Orlando

Sunsets have always held a feeling of anxiety, sadness, and the reminder of death, but this twilight was different. Looking at Astrid's angelic face in front of the dying California sky was a picture in words - a poem about a teenage story concluded.

The 1920's invented the teenager. With the increased popularity of automobiles, older kids began socializing away from home, in turn sparking a flame in the economic marketplace with which we now know as "nightlife." Parents would give them an allowance to spend at restaurants, shows, events. Sporadic bolts of sexual hormones combined with relative privacy popularized "dates", "boyfriends", "girlfriends", and many sex sessions inside a car on the top of a hill somewhere.

Cars gave children a small taste of adulthood - an illusion of independence. "I can drive away from home and hang out with my friends. I'm a big boy now."

When I listen to "Scary Monsters and Shiny Sprites" I taste the desolation of a wide and half-empty street, the taste of Orlando's expansive sky, and an angry and ever so beautiful girl shouting obscenities and crying while driving her father's car. My mind also shuffles portraits of Mountain View's disgustingly normal 4pm life.

Do I regret moving to Portland? Abandoning my best friends in carcinogenic California, or discarding the beautiful Orlando lights and blonde sky imprinted with my name on the ribcage? Not for a single second.

Absolutely everything that I have acquired has been through my own hard work. I was never granted the gift of a car, and by extension, the illusion of independence that so many like to cling to as if it was their personal Jesus. No - I created my own independence, not settling for a mere hologram, and carved my own niche for "lo que dios no te de, te tienes que robar."

Closing this year in a magnificent paradise, I can safely say that I am overneath the path of misery.

The End of the World

"The end of the world doesn't come suddenly and without warning. To imagine it does, is to be fooled by popular misconception and thus fail to recognize the larger picture. The end of the world is an ongoing process. It starts slowly, imperceptibly, and blossoms unnoticed in our very midst, until it has engufled all that there is and none is free from its grasp.

All that humankind thinks is great and mighty is but a disease upon life and must be made to perish if life is to continue. That which modern man worshiped as being grand and noble is but an affliction. All that has given the appearance of granting freedom to mankind, has in fact ordained its enslavement, impairing, and crippling from within while outwardly bearing the banner of liberty. The body of humanity has been poisoned, and even as it strives for new horizons and constant advancement, rigor mortis has preceded the approach of death and the lives of men are dragged into the grave along with it.

Seek now those motions that sow for humanity the seeds of death as they harvest for you the bounty of life."

- Boyd Rice

Letter To A Ghost, Pt. III

My desire has changed, I do not seek your friendship anymore. The fear of loved ones dying and not having a last chance of saying goodbye is akin to my problem of perfectionism due to my need to see structure and organization. Nothing is perfect, and I accept that.

As you went up to Saratoga (and your horse naturally won), with confidence I can see that it is beyond your ability to analyze yourself for faults or be strong enough to accept the phrase "let's just be friends." You're not a shovel, and I am not your dirt. You are not abused and I am not your abuser.

I would lay defeated on the floor, praying at your kneels to reconsider, to be critical, to consider an inconvenient truth, but without mercy you laughed in nervous self-preservation and tried to conceal your hurt with whatever you could stick inside to runaway from the current situation.

Disassociated, numb, and unwilling to accept reality - I watched you walk away, daftly running into things with your eyes closed, jumping into large city street puddles, covering your ears with whatever feminist-approved popular song would drug you into the comfort of passive-aggressive self-righteousness and bigotry.

And there I was, the fool, on my knees, hoping to see more behind the eyes of a fallen angel. Praying with every inch of my soul that "she will come around, she will be mature, she will rise."

I see you falling down into the ocean floor, and with every ounce of my strength I attempted to raise you with me, but you kicked and punched. If I continued to work with you, we would sink together, but my inner Will does not allow me to do anything other than what is right and truthful.

A whirl of black hair and the angelic innocent face of a sad little girl sunk into the oceanic dark abyss, and I look above me, and saw a watercolor painting of beauty, dream, and Heaven above the surface of the water.

And I am there.

No matter how far away, I will always love you. But I am very far away - a million miles away.