As I fell to the floor and my end seemed to come to a perceivably sudden end.

Before.

I lashed out in letters and colors, and I eagerly shrieked, screamed and deciphered. I was naming the Torah, I was quoting Saint Peter, I was repeating Mayan prophecies, and down it dropped.

Down dropped that dirt, the dirt that ended up just like all dirt--kicked around. And They fled. Fear was newly instilled into that dark, damned creature.

My mind was then in a constant state of repeat, repent, and reprisal, but was numb altogether. Yet I slept through that night, as with every other sixth and first days of the weeks that followed. I slept through that night, one day prior to November, chilled to the bones with my numbers, my pages, and my letters. Vivid colors painted my night, six days after I remembered my sight.

I Build this Treehouse in the Ground

Chp 9: The Ticking

Clenching and clenching and clenching. His fingers had dug smooth grooves into what was once a perfect arrangement of coarse tree armor. "Tick, tick, tick," he heard.

Think.

"Wipe your face before you vomit," they told him.
"It would be a shame to die before you live," They told him.

Think. Think.

It was in intervals of five, yet the ticking made that peculiar chime at a firm sequence of multiples of six-- ten to be particular. He forgot the name.

"Nod your head, nod your head, nod your head!" they told him.
"When you move I am only so much closer!" They told him.

Think. Think. Think.

But both touch and sound joined hands, creating what once was one-dimensional, falsely artistic, and inadequately important into what was a new friend. This new friend found his hair like fingers and returned the clenching forcefully. He was not going to lose this new feeling, the feeling of vibration conjoining with sound, music even--each tick was like the puzzle coming together. What was once his memories was now a jumbled salmagundi. Each piece sitting under that light, lettuce rotting brown, slowly nature would remove their beautiful mysteries and what would be left would seem to enter the pigs mouth. The memories would saturate and settle, eventually finding its home in the pig's belly. Only next the memories would be chopped, tenderized, and fried. The words would sit in basking fat under a heat wave of red light--only to enter the guzzling tantrum of a hole that passed through endless traps and acid producing pools. He certainly did not want that to happen.

Think. Think. Think. Think!

But clenching still he found what was once so majestic, yet haunting to his own likings. The dark world brought him this arbor and this magical ticking which he finally heard.

"Clock," He remembered.

I Built this Treehouse in the Ground

Chp. 8: Occupation II

I came from no pod, no cage, no womb.
My blood is a mystery to me--swirled fluorescent patterns sleeps and seeps through my veins.
I can talk to the clouds, I can breathe the dirt on the ground.
I came from no mystery, no fire, no silent realm.
My flesh is hard yet tempted by the flame-- burning with ease and floating as I please.
I can see through your night; I can touch with your paint.

Because I speak through my words on these walls, and I fidget as I wait. I wait for these letters to fall into place. Into places behind bookshelves and floor that is soft; into light that is silent and in temptations with the moths.

I came from no mother, no father, no cause.
My scent is no temptation-- my hair entangled in roots and my jaw frigid with past primed pollen. And my voice--is not there at all.

So here you can find me, alone on my roof. Or, under my canopy with my cloud by my side.