gigawatt

i dreamed my finger landed on cookeville, tennessee.
"this is where i'm going," i said, dragging the syllables through the thick of disappointment.
"i don't know where that's at."
"consider yourself lucky."
"why are you going there?"
"because i have to."
"because why?"
"because that's where the finger landed."
he paused and studied the globe, the great decider resting reluctantly still on my new found destiny. i watched him as he placed his tiny hand upon the deep blues and dark greens, tracing the lines of the rolling mountains with such precision, a skill uncommonly familiar to this three-year old soul, like some master craftsman creating and molding a fine piece of art, or even something more magnificent, something beyond this young child's imagination, infinite and pure as it may be.

dear fran,

you were right. this isn't going to work. why i thought it might, shit, i really don't know. i mean, it seemed to be a good idea, in theory at least. right? it was simple enough. but i don't know. i'm just tired i guess. tired of trying to come up with different ways, different answers, different...

i woke up this morning and there was a rat in my bed. a goddamn rat under my goddamn sheets with me. what kind of shit is that? well, it was the last kind of shit i'll tell you that much.

you understand right? it was doomed from the onset. i see that now. but what does it matter, right? i mean, somewhere someone is sitting down and writing or typing or whatever the fuck, painting, these same exact words in some same exact self-deprecating, fucked up tone like what the fuck is so wrong with my life? right?

kip says not to send this letter. but that asshole took my last beer so screw him. the fuck does he know anyway, right? so...well, heh. adios then.

-den


i read a line in a book today. something to the effect of the best love letters being encoded for the one and not the many. something like that. you think that's true? but what if you don't know that it's meant for you?

varnish

i started five lines and then stopped, then took an eraser to them a moment later started again, this time only four, and again i took up that eraser.
we stopped believing
in all things
in man
in brother
in neighbor
these were the unwritten words. four more, as i had mentioned.
paul abbott stopped believing in god.
he recalled his initial feelings in a
letter to his sister annette who was
backpacking through the swiss alps.
there was a lack of rhythm, i thought. or maybe just a lack of emotion. so again to the paper i took.
the sun came out today.
for that i am thankful.
as i write this there is
if your mother could see you now what would she say? there she is on the porch, sitting in the wooden rocking chair your father built for her years before. he had sanded it down and gave it a varnish finish. it fades now in the morning sunlight but that doesn't stop your mother from using it. she loves that chair, just like she loved your father. but your father was a man tempted, wasn't he. you remember. the whole god damn block certainly remembers.
she was never that way.
none of it was ever that way.
none of it was ever true.
it was all just a
dream.
what does it feel like to dream of fear? in your worst nightmares are you dying? is something terribly, terribly awful happening to you? to your family? to your friends? is that the fear you feel? or is it a different kind? we'll see in the end that there is no end at all. a far more dreadful fear? a fear of the end? a fear of there not being an end? does it haunt you to know there is none? do you dream in truth? is that the fear far too horrible to dream?
we see you
in.
the.
ground.
six
feet
below
your family

is
not
there.
with you.
in the ground.

superball

at first i didn't really know what it was i was looking for. but i had this feeling, this urge to find it, something!, but what? it was strong, too, the urge i mean. like a powerful, invisible force that came from nowhere and forced me to look. to just look. so i started looking. i began under my bed. i pulled out everything from beneath that rickety, worn-down twin frame, an old pair of tennis shoes, the box for that old pair of tennis shoes which was actually one of those diorama-like constructions i think i remembered making back in the first grade. there was a man, small and brown and made of clay, sitting at a table made of popsicle sticks with a single candle on top and in the corner it looked like there may have been another clay figure, i couldn't tell, only guess by the two, faded oil spots across from the man and the candle. this isn't what i'm looking for though, i thought. i don't know why i thought that. how could i have known! but it didn't feel right, that much was certain. so i kept looking. an old binder filled with baseball cards, a superball, a couple stranded socks. i pulled out everything, but what i was looking for wasn't there. dammit. but i couldn't stop. there was a nudge, a soft, little push, forcing me to continue. keep looking. why? because you have to find it. okay, so i kept trying. i don't know why. i really don't know why...(i really hope to finish this one)

balls

aaron fucked up once. fucked up real good. never really was the kind of person to go and do stupid shit and get himself into a situation, but i guess they do say 'go big or go home' right? the perfect summation to a terrible experience. it's funny to think about now, for me at least, looking back on it as the two of us split another pitcher. never the hard stuff, he always says. and then what does he go and do? you guessed it.
no, this time i mean it, don't let me fucking do it again, he says. sure, i say as i watch him suck down the last of another beer. i know it won't last and next time we'll be sitting here looking back on something that hopefully doesn't involve aaron in another police car. well 'wish in one hand and shit in the other' right? that's another thing they do say. come to think of it i never really explained what in the sphincter hell actually happened to him.
it started with a shot, that much was certain, although it could have started much sooner than that. of that i'm not really sure. could of started weeks earlier come to think of it. shit, well anyway, for me and him and that night it started with a shot. aaron's situation was straightforward, really nothing much to it, just enjoying the life. but one can only do so much, you know, before it all comes crashing back down. 'burning the candle at both ends' well there's another fucking thing (speaking of which, i always found it a bit condescending to always be using the same goddamn cliches all the goddamn time. patronizing assholes. but then i realized, well shit, they're cliches because it always happens! obviously. can't begin to tell you how long it took me to come to that realization but fuck me if i don't use them all the time now. and balls to the people who think otherwise. sorry, something of a sidenote) sums up perfectly what aaron got himself into that night.