A Lullaby

***this was turned into something much better (in the author's ever so humble opinion) and is posted as "Insomnia" on Jan. 12***

A Lullaby
a something by mj*

This is what I tell myself.

Staring at ceilings, my eyes glaze with thoughts of far away.

Either Everything means Everything, or Nothing means Anything.

These are just things to tell yourself at night, when you’re alone, when the world outside is no longer shouting, when the bedclothes refuse to offer comfort, when you can’t seem stop counting the ticks of the clock, every second marked off as if on a list. Your time is running out.

This is what I tell myself.

I don’t want to get me wrong. I want to give it shape, but the hands undo the other’s action.

This isn’t what it looks like, honest.

At times I find it rather funny. The ants that march in their place, that song that reminds me of the rain. The absurdity gathers in my mouth and I spit it out. It tastes bitter; it tastes sweet; it tastes like irony from a frantic dream. But my thoughts go back to nowhere.

This is what I tell myself.

If I remain true to this world, I shall be absolved. There is a problem though. I haven’t a thing to tell the world.

Either everything means everything or nothing means anything.

This isn’t a lullaby.

In fact, it isn’t very pretty. A false concept. This box of my potential. Wasted as I struggle with a paradox. Some misleading notion of redemption. More seconds, more checks.

This is what I tell myself.

This is what doesn’t work.

This is what has no shape.


*i'm not really sure what this is either. it was very late when i wrote this.

books for the new year

i had way too much fun xmas shopping for my fellow readers this year. i get so giddy walking through a bookstore with so much money in my back pocket. every shelf hides treasures, books i've loved or always meant to read. i'm such a dork, i write down the books that intrigue me that i can't afford to get yet, in the store of course, otherwise i will forget. i could stay in a bookstore from open to close, if only they would let me smoke and lie down, as i tend to get tired during the day, especially if i'm in public.

today was trying... very, very trying. sara and i were recognized by two employees in office depot, the younger siblings of girls with whom we both played softball. they came up one right after the other; it was quite alarming really. we exchanged pleasantries and practically ran out of the store. it doesn't look like running though; we both just have long legs. why do i not possess an invisibility cloak?

books to read in the next year:

lolita by vladimir nabokov
snow falling on cedars by david guterson
the good apprentice by iris murdoch
the wings of the dove by henry james
mansfield park by jane austen
cry to heaven by anne rice
the mars chronicles by ray bradbury
a tree grows in brooklyn by betty smith
lucky by alice sebold
neverwhere by neil gaiman (i swear i'm getting to it, damn you public library*)
house of leaves by mark daniel welski
jude the obscure by thomas hardy
the fountainhead by ayn rand
the first sex by elizabeth gould davis
the tao of physics by fritjof capra
the secret life of bees by sue monk kidd
me talk pretty one day by david sedaris
edible woman by margaret atwood
the prophet by kahlil gibran
narcissus and goldmund by herman hesse
the time-traveler's wife by audrey niffenegger
heart is a lonely hunter by carson mccullers
madame bovary's ovaries by david barash
life is a dream by pedro calderon de la garca
high fidelity by nick hornby
interpretor of maladies by jhumpa lahiri
middlesex by jeffrey eugenides
god's debris by scott adams
song of solomon by toni morrison
battle royale by koushun takami
the bean trees by barbara kingsolver
how to travel with a salmon by umberto eco
this side of paradise by f. scott fitzgerald
the importance of being earnest by oscar wilde

*i'm just kidding. i love you public library. i would be way more lost than i am now without you.

i have a lot of reading to do. it makes me glow inside, it really does. i hope if you were looking for something to read, you found some fun ideas. if you think of a book i might like, or you think i should read it just on the principle of the matter, feel free to suggest. okay, i'm begging you to suggest books, i can't get enough, i've got a problem. feed my addiction, i implore you. ;)

i'm on a roll, so i figure i might as well go with it... see what comes out...

it's the end of another year. have i truly learned anything? maybe the lesson that i do not know anything. that seems to keep popping back up. anytime i start to think i do... yeah. i guess i've just resolved to loosen up more, not take myself so seriously, and to truly delight in the absurd world around me. it is the little things. for now, it has to be.

i have a book list a mile long. that is something to look forward to. i have college courses to create. fields of thought to explore. perspectives to be shared. i have good conversation to look forward to. good people that make me think thoughts i might not have, and that is a good thing. i have more laughter inside me, waiting for the right moment to escape. i might even have some smiles to share.

and always i'll have more words. oh yes, those won't ever stop coming. not until i'm dead at least. but i suppose death would make them more popular, although when have i ever wanted what was popular? no, that's just the message the tv tries to send, the one i'm consciously avoiding now. my muse whispers "write," and so i do.

this is my effort to share my words with any who will read them. reading is going out of style with the popular crowd, so i appreciate just the fact that you got this far. that's absolutely wonderful of you and i thank you sincerely, even if i don't know who you are. i'd like to know, so leave me a comment, a criticism, a letter, a poem,... (you get the idea)... anything to show me that you're here, that you're real, that you're reading!

if you're completely unsatisfied, i'll leave you with a poem i did not write, but nevertheless, think is beautiful. perhaps your trip here can be salvaged among its lines:

l(a

le
af

fa
ll
s)

one
l
iness

e.e. cummings (1958)

i destroy with my poetry

i destroy with my poetry
a something by mj

i destroy with my poetry. i do not know the language. he destroys with bits of random. he does not know my rhythm. i tell myself tales to make the night less long. this isn’t only about me. why doesn’t this story shut off when i close the book? i see what is not seen, i look where the edges blur. this isn’t only about me. i wonder if he knows how deep his touch has reached, how far his penetration goes. i was the one who wanted to share. this isn’t only about me. i’ve collected the bites: his bright, shiny pieces represented by words, just so you know... short-term, marriage, meaning... this isn’t only about me. i want him happy; i want him at peace. i doubt he can find this with me. perhaps that is why he evades and i pine. this isn’t only about me. maybe this is all in my head, something i made up to make the night less long but it is something and it isn’t only about me.

Your Words. (gathered darkly)

Your Words. (gathered darkly)

for Sylvia Plath

a poem by mj

Colors, blue/red, bleed into print.
I see your images
In shades of grey
The convergence of black and white.
Your words. (meaning leaks from the molecules)

They serve up your death on an altar;
Capitalize on the stigma.
Your words given new meaning
To complement their agenda.
Your words. (dying is an art)

You captured sensations
In a net of language
Just to discover-
Emptiness, stillness, silence.
Your words. (stasis in darkness)

Falling awake out of your fig tree
Up-ended into a life pre-made.
Why did you surrender
Forbidden aspirations slated for fate?
Your words. (her blacks crackle and drag)

Immortality is yours to bemoan;
We crawl into your lines like worms.
I need meaning.
A reason to resist the vacuum.
Your words. (life is the bad dream)

Approaching near-perfection
Your body decays, your voice amplifies.
A photograph negative, comfortable
In the stark blackness.
Your words. (the most beautiful thing in the world must be shadow)

Like a moonflower, I thrive in your darkness.

Rudy's

Rudy's

a story by mj

The sun was preternaturally bright when I opened the door of the infested nest some arrogant prick named Rudy called a motel room. Despite the squalid conditions, I had managed to sleep for an exhausting fifteen hours, partially due to the thick, ostentatious drapery and also my own decision to buy a bottle of tequila and imbibe it within the course of a couple hours. The next couple of hours were spent in exultant purging and several stumbling/crawling scurries to the fetid bathroom. After my digestive system had its say, it was smooth sailing in dream land. Or rather, a turbulent and phantasmagorical sail through a few circles of Hell.

I had a sticky and overbearing taste in my mouth, a mixture of stomach acid, smoke and toothpaste. My eyes, the ever-eager purveyors of the world, had adjusted to the intensity of the Sun’s light at zenith and quickly focused on the sign across the rectangular parking lot that denoted the location of “Rudy’s Diner”. Well, there could be no mistake about it; the patrons of “Rudy’s Motel” could also consume all the fried starch and processed meat their little hearts could desire! Some people probably wouldn’t get worked up about a restaurant having the same name as the hotel to which it is attached, so I guess I can conclude I’m not like “some people”. It gets under my skin, makes my right eyelid want to convulse, and leaves me with an overall disposition of disdain. Nevertheless, I needed food. That was my digestive system having its say again. I lit a cigarette to take away some of the toothpaste taste and walked across the parking lot.

The diner had two walls entirely devoted to booths. Each booth got its own window, and each window got its own set of mini-blinds. Most of the blinds were up completely. Apparently people liked sun with their fat saturated meals. I had no corner into which I could sneak. I decided to sit at the counter, facing away from the windows, my back to the door and the roomful of loquacious and jolly lunch patrons. The experience was deteriorating by the minute. I resolved to consume my food as quickly as possible and retreat back to my abhorrent yet private bear’s den of a room. What happened after that was not in my capability to pontificate on; I was reduced to the needs of my organs.

“Do you have fresh coffee?” I asked a petite, womanly figure that scuttled by without acknowledging me.

Humbled, I stared down at my hands until I heard a flat and monotonous voice say something about the lunch rush and then the thud of a coffee mug on the Formica countertop.

“Is it fresh?” I asked, glancing it over with a dubious eye.

No answer came and I looked up, correction, looked down to meet the eyes of the voice. A cold and steely look greeted me. A small specimen of human, the waitress eyed me with a no-bullshit attitude that let me know exactly how well she thought I was wasting her time.

“Did you want anything to eat?” She asked. She wasn’t that old, surely couldn’t be over thirty but she carried that dog-eared and weary exterior that resulted in a tough and stringent manner. She was the precisely the kind of person that detested the kind of people like me, the kind that could make a joke of life, as if it wasn’t life and death on the table.

“Yes. May I see a menu?” I mumbled and blew at the top of my mug. I wavered back and forth about the dangers of gulping it down before letting it cool and threw caution to the wind. It burned, but it was a good burn, completely different than the chemical burning of stomach acid.

She brought back a menu, and the pot of coffee.

“Could I have ice water as well?”

She didn’t answer. She filled my mug, plopped the menu down and turned for the pitcher of water.

It’s only a silly habit of mine to ask for the menu at restaurants since I always order the same thing. The waitress jots down my order of pancakes, two over easy eggs and a toasted English muffin so quickly I’m anxious she hasn’t notated the preference of my eggs, or my request that the English muffin be only slightly toasted, only enough to melt the butter. I knew I had been defeated, but I also knew I would eat whatever she put in front of me. I had no choice in the matter. It was between my digestive system and her.

It was at that point that I started to wonder if it really was life and death on the table. If this shattered woman might know more than yours truly. If spending a night drinking alone in a squalid highway motel wasn’t the best course to take in life.

I smoked two more cigarettes and drank three cups of coffee before my food came. The first refill she made me work for, not relenting her attention until I managed to utter up a humble and cracked, and yet entirely sincere request for more coffee. I used the word, “please.” The second was more easily won, so I took full advantage and drank it in three gulps. The third came swiftly after.

My nervous system buzzed chaos with the rush of chemicals, and a new sort of calm overtook me even as my nerve endings crackled, fizzed and popped. Food was on the way.

When she plopped it down in front of me, her eyes met mine. Still the same harsh glare, but was that a sparkle of amusement in her eye? She knew she had won. She knew I had conceded. I offered her my dejected, half smile, my white flag of surrender. She didn’t smile back, just whisked off into the lobby, taking the pot of coffee with her.

I looked into my mug and there was a fourth refill. I didn’t even have to ask.

Ten minutes later my plate was empty and I was working on my fifth refill, calculating my bill. I put down ten dollars, twice the cost of my breakfast and gloated in the notion of my philanthropy. A cigarette was the perfect reward.

When I stood up, she said, “You have a good day, now,” putting a fist on her hip as if demanding it of me.

“Thanks, you too.” I said, astonished by the sentiment leaving my mouth. I was on a roll, getting the hang of interacting with another human through banter.

“The food was good, quite a shock really considering the abominable conditions of this place. Is the guy who owns this place out to lunch, or what?”

“I’m Rudy, you little shit.” She said, her demeanor and glare changing not in the slightest. She had seen me coming long before I had even driven past the motel on my personal journey to nowhere. She had my kind all mapped out, diagramed and labeled, having seen it so many times before.

I didn’t say anything and walked out the door. The sun pierced my eyes with the daggers of its light. I should never say anything at all.