Epistemological Modesty

I want her to kiss me before she leaves

I want to hold her close and receive a peck upon the cheek before she boards and I want to peck her back to live the stories I have never lived.  I want for her to be the first girl I have ever kissed in this winding life because out of all the people I know, she is the one who deserves it the most and of all the people I know, I have the least time with her to show it.

And as the days pass on I have less and less time to make my words matter and as the days go on the stories I tell mean less and less so I want to show her that I trust her and I want to show her that I love her and I want to show her that she deserves to be in my life and I deserve to be in hers.  I want to remember her as the first girl I kissed goodbye and the first girl I loved to kiss and the first girl who didn’t mind when I cried about how much she will be missed.  

I want to kiss her goodbye because I don’t want her to forget me and I know that a kiss wont mean that much to her, but it will mean the world to me and so maybe a little bit of my awe will flow over to her and maybe she will hold me as close as I hold her if only, if only we kiss. 

I shall die alone

I think I will die alone.

There is too much glory in death

these days with the parades and

the masks and the black ride home.

I think I would like to curl

up with myself, and die when I’m old

and grown.

-

I came into this world alone,

harmonizing with the white bright

lights I was shown and then hurriedly

whisked away to a land unknown,

which would soon be known

as home.  And I was too young to know

him then, but surely now I know of

Rome.  That even the largest of the men,

and cities great, end up dying alone.

-

Like life,

death shall be alone.  Death misses

no man, to bring into his own.

And I am no man to fight death,

so I will greet him so warmly so he will know.

That this man is unafraid,

of his newly appointed black home.

I stand alone in crowds.

I feel so lonely standing in crowds.  I don’t know why this is so, but as people add themselves to the group, it seems to subtract my worth.  Sometimes I try to convince myself that I am wanted, and that these people are here to stand with me, to fight with me, to be with me…..but I have always been rather terrible at debating anyone, especially myself.  So I end up feeling so alone, standing with so many. 

So there are days when I am with groups of people and I separate myself from them to be lonely and alone because I feel it is so much more acceptable to be lonely when you are alone as opposed to lonely with friends. There are days when I will sprawl out on the grasses of someone else’s lawn while they play guitar and serenade one another and I will sit back, body against the grass, looking at the trees that seem to hold up the sky for me.  I think about how much time has changed me, how if this were only a year earlier I would be with the people of a different face and how I seemed to have lost my way and wandered in with the good kids; The kids with two parents and big ambitions and the kids that go to big named private colleges on scholarships and the kids who don’t do drugs but campaign against them……not that I can blame them anymore, I am going to the same schools with the same ambitions with the same scholarships of the same name.

And so I sit back and imagine that the tree is reaching down to hold me close when all of a sudden she, the girl with the glowing eyes, lays down beside me and and starts to hum.  Funny how one person can fill you up; funny how one person be so big.   

The sketchbook of a dreamer

The walls of my basement are lined with beer bottles bringing back to mind the days when my parents drank more money than any human should hold, at any one time anyway.  And the floors are covered in ash from the days when my brothers, so enraged, burned their papers and their grades from the university which they say plagued their minds and their ways.   And here am I with my mind filled with the days and the times when he was so much stronger than I and he whisked her away and took her out of my life. 

So here I sit, being greeted by the soft reflections thrown about by the bottles and the musty sent of burnt literature trying to unravel all the emotions in my mind and thoughts in my heart.  I write in my sketchbook of all the times my parents laughed sober and my brothers did well on their finals and I write about the day she choose me over him…….which is why this is called a sketchbook of dreams. 

For they never smiled sober and my brothers never did well and she never choose me and in fact the dates which appear in my sketchbook have not come yet and will not happen in my time but maybe they will correspond with the life of my children.  My story has been written, but that does not stop me from making the plot better for theirs.

What If?

What if instead of perceivers

We were meant to be dreamers

And instead of receivers

We are simply redeemers

And instead of cleaners

We were meant to be teachers

And all of our cameras

would have all of the features

So when we capture the world

We could keep all its secrets. 

And still beats my heart

For all those who see this

I believe our world is flat

What if this world we live in is not round but rather an infinite plane that always takes us back to the place we start?  What if nothing in this universe is round but rather a collection of infinite planes and this is the reason why we can never reach Mars?  It is not because the red warrior lies so far away, it is because he infinitely away.  Our world is too vast to blast ourselves from and thus the moon and the sky are just the edges upon which some have been so lucky to stand.

And maybe only the bravest and the brightest can ever reach the ends of the infinite planes……or at least what they perceive to be the ends, which are actually someone else’s beginnings. But for the rest of us; we can not look so far ahead or our minds will be lost to the fear in our hearts inspired by the awe of the unknown.  For fear is the greatest inspiration which holds us back, and so this magical plane on which we live brings us home when we need safety over surprise.

So when you look into the night sky realize that the stars and the Gods are not so far away, rather they are a jump away…..a jump that we are forbidden to take.  The celestial bodies are not spheres or abstract geometrical theorems but rather fractals of space just like our own.  Maybe they are inhabited by the most wonderful of creatures who could love us like ourselves but maybe that is why these walls were built.  What if each plane held a different answer to the universe’s problems, and together, we explain one another?   

The Girl

I remember the girl who

lost herself

in between her home,

and her house.

-

She used to tell me about

the dreams she had to become a lost

love letter;

sailing around the world and

spilling words of beauty upon every

soul who held her.

-

Then she tried to save me.

She ran into my burning mind trying

to salvage the heart I wore upon my sleeve.

Frustrated and desperate she tried to take everything

she could hold with two hands…..but missed my

heart entirely.

It burned that day.

But that was my fault.

-

She then tried to sell what she grabbed 

to buy me a steel spine.

But for a man who lost his heart,

I needed love most of all.

-

She gave me a heart right before she left,

sailing back from her house

to her home.

A kiss, a letter, and a hug goodbye;

were all that I owned,

from her love in my life. 

She leaves when she loves

      These days time is flowing faster than what my hands can keep up with.  I used to watch the hourglass pour out and when it would reach the end, I would stuff each grain of sand back up the barrel to relive the moments which had just died.  I used to catch the sand as it fell down, I would cradle it just before it hit the ground in an attempt to stop the clocks from ticking one more time…..and some days I was successful.  But these days time pours forth like a water hose,  no a waterfall,  no a cosmic shower!… and all I want to do is be with the ones I love, the one I love, the one who loves me and these days I want to hold the sands of time with both hands and hold her hand all the same and I want to remember how she feels when I hold her close and I want to remember her eyes…..her beautiful eyes…..and I want to cry into the sand to stick it to the walls in hopes that it will never fall down.

       But I can’t anymore.  Grain by grain I lose control of the time that never stops falling so I hold her close to me in hopes that my arms will lock and never let go for I am afraid of the long flight home she will take when she sees the sky so free.  But they don’t, and I can’t, and she will, and it must…..but a part of me will leave with her when she goes. 

Lost to the world which suits me

I must profess

I am such a mess

I drift through this world

To find the right vest,

Which suits me so well

Which suits me the best,

So I can head home

Oh so well dressed.

-

I drift and I dream

The world it does seem

To steal all my cash

And bet everything.

So if you could see

How this world sees me

You’d understand

Why no vest suits me.

Open heart

I am ever so open

and ever so closed

I cause all the trouble,

wherever I go.

What’s in my heart

The world always knows

what’s in my heart,

Is left to repose.