No Other Way.

Sometimes all I need is to know that there's someone in this piss-pot world who is genuine. -That being said, I'm selling my bed and pitching a tent-in-room, complete with sleeping bag.

To Exist Without Circumstance

I try to control my emotions. I feel like it's the one thing that I can have some control over in this messed up, confusing, backwards world. Every so often I feel my emotions gaining on me, waiting to get the best of me. heavy weight on my chest, my feeble heart pumping away under the pressure. can't breathe.

My brother died. I watched him twitch and fight to stay alive. I watched my parents cry the saddest tears I've ever seen. I heard him gasp and choke for air. I saw his heart stop, then his body twitch as he gasped for air, and his heart continued fighting. I saw the muscles in his neck strain and then relax as he parted his lips and took his last breathe. I watched the pulse in his neck fade away, hoping it would start again like before.

I remember playing outside until the we heard our mother calling us from the house, and choosing to ignore her for one more game of manhunt. I remember hours upon hours of matchbox cars and action figures. I remember cooking for my brother and his stoner friends. Rides to school. Fighting, fighting, fighting. I remember sharing secrets, listening to him tell me how he lost his virginity and how it wasn't as cool as it was supposed to be. Being begged to join him and drink to celebrate his young eighteen years. Fighting. Laughing, laughing. I remember a brother who loved life, and lived every moment of it.

I lost my brother, but I lost much.much.more.

I'm in a DC airport, after two nights of drinking and fun, eating a blueberry muffin, making sure not to miss a crumb. enjoying the sticky wetness of the blueberries in my mouth. waiting. my brother is in a cold hospital room in Rhode Island, being read his last rights. "If he couldn't ride his four-wheeler, he wouldn't want to live," is the reason for no life support.

Everywhere for Nothing.

I spoke with the USMC boy, he said that I've always been right, about him, us, the world. His anger management counselor showed him a power-point, the visualization helped more in just a few moments than I was able to get through to him in over a year. utter failure. I told him I'm, "okay." and, I am.

I'm turning into the person I used to be. happy, excited for life, friends and family. I'm the guy who meets his friends for a two-hour-coffee-talk about nothing at all, except that the world is a cesspool and we're trying to wade our way through it all, without slipping and being submerged.

I don't know if I'm just socially awkward, or socially handicapped in a much more serious way.. but, I'm enjoying life and all of the embarressing, heart-crushingly awkward moments along the way. Maybe it has to do with my blindness of pop culture. Maybe it's that I'm too self-absorbed to look and see what the rest of the world is doing for fun. But, I guess I've never been partial to spending more time picking out clothes than eating, and I'll never be fond of stabbings, shootings, or rapings.

On a bus to nowhere, meeting a boy for pitas and Matt White. It's Thursday. I'm not going to classes tomorrow, because I'm spending my night in a room where I'm told I may be peed on, also because I decided that $52 and 12 hours of travelling time is worth good company and a better party in Virginia. I almost don't recognize myself, I have a life. This is college.

unjustified disappointment.

Maybe I'm jealous that people can live life with such little regard for anyone else. I want to not care. I want to be apathetic and fuck and lust and not think. I'm disappointed, and it's not justified. I brought this upon myself.

The thought that someone would lie to me.. It's almost maddening. Is there some quality about me that makes people think that it's okay to lie to me? Is it the chewed at hangnails that make me not worthy of truth? Maybe it's the way I wear my hair, or that I'm underweight and can't help it no matter how much I eat.

I have toes that get so cold they burn. Knees I don't think to wash behind every time I shower. I'm self-conscience about every hair on my body. Cheeks that have had the softest, saddest tears roll so slowly down them that I couldn't help but to gasp without breath. I'm human, just like you. Why do I deserve to be lied to?