I get nostalgic for those heady days when I knew what the world was
When I knew what the next step would bring
And all tomorrow’s parties were laid out
Waiting on a platter
Just a few minutes from achieving greatness
When the actions I took were either momentous
Or without consequence
With nothing in between
Set to achieve all of my dreams
Before reality
Before the rot
Before the losses grew too great to paper over
I miss that feeling
That my tomorrows were certain
And all I wanted
Was up for the grasping
Author: Pelgris
That consensual lie
Why do we embrace the mythology of lifelong friends? Friendship so close that you talk daily. That you meet up for breakfast, go out for drinks, and are just generally each others family.
Are our actual families broken? That it creates this yearning to belong. Is it this which draws us into cults…or fantasy sports leagues? Are we just so lonely that the response has been by our storytellers to create this friendship mythology?
Shows like Friends, New Girl, How I Met Your Mother, Happy Endings, and even It’s always Sunny in Philadelphia. All ensemble casts. All depicting a level of close friendship which generally doesn’t exist.
But we clearly want it to. So why doesn’t it? If we clearly want it, what stops it from occurring.
I mean, first off… None of the people in those shows have kids. Because once that happens your friends disappear for at least a few years. And, ever after, friendship becomes a secondary thing to that family unit.
In other words, life gets in the way. And not all friendships are forever. Some are right now friendship or circumstance friends.
Maybe we’re all just so lonely that we create these friend mythologies to compensate for the lack of connection and permanence we feel in our lives.
Or maybe life just drives a wedge.
I’ve had some friends say they wish we all lived together. I wish we’d buy a street of houses and move in together. These are the people I want in my life. Always. But, I know that’s not how it’s going to be.
So I’ll watch another long running cast of fictional friends. And pretend that’s something that happens. Somewhere. Just not to me.
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Information, New information, Panic, Obstinacy
All of science is new
Anything beyond observable fact is new
And even observable fact
Took generations
And blood
And war
And struggle to make it accepted
But we use these poorly understood ideas
To make our points
As if what we learned
When we were still learning
Hasn’t transformed
Hasn’t changed
Hasn’t been debunked
The entrenched voices from everywhere
Even within the scientific community
Would have you believe
What we know is what we know
Not what we believe
What we think
What maybe
Might be true
Is presented as bedrock
Like what we know isn’t crumbling daily beneath our feet
And only by accepting that what’s true today
Could be false tomorrow
Only by dancing on that razor edge
Do we have the opportunity
To change our hearts
As well as our minds
When true science is exposed to the public
Knowledge because politicized
Because in the publics mind
Once something is this way
Its always this way
Asking a panicked animal to turn away from the cliff
While telling them each time facts change
Just confuses people to whom science
Is a paper mache volcano
Science is a journey of understanding
That keeps accelerating
Now too fast
Each change
Each idea
Each revelation
Leads to that middle school science fair
Reevaluation
And in the end
That’s what kills us
That inability to accept that
Knowledge is something that must change
As what we perceive
Gives way to what is true
And what is true
Breaks down
And what’s real
Shifts again
We dance
A thousand deep
On the head of a bullet
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See it in you
In the mind there is little but consternation
Looking for that connotation
Knowing that connection
Lays somewhere between correction and creation
Just a few more steps to compilation
Stepping out to combustion
Need that soft eyed capitulation
Pull me under the cavitation
Don’t give in to convention
Give me a taste of your confection
I’ll be your perfect corruption
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Soft click as the screen reels
Take a few more steps
In a future uncertain
A few more licks
In a future unseen
Last dance to the music unheard
Wake me for the final scene
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An interpretation of an interpretation
We see the world through the lense of our biases. These ideas about what is that we don’t even know we have.
I used to think that cops were the good guys. Way back in time. Before I saw them drag my neighbor out of his grandmothers house. He lived with her and took care of her. He did the yard work and did the grocery shopping. He was a good grandson.
He also dealt weed. He was a drug dealer. To my parents that was it. The sum total of his character.
They came for him in force. The whole neighborhood cordoned off. They had us move to the back of the house. Just in case bullets started flying.
He wasn’t home. But they sure terrified his grandmother.
They lay in wait for him and scooped him up before he got in his front door.
His grandmother had to sell the house. Collateral damage in the war on ‘drugs’.
Before, I never gave the cops a second thought. After, I never felt safe. Sure in the knowledge that they could snap me out of my life and ruin my family without a care for what’s real.
I used to see America as a promise and an experiment in equality. A grand idea which seamed to be bearing fruit. Leaders in freedom and truth.
But I grew up. And I see the rot built into every 3/5’s compromise. Broken and rotten from the beginning.
A foundation built on blood.
If something doesn’t directly effect you, you get to live in a world that doesn’t exist. You get to live a fantasy. Your bias is built-in. You can’t see what you don’t know.
The first time I dated someone from a different socioeconomic class…my eyes were opened up. I couldn’t not see their struggles. Things I took as simple became hard.
Everyone’s life is living in this bubble reality.
We can be empathetic and see what is happening and determine a course forward that includes us all.
Or we can double down on this false narrative and refuse to see anyone else’s experience. There’s a whole political party that’s into that.
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Just past the horizon
The things you miss
Are never the things they say you will
Not missing family so much
As missing that feeling of belonging
Not missing the food
Or the people who just flew in
So much as the person who was always there
And now isn’t
Won’t ever be again
Just these slow fade memories
These memories trotted out
Which just makes them fade faster
Missing the chances to include my lover
To have her meet my Nana
That central figure who welded us together
Who without
we are now at loose ends
The lost opportunities
The never happen
The always almost
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When the heart won’t let you sleep love
I’m that day to day love
That wake you up with a kiss and coffee love
That small things love
That singing songs made up on the spot love
That kiss the palm of your hand love
That working love
That note written in you pocket love
That gives you hope and goosebumps love
That long slow kisses love
That taking care of you fully aware you are strong enough to take care of yourself love
That willing to wait love
That soft gasp half heard over the phone love
That sleeping alone in his bed love
That hopeful broken love
That life spelled out in words love
That missing you love
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What odd things do you find romantic?
You ever wonder about the weird things that you find romantic? Like for me, its having the same sleep schedule as me. It seems like something so small but it means that when you get tired, I do and vice-versa. Which means we get ready for bed and go to sleep at the same time. Which means we’re awake and can have time together at the same time.
Now, maybe that’s weird but my sleep schedule is a split one. I tend to sleep at about 8-10pm for about 4 hours. Then I wake up for a few hours then sleep for 2-3 hours. It works for me but its odd.
If someone were to have the same sleep schedule it would open up whole worlds. We could go exercise together. We could watch a movie or read or play a game. Because those small hours between sleep seem like stolen ones. Like they exist outside of the normal day to day and can be used for things that aren’t normal. Those hours exist in a gray area and can be used for whimsy rather than normal.
Existing outside the standard day diurnal cycle is hard. Maybe I just find those hours lonely and wany to share it.
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Sleep’s ellusion
That first step
Getting into bed
So comfortable but
My mind draws me out instead
Won’t simply rest
Reminding me that sleep
Might as well be dead
But life has its moments
Those times when extreme comfort combine
With anxiety
Talking about having to go to work
To interact
And my brain
Instead of the sleep I know will help
Instead throws out these things like reading
Like playing games
Like taking apart my fan to clean the motor
All to keep the anxiety at bay
Worst coping mechanism
It causes me harm to follow its prescribed treatment
So why am I still awake
Instead of drifting
Can’t sleep when tomorrows just a few hours
I miss the days when I knew that by waking up and going to work I’d be with someone I loved
Not because I miss the relationship
But that balm of sleeping, in a rush to get to the next day
I miss that
Instead
I have tomorrow
Another day without succor
Another day without you
Pelgris 