There are 23 letters written that will not be sent. They are not love letters, they are not apologies. Manifestos, perhaps. Some are written on college-lined notebook pages with unclean edges, some are written in red ink. Others are written in black. Others are email messages, facebook messages, message board forums private messages. Each letter is a call. Each is an invitation, although "welcoming" isn't a word to describe the content. Can you listen? Can you respond? Each scream in and between the lines.

There are 23 letters that will not be sent out of fear that the return will be blank.

Short Mountain

Loving you is easier than breathing...Loving you is more natural than sleep

¿?Are you ready to be my wife¿?

dad

After I swam today, I threw myself down on a towel on the cement. It warmed me up real quick. I had felt all soggy and cold, and I knew the heat of the cement--coming directly from our sun--would ease both discomforts. Maybe correct them altogether.
The towel was small, clean and seafoam green. I placed myself in just the right spot so that I could use it as a shield of sorts. Put half of it over my face while I lied on the rest of it. When my eyes were closed, I could just feel it there. Felt it and the absorbed heat, and then it all began to absorb me.
That was one part of it all. The other part is that when I closed my eyes, I saw one hundred seafoamy green circles. All of these little rounds--one hundred of them. I counted one and all in my great estimation. My eyelashes looked huge somehow.
I saw myself smaller suddenly. I saw myself beginning to see that I'd never know this same thing again. It's gonna look so different next time, granted there even is one after this.
When we see each other again in a few days, we'll look real different probably. Tanlines and grown hairs aside, we'll look very different. Maybe I'm thinking of feeling. We'll feeeeel different. That's what I mean.
Maybe I'll just open my eyes. Maybe you'll look like one hundred seafoamy green circles.

playin with the slip and slide

they love their elephant

Dreams 1

I'm tired of going to sleep every night
with the thought that i'll wake up in the cold sweat of a fright
that i'll face in a dream that i'll later try to ignore,
where there's an old man looking into a mirror,
and he can't tell which side's made of glass,
and he can't recall at least half of his past,
and he's got nothing left but things with which to recollect,
a past that he spent quietly wasting in a corner alone.

In an apartment he lives for 4 days without coming out,
and then packs his bags, leaves his ID, and walks about
town in a most amusing way,
smoking 3 packs of reds in a day,
letting any thought lead him astray,
and he beats his fist off of his ashtray,
and slowly watches all of his hairs turn gray.

He's so tired of being alone,
but in his head, he always knows
that he'll find someone, somewhere, someday,
and he'll re-write this charade of a play
that he's called his life,
joined in matrimony with his ideal wife,
playing the husband, the doctor or lawyer,
instead of the patient, or the famous law breaker,
he wakes up inside of my dream,
and he jumps from a window only 40 feet high,
and he lands on his neck, and he doesn't ask why,
he just smiles and closes his eyes upon impact,
and then in a cold sweat I wake,
then I step in the direction of the window where I then fake,
to enact the dream of my future if i'm still on this path,
and i lay around thinking of Plath

wknd

30 portraits

Your face in your hands and more apologies than I thought you had in you.
I was stunned, and removed entirely from the situation, where
You were sad and discovered, once again, the hate you have for yourself.
Like when you ate too many flowers and passed out
by yourself
in a field.
Told you the truth, that you do, indeed, sting me quickly and freely.
And that what else do you make me, but more alive?
And even if we both know how scary you can be, you still know that
I will lie beside you just the same, and hold your hand until
you fall asleep, so I can stay awake into the morning. Watching as
you twist your knees into my knees and let out soft sighs of
relax and relief. I am here entirely, with my whole body and my whole
mind, just for you.

Alley Walkin

Of Poker and Mortality in West Grove

It was in the same weekend that Damien Whistler had started wearing the tacky black cowboy hat found in his parents’ attic, that his best friend, Edward Allen, died in a motorcycle accident. The way Damien pictured it was that after Edward left the party of mutual friends and former lovers; he slowly began to vibe on the idea of going faster with his ears plugged in and the rest of his body tuned out. Corners were a minor distractions to the over-amplified sounds of his own thoughts running around and back down the mountain, carrying individually colored pales of water for children and the rest of the town.
Edward had already become a fixture of his father’s Friday night poker game; Damien and him having the conversation over their own moralities in West Grove soon after their separate business casual routines began to visibly take hold. There were the bars and the minor distractions as well as what had accumulated to suitcases full of recreational drugs by the time both reached twenty-five. Downward spirals didn’t necessarily occur from that point, but rather bent and collapsed into tightly contained boxes, which also in turn held their hometown egos.
Damien and Edward had made enough friends to dart from birthday to confirmation party, slugging down cheap plastic cups of alcohol and congratulating whoever seemed to care. They never told elaborate stories of their lives, but rather let the similarly vacant shades from the past wash over them like it was all some kind of mellow high. The coughing nephews and bastard nieces were all growing up in the exact same fashion as those before them. They were eating the same cake, and abiding by the same slurred agendas of their parents and legally defunct guardians.
Damien had seen it all as a surefire sign not to spread his seed, although he was cautious over bent ideals as he stood in line at Edward’s funeral, waiting to pray before his best friend’s embalmed corpse. The same night as the accident he had drunkenly forgot to pull out with Tabitha Elder, and the thought of his lingering tadpoles in her stomach had magically appeared in the sorted faces and decadent sobs of everyone in the Allen family. Damien had purposely taken one too many painkillers before dressing for the occasion, and was soon pulled into Edward’s sister, Breanne’s car for bong rips and condolences.
It was then all a crafted blur as he tried not to look into the eyes of anyone, and held back his tears until the sight became much clearer. Edward looked like a pasty cartoon character on the front of a cereal box. He was expressionless, and yet couldn’t stop grinning at the shear absurdity surrounding him. They had all managed to crawl out of their regularly prescribed addictions, and now were taking full advantage of what an unexpected death had to offer to those who knew the recently deceased. They could act out of sorts for awhile, calling off as many days as possible from their vacant suburban careers, considering that all of a sudden the privilege of having known some young and imprinted dead person had fallen sorely into their laps.
Damien already knew that he was going to milk such a spinning cause for everything that he could, and yet as the tides swiftly turned around the entire square space of Canetti’s Funeral Parlor, a gust of sin struck his nostrils. Bonnie Eash had been a hopeless vixen her entire life, and was sure to let everyone know how easy it was to bend from one waking agenda to the next. She had swept both Edward and Damien up into her tornado of shifting and problematic thoughts; all of which carried with them verbose sexual undertones. They had evolved into the people who ran into each other on late night coke binges, viciously calling all corners of the phonebook for a quick and perpetual fix to pleasantly lead them into Sunday morning.
Damien had gone to church with Bonnie just once after an enraged ecstasy fit, while both were still wiping various barbecue stains from their college degrees. He whirled over the way Jesus looked with such open eyes, and wondered, if the two had known each other personally, whether or not they could relate on much of anything. Yet, it was a different emotional sour for Damien seeing Bonnie at Edward’s wake that particular evening. They hadn’t spoken for seven months after feelings became mixed after a personalized check for prescription drugs and a blowjob fell into the same hour of hanging out. Her number was then sorely marked with an explanation point on his cellphone screen until the end of time. It acted as a warning to days better left spent in one’s bedroom.
However, Damien wasn’t sure how to handle re-meeting and greeting the defunct Bonnie as he first noticed her right around the same time his own grief was running dry. They were in the back row of folding metal chairs; her quick motion in sitting down next to a deserted old woman’s purse and quickly grabbing the black wallet out, making Damien wonder what direction her life was headed in. He watched her stuff the large currency device into her own bag, and quickly stand up again without any second thoughts. It wasn’t longer than a moment, before he soon followed her soft high-heeled steps out of the funeral home and into the street.
“What the fuck are you doing Bonnie?” Damien shouted in the middle of the sidewalk.
She stopped, turned back towards him with a confidant look on her face, and stuck her middle finger in the air. “Fuck you for not seeing it first, Damien.”
He was then the immediate next person to pull out of the parking lot, driving around town in no particular direction for an hour or so, before returning home and waiting for the next day to rear its ugly head. Damien would then wait a full two years before attending Bonnie’s funeral, and performing the same cooled tricks with her great Aunt Sophie’s wallet. He would spend the money on two porno videos and a hit of X for old times. She would applaud his efforts from beyond the grave.

The Last Christmas Story Ever

Many years later he would recall the incident as a fond memory. Many years later it would be one of his finest. He'd been awake for hours, wondering what tomorrow's winter bounty would yield. It must have been a least three o'clock in the morning when he was finally starting to doze off. Just as he was at the point of losing consciousness, he heard a whisper. "Wake up. He came!" she said in a very hushed tone. Without any delay, he sprang up from his state of near slumber, and, with a smile on his face, he helped her out of her bed, and into her chair. He giggled a little, muttering in a hushed tone to her, "not a creature stirring."

Out in the living room, the tree was glowing unlike anything he'd ever seen. It had an aura to it that could only be due to the energy put forth to the room. He smiled, and chuckled a little... too hyper-active to be able to maintain his silent, and adult-like demeanor. "Will he be mad if I open one?"
"I think we should wait for the morning." she stated with a half smile. "Now help me onto the couch, could you?"
He grabbed a hold of her left arm with both of his and pulled hard. He could hardly budge her at her size, but after a few moments of prodding and pulling, she eventually laid down on the couch.
"Come here" she said.
He laid down in front of her; his head resting somewhere in between her breasts and her chin. She curled her neck down to place a soft kiss on his forehead, and he turned around to again face the glowing tree.

The next morning she again woke him up. It couldn't have been later than 6 AM, but once again, his energy was completely restored instantly from his short slumber due to the aura that had been placed around the morning. He ran into his parents' room, shouting "It's Christmas!" in a tone that he would never use again after that morning. They spent the morning playing the new all ages edition of Trivial Pursuit, and listening to carols over the new stereo. He played with a spinning top given to him by his brother, which would spin onto its stick if you got it to spin just right, which his thumbs were not yet strong enough to make happen.

The present she gave him was oddly wrapped. It looked sloppy, and like something soft was inside. It was one of the last presents he received that day. At first, in order to act like he cared about the wrapping, he unraveled it slowly, and then after her comment of "get it over with kid!" he tore away at it as if it was one of the presents labeled from Santa (to whom his brother had already ruined for him that morning, although at 5, he'd already had his suspicions.)

Under the poor wrap job was a soft white stuffed polar bear with a make-a-wish button pinned to its heart. He had seen the bear a thousand times in her arms, and knew it was given to her by the charity along with a trip to Florida.

The rest of the family later came up for a traditional Christmas dinner of ham, green beans, stuffing, and mashed potatoes. They exchanged presents, and friendly tidings of masked faces for the evening, just as he would one day learn is the Christmas tradition; pretending to love thy brother, that is.

Two months later, he arrived home from school one day, and asked where she was, knowing that she was to be returning from the hospital that morning. His mother's friend was watching the house and replied to him with a slightly consoling tone, "she's gone sweetie." He could recall very little of what happened next.

Years later, they had just survived one of the worst years of their lives. The business their family had built went under, they were hundreds of thousands in debt from years of excessive spending, in some attempt to fill a long gone void. It was New Years day, and they were driving back from visiting family in Philadelphia, crossing the Delaware river. For his mother, pot had been the thing to fill the void. To his father, work was the filler, and for himself, it was music. It had been music ever since only a month after her death, Clapton released "tears in heaven," which it was explained to him, was the story of his lost child.

It was 1999, and as they crossed the river, he asked his father to turn up the radio, when he'd heard an only recently familiar tune. "There's reason to believe maybe this year will be better than the last."

That line chimed through the radio, and for the first time since her death, he saw his father cry. Of course his mother was sobbing as well, although she'd always been an emotional one. He bent his head down, ashamed of his own tears, thinking "please, please let it be." He'd spent some of the youngest years of his life in agonizing misery over things far too complicated for his feeble mind to understand at the time. He was an anti-socialite because of the event, to which he would remain impartial to being for the rest of his life. He had become the world's youngest pessimist from the ages of 6 to 12.

Then it occurred to him that he was less than two years away from the age where she left. It occurred to him that she was his current age, almost exactly, when she first fell ill. It occurred to him that if she were there with him, that he could help her out of the wheelchair with one arm on her back and another on her legs. That she could have picked her up and delicately set her down on that couch. Until now, he'd always imagined her being much larger than him. It was an odd epiphany.

"It's been so long since I've seen the ocean"

He looked out across the great Delaware river, and for the one tiny strip, couldn't see where land began again. He smiled, and thought of that December, when he was only 5, and of his sister's smile, and soft whisper when she awoke him. Even retelling this, years later, in his mid twenties, he would still have trouble hiding his tears, and his smile upon writing these very words. At this point he realized that he could never feel that sort of smile brought to his face without the tears taking their own places as well. There are no smiles that don't contain tears somewhere on the other side of their spectrum. So he wondered; "should I smile, or should I cry?"

"I guess I should." The radio replied

The ghosts of Cian's past

I never believed in ghosts until I was one,
and I never believed in life until I started having fun,
just wasting away myself and everybody else around,
feeding into things that will deflect all light and sound,
but underground I'd stay until my consciousness takes
control of apparitions where my body fakes
to exist again, when "there's no real

reason for reflection"
I say to myself once again,
as I have many times in life,
this is just what it is,
and I'll be fine,
nothing will ever change.

All our beings will remain
as the beings that they've been.

My lovers are craving the things I've been giving,
Not just the caressing,
but also, my blessing
to snort these crushed up things,
and lead their own minds rings
of sunshine and destruction,
the last resurrection
of Christ will be at hand
in the dreams of some in this land
but not me, I'm becoming the ghost of my past.

It's on full blast;
the relentless sounds of a lifetime spent wasting away,
and just searching for the sun every day,
but it won't come out for us,
so I'm catching this spirit of a bus,

and I'll be gone, I won't think of the past,
I'll just wander around, and think "which day will be my last?"
and "What things are there to atone for?"
and "where the fuck is the exit door?"
I'm leaving all the ghosts of my past,
to create some new skeletons, we'll all have a blast.

i got a camera for my birthday.

it's red. i'm not going to start posting pictures all the time or anything, i just wanted to say that i got a new red camera.

Before there was you, I never saw them
Before there was you, I never got them

Now that there is you, I truly see them
Now that there is you, I truly get them

But now that there is you, I only see them
But now that there is you, I only get them

When there isn't you, I don't see them
When there isn't you, I don't get them

But you're here again, and so are they.

Why you should continue living . . .

. . . despite everything being a simulation, created to enslave the ignorant, and perpetuate the human race, solely to be used as money-making stock - not unlike cattle, fowl, or swine.

When subversion's obviously a coy distraction meant to lead us down endless dark corridors, where whispers of omniscient surveillance circulate like the very noxious air you're telling yourself you're breathing; when transcendence is impossible, thanks to your riddled, egomaniac mind, exploiting every digression to its fullest, bloodiest extent; when the very idea of individuality or self-actualization reveals itself to be nothing but a terrible ruse designed to kick out the clever and cunning ducks first; when all of this has proven true after hours and years of scrupulous, exhaustive pondering; when even so-called 'gateways' fail to assist, or even abate; when the hamster trips on his wheel, and, looking up from the pile of shattered teeth, finally sees the wheel, but no way beyond it; and when the universe chortles, there is but one solution; one piece of flimsy driftwood on which to dearly hold.

Me, I like to play with myself. Why, what do you do?

We should go now.

We should go now. We really should go.

As I walk through the door of this house that's still a mess,
I see the life we've thrown together
thrown all over the floor.

I'm with you - I don't think I want it anymore.

We should go now. We really should go.

We could stay and fall apart, at least we could stay in one place:
boring
blood-less
life-less and
safe.

You're with me - but I don't think you want me anymore.

We should go now. We really should go.

"It's not the same," you always say,
and nothing's changed.
It started out like this and just got worse from here:
From an old house on a corner in the chained-down part of town,
to a crafty house with crafty walls and the truth of middle-age,
we just repeated and repeated and repeated and we lost.
How was I supposed to know I didn't know?
I suppose I wasn't quite ready to go.

But it's not the place - it's the pace -
it's the fact that this is not the same -
it's the fact that this is not the same as that.

I'm with you - I just can't ignore it anymore.

There is reform to make from foundations
and we are our own creation
and we never needed anyone before.

There are songs that still need written
and we are our only mission
and I don't think we need this anymore.

So let's want everything we want
and let's be everything we are
and we can lean on one another
when the going gets too hard.
You be Springsteen, I'll be Mary, climbin' in...
This is a house full of losers and we're pullin' out of here to win...

We should go right now. We should go right now.

Relying on "Self-Reliance"

In his essay "Self-Reliance," Ralph Waldo Emerson says, "To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men, — that is genius." That rules. I agree.

Then he says, "Speak your latent conviction, and it shall be the universal sense; for the inmost in due time becomes the outmost." That rules. I honestly feel like I'm really waking up to something.

"A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the lustre of the firmament of bards and sages." Holy shit, right? Isn't that awesome. I never thought of it that way!

He goes on to say, "Great works of art have no more affecting lesson for us than this. They teach us to abide by our spontaneous impression with good-humored inflexibility then most when the whole cry of voices is on the other side." I agree. This is fantastic. How have I gone all this time without ever reading this essay before? What the hell have I been missing? Damn. This rules.

Then he goes on to say, "Else, to-morrow a stranger will say with masterly good sense precisely what we have thought and felt all the time, and we shall be forced to take with shame our own opinion from another."

Oh. Oh, I see.

Well, fuck you, too, Waldo.

2:32, A Silent Room

Sometimes just saying good-night would be enough
to stave off the panging alone,
a faint surmising right before the day's close
to make it seem all worth it, and then
tomorrow you won't be opposed
to rising again.

Then you find
the air is still still, the bed quite chilled, and the dust
wafts orange through invading construction lights.
And you'll toss,
tangled up in dry smelly sheets, despite the snort of Valium
swimming through your blood,
the shots of Jack swilling in your gut.
You'll think about your mother and how she worrying as she greys.
You'll think about the one that got away with such a smooth face.
You are no savior, no saint, no prophet, no prodigy, no faces to greet, no lambs lay at your feet, no beach to walk on, no hair to grow long, no charm, no charisma, no chance, no choice

but to let space take over -
the swarm of green gases and heaps of stars -
you swallow it all up and go to space
in that dreadful mind of yours that only moves to displace
the harmony it feels in most minds around it
because it's their world and it doesn't make sense.

Don't get walked on you say to yourself but it is so hard
with unfortunate beings making your unfortunates so big and bright.

What I did the night of prom

He sits in the corner quietly imagining the night go by the way he'd like it to. He notices every little detail of the surrounding world, but trembles at the thought of the embarassment at hand were he to even attempt to play the part he'd like. No, he's no young heart throb. He's life's spectator, and his part is to be as seldom seen as possible. Be grateful to be invited to the places he goes, and hopeful that perhaps by some dumb luck someone will notice him in the corner.

He blinks, and he is Johnny Spectre, dancing just perfect enough to get the attention of every girl in the room. He smiles at one, and asks her how her night is. She says she could use a pick me up. "Right this way," he motions to the most bearen corner of the room, just beyond the booming speakers blasting house beats re-sampled from modern billboard chart toppers. He brazes her left shoulder with his arm, and places his hand gently on her back, and pulls a bag no bigger than his palm yeilding faded red pill tablets. He hands her one, and whispers something to her. In the spectator's mind, it would preferably be "you are beautiful, and I've been falling in love with you since I've seen your face appear in my life. I never want to be without it again."
Another part of him thinks he's saying "I've got millions in the bank from these little red tablets we're about to roll on," and yet another part think's he's saying "You don't need money, but you owe me for that ex."

The spectator's eye falls upon an aged woman laughing hysterically. She is at least forty, and the boy holding her can't be more than 19. He is not fully grown into himself, and his facial hair is patched. On her finger is a daimond ring. She's old enough to be his mother, yet their kisses are not that of a maternal bond. His hands move up and down her back, and her left one is rubbing his chest as the sweat builds between them.

This is where they all come to get away from the public. They come to get away from the people that judge them. The gay couple making out between tranced out juveniles who've gone far too far and flail about with neon sticks grasped between clenched fists are beautiful in the way of knowing the extent of this place's acceptance, but then other places it goes too far.

The girls who've hardly arrived yet into high school being ushered through the exit; pupils large as marbles, and bras already removed by their late 20-something escorts, to whom give fake names for just such a purpose. The spectator shakes his head, and ignores this whole action. It makes him feel awful, but then, perhaps they really do both know what they're doing. Perhaps they'll be safe, and perhaps they're friends, he argues to himself in his mind, as the image of her a year later; youngest mother in the school.

He thinks of all these things going on around him, and awaits himself to be given a reason to step into the glory. A light is coming, he thinks, as he feels his head lifting up. Suddenly the beats aren't so old and musty. The music isn't just some thrown together pile of trite pop garbage. These people are not scoundrels. They are not drug dealers. These people are everyone. These people are everywhere, hidden amongst everyone else; all the sex addicts, and heroin den mothers throwing themselves at each other to trade fixes, all of the bible thumpers and aging generations telling them that there's nowhere to go from here.

These people are the world, they are here, and they will continue to exist, the spectator thinks, as the foot twitch which began only moments ago evolves into a full blown, dance, away from the chair, away from the corner, and into the world. Into the people and the music of life. Into the wild times and places of this world, and into the questionable acts of this evening. After this evening, the world will end. After this evening, the world will become something new. Nothing will ever be the same, he thinks.

Hours pass by where he experiences everything. The handjob in the car from the questionable teen he later spotted in the corner; his name, he decided, would be Dylan Thomas... as a joke he would later tell his friends. He had experienced cocaine, exstacy, and a slew of drugs hardly worth naming or remembering. He'd experienced the fleeing from the building upon closing time; 7 in the AM, as he recalled, but then, he recalled very little. The sun coming up over the city lights were lethargic to his carload, as they passed on their way to their dealer's house to crash. Upon arrival he would offer them xanax. "I don't do hard drugs," the spectator replied, giggling to himself as lines were snorted, and his associates crashed in separate rooms of the house. The hours later his mind exploded in a fit of dissapointment. Nothing would ever change.

On The Prowl

"you'd do anything for a good time," he said to me. He said this repeatedly through teeth bearing a grin wider than I'd thought possible. I said nothing, and he laughed and repeated himself. "Shut up," I mumbled.
"What?" Janey asks me. I tell her it was nothing... I was just thinking of what I've got to do tomorrow.

I've only known this girl for 6 hours, and I am going to take her to my house to fuck. I am going to tell unspeakable lies in order to get her into my bedroom. I'm going to tell her that she's the most beautiful woman I've ever met. That she's my dream, and that nothing will ever come between us. I'll tell her that she's more beautful than every star in the sky, and that in the morning, I'm going to cook her breakfast, and we'll see a play in the evening that I've got tickets to. All of this will be a lie.

She lights a smoke, and asks me if I believe in God. I tell her to go first. She says she has her doubts. Good, I think. It means her moral implications will be easier to break through. "I think that God is every one of us. Or maybe none of us at all. I don't know" I say out my asshole. She lights a smoke, and giggles a little.
"What's so funny?" I ask. "Just that guy giving the awful stand up at the bar. That was unreal, wasn't it? I laughed so hard."
"I kind of felt bad for the guy" I said.
"What are you talking about? He was so awesomely pathetic." She snickers. "Well, maybe I had a bit too much to drink and just sound like a jerk."
"Maybe you are a jerk." I laugh
"Fuck you"
"Maybe. We'll see how the night goes," I say with a smile. She giggles a little too, and mutters "yeah right."
Yeah. Right. The perfect open ended phrase to neither deny or confirm intentions. It means that she wants to fuck me, but she's too shy to admit it. Soon I imagine her calling my name; scratching my back, screaming "fuck me so hard, jesus christ, fuck me!" in a fit of exstacy. I smile slightly, and light up two cigarettes. I hand her one, and brush my hand just barely off of hers while passing one.

We arrive at the house, and I pour us each a glass of wine without asking if she wants any. She drinks it hastily, and I hope it will clear the smell of snakebite from her lips. We settle in to the couch, and I immediately put my arm around her cooly. "Lets watch a movie" I suggest. She picks out Naked Lunch, which makes sense to me, considering the situation. It tells me she sees the absurdity of an eminant one night stand, and that the rantings in background are all but insignificant. I put my arm back around her after inserting the DVD, and play with her hair a little. She tilts her head back. "That feels great she says."
Would you like a massage?" I ask.
"I'd love that," she says lustily.
I'll be gone before she wakes back up in the morning. I'll feel good about myself until I get home, look into the mirror, and hear a little voice. "You sly dog. You'll do anything for a good time, won't you?" I'll drown it out before I go out again tomorrow night.