I stare out at a room with a bed covered by a patchwork quilt.
The amber glow of the bed side lamp fills the room and leaks out onto the street.
The dragon huff of the heating vent rattles the wall next to me
Expectations collapse inward like the center of an origami star.
A blue lined black hole lays on the table before me.
Ink drenched notebooks sit beside it.
I’m finding the edges of existence in between exhales.
“The torment of good manners and bad timing. All the hallmarks of seething rage that simmers under a surface of erudite calm. There is a reason the crude provocateurs win— they tug the truth into open air.” - Excerpt from the Wandering Scribe of Alesia
The present is always the time of consequence.
Too often do we cast all desires into the past or future.
There is no time but this in which we can act.
“History is not inevitable,” Golo Mann said as he watched the rise and fall of the Weimar Republic. Revisionist and cynics claim backward foresight.
“We all knew it was going to happen. Nothing could be done.” Falser words could not be said. We do not live in a hard-set cast like the pour for copper. Institutions for centuries can disappear overnight.
The flicker of flame and black smoke of turned oil vanished under the lambent cast of filament lights— whaling boats lost over the electric horizon.
The illusion of normalcy is maintained as even in the fall of empires you have to rise in the morning and sleep at night. There are still birthdays and smiles. Smaller and brittle, perhaps. But the human spirit does not extinguish in one fell swoop. History has shown otherwise.
There is no escaping the connection to the world. There is no gently laid salt line that keeps the spirits from the door. No pair of headphones, book, or music that can drown out the ever present thrum of the universe that pulses through us.
There is no salvation in ignorance. No prayer in despair that will save you from experiencing the breadth of existence.
The only destiny we can claim is breath.
So fill your lungs with the defiant crush of the unknown— and all that it contains— as if we are to make a wager. If we are to stand as a speck in the vastness of it all— why not dare to breathe once more. To realize that even the darkness cannot remain an unmovable force.
Like a dandelion pushing up through concrete— it’s bit by bit as you move towards daylight.
I woke to three women standing over my bed. One by the window, one at the end of the bed, and one closer to the bathroom. They stood silently. As if they’d paused the moment I came to. The energy of the room crackled without words.
Porcelain statues looking down at me without word.
I woke again to an empty, dark room.
The lamp light didn’t cast their shadows. There were no shadows at all.
I woke up thinking of you, the man scribbled in his notebook. I don’t know if I’ll ever tell you. The last embers crackled in the wood stove as he sat in the sunken recliner. The morning was chill, and the fog lay low and thick on the ground. Fall was quickly fading before a strong winter.
I wonder if you ever think about me, too. But never enough to move the block of ice holding my fear frozen. Easier to write and wander. Always easier to dream than to live. Worn journals and open books lay across a board, scarred kitchen table. Heavy wood held together with thick steel bolts. It could have served in an old lumber camp. These things aren’t made anymore. Wood from forests long gone. Out of time from lost worlds. Ones that faded photographs and looping script spoke of. The man sat nursing his cup of tea. No mirrors lived in the cabin, but he knew he didn’t present a pretty sight. Not anymore.
Still, curiosity remained as he weaved her initials against the ceramic mug. He was too lost in memories to hear the first birds of the day and the nattering of the chipmunks that followed.
Too lost to remember what still lay before him.
I would have been a different man, given the chance.
There are days when I wonder to what ends I will follow for this path I am walking. Behind me is defined, but before there’s no arc to be followed— only what my imagination can craft and feet can sunder.
I’m laying in an empty king sized bed. I haven’t drawn the shades yet. No lights are on inside the condo, but down below is the ever-present Glisan fluorescence.
In the distance, the US Bancorp building is topped with a pink ribbon around its top.
Back ordered Girl Scout cookies set for a February arrival.
Weary mind and achy legs.
The disappearance of goals amidst a sleepy mind, but the small torch fire of hope that they remain intact and in pursuit.
I believe tomorrow I’ll wake in a sunlit room with a smile nearby.
As I age, I’ve begun to no longer trust the emotions that snarl beyond nine at night. They’re capricious little fucks and I won’t let their grubby hands steer the boat.
You are a haunting melody
I wonder if we will talk again
But I don’t know what’s left unsaid
That will cross between past and present
More of a ghost than a muse
The notes grow more silent as time wears on
Like soft creased kisses left atop the head
I don’t have anywhere to hold this
You know this
Further time unraveled
And letters left unsent
Nothing to be traded beyond glances across the bow.
Ships in the night
“Stop biting me! I’m trying to save you,” a gruff voice said as hands the size of cinderblocks pulled the boy from the wagon’s wreckage. “Nasty little sewer rat,” the voice added.
Roscoe looked up to see a small group of men pick through the broken boards and spokes of the wagon to try and get the supplies that Khallundun had sent him out with.
Nights like reckless glory
Madronas and manzanitas— smooth Dogwood flowers blooming in stolen patches of sunshine
A Silver panel van serving as the canvass for the 9th Avenue corvid convention.
The doctor stinking of gin clutching
Gideon’s Bible
While
A heart drifts like wood.
I wrote a song for you. Heard the melody float through my mind after dusk as I eat frozen mangoes and triple knotted my shoes.
Southern rifts spoke with steel twang as I walked the passage between the kitchen and bedroom over and over.
It’s not a song that’ll be played. Other instruments I possess aren’t owned by hands with the experience to make them sing.
I’m trying to map the stars off the lake’s surface. Surface slick with light from a galaxy away. No prophecy found as I bubble awake.
Bless the last acre of berry stained grass. Copper taint of summer water I’d wager outlines of ecstasy for steady hands intertwined.
No lyrics to be sung aloud in this name or time.
“Going on crusades has never been my strong suit,” Rikken said rubbing ashen knuckles. The fire crackled with strange alchemy before him as the dawn call tolled from the city bell. No cheeky last snooze for the band.
“Neither has been staying quiet when the rest of us need a little more shut eye.”
“Yeah, stick a sock in it, Rikken.”
“Seeing as none of you are going to hush any time soon, can one of you stoke the fire while I take a leak?”
The motley crew of Lars, Krendel, and Adair bickered as Rikken planned the day’s outing. The trio couldn’t help themselves, but what band of magicians can? At least Rikken knew magic wasn’t infallible, even if the peasants and overzealous clerics of the outer range temples believed it so.
Warlocks didn’t often group together. Individuals who enter demonic contracts don’t tend to play well with one another. But just as starvation is the best seasoning, desperation makes fast friends.
Adair was the odd one out. A wildling mage that hadn’t gained the trust of his ancestral demon before the empire marched on the Temari homelands.
With a cloud of wakeleaf and sour ale breath, the gang got on the road towards Kvil. Rikken had secured a contract for them to investigate the mystery in Malton Keep. The Duke’s bastard had used a royal courier to contact the group. Rikken wasn’t holding out hope for a long or lucrative contract, but he figured anything was better than staying around Kvil trying to dodge the attention of minor naval despots.
Lying down and staring skyward. Lost into a bluebird day overhead. Tethers loosened and spirits high.
I walked to the store with a smile pasted across my face. The actions of the day placed brick by brick to make a tower towards joy.
“These experiments are just quaint beginnings,” my sister wrote in our sibling chat from under the gaze of Mt. Adams.
My friend talked over the sizzle of Bulgogi frying in the background as we continued the decade long streak of phone calls.
I sent a picture of the flames reflected in another friend’s glasses as we sat outside last night.
Little snippets of existence taped across the mind.
Electric candle covered by a half-sphere of mottled glass with globules of teased silica.
Turn of the year and I’m heading into an interesting marriage of commitment and interest. As of today I’ve returned to the world of substitute teaching. Combining that with coaching soccer and I’m back to where I was before I left for Japan, save for the experiences that have shaped the past two years.
A goblet of dark beer sits on the table before me. I’m reading an Adrian Tchaikovsky book as the booth light reflects on the lacquer of the stained, plywood torn strip artistic expression of the table beneath it.
I’ve been slowly ticking off my to-do’s as I’ve straightened out my plans for January and the year beyond it.
I wandered into a quiet place with the tall grass all I could see
Won’t you lay hands on me?
Withered down to smithereens with mottled rains tanning untouched auras
Banshee scream lifting up the sky
Cinnamon love in high morning
I’m looking for gold in the valley of the gods
Last palms open with sweet breath fever
By the night it’ll be distant futures with hearts of diamond dappled blue.
In the space of the weekend, the trajectory of many things changed. I was finally hired by the substitute company for teaching, and I also got into the course for my next national level coaching license.
And then my second eldest aunt also passed away. She had a long struggle with Parkinson’s disease. I know that she was ready to pass on and didn’t want to live in the pain that she was living.
Today I helped donate a lot of her things with my cousin. We made several trips in and out of the memory facility in East Portland and I would make eye contact and smile with the residence that were in the gathering room, but I didn’t want to spend much time around them. I didn’t want to face what feels to be inevitable future that I will know soon enough.
In the next couple months, I doubt there will be many days where I have free moments. Monday through Thursday will be packed with teaching and coaching several different teams. And the weekends will feature games from three different age groups that I coach. It will be that Fridays are the only free day.
it’s funny how we can go through seasons of immense effort and complete coasting. I can’t say that I truly worked that much in my two years over in Japan. I had a much tougher time dealing with emotional challenges and the language barrier than the work itself.
I think my values have also changed. Or maybe it’s that my goals have. I realize the other day that I haven’t been in love with someone for four years. That feels weird. I understand that two of those years are tied up with living on a rural island halfway across the world, but the other time was spent in the mire of self-questioning.
All there is to do is to enjoy the days that I have and go after these goals of mine that have held close to my heart for over a decade, but now I’ve found the courage and lack of time to make it happen. The remaining seconds on the clock are not infinite.
The key sparks on the lock after the elevator ride—a small static charge that erupts and dissipates in the same breath. The light blue ball of lightning captures my attention every time.
I walked through Northwest today as the realtor showed the condo to prospective buyers. The sun shone down as I meandered through the blocks, listening to episodes of “Here Be Monsters” by Jeff Emtmann. I avoided staying on the same side of the street when confronted by Rasputin-looking figures that shuffled in place. I’d woken up feeling the quarter-key turn of the new year begging me to continue on in a positive fashion. To resemble the blue-white spark of the static energy that conjures at the door.
Idle consumption of time is a struggle that seems to inundate every facet of modern society. I don’t think I know many people who don’t at least sometimes complain about the attention economy that’s led to a constant barrage of dings, flashes, pings, pop-ups, and jolts in attempts to focus our meager concentration on a product.
A $36 Million boat named the Queen Anne Water Beetle that had a route between Fukuoka and Busan hid a serial leak on the ship. Apparently, the Jetfoil was too expensive to repair, but in the leak being leaked (haha punderful) the company was forced to close the line as they didn’t have another boat for the service.
Now, if you’re asking what this has to do with the price of milk, you’d be right in thinking the answer is absolutely nothing.
It does inspire the thought of how tenuous, seemingly invincible societal infrastructure is. It was just like the beginning of COVID-19 when the race for groceries was on, and everything cleared out before the hats dropped. We live in an elaborate ruse if you’re conditioned to believing that we exist as fully separate nations instead of some slow transnational meld.
Today was the first time I’d been involved in my high school soccer program in over a month. It was a reminder of the importance of building community and also the joy and ridiculousness my players exude.
I have questions about how the hell Alvaro Morata keeps getting starting striker positions at top clubs in Europe.
He’s currently playing for AC Milan— a storied club known for playing at the historic San Siro stadium that’s shared with Inter Milan.
Morata has played at Real Madrid, Atletico Madrid, Juventus, Chelsea, and now AC Milan. That’s a crazy list of clubs. Another player who had played for the same range of clubs would be considered one of the greatest of all time, or at the very least, one of the best of their generation.
That’s not the case with Alvaro. Even with the international winds that he has had with Spain, he is not considered a talisman striker. But obviously he brings a level of experience and capability to teams. But it’s wild to see essentially a sports version of failing upwards.
There’s something called the “cocksucker swivel” and buddy, you have mastered it.
But that’s something I’d expect from someone who ran off and pawned their wedding ring for an ayahuasca trip in the Andes.
There’s no rotgut whiskey that’ll ease your mind now.
Twin prop propeller plane on a downward journey. Worn rosary beads and burnt prayers can’t turn up the nose of destruction.
Bountiful harvest in a sensual weight. Each key tap echoing out past the edges of an unprepared end.
The Affable Mutt was the only place you could stop for a drink without being bothered by the Amish.
That wasn’t the worst problem after Y2K. But it did stick in Gerald’s craw. He’d thought the “end of the world” would be a more dramatic affair. Instead he was left dealing with inflated egos propped up by their lucrative butter trade.
The promised future didn’t include rival carriage makers or barn builders. All his life Gerald had been told about flying cars and space travel. They’d barely made it past jeggings and Limp Bizkit before everything went south.
It’s a new year and I find myself once again sitting in my car waiting outside the fingerprinting office on Seventh Avenue.
I submitted my teaching license renewal to be a substitute teacher again. Only this time I won’t be in Portland proper. I’ll be on both the east and west sides of town as I settle into a new routine of coaching and teaching.
It’s another year and I have a new daily story section. Last year, I really didn’t write all that much compared to the two years past. I didn’t have as much of a reason to. Even with publishing my first anthology and navigating return to Portland, I didn’t find many stories that I wanted to take beyond any of my notebooks.
I initially started my 365 story challenge to push myself creatively. It wasn’t about churning out. Highly refined works or even having stories that I thought would be imminently publishable. I wrote them because I needed something more. And I’m remembering that now as I have settled back in into Portland, and for all the friends and family, I find myself wanting more from myself.
I don’t know if this will be another go at trying to write and post something every single day. But I do believe this is the beginning of a stretch of time where I will be productive. In my eyes, I have two years ahead of me to, get my feet sorted for coaching and trying to push myself past self regulated limits for writing.
I have another anthology of stories that’s more or less ready to go. I need to edit them a little bit more and then release them with this new year. It’s little by little that dreams are realized the second anthology wouldn’t have come about without these daily stories or living so far from Portland.