My Bestfriend Got Eaten By A Shark

(The Road to the Sugar, 2009)

I met Marco in Oahu, when I started to studying art history there. We met at the first day, and his humor attracted me to start talking to him, and soon before I knew it we were buds.

Marco had grown up in Hawai’i, and spoke in animal sounds. I was the only who understood him, and so that might have led to our friendship, but I’d like to believe it was more than just that.
We had classes together, and often we’d escape, and just walk around, joking about everything, and life in general. We had only known each other for a week, and I already thought of him as my best friend, he was always good times, and he was the company you wanted in any condition, at any time.

When Carlos with his dumb Mohawk had provoked a shark at the dock, Marco and I thought it was funny to tease the great white by presenting our feet just before its giant jaws. I was holding my balance with my left foot in front of me and over the sea, I realized how stupid this was, and this moment of forgetfulness is usually how you end up doing something you’ll regret; only after it is too late. And like clockwork, Marco was laughing and took a misstep into the water.

It all changed at that moment, my world was warped, distorted, and flipped, and I felt disoriented for the shortest of moments, but long enough to feel the world was a scary place. I reached for Marco, and didn’t see the human-qualities he had anymore like the ability to walk upright and talk with a whale of sense of humor, instead I saw a killer whale in its environment, and for the first time it felt unnatural to see a whale in the sea. I pulled Marco up and he managed to kick off the shark, but I couldn’t lift him back on to the dock. He continued to splash and call in his whale tongue something I could no longer understand.

I pulled as hard as I could as a gathered crowd to watch all the excitement of the sea before them. I managed to get Marco on the dock again, and we were both breathing hard, and the fear hadn’t settle in both of our eyes and hearts. I knew I was losing a friend today, and in a way I feel like I had. I looked over to Marco, and saw nothing in his big black eyes, and that was when Jaws II came from the side of the dock, and grabbed Marco by the tail fin and took him back into the sea. I held on to Marco for as long as I could, and with all my strength I pulled, not wanting to lose my friend. The shark ripped away at Marco, and I felt my grip slowly fading, like a butterfly falling in the sky.
The sea turned red, and I was on the dock, alone, and I felt lost. I looked down at my hands, and they were still red from the previous struggle, he was gone. I lost my bestfriend today, and there was nothing I could do, he belonged to the sea, and I belonged to the land.

In a flash of memories before me I saw a montage of the best moments Marco and I had together. His sense of humor will live on I told myself as I got back up and looked at that useless crowd and said in the voice of Marco, “Oh Well”.

Each a Shade of Who You Are

(Taj in the mess of bush, 2009)

"...because life is like a giant game of throw-poop between monkeys, you sometimes dodge you sometimes get hit with shit, but you keep going, as the shit builds up, dries and falls away, leaving a smear and residue to remind you that you may be close to clean but you still have a past, and you have a future, with more poo and more dodging, and if you can make it to the end, there might be some bananas, or unicorns and sunsets."

(A Stranger On The Look-Out, 2009)

I'm The Fastest Person I Know

(Misty Mountain Way, 2009)

I used to run for my middle school's track team. I ran the 200m dash, won, and haven't ran competitively since. I retired a winner.

Slow, Steady, Ready to Please

(Half-blind Horse from Bode's Land, 2009)

Yes, yes. Let's.
I told you, again and again as our hands arched in bends of our arms as we swirled away. Feet were moving in a constant inward motion which at first felt very unnatural, but soon became second nature, like bike-riding for the first time in a long time. Our faces were smiles, the biggest we've ever had, and drool from our perpetual motion ran the right side of our cheeks. I remember your eyes were pure joy and you had rosy cheeks. For a moment I corrected my eyes, seeing if I could wake from this moment into another state, and when you laughed at the confused look on my face, I knew every last second of this, and everything else that was happening before my eyes was very much true.

Do you remember when you were young, and you used to find those odd leaves on the ground that formed the shape of a hanger. It could easily be dissect into two genetically identical halves, and the only thing more amazing than their similarity was what they did when they fell to the ground when they were apart.

We were spinning around and around, and though to the runners in their matching track suits, and the young mothers with their strollers, and even the odd cyclist in one of those recumbent bikes, we must've looked nuts; we were dancing, laughing, drooling in pure delight. It was a dance that didn't require the skill tango had, nor break-dancing, but a skill that could not be learned, it was something that didn't fully existence within one person, and was rather half-full or half-empty in the singular. But once together, once two people, not just any combination of two people, but the perfect amount missing or had, was either taken or given, formed a perfect balance: these two people, we were these two people. Goldie Locks in our merry way, we were dancing like two crazy people dance, in the most perfect way, in a perfect moment, and other things that were perfect, perfect and perfect.

Those half-hanger leaves, once separated fall back to the Earth in a spin that seemed to echo all throughout life, and though your eyes saw it hit the ground, and end its helicopter decent, it hasn't stopped, that this part of you and a part of me that hasn't stopped falling down in this unusual plummet, it was happening within you, and together, it was our dance, as our legs ran circles, our arms melted into one and one, our feet felt less and less impact each step, and our bodies felt light their mass in feathers, and we were no longer kicking the ground by the air of a few inches from the solid earth. Slowly we went. Steadily we went. I was ready to please, to please, please, and you were ready to please, and you please, please. And without knowing at the time, we were falling; we were falling to the sky above, we were leaving and coming, and everything but staying.
In the perfect of perfect, in a perfect moment, with a perfect partner, in a perfect dance, and all the other perfects, we fell, and we danced some more. Again, slow, steady, and yes, you know.

All My Friends Are Losers

(Losing Myself, Moloka'i, 2009)

This problem started a few years back, and has traced each and every day with the same feeling. Today is the third day of my fourty-third year, and I feel the worst I have ever felt. My stomach is swamped with a turning sea, my eyes stare into whatever is placed in front of them until I lose focus to tears. I sometimes wake up sitting down in a chair or bench, sometimes I awake standing in an elevator or waiting in a line, and every time I am surprised. I am surprised at this world, I am confused at first; losing the thin line that separates me from my dreams. Deep breathes is what the doctor told me. He also told me to have more fiber in my life, to run a mile each day, and to eat a grapefruit daily. And at first I did, I listened, and I acted; each day I woke up, ran, had my fiber, then grapefruit, and soon a year had passed. I felt no different, I saw the days fade into each other, mistaking Tuesday for Monday, sometimes for Friday, and then I just started using the term yesterday for every day after today, and tomorrow represented an uncertainty I lost touch with.
Mary was a coworker of mine, and she had felt the same, and when we had our talks in the breakroom, she showed me her scars, and I showed her mine. In perfect detail we described our injuries as if they were yesterday, and in those thirty-five minute breaks we lived each and every fall, car accident, stabbing, drug addiction, and gun shot. In that short piece of time we managed to intoxicate ourselves just before being noticed, and when we drank we sang, we locked the doors, and sang our jolly and depressed faces off, and ripped the muscles from our cheeks as tears fill our bones with sorrow.
The break eventually ended, we would recompose each other, adjust one another's tie, and kiss each other on the cheek to smell the odor of alcohol in each other's mouths. It also helped to settle any sexual tension generated, that was the last thing we wanted, crying during sex.
Joel, or Jimmy to me, was hired four years ago to replace my position when I was promoted. We took to each other well; exchanging stories of our childhood, mixed in with long awkward moments as we both acted to reminisce, only filling in the gap about how sad we were. Our time together was spent in my office, and once Jimmy cried once, right there in that chair. His father had died when he was nineteen, and the last words he said to his father two months earlier was, "I don't fuckin' care anymore, I'm leaving this stupid place, idiot". He told me he wanted to kill myself for those words, even before his father passed away. After his father's death he felt nothing, and so he attempted to kill himself by drinking Everclear with sleeping pills. Since his story, I grow goose pimples to the sight of that chair, and have placed thumbtacks all over it's cushion to prevent anyone from sitting down in my office again.
I kept the chair for my own reasons, and when I am sick of filing reports I just look deep into each crack on its leather skin, and Joel's thumb prints on the stainless steel frame.

Chuck was an idiot, no one liked him, and he once sat in my thumbtacked chair when I was away on vacation. But to spite his stupidity, we went fishing together, and I often imagined him tipping the boat over, and drowning as I look to his lost face, then to his watch as I look at the second hand stops the moment he is dead.
To spite Chuck's personality and actions, we were friends, and when I mentioned our relationship to my shrink, she was it was because I needed someone to look down on, and make me feel better simply because I was not him.
Cindy was my shrink, and though we aren't real friends, the friends that see each other without being paid, I would like to think of her as a prostitute I didn't have sex with. She was there whenever, sometimes at 3am in the morning, as long as she got paid. She would smile all the time, and though I felt she was completely phony and full of doggy doodoo, she always had a genuine smile. I'd sometimes pause in-between sentences, as I lost myself in a staring contest with her smile. I told her everything, and I knew nothing about her. From the ring on her finger I knew she was married, but she also had rings on each of her fingers, so she could be single. I wondered if she talked about me and my pathetic life to her lover(s) after sex, and then imagined myself as one of her lovers and how her faces looked when she was having an organsm. I wondered if she had a genuine facial expression then, I wondered if she cared.
I am fourty-three years and three days old now, and haven't been found, haven't been lost, or have seen anything wonderful. When I return to my house after a business meeting, I could smell the musty scent of slow death. I worry I am growing old, and I haven't done anything with my life, probably the only one I'll ever get. I spent the whole time working hard, trying to get to a point of comfort, never reaching it, and to have enough to support a family.
I tuck myself into bed early tonight, I look up at my ceiling and see a spider make its way across the upside down painted desert. I look close, and see only a fuzzy resemblance. The glow from my bedroom window dimishes and I am left in darkness. My bed beneath me falls apart, leaving me in float, and my blankets bleed on to my flesh burning my clothes in vapor. I feel a film of moist air cover my naked body, and I cry. I cry, and I laugh, and I yell, and I choke and I cough. I try moving, I try leaving, I want to run, I want to escape. I am being held down, the air from my lungs is leaving me with each curse, each name in vain, and I dip my tongue into the abyss and say one last thing before I go...

In The Time of Being a Tick

(Forest Engulfed in a Passing Cloud, 2009)

I was a tick once, it was far away from now, when the world was covered by long blades of grass and deer and wolves roamed the earth along with the other animals. People think of ticks as bad things, blood suckers, they’d say over and over. It is true, I wanted your blood, I would sleeplessly wait on some nights, waiting, dying for your blood, but blood is different for ticks. Blood is our one and only love, like exquisite foods, drinks and fancies you humans enjoy, blood was that! There were different flavors of blood, even from dear to dear; each had its own different push of salty pitches, different textures from different viscosities. Like Inuit people have a hundred words for snow, blood had many different meanings to ticks, though we never used words, our thoughts and ideas of blood were the same for humans for different fruits. We would live in one area our whole life until you would come along; take us away like adulthood does for children. Our lives were decided by the steps you would take. We would burrow deep within your hair, seeking the warmth and cover of hairy legs would provide. We would take slow steps when we got close to your pulsing skin, the only thing soft and tender within this forest of hair. And then without your permission we would come close, and closer, and we would kiss. First starting with soft kisses then a sexual current would take us as we bit down. Did you feel me kissing you? My mouth will suddenly fill, blood sinking my valves, expanding my core. I was filling up, being overwhelmed by you. Did I have the heart for this? How were my lungs doing, I’m getting too heavy, I must stop, but how? I am sorry I had to dig my hands in deep, I’m sorry I made you irritated. I was too much, I took too much, but I only took all that you gave me. You didn’t know, you would never know of this love affair. And just as fast as I can to be with you I had fallen. I hit the ground, full of myself, and bounced. I quickly hobbled to a blade of grass and sat there, fat and wasted, on the base of my new home.

You were all I could think of, your rosy skin after we kissed, that beautiful red blood. I wanted only you and you alone for the rest of my life.

Over the days and weeks to pass I grew smaller. You filled me so well I didn’t need any other thing but you. It had seemed like years since I last saw you, how long have I been living here at the base of this blade of grass? I was finally light enough now so I decided to climb up. At the top I waited for you, I waited and waited. Then when I was done, I waited more until the yellow-green glow of the grasslands faded to black. On some nights I would fight with my thoughts, telling myself you were never going to come back, that you were a million miles from here, being kissed by others. I demanded silence in my head, and silence was given.

The days felt longer without you, unplanned, and alone. Love has always been a funny thing with me, it was something of mystery when the moment of love would happen, and I would be so overwhelmed by the feeling I’d forget all about the world outside this feeling, the same world that gave this indescribable feeling a name. It is only in the moments after this feeling, sometimes another life time away, that I would know that I had felt love, that it wasn’t a dream, it was real.

The wind blows and I sway the same way the frame of a kite would, attracted to something greater than one’s self. I feel the might of it all, the air stinking with energy and the cicadas are singing the song of summer. And the only thing I could think of is if you can hear all of this, to feel it all, and see beyond these grasslands where we first made love and smile because there are no words for this indescribable feeling.

In the time of being a tick, I wait for you.

(I waited a while to post this, about a year, which can only mean my head isn't in the right place, it just might, very well be, still on an island somewhere in the Pacific, and to you stranger, you're not off the hook yet! Expect new words soon, how soon, idontknow.)

You're Next, Dick

(Graveyard #05, Wailuku, 2009)

Sometimes I give too much credit to my own personal demons than they deserve. They take more than they give, and they completely lack manners. Worst of all, they don't look after themselves, leaving me to clean the food from their faces, wash their clothes, give them bathes, and even wipe their buttons. I keep telling myself as I carry 20lbs of red and black suits down the street to the mat, I shouldn't give in like this. All my neighbors think I have a horrible taste in fashion walking around with their clothes, not to mention how dirty I must look to them. But I can't help but care for them, they're idiots, they don't know how to take care of themselves, and without me, my personal demons would most likely die.
At times I hate them. They can make me so angry, but then I calm down, and reminisce on the special times we had. I remember the time I was dumped by my girlfriend of two years, and they tripped and hog-tied me, and threw me down the river where I struggled for breath for miles before I went over the waterfall and broke both of my legs. But once I was relieved from IC I was bathing myself, and I even learned how to walk again. It was those first few steps that made me believe in miracles, I could hear the voices of four different doctors telling me I was never going to walk again, and like those movies about someone who gets hurt and can't walk, my moving and standing legs proved them all wrong. And though there was no way for the doctors to ever know I was walking again since they probably didn't care, they will never have their faces smeared with human triumph.
Without my personal demons I would have never realized how much I valued something as simple as walking or how useless being broken up by someone's departure from your life is. Of course I could never tell them how much it all meant to me in fear of them just doing it again. And so once my hate was dissolved, I resumed my care and longing for them. I got up from my couch, ran over to the bathroom, missing the cat by the whiskers of its face, and looked in the mirror. At first I tried to remember everything I was thankful for in my reflection. I looked deep in my eyes and thought of everyone I love, and loved, and I wished them all well. I thought of every girl I ever loved and wished them well, and vomited out the names of others as my hate left me completely. I said out loud to myself that I was happy, and then spent two minutes trying to produce a genuine smile. I gave out a fake laugh, and I froze the reaction of my facial muscles and held it as I examined its stillness. I wondered if I'd make a good Joker, they needed a new one for the next Batman. I wondered if this was what Smilin' Bob does in his trailer before he enters the stage of another Enzyte commercial. The birds were singing at my window sill, and the dogs barking all down the street. The wind blew the curtains in a flutter, and knocked off the picture of a dead relative, and shattered glass all over my floor. When I returned to my living room I saw spelled out on the wooden floor in sparkling pieces of sharp glass the words,
You're Next, Dick.

In my hand was the picture of Uncle Albert, a naturalist in his day, who was murdered by a gang of wolves. I slept well that night, knowing I knew perfectly well how to kill a man with my own hands, and wondered how different wolves could be from humans. Just before I reached REM, I called to Albert, telling him to stop sending me messages from the grave.

More Than A Woman

(Untitled, The Return to the Abandoned Island, 2009)

There are some stories you try desperately to keep to yourself, and away from love ones, but somehow they reach fame through the internet one way or another. In this case I had trusted a friend and coworker named Philip with the saucy and forbidden tale, and I guess the moral of this story is trust no one, Mulder was right.
Philip and I worked the night shift at Wallmart, restocking the shelves, running around with big lifts, sometimes even the motorized ones, and we had our fun to spite having to sleep off the daylight hours for minimal wage. In those days, it didn't matter what job you had, and how bad the work was, as long as you had a friend, it was fun. Philip provided me with that, and I believe it was mutual as we both seemed to find the same deviant pleasures in running controlled chaos in America's largest discount department store. At the end of the day, even if our managers caught us racing at 25 mph down the junk food aisle, we got the job done, and we never hurt anyone doing what we did. And we were their primary supplier for questionable goods, pot.
It wasn't all the late night fun that made us best buds, it was in our off-time when we got together and went to the strip club, and drank out in the boons, hunting for anything that moved. No matter what, as long as Philip and I were together, it was good times, and with that comfort came many stories shared. Philip told me about his time in the Gulf, and even had a stab wound, a casualty of friendly fire (or rather friendly stabbing). I had seen the side of his stomach where he had the scar before, but never noticed it within the sea of tattoos. Philip as a joker had gotten a tattoo of a woman, naked, and spreading her legs, and guess where the tattoo was. Anyhoot, we shared many of our favorite memories between our friendship, and had seen the Lewis Range of Montana, the holy rocks of Utah, the starbucks-drinking hookers of Seattle, the breasts of Ireland, and the orgies of Berlin, sometimes all in one night after a good day of hunting. In those days we didn't catch much, and it was more just about the feeling of being a man with a large gun (courtesy of Courtney in the firearms dept.) surrounded by undeveloped and untarnished land; it felt damn good. My only regret is we only did peyote once out there, but it was hard to score it at the time, even from our Indian friends.
That peyote was sure something when we had, I remember being taken away, the sound of my shirt being ripped off, my shoes falling back to the Earth as my body floated on a mystic journey filled with blood rain, civil war battles, Scooby Doo, and Charlie Chaplin fighting Hitler for moustache rights before the court of George Washington. I woke up to Philip slapping my face, saying it's been two days, and we were supposed to be at work four hours ago. I had pissed myself, and Philip did worst; waking before me, and disposing of his briefs several hours before eventually sobering up enough to wake me.
The ride back was uneventful, and the only thing you could see was 40ft of gray road, lined with two bars of yellow and the faces of trees all being lit by headlight. I didn't know why I said what I said at the time, but it just felt right, and I had nothing better to say over the silence of a broken tape player.

Phil, man, did I ever tell you the story of Julia?
Julia, who; that young one that comes in in the morning to work cash?
No, no, Julia was this person I met a few years ago, before I moved here, in my old stomping ground of Tennessee.
Nah! nah, man, come on and spit out, brother.

Julia always wanted to move to New York, she'd blab on and on about being a dancer there, and she made me promise we'd go there. I was totally confused when she told me because I had been paying her for sex for the past week, and had no intentions of anything more; it was business, I wanted it that way.
Anyhoot, so I said, sure, why not, and we carried on like we always did, the bj before the ds, ds before the bs. For a hooker she was a really passionate wet one in the sack, and she got me hard the instant she dropped her pants, and walked with her hips gyrating as if there were two pistons pivoting from her vagina; it was the sexiest thing I had ever seen. And it was the reason why I was half-serious about going to New York with her. I imagined the road head for a thousand and something miles. I even imagined her dancing before an audience; all dressed in three-piece suits and evening gowns, watching her in the Opera House, dancing, and slowly remove her clothing in a sexy manner and whipping her thong at the rich old dude who resembles/or is George Burns in the third row.
She would stay with me after the sex, and she would just talk and talk about all of her dreams until I slipped into sleep, holding her. At some point of the night she'd peel my arm from her chest, gently exit the bed, and take what was hers from the wallet in my pants, and kiss my forehead as she left me unconsciously; being careful with the door. It had only been a week but I had really started liking her, she really cared for me, and I took care of her, providing her with an income, and I was a good listener too.
It was either before or after I got the tattoo that I realized I must've loved her. It had been two weeks now. There was something about her. I looked for the something in our paid time together and I often looked out the window at the slow blinking red lights of radio towers in the distance, waiting for an airplane to crash down on the hotel parking lot, and end our lives together in that explosive moment. I was absent from her, in an off-world colony mining space dust and fighting wars with laser guns and star destroyers. What was it about this woman that made me call her each night, and use up every other paycheck to keep her here. The feeling was mutual when she told me during sex she loved me, I didn't really know what to say, no one had ever told me that, at least said it and meant it. I saw her cry, the tears dropped to my hairs of my chest and became one with my sweat, and I just kept my mouth closed, looking straight in her eyes until I was done. That was the first night she left early, and it was the only night it cost me nothing for her time.
It would be the last time I see her, and after a series of attempted to reach her I gave up on calling her, showing up at her usual places, the corner of Bellevue or Kerr, and I had no idea where she actually lived; we were always at my hotel room. Eventually I got the balls to talk to her pimp, and asked him where she was in more tone then he wanted to hear that night. I ended up with three broken ribs, and the answer I wanted. I remember being on the ground, tonguing the blood from a loose tooth, and coughing when the 6' 8" leprechaun in a brown glazer and pin-stripe pants told me she was a real special one, and spat on me. I could still hear him saying, "She sure fooled you!" as it echos in the corridors of my memory. And after those words I tried to forget their following, a straight pain in my ribs and heart, "She is more than a woman, she's a..."
Damnit Philip, you got 6,800 hits. I clicked around on his blog, and noticed nothing as personal about his own life, and perhaps that is the moral to the story:
THERE ARE THINGS THAT SHOULD BE KEPT BETWEEN YOU, A HOOKER, AND HER/HIS PIMP.
Since Julia, or Julius, Julian, or now Julietta, and maybe Juliana, I haven't paid for sex, at least directly and since that blog post of January 27th, of the year 2002 on philipmorganstalestotell.com, I have yet to reveal more than my name, the places I have lived in, and a carefully orchestrated ensemble of stories that lead the listener to no conclusions about me, my history, or the many shameful things I have done, or the people I have loved, love, or loving. Some things should be buried, such as a part of us, or those we have known, and let those ground remain sound, unaltered, and blessed in silence. May we forget who were once were, as fools, and as cowards, and listen to who we are today.

The Relationship Between The Sea and The Forest

(Florida 1992)

Would it be foolish if I wrote a story about us, you as you, and me as a forest?

In this story I will be withering away, with fallen trees, some young and unnaturally dying, and
peppered throughout are sprouts of hope. I could hear your voice from behind the curtain of falling leaves. You sound like the ocean, as my memories of being a seed come to me in sparks and discovery. I was once just a small vessel on the ocean. I had no memory of being born, or the small time I spent with my parents. The wind had taken me from familiar grounds into the highest of planes and I traveled with her for a while. She taught me how to love in joy and sing with my heart, and while I was trying to enjoy every minute, I had lost that wind. My body fell from grace, and I plunged into the sea. I dove deep and deeper, and my skin broke apart. I was lost. And before I could realize how deep I was I was drowning in darkness as my broken body felt colder and colder. I talked to the darkness, asking it for forgiveness. I called for the wind to take me far away again. No response. I told the darkness of all the greatest moments of my life, and how the wind had taken me so far in so short of time. And I felt warm. But it wouldn’t last long for that warmth to fade as I rediscovered each crack in my hull and how painful cold dark water could be to open wounds. I called her name over and over in my sleepless nights. But all I could hear was the absence of wind in my abyss.

To forget the wind.
When all hope is lost.

I believed again, I felt my body move forwards then upwards. My ears were flooded by the sound of cavitation as my body felt the rush of life move throughout me. It was you I said, and I drank more ocean. You moved me in a dance, with my body together with yours as we passed through the darkness into sunny waters. My spirit was now floating, and I looked to you to see if you can tell. You smiled, laughed, and called darkness sons of bitches. I held on as best as I could and then you threw me back into the air. I had forgotten this feeling, thank you, as I raced through the air. I had forgotten how to believe in miracles, thank you, as I eyed for land to rest my withered body in. I had forgotten my life before this one, as one moment passes into another. I started to live again, and as I grew stronger I grew roots and broke the ground. I held you in my flesh thinking of the current that brings live to the sea. I would grow larger, and see the years pass by. I still held on to you in hopes for your return.
I felt you every time it rained. I let out my arms and took you in as much as possible. You were the strength that helped me grow into a tree. You were the joy that brought on my sprouts. And what of this love that made this forest, without you, nothing would be of this place; just an empty desert.

For a forest, you have in your name, as the you as you, walks amongst me, and me. I’ll whisper you my secrets in return for your stay. And I will call the wind to yell your name louder than my leaves cracking beneath your feet could ever. Sing me a song, I’ll remember each tone and kiss as you carry on.
Take my roots and keep me away, for the story of you as you, and me as traveler continues.