You in White Mask

You've been typing, recording behind my back for my entire life, but it's all wrong, this room is all wrong. The upside-down lampshade, that black light bulbs, your collection of African masks on the walls. I've never told you before but they've always given me nightmares. I close my eyes on my bed, falling asleep to your endless typing, and I fall into the jungle; beast trampeed along in the night and I can't see them, all the bushes move but there's no wind, and everything is screaming everywhere and I'm safe no where, not even in the coffin that is my bed, my coffin. (Your thoughts have always buried me.)

Maybe that's it, though. I'm not sure; everything like fireflies buzzing in the air. Off, on, off, on, somewhat on time but never perfect. And you, somewhere off in there, off into that night air, underneath the trees of our planet. The truth is I've never had you, that I'll never have you. Is that the way it's suppose to be? Me to sit here and wait every time. The closest I'll get to you is my last breath, as my soul floats through yours on it's way up stream, if I die before you.

And that's it, the end, it's always cut and dry like that, isn't it? How did your book end? Was it happy?

I don't think so, you're too cynical for that.

But who knows, I don't, we don't. I'll never get you and I know that.

I just can't help it sometimes is all. I hope it's a happy ending. I remember when we were younger you'd show me something and the images would bloom in my head like a lotus, and we were both so divine like mud, like dirt. We understood and the sky was just a blanket of hope draped over nothingness. It was our cloud and it followed us wherever we went. What happened? Does time pass so quickly, and do you mimic time? I don't know.

If you can't take down all the masks, at least take down the white one. It stares at me when I sleep at night and glows with it's own light.

Dear MLCCTS,

I'm dreadfully afraid that I'll never really reach it. (I watched it again last night; it sank back into the horizon, melted into it like some jewel into liquid metal. And what could I do about it? What could any of you do about it? Reach in and scorch your fingers? You know it and I know it, I'm not pompous enough to reach in and know that I won't be burned, I've lost the edge and it's not coming back. My fear kept me far away from that tangy blue spark out there, again.) I see everything, everything and it's so developed, flowing so seamlessly, so easily out of mouths, fingers, teeth, arms and limbs and all of it; and it splashes out like a kid into the waves of the shore, screaming and laughing in some state of pure bliss.

When will my parents take me out to the beach? (And maybe that's it, that is it. It's some where to walk to.)

For now I'll just stare at all the leaves around me and remember to not think about the pain I cause them when I walk indoors and consume.

All the beautiful people, all of the art and poetry and literature, all locked inside of Dharma minds, in a constant state of stasis. I feel as though it's all been lost, even though I know it doesn't matter. Nothing does when you look at the sun, God damn it.

Somewhere in the Sky

We were cats and birds and we used to go into the sky and scrape the undersides of clouds that floated by seamlessly, endlessly, and it was that: endless, that is. Everything reached on forever and the clouds would billow up white and creamy and we'd just brush past on our wings; we were glided by the winds and the rays of light. And they'd all brush by, and they'd all fall apart at our touch, and they'd all fall apart and move away inch by inch into that endless teal.

The first few days were like liquid crystal melting over and over on the side of the shore; the sand would sparkle back at everything and it felt like i was some amusement in some crazy circus during the 17th century. The sky would be the fabric that was draped over my small holding cell, and it felt like that, some black piece of fabric over my head, closing me in and keeping me safe, or keeping me imprisoned. And the sun would be the little hole at the end, so I'd want to run into the sun and split it's golden membrane, let all the juices flow out of it and onto me. I'd want to run in it, swim in it and break free into the infinity of life.

I would watch it wash past my feet and they'd glow faintly underneath. Everything seemed like that, even the touch of her skin against mine. It all came back to it, it was as if I was putting my skin in liquid flames, in crimson paint that came with it's emotion, that came with it's own texture and feeling and temperature degree. I knew that it fit too well, it always fits too well and bursts out screaming like that. Each little brush a bombshell of goose-bumps breaking out along the pains of my arms. But the sun, the sun felt the same, it would always feel the same, because it was everything, all feeling that was around. that's how I knew it as, at least. It was the warm, warm sand and it was it's feeling too, for making it warm, for making its shape with it's glitter.

I never knew how to fly until then, but then I knew it; it was the crisp in the air, the way it crinkled and shrink-wrapped your face, the wind and how it held you in place. It swirled like white wisps of cloud, and touched like spring water. Little tear drops from God floating in the air (and if they are tears, I hope that we keep making him cry, whether good or bad, so that the skies would water up like a newborn baby.) Just like that her face in the little, floating rain, just a flash and the way the light bounced off. We were in the fog, stuck in the thick fog and the ground felt cool like water.

I knew she'd never hear it, but still.

5 Years Later

I'd watch the sunrise over the houses in my block; when I missed it I'd be depressed for the entire day. And, when I was small, my parents used to say that my name was related to the Egyptian Sun God, Ra. Though, at this point I know that there isn't anything interesting about my name: Melvin. I always blamed it all on it all just being a habit. I was a creature of habit.

Everything would walk through the sun too, heat waves like light rays changing everyones color, and they'd just walk on through this fog of light onto the destination, changing colors in waves. But they weren't colorful, just darker, lighter, dimmer, or more vivid. I never knew why, but it's make them all look like golden gods walking underneath the sky, holding it up with all of their golden breaths. That's how I'd see the world, and it was, one larger poof of breath as the human civilization keeps breathing along. We were nothing but the products of the skies.

But on that day, everything was light and dimmer, like we were all in a pure, almost blue light. We all walked across the stage too; everyones clapping sent the waves rushing on through, wildly, uncontrolled or tamed. Then everything was dark for the rest of the night with little piecing dots of white, like the brightest stars in the darkest night. (They were like bullet-shots into my pupils.) I didn't know why, but it was the beginning. I knew that, eventually, the sun would rip through and set my soul on fire.

My soul was on fire.

(Larks and Such)

(I used to cry at how beautiful they all were; the sounds and the words and the images and the way that they would twine reality with their fingers, weave it into something that sparkled in my mind like a ruby or an emerald or a sapphire jewel. And I'd crawl on the ground of my mind trying to get near it, trying to emulate it, each fabrication a chunk of rock in comparison. My tongue would quiver in every wrong direction, my words ill and deformed, my fingers shaking uncontrollably as I tried to grasp at the dark nothingness and change it into a robe, a crown, or a ring. Everything would crumble, and I'd be left with nothing but the whispers of everything around me that gleamed.

One day I made a wooden pot, and understood it all.)

Sometimes we wake up from our dreams and can't even remember them. It's like losing a life and not even knowing it, several times a night. If waking up were death, we'd all be content.

Leaves and Soda Bottles

"Sometimes, I just think that there's a face underneath all the dirt on the ground, sitting there with it's face up, and we're walking all over it. It listens to every word we say and feels every step we take. Or maybe hidden behind the bushes, or the ferns. Maybe it moves around, I dunno, I just feel as though everything that comes out of my head no longer belongs to me but everyone, and that face.. Even if no one is around, that face knows my idea, my thought, my emotion when it comes out of my mouth or my eyes or my fingers." I didn't know how else to say it then. I had always had a problem telling things that were actually in me; I'd rather be discrete about it to the point where my idea isn't even there anymore, but rather just some small sentence followed by an invisible asterisk inside of the idea I'm pouring out. I kicked my feet and looked up into the sky; the wind rushed by and all the leaves shivered.

"I get that a lot." At least is was something, I thought. But she didn't matter anymore, not as much, I wouldn't let her words matter so much. I stared at the clouds; they billowed high into the sky like white mountains, slowly creeping along the face of the sky. "I end up keeping a lot of things inside of me. Sorry if I don't talk about them much, I guess I'd just rather listen to what you're thinking." I still didn't look at her. The wind blew again. "Gabe?" I blew out and looked at her for a moment.

"I'm gonna go check something out, I'll be right back." I said and jumped off of the log. She followed suit.

"Why can't I come?" She asked. I turned around and smiled at her.

"I'm going to a place where you have to be naked." And then I ran off, just like that. I knew that she wouldn't run after me; we've too much pride to bother with each other. Maybe it would always be like that, but either way, I had to speak to the trees about my ideas, the ideas that she wouldn't bother to acknowledge. After awhile of running I just stared at my feet; just blurs on the ground, leaves flying up behind me. I felt like I was running on two, small needles, just floating over the ground. And everything else was just a green and yellow blur until I felt safe and far away. I stopped running and walked off the path, trotted through thickets of vines and branches until I reached a clearing of fallen palm trees. The sun shimmered off of a small pool of water from the last rain.

I went and climbed on of the palm trees, then climbed onto another one that had fallen on top of it and ran up into another, which was higher up and more horizontal. Once there I sat down, away from the mosquitoes. They buzzed silently down below and the wind rustled the leaves again. I closed my eyes and pretended that none of it was there, then tried rebuilding it in my head.

I made the ground a waxy yellow, and the trees were just shafts of quartz with little diamond leaves that sent rainbows flying everywhere when the sun hit them. And the air tasted like an bottle of orange soda. The temporary pond was it's face, and it blinked.

"Heh."

She Left Traces

Miranda would call out at night for us all, her voice rippling across the clouds of out sky. I remember that everyone would come out of their holes, out into the dim light of the morning. That morning the clouds were pure black, like an evil God, or a group of them, clustered together. Behind the clouds, in the patches where they were lighter, light shined from behind, amber. They were toxic, but we were being called out, and had to meet the voice. (The wind was rustling everything, creating a torrent of white noise around us all as her voice walked through like a knife.)

My parents were the first ones to leave our block; everyone still had the lights out when her voice came, and no one bothered to turn them on in the first place. It was thought that this would be quick, that we would come out, listen, and walk back in. So, they went out, and I followed close behind. There were a lot of heads coming towards us, just silhouettes of human figures that drifted closer and closer like phantoms. Somewhere in the midst a baby was crying, several of them, I thought. But no one would say anything and it was killing me; my mother and father wouldn't even say a word. It was as if, when Miranda sang, she took everyone's voice away with her own.

We all gathered into a clearing in around our block and several others. The grass was still moist with dew, and the air wavered strongly, wet with humidity. Everyone stood there for awhile, waiting to see her some where in the clouds, but she never came. We stood there for about an hour as her voice came closer and closer to us, but eventually it started fading away again. Everyone went back inside after all that waiting, back to sleep. But I stayed up that time; the rain came soon afterward, sizzling as it hit my window. It was so dark outside, but lighter than my room. The raindrops would flash gold as they hit my window, like weak sparks.

I sighed a million times before she called us all again.

Dear Mr. Stillwaters,

The clouds separate into different faces, some gleaming with smiles and frowns, and they merge into each other, like a big white blood clot in the sky. Tomorrow, like seeds in the drainpipe of your bathroom sink, stuck in between the porcelain and the drain, little green heads coming out from between the cracks, teeth gleaming like green veins.

She always told me not to worry what people thought; the way they look you up and down before smiling. She would pat my head and tell me that it's alright, sticks and stones and all that jazz. I'd look at my feet and agree and all as if her head was the sun at noon on the playground when the sand would go flying up into the air as rushing feet hit the sand. They glitter in the air like little crystals, I used to think. I'd collect the clear ones and build a city of them, separated from all of the others so that they could gleam in the sun like diamonds. They'd rush out, feet kicking, and all my sand would go flying, into the cracks in the gravel, the cement, the dirt and the grass.

We'd watch the grass grow over the years under the soles of our feet and the dogs still barked across on the other lot; black with brown jaws and big teeth with spit glittering off into the space in front of them as they growled at us. The soccer ball would shoot over our heads and the bees in the pine trees came and went after getting a few of us; big red welts on our arms and legs from poking their nest and getting in trouble for it all. I'd catch a yellow-jacket and make it my pet, show myself how it would stay in it's cage because it liked it there. But the first time I showed anyone else it flew out and up into the sky.

(Sometimes I would wake up at night and all the men wandering around, lost in bees and dust from the ground behind the trees watching us from behind face masks, their faces were gone, their faces were gone and they wouldn't speak or make sound, but you could see them when you look closely; they would watch you and move about.)

(One night he came in my sleep, in my dreams, and told me to take photo's of our house, so I did, but when I took the picture of the portrait of his sister, she came out and touched my face, the white hat on her head falling off and her red ribbon wrapped around her neck, making her hair hug her face, forlorn with despair. I tried to run away but she was holding my shirt.)

I opened up and all the raccoons ran into my gut.