Tripping in the Woods

The worst facet of any campout are the smiling faces of the self-righteous recovering drug addicts. At Surrender Under the Stars 27, I interacted with more than 100 of these un-incarcerated felons September 20-22 in an ill-advised setting: the woods outside of Dayton, Tennessee. At the time, I considered myself part of their group, but in the months since last year, these damaged people grew exponentially more detestable. Well, unless I wanted to fuck them, but that, along with my tolerance, has shrunk.

Narcotics Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women for whom possessing self-righteous egotism and fearing maturity is encouraged, who act cultish or otherwise religious while constantly denying this in defense of “spirituality.” They internalize denial of responsibility as the first step to recovering something, most likely childishness. Through stating that they are “powerlessness over our addiction,” unity is established, and unity is non-discriminative. Yeah, that sounds good.

There’s a warped kind of positivity that comes from religiosity, especially in global waves: acceptance is the ability to convince oneself that it is unavoidable to be sitting on a hornet’s nest. “I’m fucked up...but that’s okay” one member shared, who has none of his teeth besides the ones he bought when he decided to stop inhaling meth. It didn’t help him get laid.

As I said before, even cult members can have symmetrical faces; I always imagined the ugly to be hideous. I find it strange how drug use seems generally kinder to women in this group. It is unfair and strikingly absurd to me how someone could be attractive when their chest still hurts from CPR. Undeniably, I am attracted to challenging women. I cannot decide whether this is dominantly from thinking I can affect a different outcome through being a positive male model not obviously trying to reproduce with them, or that I simply have low self-esteem.

And I cannot help but think that this low self-esteem was what drew me platonically to them. Sure, I partied alone like many other college kids, only all day. I liked the solitude, and I lacked the maturity to not get high constantly. Things were great so long as my roommate was dealing and was gone long enough to not notice me shaking the shake out of his bag.

I have been to camping here three years in a row, and midway through this annum, I stopped giving a shit. At first I thought the feeling would be temporary. Now, I’m stuck with the Registration Chair position because I want to prove something to those fucks I’m not sure I’m better than. Maybe I’m getting older and cultivating my cynicism. Maybe God left me.

I isolated from them as much as I could in search of some “Higher Power.” I found it in the cave-strewn Hawthornian woods nearby, beaten from the trail skimming along a steep dirt slope. None of them dared come here, lest they be introduced to themselves.

The nothingness found me, or, I found it. But really, I could have found it anywhere, from my home to a nightclub, or in the bathroom of each.

God is dead, and these people are dead to me. It is ironic how “Godly” people make life more difficult. But despite my racism, I understand that these people are too closed-minded to realize that they’re close-minded. Spiritual-mindedness cannot always overcome simple-mindedness. I might bother myself over having “wasted time,” but I am everything I have experienced, and nothing I have experienced is me.   

kids on the floor

27 children

20 white, 6 mulatto

made of saline and ashes

fopping on the cold tile,

dusty and dirty

sugar splotches

the blonde results of passion

golden hash

a mish-mash

of Betty Crocker brownie

batter with

dirt-flecked

charr granuals,

a fiery grave danced

upon in the gutters

of Southern cities, the

same as all the

rest,

blessed by some of the

best trivial pursuits

in our neurotic

conforming, regicidal

mediacrity,

wrapped in a nasty navy

leather exoskeleton,

open for interpretation,

by some lady in Iowa

that heard it from

her friend who

heard it on the

public airwaves.

27 children

20 white, 6 mulatto

made of saline and ashes and clay,

secreting constantly

from the bottom and top

middle too, if they could,

with the mothers

listening close

by,

dad's at work,

so he says,

to bring home the bacon

from the Tyson plant

smelling more like a

paper mill than

birds, a

sign of the times here in the South,

so he can bring one more

disgusting imbecile

onto the world to be

controlled by a lord,

oh Lord,

and this vassal will continue

until he reaches Your

great golden plains

because we all have

plans to spend the

sands of our days,our

demands to match what we

stand for.

But that's not the part of the

absurdity I’m referencing.

There are 27 children,

20 white, 6 mulatto

eyeing me with

magical indifference

as I wait for us to be

fed so they can grow

up to be

the people I

tolerate,

condemning lest they

be thrown out

into the sandpaper wind,

speaking the Jester's English,

me being the fool,

fool of the court.

27 children

20 white, 6 mulatto

one missing.

I screamed for my son

and he emerged from

the trapdoor in the bushes.

When You and I are 25

Look: you’ll see that

a cheating spouse

and I

are ugly

because we cannot choose an

attractive child.

This is my perception.

I’m not part of the immersive

amorphous sludge of contemporary

track shorts and fucking Sperry’s.

Distraction is option one.

Escape is the second.

Activity is the third.

These are my morals.

Once I have everything,

I will strive for more

and plunge my lacerated shoulders

into a fountain greedily,

snatch my every dime and replace them

with quarters.

Wet dollars would be absurd

once I had everything.

I have

twenty-five cents.

Twenty-five percent effort.

Twenty-five times a bronze flipped

heads, heads, tails, tails,

twenty-five years old

serving twenty-five to life.

Forever twenty-five.

They will not remember that

I’m twenty-five

when I’m fifty.

I’ve heard not dying’s the goal of life;

mine is to live so I won’t.

I won’t die

until I don’t want to.

Then I’ll be in the ocean,

on a mountain,

in the trunk,

maybe in the ground

or the air,

somewhere -

somewhere less desperate.

less melancholy than

being gone.

But enough bothering the mortician!

Depression should only affect the masters,

not the slaves since

they have the beauty to fight it.

But if you are destined for me,

if each time you wish change in the world,

my shoes are on,

pull yourself together

and join me.

I cannot expect the future,

and it’s all I think about:

the parts I can’t control,

the parts I won’t miss.

When I’m 25

is the question’s end, my dear,

and I hope it ends

when my best is flattened,

and I promise then

that I’ll leave.

'Til the Sun Shines

She said

that you were drunk,

jumped off the wagon when a

wheel came loose.

It was raining.

Late afternoon.

You said,

Could I come live with you?

My  mom is throwing me out.

She said,

she would never do that.

I arrived in 15 minutes,

or maybe 10.

You said

to leave,

and I could not.

I said,

Where did you go,

and how did you get back?

She said

your story was dynamic.

This is what I gathered:

It was after work.

Dissociated.

You got home safely.

You were crying.

A fleece blanket-sized tissue was over you.

Your room was too dark to see.

You said

to leave.

It wouldn’t be easier.

And I could not.

I said,

I love you.

You said

you didn’t,

that you were a horrible person,

couldn’t love,

couldn’t be.

You said

this more than I remember.

She said

you needed me right now.

I said,

Darling,

I won’t stop,

so this isn’t over.

I said,

keep trying,

and so will I.

You said

thank you

and kissed me.

The thanks was unneeded.

I wasn’t a hero.

You said,

Can you take me to work tomorrow?

I said,

Do you still have a job?

You were trying not to vomit.   

Overcast the next day.

You left early.

I said,

I don’t know if I could deal with this again,

and I have not.

25

Twenty-five percent
effort.
Twenty-five times a coin flipped
heads, heads, tails, tails.
Twenty-five years old
in the autocratic system,
twenty-five hundred stolen dollars
from a retirement plan,
social number xxx-12-2525.
Five times itself (because I couldn't resist).
Twenty-five years later,
no one will remember me,

the No One.
I'll be in the ocean,
on a mountain,
in the trunk,
maybe in the ground
or the air.

When I'm 25-
you might have a child.
It could be mine.

When I'm 25-
is the question's end, dear,
and I hope it ends
when I can't do anything more,
when my best is flat,
and I promise, my love,
that if my best is not best for you,
then I will leave you.

But if you feel yourself
destined for me,
if every time you wish change in the world
I'm putting my sneakers on,
pull yourself together
or better yet, fall apart
and float to me.
I can't expect the future,
and it's all I think about controlling.
Tonight, I'll stay with you,
in my arms and forget
nothing lasts.

I Need a New Topic...

I can't help
when you're around,
when you're not
in love with me anymore,
just like you can't
see a future with me
without empty sex.
I'd cry if
that changed anything.

I drive people away
and weep over the loss.
Bastards,
they hate me
because I need them to.

I can't be wrong
for my mistakes.

Dissociation

Who is this turned away

from me in a gown

and red panties with

Wonder Woman on them

because as much as I like the

inane sexual war,

there persists

or more so, does not

consistency with the rain,

mind insane with engravings of

an uncontrollable pain.

Poetry is writing’s mascara,

and I hesitate confirming

my own vanity

by telling you to wear less make-up

and make the boys stare

because neither my attention

nor your own success is enough

to have you stay away

since you did it.

We all know you did.

Some think you did more,

and I’m somewhere between here and

not here,

the only opposite of presence.

I want your weakness,

guilty as it makes me,

dangerous as it is,

strange as it is to think

that two glasses could kill

and look into the other

while biding their contemplation,

full dissociation.

I’m looking at one person,

kissing another

red but

white goose

that bites with its

tongue,

and the shades are drawn

with a Katab-brand fountain pen

dedicated to avoiding pocket stains.

Who is this

ageless child

stranger to me

than I noticed,

disconnected by

reddish-orange strands

and a smile often

higher on the left side

from where the child died

and became a woman

or something like it

that I like better,

something dark,

the fallen angel of light

having taught a woman

to not fall

even if what’s

remembered ages since

with a sigh

from one of her benefactors.

Who is this

that sees the world

more clearly than I,

crosses off the mob

without becoming crass

and is true

when no one knows it?

How big is a mistake

in Newtons,

how long does it take

for two trains heading northeast and northwest

to forget about each other?

And how often does this cross her mind?