Category Archives: Playground

Mar 19 2012
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Playground

lights

I had an emotionally crushing dream on a balcony that I was a kid who had visual hallucinations and couldn’t control it. I would look out through the gaps in the railing at the city lights in the distance, and the stars. One of them would begin to oscillate up and down, or left to right, starting slow, and then dragging the other stars near it on its oscillating course as if there were some sort of resonant frequency in which the stars moved. I stared in amazement as the spectacle grew. Bright lights of blues, greens, and reds swept across the sky; tumbling, gyrating, climbing in the synchronized and syncopated patterns of my mind, and then the sky reverted to darkness. A father figure, or possibly a shrink, constantly had to tell me this spectacular lights show was all in my head, and nothing was real. I looked out into the sky again with conviction. I knew it wasn’t all in my head, I could see the lights — there it is again, see? One of the stars began to oscillate, conducting the surrounding symphony of lights to awaken in gradual stages from the shroud of the night and coalesce in a dancing rhythmic display of vibrant energy. The lights felt close; a part of me. It was me and the lights; nothing else. A hand weighed upon my shoulder. A burdened voice, like an overflowing jar, told me I was imagining this — all of this: it isn’t real. I looked upon the night sky again. I began to heave thick tears. I reached forward into the night sky, dark now, but instead fell to my knees. I watched for the lights. I was alone. Not even the heavy hand of the truthful man touched me. In despairing convulsions on sore knees I resisted the urge to go back inside, and instead waited for what mattered; waited for the lights.

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Mar 18 2012
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Playground

“Just because you know something doesn’t mean it’s true; but it doesn’t mean it isn’t real.”

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Mar 17 2012
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Playground

Rule of Thumb

At the doctor’s getting the cast off my wrist for my newly healed thumb, the doctor asked me how it felt. I flopped around my limp wrist back and forth for a bit in amazement of how weak and thin it was and I told him, “it feels… dead.” He was quick to say “We don’t use that word here.” I thought I’d just unknowingly cursed, but realized I didn’t, and in the time it took me to verify that, I noticed that I’d said the one taboo word of hospitals. My socially inconsiderate self didn’t really think it was a big deal, but my non-confrontational self blushed and didn’t want anything to do with a frustrated/annoyed/perturbed doctor.

About 5 years later I would learn what the word “taboo” means during a discussion with my best friend that had me nodding and smiling, pretending to know; and that was the third or fourth time in that short span of a few weeks the word came up in conversation and I pretended to know what it meant. I went home and googled “taboo definition” and learned… to hide my mistakes.

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Mar 16 2012
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Playground

A drop of blood draws from your finger.
You’re not bleeding—this seems funny.
You rub it dry. It smells like pennies,
Aged and warm like milk and honey.

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Mar 15 2012
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Playground

First

My first memory is sleeping in the back of our family’s minivan as we drove through downtown. I opened my eyes, turned my head, and looked up and out at a skyscraper alone in the blue sky with the brilliant sun. It was bright. I let my head flop back down and I slept again. I was probably 3 or so—not terribly young. I remember at the time it was not my first memory, but I’ve forgotten everything before that moment, so now this is my first memory. Honestly, I can’t remember this one all that well, but one time I did and wrote it down so I can recall the memory; but in truth I want this memory to be my first, because I don’t want to know how many years of my life I’ve missed if I can’t remember back to when I was five, six, seven, eight, nine…

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Mar 14 2012
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Playground

Fluttering dreams break at dawn,
Succeeding what is real and nigh.
I am the dreams that I dream of;
I am the butterfly.

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Mar 12 2012
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Playground

undercovers

There was a very attractive girl I had the pleasure of becoming acquainted with through a mutual friend. She wasn’t attractive in the way of being super good-looking or hot to the touch, but more in an over-all funny, witty, cool, talented sort of way. She was cute too; and Christian. Being a Christian myself, that seems like a green light to pursue the likes of another Christian, and in doing so, I struck up conversations, made jokes, and was generally pleasant in a way that would not offend the Christian side of her. Granted, this was not myself, acting in conjunction with Christian values 24 hours a day, but it was what I had to sacrifice to get the girl. It’s not that I usually ignore Christian morals or anything, but that I swear, make sexual innuendos, and am generally a crazy person, which would seem to juxtapose a compatible personality.

After a night of hanging out with a group of friends I walked her back to her apartment and we got to talking some more. She got up for some reason and I sat on the couch waiting for her to return. The phrase “make yourself at home” is such a forward expression that if anyone took it seriously, the person whose home it is would probably regret saying that; so I just sat there. She came back in her PJ’s and sat closer to me than before. I don’t remember what happened next, but she kissed me. Her lips were soft, but slightly cold. She’d just put something on them. She removed my sweatshirt, and we went upstairs — I wasn’t thinking; not fast enough anyways. She started talking about things I wasn’t familiar with; things she’d do to me, things I’d do to her. I don’t know if she was trying to build up a sense of excitement or anticipation, but the whole thing felt contrived, and I started to feel heavy and deflated. She was such a sweet, pleasant girl five minutes ago. I noticed how I didn’t actually know her. In the scheme of things we’d just met, and here we eagerly are. I wasn’t ready. I didn’t know “jumping in bed with someone you didn’t know” was really a real thing. I’d only heard stand-up comedians and business men use it as an expression backstage.

I told her we shouldn’t do this. I was being Christian and saying that I wanted to be with her, but this wasn’t the way to do it. She said she understood, but really was just disappointed in me. I didn’t know what to think. She acted all nice and Christian everywhere else, but behind closed doors desire and temptation ravished her mind and body. The weird thing is I wanted her too. I wanted to ‘jump in bed’ with her. The only difference between her and me is that I won’t change who I am behind closed doors just so I can sleep with her; I already did that. Now I’m wondering if she’ll be the same way the next time I see her. I know I’ll still be the same person who won’t take advantage of her; but that’s not me. Is this her? Is she always like this, but changes herself to be more appropriate around others? I hate irony. We would have worked out perfectly if we’d just dropped the act, cut to the chase, and just had fun.

I suppose I wanted to be righteous and play the ‘long game.’ I’m in high school for God’s sake; there is no long game. Everyone’s going to move on and start a new life. I only have a chance to find someone in the short term before these people slip out of my life forever. Maybe I should apologize and jump back in bed with her; for old time’s sake. We know who we are underneath the cover of daily life, and we’re okay with each other, but something seems so wrong about it now. Not taboo, like every eye we’ve ever met was watching us; but more like the rollercoaster is just slowing down and waiting to let the people off.

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Mar 10 2012
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Playground

The Playground

So; here goes…

Let’s get the formalities out of the way: “Hi world! I’m a person (just like you) and I’m starting a blog — in case you couldn’t tell — and I don’t really have a firm grasp on punctuation? (lol) I have a lot to say, so I would desperately want you to be my loyal follower… if you’ve got any spare time ;)”

If you ever hear me talking like that, feel free to shoot me a message, or just shoot me. The gist of this whole thing I guess is a playground for my mind, however immature or intellectual it may get at times, and not some podium where I’m trying to make a difference or some sort of ‘statement.’ It’s more for me than for you — no offense. As a writer, nothing more than ‘one who writes,’ I find myself frequenting upon ideas and things I find interesting, or observations I find worth thinking about, but have no place to really record them, discuss them, or give them any sort of permanence so i can visit them later… so that’s what this is. This “Playgroud” will be a collection of snippets, blurbs, quotes, rants, and ramblings. Just because this is personal doesn’t mean it’s nonfiction, and doesn’t mean it’s fake either. Fiction is real. Someone thought of it. Who’s to say you’re asleep when you’re dreaming?

This whole “blog” — I don’t like calling it that; I don’t know why — doesn’t have any context per se, and I don’t want to force any sort of context upon it so I can preserve the genuineness of the content; because that seems to be what matters for the most part. Maybe after a while some sort of context will emerge through the thread of themes and whatnot discussed here, but I’m not going for a narrative. I’ll just kind of write what I’m thinking of, and usually without consulting any sort of source and just write off the top of my head without revising. I might post a poem or a story every now and then, but I’m thinking just thinking might be enough for this.

Back to context though: Context seems to be the one thing we as people really desire more than anything. That’s just how we work. We feel comfortable when we know how to categorize something, or know where it belongs. That’s what ‘genre’ is, and why we have it. If you see a movie and try to describe it to a friend, you might do a couple things, like tell them some of the plot, but often you’ll start out with the basics and say it was a comedy/drama/action movie so your friend can have the right frame of mind to think about the movie; the right context. Even if something is far out of place (removed from it’s context) we won’t have too hard of a time with it because we know it’s original context.

For example if you saw a picture of a tree sprouting forks from its branches, you’d probably be trying to make a connection with something to do with food, eating, growing, renewable, etc. because you know the two contexts of trees and forks and are trying to connect the similarities and differences of the two to parse the meaning of the picture. This is what we like to call art. In writing (‘language arts’) and visual forms of art there’s typically two ways to go… You can either create a spectacle–something that makes you “ooh and ahh” at its beauty and demonstration of control and mastery of the medium, or you can draw upon context and express implicit meanings from things being either in or out of context, or providing a view of something from a context you wouldn’t normally express.

This isn’t isn’t going anywhere, and it really doesn’t need to, but I’m getting bored of how many words there are. Basically: pay attention to context; when you notice it, and when you don’t. It helps.

When I think of a good way to sign off, I will; but for now, a morsal:

“Just because it’s personal, doesn’t mean it happened. It’s best when you can’t tell the difference.”

 

–allmostrelevant

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