1989

NOTES OF A 18YO IN THE AIR FORCE

refusing to believe that we are always at war,

somewhere, too small, too out of sight,

others refusing to believe theres ever chance for peace,

too long, too disruptive to their lifestyle,

the rest who shoot anything which moves,

and none of which i can agree on their motives,

too left, too right,

and me, too neutral.

im half a man, depending on your side,

but always half to both parties,

never whole to anyone, never enough traction,

never enough acceptance, refusing to accept a hand halfway,

they rob themselves by pushing me, no is wrong, yes is wrong,

shake my head and repeat, forget the locks on my door, open my target,

the isolated man with only windows to escape.

we work so hard, so little progression, for internally

we work apart any chance of growth, the magic of individuals

deep within they smoulder, destroyed by the competitions

of school, of work, all becomes only products and prices.

my size and estimations, always in between,

never answers for my head to lock in, always smaller doors, my life,

sitting in the midst of other humans yet not living, i retreat

from the conflict, and resolve to only use questions

to mark my days on earth.

i do not believe in the markings of years, nor place trust in times honest face,

every year i feel no day older, for my age i measure with lists

of all that i have not done yet.

in one day i can be born many moments over,

and all nights which lie ahead, i strike into them with firm pressure,

propping them up for the coming mornings tracks. i will take my meanings

and apply them to the experiences which gather at my feet,

and weeks will pass from liquid to gas, from the exact moment

to the distortion which stretches out

to the memory which rose up, and force feed my daily dreams

in the nights sore throat.

the struggle of growing up, to achieve satisfactions by routing the shortest way,

not the most scenic, but direct routes with most of the potholes,

driving by the brightest billboards, aiming for the shiniest horizons,

if there truly was a painless way to happiness, id be in that direction now,

not here with you, pushing each other aside, keeping up but never ahead,

for fear moving to satisfaction means moving away, apart,

so you tug at me by the seat of the soul, complaining of compassions,

and tucking weights in my back pockets, keys of only your acceptance,

which drives us on together without the need for a map, just habits,

just quick fixes, so we are together and i am never closer to me.

im taking a trip without luggage, my mind to a soft spot,

when night gives way to a morning of infinities,

coffee grinds fade to black photos and ballpoint pen,

once again i will figure the whole world out in hours,

only to be forgotten again when sleep caves in,

the goosebumps on the curtains, dusting myself off

before diving back, unknown between minutes, i trust myself

when taking flight devoid of direction and time, emptied

of expectations and senses.

just a record, some small noting, but i wont, i cant.

the temptation of paper is always somewhere,

just within eyesight but not armstretch.

yes, it is my choice whether i pick up that pen,

straighten those papers in private hours,

and mold the running record of my lifes daily insignificance.

some way to measure myself at the age of 19,

it seems each year compounds without catching up,

i am seeing how little people tend to care about others,

social wax which forms one homogenous 'human' forms,

a bristling static-filled charge, each day i walk along the halls,

bumping into shoulders which scrape by as dry husks,

my words not awakening in them any sense of human recognition,

my inner growth challenged by the perpetual breaking down,

this line of robots stretched out before me, for brief moments

i feel fearfully happy, and have confidence, that this time

should be spent looking within, while pain goes on in the yard,

let them tear at this meat while i settle within too deep to dig,

ill use microscopes and telescopes to keep looking elsewhere.

i am pounced upon like we are in some king-of-the-hill wrestling,

and the further i go to greet them, to see them eye to eye,

the more they are aggravated as if im irritating them more

by not taking the bait they put out to provoke negative reactions,

a cautious collection of a man; the boy, the spirit, the broken,

all within trying to protect my semblance of some personality.

darkness on its belly, down the halls slithering, the start

of my 12th week in the military, missing everything i had hoped

could be a possbility, the undecided fate handed over to blind men,

my singular bundle of 'past memories', my burnt bulbs,

my broken projectors, my unreeled footage, all stripped and silent,

with this wreckage they hope to reconstruct a plot of their own,

my years 19 to 23 to have never existed as a exercise of free will,

only a season of servitude to angry men cursing foreigners

theyve never met.

i wanted to believe in you so bad, i almost told you,

whispering in your ear, and you knew it, always leaning my way,

in wideeyed darkness, in candleslight, in starshine, in my mouth,

nocturnal fears took root and froze me. sometimes we grew so close,

and it scared me, so i sneaked off and you crept up every time,

now look how we turned out, halfway around the world, you the free,

i, a faceless tasteless government student,

distance bringing more regrets, less memories, lonely for a homeland,

the photos, the postcards, no warm hands in my cold pocket,

no control after losing your friendship,

the lost magnetism of positive influence.

too busy thinking, so much so that the moment is wasted,

another minute i blew, taken away by mere mortal thoughts,

is there a drug for too much thought, should i be acting out

my intentions instead of developing new inventions

to act on behalf of me? time is too short to ponder

any one question too long, no rush for absolutes,

let them pursue me instead. formulas based on experience,

it seems the equations i know add up too well,

and i keep denying this all adds up to my life.

i have forgotten the taste of laughter,

i live a tranquilized state cycle each 24 hours,

i bite my tongue so that my words are not heard,

i babble to god and hold my breath,

i wring my hands and salt falls forth,

i suffer the sin of having slaughtered my choices,

aborted my imagination, torched all my ideas,

the indvidual of self-support has been sold

all for this fortress on the hill.

a world of muted colors,

they hold typed papers which prove they own my birthright,

my copyright, but i am free to roam the grounds on weekends,

though i must carry my chain, and polish my ball.

the branding iron comes twice a day,

searing the parts of my mind which serve the meat they crave,

i am not as mallable as the pain i seem to not perceive,

and the child of me now runs so deep

that i am scared he might get lost out there.

puppet down on broken strings, doing repetitive tricks to be fed,

a dog rolling over for the stale bone, wishing he could just bury it

before it gets pulled from his jaw again.

an addiction to persevere, hooked on life,

performing in front of a chalkboard for some shelter at night,

smiling while in the tight grip harsh hands.

they prefer to see me in pain, yes, they want to participate

crumbling my down to my knees,

theyd prefer if i died inside, but still saved the shell for them,

this snowglobe of suffering, shaken, how much more i can strain

hiding the tears for the nights blindness

where they escape like loosened chains, i do not understand

how someone i do not know could treat me with such anger

for no reason nor effect.

oh how i hate the words. teasing me to fantasize options beyond their strength, wanting to solidify my malleable, thin thoughts into the written brunt of words, but coming through as a final product so weak so empty. much easier would it be to just have them attach the hose, suck my ideas out onto the plate, silently, for everyone to poke their forks at and exchange glances. there is the wish in me, to have others know my expressions are harmless, and the reasons behind my reactions, i dont feel that there is any tarnish in my daily thoughts, or reason to hide behind masks or excuses. the existence, a pure energy harnessed by the thinnest of flesh which wounds so easily, the complexities which ball up around each other, spiralling, moving, yet nowhere to go, the nucleus of nothingness, the roadmap behind my eyes.

this burning feeling, the wanting, for as far as my inner soles travel there will never be a footrest or fountain upon the path, it is forever uphill, forced forward by a gush of information no pitcher could contain. my ideas never silent, set me ablaze, a madman running around, pointing to the tongue, looking for the girl to call water. i am my own best victim, poking myself for reasons of a pointed existence, far off the common path with paper and pen to hammer away at this shell i cannot crawl out from, the gases seeping from my form, at my peak, the heights of confusion, too thin air, no room to stretch out, so easy to explain the flaws of others, yet so hard to define the reasons of my own, the habits of too little charity, too much forgranted, the search for a superior power to call home, the wild call of ego.

i work on my wounds privately, experimenting with them publicly, my own immunity worked apart from the inside, as my walls fall, my curtain rises, the skin of a boy now worn like a loose josephs coat onstage. in one month i will have lifes guillotine come down on me as i will be going into the air force. for now, sitting here, on my floor in the midnight hours, at 18, nerves hopping about, the notion that man uses 10 percent of his brain, but the rest of the portion i believe is to be used in meditations, and speak up without speaking, our light doesnt quite make out the motions but we can always pray within the darkest shadows and unused recesses. sometimes i get

the hints, the fragments of sentences, as my lifes novel is being read aloud through a crystalline stream, random parts in sharp places, never a chance to sort them in some preplanned order, the quiet rippling of indexes within fingers, no coherency, the predictions of the past and the histories of the future, all here now, the continuity of disorder contained within one mind.

a puzzle would not be worth solving if it arrived complete, the length of attention barely counts in the complete picture, meditations on parts where disjointed pieces of our lives hang on to each other with fear of being forgotten, the glue of god which fills the cracks. most people need just the facts for their little corner of the world, only the length of their job is as far as their arms can reach, but i prefer to know the whole line, the complete ocean, the steps before and after my own actions are done with a task. my curiousities want to finish every line, to complete its own circle. i allow every answer to remain open ended, branching out to other possibilities, to dig without measurements the discoveries of consciousness, to breed good intents, for a good answer doesnt end a question as much as it spreads the spores of existence even more, the mathmatics, the watercolors, the inevitability of being deemed wrong or right in any resolution, once the solution is found i dearly miss the questions.

in the art of ideas, formulas begin with answers and work back to the questions, the tug and push and pull and twists of both the logic half and the creative half, both working in their own ordained directions, and meeting in the middle is each man, and how he defines his own formula, his own direction for life, because of the divides within him. i need to get a brownie and some water, that broke my train of thought, ill just start babbling of something else now, ive been wanting to write for months but have put it off, i stopped writing about 5 months ago because i felt it cheapened my thoughts to see fireworks expressed only with fuses, i felt the failure of the paintings i trailed out onto papers, i have tried, to live without words, but its hard to have emotions escalate without giving them traction, one cannot move ahead in emotions by mere thought alone, they must be played out and practiced with the rest of the world.

rising in the stomach, well hidden, every event with negativity rubs against nerves, so i break down and begin writing again for another season, and ill do so in large quantity, with little of quality, for can you really push both the quantity and the quality in any aspect of life. if you make sure you get things right youll not be as fast as someone whos just pushing it out as fast as they can pass things off, and the objective of quantity is considered efficient, and is well rewarded, but it may really not be so good for the community in the end result, for its the quality worker who spends those extra minutes making sure its a product of quality, but he is not the one whos getting the end of week bonus for being as productive. it is only in the slogan that everyone claims quality in their output/product, yet behind the scenes they work towards getting the most quantity for the littlest cost and smallest chip of time. the only thing in quantity i could ever wish for is time. i aim for long amounts of time to meditate, gaining hours to flesh out one-dimensional ideas into four dimensional spheres of influence, bringing the popup books within me to the life around me. if i had less than an hour of free time a day, with that little time, i would spend half of it just unwinding and then the remaining 30 minutes anxious about what little quantity of time i had; it would be hard to make quality of it. i would spend my limited quantity of time stressing about how i dont have more time to create more quality. and thus the anxiety cycle begins.

time is usually spent dwelling on how little time we actually have, and by theory we should then make better quality use of that time. my nose is sore from blowing it so much. ive been out of school for a year now, i certainly dont know where that time went, i cannot trace it back to a physical entity nor event. i have no way to tighten the neck of the hourglass, we only hold our own timepieces, shaking them, reversing them, trying to slow them down, if only the sands could be mixed with concrete, if just for one day. how frustrating to write about. beginning and end, born and die, our bookends, you get the freedom to fill in the blanks with all the chapters and punctuations of your choosing, there is no event you cannot walk away from unless you are imprisoned by wrong faiths or forces. most people take time talking about how empty their books are, or complaining about the contents of other peoples chapters, or the errors of others grammatics, or they plagarize others. some have no internal sense of direction, and must have everything written in by others like a guestbook, they require ruled lines in their life because they cannot manage how to come up with their own moral compass and write straight across the pages. they become dependant on rules, they lose the concept of quality versus quantity, and following others becomes an addiction they call career or religion or styles. copying someone elses book when you cant fill in your own, its the reason and excuse for everything you accomplish or fail to. the addiction forms when you have so many rules set before you, you fail to even try to fill in the smallest blanks, and then you need even more rules, and more authorities, and more schooling; you simple cannot connect the dots in your own life.

tv is distracting me, it always does, its always on day and night, i feel as though i just ran a mental mile on my fingers, its 255 in the morning on saturday. i want to watch old cartoons in the morning, but my parents and i are going to my grandparents in tampa. i miss the scoobydoos and flintstones and real handdrawn stuff, now its all computer generated or quickly drawn up, with loud soundtracks, with violence or one group against some other group. i just want harmless goofiness and prerecorded laugh tracks.

i wonder what it means to throw a punch, i dont know and hope to never know. in school, during lunch, you always knew when a fight was brewing, there would be the basic prodding and circiling, then the louder insults and moving in closer, then the in-your-face babbling and the reddening of faces, then finally when there was enough of a crowd, the first shove finally came like a kiss, which would immediately start the crowd yelling and a then the mix of fists and kicks, as everyone watched in their own throes of this climax. ugh. gross. my body is wanting to sleep, but my mind fends it off, it does not want another day to end. i feel just 'here' just floating in my room, i like when i reach that state of not feeling guilty for the necessity to be doing something productive. actually for the past 8 months now i have let time slide by without too much hard work, this year of 1989 might just pass without any positive side-effects, except for the fact ive had alot of hours and nights to reflect, to think things through, to talk on the phone to friends, and even see one friend once a month when i find a way to leave the house (being so far from the city). so here i sit day after day, attempting to be self-smart and self-sharpened by lots of reading and lots of my computer connecting to other ones just to comb through their files, like reaching into someones window to grab some books then sneak them back.

i dont want to be centered around being just booksmart or being just streetsmart, of which im neither anyways. i dont like booksmart people in the fact that they live a live based on other peoples facts and experiences, they perform tricks like mice in the caged cubicles, then getting their treats and going back into the cedar shavings called home. i think my hyperactivity prevented me from turning to booksmart, because once having read something i still had to continue the ideas within, i still had to pursue my own measurements and studies both externally and internally, and find me balanced between both places. oh i could easily spend another third of my life, going into college, continuing the classrooms under someones teachings, but i dont mind starting this life and its lessons from scratch myself. we live and die alone, so learning alone shouldnt be too much off course, and only i know the direction of my interests, and what i want to learn, and how my knowledge branches out with its own directives.

as far as being street smart, well to me that just means protecting 'me', looking out for 'me', fending for 'me' and making sure 'me' gets the better end of any deal. i dont even want to fall into that scene, id rather just leave the game than play the game, i dont want competition just cooperation, ill find the world thats right for me at some point. i dont mind being kicked around by others until then, if im hurt by a place or a person, well, i just wont go there again, why bother learning the 'lessons' of fighting and fending and trying to cope with frictions, what a waste of precious life. ill show a vulnerability around females, it gives them a chance to drop their own defenses since men tend to be the aggressors, and i dont have the strength nor talent to target anyone anyhow. i dont mind keeping a sense of naivity about me, even if i know something inside and outside ill still listen to someone talking about the subject, for in doing so i find a safe position from that persons perspective, that im not looking to outdo them or cut them off, and perhaps after they peak i can find something to share, some new concept about what they speak of. i sense that naitivity is good with females because they seem to want to know 'what' im thinking and how it relates to them, as opposed to 'why' im thinking what im thinking, and how it relates to the world. then comes their paranoia if i grow quiet. and i dont like when females expect me to take the lead, its very uncomfortable, i dont know the natural flow of the first steps in physical attraction, i dont know how many times i sat with a girl in a parked car for hours, us running out of words and them expecting some type of forward movement from me, sometimes even falling asleep in our seats, thats some uncomfortable shit. im not the one to try first and either way well it doesnt matter how the night ends.

ok now im way off track though with what i was writing about. ok i was talking about time, and talking about the two subdivisions of quantity and quality under which all we spend doing falls under. people who aim for the quantity of pleasures, the coming and going of which soon can numb because there is no 'processing' of the details, so only more and more quantities must be taken in to fulfill the desire of 'possess and possess again'. but with quality, by learning self control and respecting self disciplines, moderation itself becomes a form of 'reward', i feel infinite bliss awaits in understanding all is so short lived and precious, that is how we gain appreciations, the few drips of water seem so much more rewarding than the hose. we ourselves, are a living testimony to limited quantity, so why try to gain more than we can keep. the less we consume of a desire the more desirable it remains in our future.

large amounts of time spent on large amounts of pleasure only leads us to having gerbil-wheel cravings and over-masturbated expectations and antisocial habits and one-tracked minds. with quantities over qualities we also have to keep feeding them ever-more because we fear the 'coming down', the possible starvation, the empty bucket, which will only claim a life anyhow. our lifelong goals, everything we create, it is all a personal quest to remain balanced artfully atop the rainbow, carefully positioned upon a sun which hopefully never sets. but it will set, the rainbow will fade, the climax will collapse; this is what all the universe does, it builds, breaks down, and rebuilds, and none of us is the god which can reverse this direction. therefore we should find the high points in our expectations, the qualities of our progressions, and then discover what to do with our time between the few 'qualities', find how to dance in the moonlight until the sun rises again, and find peace with your lover until the next orgasm, find the thread to string together the ornaments which makes your life worth living.

life should be spent in bewilderment and happy meditations along the path, for the end point is death, the road we run so quickly down is our own demise, quantities will fall from our fingers, but qualities will remaing like well-placed gems. the rich man loses the qualities of time in trying to maintain his quantities, a moderate man does not mind keeping riches in the distance, always ahead of him, letting good fortunes trickle down to him, just enough that he can apprecaite and absorb the qualities which come to him in due time, a quantity which is always 'just enough', there is something in the smile of someone who knows they will always have 'just enough', and there is something in the eyes of those who have too much.

im writing this with a cross black pen, quite comfortable the way i awkwardly hold pens, otherwise i couldntve written all this at once. i hate small talk by the way, cliches and greetings with no meaning, when two people run through the hellos and howareyous without real lights on. dont feel indebted to fill me in with such things. and with that im going to sleep and talk to myself in dreams, as if i had sometime to actually listen to me. so good night.

all which i write and i speak, coating pages with todays wet temporary pains,

i cannot tell the ruled lines from my veins, self satisfaction must be taken

when noone claims you can make them feel good.

i always give them the chance,

the possibility that their lies are truths double underlining themselves,

i notice the shadows are more defining then the subject itself,

i find myself focusing where shadow meets subject,

that division where what they say is separate from what they do.

time to heal the wounds except ones self inflicted,

if time were a human beast which could help win our struggle,

each day i awake to gain composure over yesterday,

we make faces from the windows, we name colors for each mood,

does time take the man or man make the time, these numbers pinned down,

this passing, my futile grasping this idea of equality.

if i should turn my attention from time, would he leave from boredom,

would he let me go, could i rotate around ideas instead of evenings,

could i gather up love instead of hours,

just drifting without the weights of authority

which prods us with minutes like spears.

at night still the omniscent voice, layers upon layers,

the throat that begins in every rock-strewn creek, ends in every ocean,

from moon, from clouds, flare up to dissipate,

tomorrows world ending, always repeating, chills from skin

as the fleece is slowly pulled off the souls bare meat,

the bifocal vulnerability, the blind faith in nature,

the experience of the man i am is all i can ever hope to be,

so i listen to the flow, the babble, the whispers, and try

to paint a face on existence like using watercolors in a balloon.

chapter one completed, a step closer to what i dont know,

both ends winding their way through the pile,

i sat here waiting for sparks to arise in the center,

questions, thankfully, kept me away from boredoms worms.

all answers ive been given, i bite down upon,

trying to find nutrition, substance, even existence,

only more seeds pop out before i can swallow,

all these trees ripening around me, i reach, ready for an answer,

awaiting the day theres but one question left, that apple.

the first chapter, a reminder for all i forgot,

the loss of historical value, even this paper i bear down upon

bears no value after my passing,

only scratches of what these hands have held and released,

i keep rereading the first chapter, am i really getting anywhere with this life,

or does repetition does repetition does repetition

repetition does it, seem to be my best habit.

through beating and anguish i did remain standing,

a reward of smallest toy consolation, plastic pride,

shards of urethane human heart,

trying to make a man without melting himself, a blind man

holding the camera upside down, but whos to tell him,

each day a handful of slideshows, if i drop the photos

on the floor, they almost form the flow of movement,

and there lies chapter one, broken-boned video,

growing pains, growing into the knowledge

that i should be working for a passion, serving with sincerity,

as the ends burn their paths together, darkness will alight,

and i then have a hope to see my way out of this.

i regret i will not be able to live out days past my own death,

i regret there will be no dreams once i cannot awake,

i regret not knowing what wind will feel like on every autumn on earth,

this flower, this branch, and let them twirl into the stream.

the day comes when i will run out of words, of laughter, and

all of me is just some thoughts, some opinions, but not the fact

of experiencing this mystery pinwheeling between birth and death.

curtains flutter on another twilight, tv shadows castiron blue flicker,

in a cage i bounce repeatedly against the door, eggshell white,

lungs weakened, a nest of drooling sleep, angels flit by and give a breeze,

whispers past the edges of dreams, snowstorm of untuned stations,

counting down seven sharp for the sun to break my tissue,

tomorrow is sunday, so i dont have to jump into programming,

ill crawl the fence, feet pacing lessons,

ill return to fogged horizon of ungreased mind and bleached sheets,

ill sink back into lost meanings, the roadside of creative decay,

for in 12 hours the curtains will close again, then lift

upon the monday of blue soaked shirts and bat breath bearing down,

there must be god in the center of the mind,

in the midst of the deepest dreams, he must,

waiting for me secretly to find the true function i should be serving.

the one to seek is within the self, all facts all fancy

meld to one, and in perfect time you know the weight of the world,

it was only learning how to accept it, to hear it, to feel it,

the priviledge of the spirit to stop the body just in time and say

just who the hell am i?

the one to seek needs to start with self

and divide one thought, then split that thought, then run on and on

until you run short of thought, have come up empty handed,

and regain the crumbs to form a purpose.

to stumble is wholly fulfilling, to make mistakes is a religion,

this way of learning the ladder, to wipe the dust off knees and smile.

asking 'whatd you all think of that?', its all in trying

that keeps me living, just as the homeless man last night in dennys

who wandered in, turned to our table, said 'blind faith', then

walked back out the door.

friends, my choices got their fingers closed in the door this week,

to fight or stay, i am apprehensive, i hate decision making alone,

its hard to know what is right when i do not know whats wrong,

this career of living out other peoples fantasies, well,

my own dreams would work out just fine i think.

the script of four years, to read on or to back off,

and return possibly homeless, well, at least theres a life

on the road, at least there's horizons i can head in,

nothing would please me more than one friend telling me in person

thats its alright gary, but now all i count on, is my fingers.

from the walls with hearts which beat and flutter,

to the carasol carpets turning like clockworks,

from the stars up above the great balloon,

to the grains below clinging between toes.

i know the state of existence with or without the entity,

i know the state of this man, inhaling and twisting.

i smell chocolate, suddenly i taste chocolate,

then i am chocolate, percolating, bubbling under this tree,

writing on moonlight, the pulse of roots under me,

the soil of which i become, i am now done,

i crawl up in my sleeping bag and count stars as they dive

below the mountains far horizon.

dont take me to the bars tonight,

i dont feel to be greying under the meathouse lights,

the fierce competition of music and tongues, the licking and grazing,

the belligerent broken chimes, the steamy overcrowding,

a drunken chorusline, please drop me off on the way,

where theres no need to be an adult with dulled down senses,

the pickled generation, i cant find a reason within me

to enjoy these places where all drink it in.

two guards down the hall, rolling monopoly until 7am,

the same voice always wins, a shuffle of paper,

i hear the monday roster go up, the groans

of who does dishes, who does bathrooms, who does kitchens,

the dicipline actions are posted, the threats, warnings, and demeanors,

one guard gets a coke, i take over for those minutes, i sag in his chair,

a gun without bullets, the tv always on, the only sound and light

when the world sleeps all in their crates. two guards every evening,

everything sorted by time and numbers, then the souls to fill them both.

all synapses slapping around unstrung, frayed and dispersing,

a fuse that relights itself to blow again,

when doea madness sleep. in wet night air i walked to school

and laid on the lawn, staring at stars

till they burned trails in my eyes,

common fluids tear up, but they flow in and not down,

my cells, drowning in rations and reasons,

this random drip of reality, the certainty of uneven sleep.

i cant tell if im touching myself, or another layer of mortar,

i cant tell if i figured my environment, or im self-deluded,

i cant say ive held the hand of nirvana, my fingers too cold,

my smiles not as funny, my body not as young,

when i once held emotions i had much higher leaps of faith.

when my head stops spinning, when the world stands straight up,

everything focuses in with twice as much detail, and i cant tell

if i love myself too much or not enough.

he shifted in his seat uneasily, skin popping out all over,

if it werent for the acquirement of this window seat

his muscles would drop one by one to sleep,

his heart, a faint tap on a 1000 mile trail

of all the veins which tie his pains together.

it was not tolerance, it was dead patience,

feeding under his skin and pushing its way forth,

sometimes, without even knowing his eyes were closed,

hed cross the street, and awaken with the teacher

rapping at his desk, as imagination would beckon him

back to the roads with two free feet.

what was today, monday or june, did it matter,

for every day saw him there drifting by the window,

hoping for faint pearls of a breeze,

glasses slid to the tip of his nose,

eye with printless fingers for propping them on crutches,

the chill again, reality unstitched,

the seams revealing dreams, a break in the monotony,

frost inside the eyelids, a curse he cant quite pronounce,

blisters of the mind which itch, the smoke

of dry ice from the ears, the twist of influences,

the boy who slowly slips down the too-small wooden chair,

and the students watch, grim-lipped, with great expectation

so they can say they were there,

when he fell onto the floor and shattered like a stained glass heart.

their eyes thumbtacked to my head,

'we only need to keep in touch',

always in rooms with one-way mirrors,

where i examine myself as they reflect on me,

well im working, i promise,

and a voice tinpans out from a small speaker

'we find it necessary to realign your direction',

'we reiterate we must set the pace to your steps'.

well id try to amuse them had i sense of selfishness,

but ill amuse myself from depths within,

and allow them to persist in sticking buttons in my skin,

insist on keeping this body just enough afloat

to allow the mind to swim for them.

each time i pass a mirror, theres a new man reaching out from me,

we meet eye to eye, he gawks openly, an incomplete man,

with a notepad of the last minutes and final partings,

the awkward infant, knocking about with the vision

of an old man like marbles, each time i pass the mirror,

i try not to pry into this image which doesnt know my name.

our picnic day, this holiday we drive out to eat parsley and beans,

i found shade under an outpouring of cypress trees,

and only when squatting by its roots did i notice

a small broken hole barely enough to fit through,

i writhed in and found myself comletely within the hollow,

an embryo of wood, what a perfectly content place,

siphoning off the hollow voices of classmates,

the winds singing down the sides within, whistling, twisting,

the tri-chords of birds ringing from bouncing angles,

i could laugh in here for years and not know the day i stopped,

this brown womb of bliss how i wish

i could have you close and constrict around me,

just enough for a perfect fit so that i couldn't find myself free.

must restate on the walls of my head that memories wont push me ahead,

if i sit around feeding off past thoughts, i will only starve,

nothing new to be found in past spinning,

always a feeling of holding myself back, from what?

my music, my notes, my photos, repeating

'here is what was me, that none of you know'

no records, no stories, only bleached dreams spilled on the pillow,

the thievery in here-and-now, so sobering, so wondering,

the pain, the bliss, both flavored tears in my eye,

i, incarcerated by choice, knots of intelligence,

soldier of bad fortunes, i forget my role where i feel myself,

and now i mustn't look back, but follow forward as a disciple

of a dead heart hoping to find future faith.

my ears bleed onto my desk, cotton weaves its way out, im sorry

for those damn pests keep multiplying, may i retreat to the restroom

and work them back in again? my nose scratches till it starts to run,

but tissue breaks so easily, those bugs, you know how they grow.

my mouth chatters away, another dream of teeth breaking away,

like pebbles falling off driftwood, i see why you get upset,

but im working on it i swear.

give me a year, let me borrow time to patch some holes,

so my eyes wont drift on your time, trust me teacher, im mending,

im trying to fit into the tight system, mopping up inconsistencies

like sweeping sunshine out from dead grass.

as i stripped and lay by the pool,

the night glow, the breeze leaves, the trickle,

the edge of god, autumn breath, the absence of deaths fears,

the lip between air and water, the bubbling ease,

i sank slowly down below, released in a tightfitting peace,

the liquid heat, the open pores, the breath held,

which holds the lungs afloat, the flavor intensifies,

the thirst thickens, gods conversations take my attentions,

soul and self spinning in circles, to the green womb,

a baby arises in me like a prophet from his tomb.

my first day serving my country, falling asleep a little bloody and much shaken,

by midnight im sleeping, at 4am the alarm goes off and i curse at noone,

i clean my room and sweep and dust and mop and inspection in the mirror,

a military bedfold with all angles of life perfect, and at 440

i run down to try and find whats left in the breakfast line, but all that remains

are some cold toast pads and lemonade glasses with hardened crumbs on the rim.

at 501 i line up, one minute late and reprimanded, its 20f below

as i stand at attention, so quickly i feel nothing as the freeze

penetrates this florida boy whos not allowed to shiver. at 525

we march to school for a couple miles, everyone yells cadence songs over and over,

by 6 we're at the hangar, a bunch of metal flies which spit out sparks to destroy,

from 6 to 11am we all are trying our best to pay attention, those who doze

have to stand for the rest of the class. every 50 minutes we get 10 to break

which means 3 minutes to get downstairs, 4 minutes to gulp down soda and candy,

and 3 minutes to rush back up into orange poly chairs.

at noon we march to the mess-hall where we quietly eat,

then we march back to classes and at 245 we begin cleaning up the hangar,

at 330 we form up and march back to squadron, where we will polish boots

and showerheads, and then to attend an inspection with ironed uniforms

and shaved faces and not one stray hair or thread, and then the instructor

has us all outside, and, at least for today, while standing right in front of me,

he lectures everyone of how a 'certain airman' wishes to leave the service,

and how thats a bad choice because a 'certain airman' will only return home

to flip burgers at an underwage job, and how lucky we are to even have this chance.

then he reminds everyone who has to stand at attention for these 45 minutes

that if it werent for this 'certain airman' they wouldn't be doing this right now,

then its straight to physical training at 430, running 3 miles in subfreezing dry air,

then jumping and pushups until 540 when its time to take a shower and rush

down to supper-line at 6 for an hour, and by 7 beginning on homework,

and continuing on till 10, then right to bed and lie there until midnight.

this will repeat for days weeks months years. this is a career, a vacancy,

and yesteday i asked someone 'how can you manage this every day',

with empty sockets he tells me 'well i had no other choices',

thats when i pondered whether its better to be a dead human

instead of a living machine.

its saturday and im doing dorm guard at night for my mother flight, they all have town pass today except for me because i didnt give blood, id much rather work for hours than spend 2 minutes donating, blame it on the needle. its 7pm and we had a gi party all day, which means 6 of us cleaned the whole dorm with toothbrushes and soap, it took 12 hours to complete, the rest of the flight had to do kp duty, which to me wouldve been worse. now its 930pm at night, we just got our blues and are cutting off the smallest strings with toenail clippers. monday we take flight pictures, tuesday is the confidence course, wednesday is honor flight drills, and thursday is the flight physical, so that once i get my topsecret clearance ill be able to stay in the air for 15 hours at a time after passing the physical. if i did the flights id get an additional $200 a month and wings, and it would certainly be more exciting than an office job.

monday starts our 19th day of training with 13 more to go. things are getting better, in a way i think our TI likes me because hes always singling me out to cut down and then when he walks away it sometimes seems like hed prefer to laugh after ripping into me. our sister flights TI is being court marshalled for mistreating us because he had some type of freak out and started kneeing guys in the groin and getting totally violent. he was suffering from post stress, they say, since he was in the marine barracks in libya when it got bombed a few years back. everything though has more tension now that we are short one ti. i think im respected but then again i dont think anyone takes me seriously. the weather was 45 yesterday and 85 today. marksmanship is tomorrow, thats the last thing before we win honor flight.

blair from high school was supposed to graduate this week but they caught him chewing gum on the last day so he was recycled back two weeks. ive passed him in the halls but we cant acknowledge one another. i eat crap, 2-3 ice cream sandwiches, soda, cake, and maybe salad, but we always have to drink two glasses of water before we can begin eating our food. i wont have any money leaving bootcamp because our battle dress uniforms were $300 and our blues were $200, but i did sneak away a couple days ago and went into a photobooth to take some black n white photos of me. sunday morning is church, i choose catholic service because its the longest one, so you get more time to relax than any other denomination. sooo boring though, same old stories for hundreds of years. ok time to go, lights out.

its 7am sunday morning, the rest of the world sits back, reads the paper and drinks coffee, while i begin to feel the rot setting in here, i have to shave 2 times a day, some guys here are in their 30s, im the youngest one here actually, we have already lost almost half of our 60 people in here, the guy i came with from wpb, he got in trouble yesterday for getting a piece of butter for his bread before drinking his two glasses of water- everyone in the room froze, and the TIs all got up and surrounded him in the cafeteria, they yelled at him in front of hundreds of us as he held a piece of butter at attention, then they made him sit in the snake pit, which is where all the TIs eat silently overlooking us all, he looked like death up there and didnt look like he had much hunger anymore. there is so much tension between our flight and our sister flight it feels like everyone could break out in a fight over the slightest event. well, off to church now.

its a cool 67 on friday afternoon with perfect humidity, its 430 and im ready to go eat. the food at the presidio is not even half as good as boot camp, everything falls under a two page menu, either hard or bland, or watery and bland. im already sick of the food so most of my weekly salary goes to buying real edibles off base. its been two weeks here and already i feel i know the mechanics of reading and writing arabic in a basic form. we covered a 200 page workbook in only 5 days, i even find myself dreaming in arabic, so it leaves me no escape really. some of the letters are very close and the difference is a slight curl of the tongue, or even the same letter is held in different parts of the mouth/throat to be a different letter. the teachers sometimes go on for too long in arabic even though we cant understand, i guess they just want us to get accustomed to it even if we dont understand it, just the fluency of it. our first test is monday, they say about 20% will actually graduate and get the diploma, and the rest will take on other duties in intelligence since they already have the clearance, since it costs about $70k to get a TS clearance.

im in a class of 10 guys, a mix of enlisted and officers, from the 4 branches of military plus divisions of the govt i never heard of, many of those guys dont even have conversations with the rest of us and stay to themselves during breaks. we learn 100-200 words a day. i study about 4-5 hours a night and dont even recognize when i fall asleep. the time between class and studies is enough time for dinner, a shower, and exercise of pushups, situps, jumping, and running up and down steep hills for 2 miles. i hate that part, my bodies not made for it. thursday was open ranks and retreat, you stand absolutely still for over an hour and ignore all those itches which you are suddenly aware of. i was put in charge of body drag for my flight, this time 3 girls passed out and i was to try and break their falls, but i dont always make it on time, so i end up dragging them off after theyve hit pretty hard on elbows or back of the head.

my roommate jamie blankenship is learning arabic but has a different class, hes funny but a bit sarcastic, a deadhead who has that habit of 'can i borrow that' and not returning things. my room is pitifully empty so im waiting for some home possessions to arrive by mail like my amiga computer. at fort ord next door they are loading up the biggest planes ive ever seen night and day, and theyre sending troops down to panama for something like looks to be quite an event. i got a call from both robby and phil this weekend, and i tried to take some pictures with a crummy $22 camera.