he slumped into his chair and slung open his notebook.
what to do but write, he thought.
a night without words is like a morning without birds chirping; winter’s cold grasp was setting in more swiftly than it had ever seemed to before.  the leaves had changed from yesterday, he was sure.  one moment they were green and the next, reds and yellows ruled the color spectrum, you could say; the grass being the only thing left green and even that was strewn with signs of the season.
oh, how the wind was biting.
he still went out to smoke.
oh how the rains whipped.
he still took his walk.

drenched and freezing, he slumped into his chair.
he slung open his notebook.
what to do but write, he thought.
time without sentences built with tension; lines without meaning… the notion cut into him like a blade would into the freshly tilled earthen soil of a newly devised garden whose bed lain rightly, waiting to be sown with seeds of strawberry, lettuce, celery, basil. still, to go about digging.
his mind raced with the possibilities of a way out of the works.  he grappled with a mindset like a cobbler does with the onset of arthritis.
he couldn’t move like he used to.
his knuckles cracked.

sore, but barely broken, uneased and doubtful, he slumped into his chair.
he slung open his notebook.
what to do but write, he thought.
a pattern to be found. a search to be had.  and to be begun from the beginning like any endurance runner should tell you is the place to start.  there’s simply no meeting the competition halfway through, he might say.  even so, would they not still point and shout curses. a cheat! they’d say. he would turn up his tired.  he would fall or be felled; stoned or be stoning.
he wouldn’t be able to raise his arm much less force an object from the grasp of his fingers. he’d know very well the distance he hadn’t come.  and so he’d run away. run back toward the beginning. like anyone could. he would cringe when he saw not the smoke from the starters pistol.
he would have long passed by the last of the crowd still hurrying toward the shortest way to the end – who wouldn’t want to see who’d win?
maybe he’d give up.
maybe he’d join them.

defeated and desolate, destructed and demeaned, he slumped into his chair.
he slung open his notebook.
what to do but write, he thought.
a will to be laid forth. an intention to make good on.  a perfection to be found amidst the unending absurdities of this imperfect world.  like feet across the dance floor, he would move his fingers back and forth along the keyboard, but their tips wouldn’t touch down. the motion was there, he was sure of it.  and yet they roamed free of his persuasion like gamblers refusing to pay.
too many metaphors.
analogous behavior of the mind.
still, he couldn’t reach the keys.  and so he leapt into the sea whose waves then took him.
he brandished his life preserver and wrung out his hands.
i am not a swimmer, he thought.
i cannot swim.

gasping for air yet still high above the water, he slumped into his chair.
he slung open his notebook.
what to do but write, he thought.
what to do but write. what to do but write. what to do but write.
he couldn’t breathe. he hunched forward onto his desk and began to shiver.  the cold fist, the hand of god clenching, squeezing the life from this upper midwestern city.
he’d go outside, he thought.
he should smoke again.
he should. he should.
he should stop smoking, he thought.
he should just keep writing.
keep writing. keep writing.

he hadn’t written a word, either boldly and bravely.  so eagerly, and with a certain degree of nonchalance, he slumped into his chair.  he slung open his notebook and wrote his masterpiece.  prose of pure genius.  he left himself in a personal awe never felt before.  he read it over and over and still couldn’t believe he had written it.

he slumped into his chair. he slung open his notebook. he closed it up again.  he put it back on the shelf.  he walked back outside to smoke another cigarette, the words repeating over and over like the chorus of an overplayed song: tiredly but with precision and a certain tone of thankfulness…

“i have but words not, nor a rhyme to be gotten the same.
lies aren’t broken with benevolence; my breath whispers and retracts and i, in a daze, slip in.
knowing little of which to be certain, but:
he who holds profit to gain of the like, couldn’t bare to be witnessed a fool.
and so we characterize ourselves as by a collection of our discoveries made in the letting go of swords, stabbing.
all the better for it.
for even as we falter, we know of only fiction which has finished first…
and so, with just a melody to dance with.
and our thoughts to meet us halfway,
they either will
or they won’t.”

it isn’t much to live life without facing down the waters, rising.  pointed asides and snide comments all, do little to ease the frustration so often bottled and buried.  as a twenty-something in this modern world, we are left to be left if not for our leaving ourselves.  it is indeed ourselves we too often decide don’t deserve clarity or, at the least, have not the strength to seek it out, much less find it.  perhaps it is the fact that to be clear isn’t possible.  even as our thoughts are filed and compartmentalized, we are left with an inability to speak forth rightly, allowing those close to us to hear and be heard the same.  and to understand.  it is in misunderstanding we tend to pile up our wants and needs, care and love, and push it all into the closet of our subconscious selves, disallowing our truest version to burst throw the door, unhinged.  

it’s difficult though, isn’t it?  this world i inhabit is slightly different than yours.  

this time i waste is all the more separate from that which you may feel is simply time spent.  if not spent wisely, then it’s all the better that what you’re doing means nothing to you.  it means all the same, either way.

because you don’t know anything but what you can know, even though you could try harder to understand that which is right there to be understood.

i don’t know anything either, except what i’ve learned.  

but what i’ve learned is that nothing can be taught to you even though you could and can and should but won’t teach it to yourself.  you’re better than you think you are.  you’re stronger than you say you are.  you’re smarter than you could hope to be.  you’re more willing than wishful but less wistful by the day.  you’re a lovely soul.  your grace is unique but disguised by your penchant for greed.  you’re more selfless than you think.  and more important than your common tease.

break down the door.

discover what you’ve bottled up.  

drink it and get drunk.

stagger through the streets alone.

sober up.

lift your chin and be glad for the intoxicating power of walking naked through the winter wind, blowing.

i know it’s cold.

i know it isn’t easy.

no one said it was

“we are the products of editing, rather than authorship.”
-george wald

it’s just a tossle off the travelor’s tailored tongue.
taking it upon himself to hold it still, he labors.
i am not a man worth knowing, he said aloud. but i am with a soul
pure as the sap tapped willingly.
true, though it must be boiled.
(and also with the mind to take it again and again from the flames)
but from a day spent gathered,
from a day spent watching,
yields the sugar once under cover of the earth’s beautiful
but ultimately bitter
facade.
in waiting, we find its sweetness.

you should know:
patience as a watch maker won’t save you any time.

it’s a wonder to me, sometimes, the complexity of the human spirit.  for days like today, with the wind and the rain, i shudder and shake, and attempt at an understanding worth putting faith into.  yet, it’s already getting dark.

i opened my eyes today to the sound of car doors slamming, a starter turning over, an engine roaring to life.  i thought about doing the same but laid back down and closed my eyes, yearning for a dreamless sleep which didn’t come.

again, i opened my eyes, this time to silence, lighting a cigarette in my room, because the smell makes no difference to me…stale smoke upon clean clothes now donned.

i lit another cigarette.  i left the house, bought coffee, returned, played music through a single speaker because the other broke so long ago.  

i only ever hear the left half of anything now, if indeed it isn’t coming through on headphones only i can hear.  i beg anyone to tell me that isn’t a metaphor, my left side aching; my left brain tired of training my right, which no one seems to understand, anyway.  so, it’s left mostly silent to the ears of my compatriots.  for even when it’s shown, the confused silence makes it all the more worth shutting away.

with this in mind, i suppose it is only a portion of a well-versed intellect.  feelings. asides. all moments of clarity become nearly wholly misunderstood delusions if not spoken of.

who’s listening? 

i whisper the name of friend.

i wonder if they’ll return.

i wonder where they’ve gone or if they were ever really there.

i wonder if they’re still laughing.

i wonder what’s so funny.

oh, the complexity of the human spirit.  we live day by day in constant struggle against time and its meaninglessness.  i’ve lately looked back in awe at mistakes made and wish to discuss what was learned.  i find it all the more frustrating now, in finding the truth as it pertains.  there’s so much we can’t know until we know it. and even the most balanced stereo system cannot play you a song you’ve never heard and force you to know what it means.  even with all sounds interleaved. even with all words arranged and driven forward into time and space to be heard. to be known.

at the end of the day, when the sun refuses to even try to brighten the grey, drifting below the horizon and onto a different moment in space and time to test our boundaries of belief that it could try to be different, i’m left with the feeling that the darkness might hold the only truth; that the stale stench of cigarette smoke, clouding, may blanket my eyes enough to allow me to dream with them open, so as to control where i’m going.  

because on some level, i can drive blindly.

i can listen for the edge of the road and know inherently where to turn.

i can figure out the directions to a place i don’t realize exists.

i can turn my wheel rightly, only to twist it again.

i can turn on the radio and wait for a song i know.

i can sing my own songs and know them all too well.

but i can’t make anyone hear any of it nor will them to offer me much in return.

no matter how i ask.

no matter how i know they can help to guide me.

so i’m left to wonder why my car doesn’t have passenger air bags.

even though i know the answer..

some words can’t be translated

within the restraints of pop music,                    

so i write them out to be read.                                                        

but that doesn’t mean                                  

they aren’t still set to music.                                                          

all things, when considered, make music.

i try my best to be singing

even if i’m speaking.

even if i’m not saying much,

i try to be honest.

the supposed so began in 2009

as a recording project

for songs i was writing.

now, still writing.

and writing and writing.

the music itself goes back some years prior.

picked up a guitar at a very early age.

finally started to learn how to play it at age seven.

never put it down.

won’t put it down.

can’t put it down.

influences:

fifteen years of that certain music which

for whatever reason

meant something 

to me

etc.

fifteen years of that certain music which

for whatever reason

meant nothing

to me

etc.

“sometimes you say things in songs even if there’s a small chance of them being true. and sometimes you say things that have nothing to do with the truth of what you want to say and sometimes you say things that everyone knows to be true. then again, at the same time, you’re thinking that the only truth on earth is that there is no truth on it. whatever you are saying, you’re saying in a ricky-tick way. there’s never time to reflect. you stitched and pressed and packed and drove, is what you did.” -bob dylan

the supposed so is a name; a moniker.

like all names, such a name means so little.

such a name is nothing without a face.

nothing without words.

nothing without thoughts.

like all names, such a name keeps it all contained.

all the meaning.

all the loss.

all the faith.

all the hurt.

all the joy.

all the helplessness.

all the knowledge.

all the ignorance.

all the patterns.

all the color.

all the memory.

all the passion.

all the patience.

all the empathy.

all the addiction.

all the compassion.

all the trust.

all the hatred.

all the friends.

all the family.

all the forsaken.

all the dreams.

all the nightmares.

all the plans.

all the fear.

all the frustration.

all the healing.

all the regret.

all the integrity.

all the pride.

all the intentions.

all the mistakes.

all the learning.

all the language.

all the understanding.

all the hope.

all the hoped.

all the hoping.

all the love.

all the loved.

all the loving.

such a name keeps it all contained.

but such a name shouldn’t ever hide it all away.