050

She said, "Spatter, why is a raven like a writing desk?"

I believe it is, as it was in this the most beautiful of stories, a time for moving on from this small hobby of mine.  Dearest friend, this is my omega text, the last words I will write here.  My leave indefinite, and I find it unlikely that I will discover my way back.  This blog has meant so much to me, and served its purpose so well.  Thank you to all who read it, I hope that somewhere in my mess I've written something worthwhile for you.  The 45 kilograms that started this story have changed so much, that it just seems wrong to continue.  As always, and for the last time, live long.

Fairfarren Alice.

Spatter

049

To be young, to be open and fearless and curious.  But we burn our hands on the stovetop, we learn to be afraid.  We tumble down the rabbit hole, curiosity weighs against consequence.  Some kind of wonderful sweeps in and handles our heart without care; the doors slam shut.  We grow older, though time is only ancillary to this transformation.  Rather it is through our experiences, and more directly our perception of those experiences, that we lose those precious gifts of youth.  Age is a number, the weather on your body; but to be old, that’s the weather on your soul my friends.  Eyes blue as the ocean, vast as the heavens.  I believe I was as old as I’ll ever become when I was twenty one.  Since then, I’ve only become more young.  Live long.

Spatter

048

"My greatest fear in life is that someday, on my operating table, lay a soul who need not stay; and I will not have studied enough to urge the body to reconsider."

Many years ago, I made this statement to a friend; my colleague, and my mentor.  This Friday he will be honored for his academic achievement in medicine, for his resilience and knowledge.  In this spotlight, he has chosen to quote my words, remembered from long ago; something for which my gratitude cannot be defined.  It does well to pay homage to those who have shaped us, to remember those who have been there for us, never wavering in the face of adversity.  More often than not I forget that I have such people around me, and I pay more time and attention to the wrong individuals instead.  However, I am always called home by those most loyal, by those who care.  I'm so very proud to be called "friend" by the great movers of my life, so very excited to be a part of their stories, and constantly humbled by their actions and accomplishments.  I urge you to take a moment to think about your great movers, to reach out to them, to let them know you care.  Life, after all, is terribly short, even if it's the longest thing you'll ever do.  With that I leave you.  Live long.

Spatter

047

As I wander these streets I am, so very often, drawn to a bench by the ocean.  I take some time to reflect, rest for just a spell.  I see the new, bright faces of the freshly initiated.  They wear their new white coats with pride.  It's difficult to believe that just one year ago, I began my journey here.  I watch them as they pass, a genuine smile on my face.  How very exciting it has been; for me, for them, for us all.  We are all here, daring to chase our dreams, threatening the forces of mediocrity at every turn, and falling ever further in love with a destiny not destined, but begotten by our grand desire to grow.  I wish you all such beauty in your endeavor, and the best of luck.  Every once in a while, we come to realize that we fight for everything, we struggle and crumble and falter; but we press on.  In this prodigious toil, we needn’t fight for our happiness.  Sometimes we only need to let it be, as it is, the fruit of our labor.  Right now, I’m happy, and I hope that you are too.  Until next time, please live long.

Spatter

046

You fucking Jackal, always hanging around...
Never there to kill the monkey,
Wrapped about my neck so long.
Keep me company, and keep me warm.
You fucking Jackal, why won't you just let me move on?

Kindred souls to be we are,
I see your eyes across the dark.
I know you wait for me,
You ever wait for me.
You fucking Jackal, always hanging around,
Why don't you just let me be?

And in the waking dream,
A suffocated scream.
Each night I feel you creep,
Closer than the last.
Until you're curled up next to me.
The time to strike has passed.
You fucking Jackal,
Why did you choose me to torture?
And how long does it last?
If I never sleep again,
Will you only go away?
I beg you be on your way,
You fucking Jackal,
I'll love you all my days...
Though it brings me shame,
I'll love you anyways.



Spatter

045

Hey blank page, it's me again.

Just woke up, boy I was dreaming,
Something made me believe again.

If my halo could speak,
It would tell a great tale...
Times that were crooked...
Oh, how I have failed.
The curtains came down,
A lion's heart slams shut.
The wolves pulled me down,
As I gave up.

All the time singing.
Hey blank page it's me again...
It's me again.





Live long,

Spatter

044

She said, "Sometimes it gets so lonely I just hang my head and cry,
I just lose myself in sadness as a watch the passers-by...
I wonder how'd it get this way?
How'd I get this way?"
She said, "Anywhere but here, if I was anywhere but here..."
But that ain't what she means.
She really meant if he was anywhere but there,
If only he was near.
She can't hold him till he steps away,
Then touch his pretty face.
She said, "God damn this wretched place..."
And God damned that wretched place.
It was built on muddy water,
It was erected out of hate.
I could track its lineage way back to men in caves,
To a time before the sunshine,
To a time just after young misery cried the first breath, on the first day.
She said, "Damn boy, it sure gets lonely here."
Mad lonely, I smiled, "Yeah, mad lonely."

Spatter

043

They change you, you know?  Watching them grow…you grow.  You see them face their first fears, take their first steps.  You bear witness to them as they conquer their world, making bigger leaps and bounds than they ever will again.  When I have made my impact, when my numbers run small and my time grows thin, I know the questions I’ll begin to ask:  Where are your children, and what were their first steps like?  With deep sorrow I’ll answer, “My children did not breathe and walk, my children were my dreams.  They sat in classrooms and learned, they existed in novels and fantasies.  They were no children of mine.”  Who is your great love, what was it like growing old with the puzzle piece that completed your soul?  In grand regret I’ll reply, “For many years I stared at my puzzle, missing that one piece.  I searched far and wide, but for long it evaded me.  For some shameful stretch of time I gave up on finding that piece.  It wasn’t under the couch, beneath the cushion.  It could have been swept away, stolen by the visitor, maybe it was never even there.  My love became my work, my heart became warmed by my fathers and mothers; they spoke to me from the textbook, taught me from the podium.  Truth is, when I finally found that puzzle piece, with careful hands I gave her away; I let her go.  The puzzle had taken new form, there was no longer a place for this piece.  It now simply had a hole where there was once a place, and the hole that it carved into me was too magnificent to repair.  For a lifetime I have shoveled the gravel into its depth, never hearing a single stone reach the bottom.  There was no great love of mine.”  I don’t know what the next question is, but I know who I want to be there to ask it, and whatever it is, I hope that I can say to her, “My life isn’t perfect, it’s just as close as I could get. I wouldn’t change anything, but there was a time when I would have.  I wanted you to know that.  It never got small, as so many things did over the years.  It never will.  We’ve lost so much time, I don’t want to lose any more.  Will you spend what little time we have left with me?” 

No matter the answer, this is how the greatest love story of all time will end.  I don’t know what happens when we die, but I do believe in energy.  Love is energy.  And ours will be a field of lilies in the next life, dancing with the wind, truer and stronger than ever.

Spatter

042

Love isn't about perfection or beauty, it isn't about chasing dreams or great adventures.  Love isn't even about forever; not even about someone who will stay.  Love is something inside of you, and no one can take it away, not as long as you want it.  Often the ones we love play short roles in our lives, and we wish they could have stayed longer.  But as a great man once said, we must let go with generosity those who cannot love us.  Become someone who you can love, and loneliness may never find your heart on the road to truth.

[insert their name here]
By the time your heart convinces your mind,
That they eyes of your true love are blue.
Don't look for me, naught will you find,
I'll have settled for somebody better than you.

I won't sell you short,
I won't rob you of a lesson so keen and so true...
Your cross will be heavy,
And Golgotha far...
You'll hang out to dry,
While the vultures fly low;
This is the life that you choose.
And I'll have settled for somebody better than you.
[move on here]


Spatter

041

Dearest Friend,

I woke up with you on my mind today.  I wake up this way every day.  Each moment it starts over again; I laugh and your voice echoes out into the world.  When I smile I dream that you smile, when I cry, I dream that you cry.  And it continues this way, I'm not sure that it will ever be any different.  You share none of my joy and halve none of my pain, and it wrenches at some ugly place in me.  As my mind goes softly to a place between peace and fear, I lose little bits of you here, little bits of you there.  A simple reflection of losing myself, I suppose.  Sometimes, in the greater and lesser instants but never in between, I forget to remember you.  But when I lay to rest the bustle of the day, you always come back to me.  The dark curtains of sleep fall over my eyes, and we drift away together.  Every night I fall in love with you, and every morning you break my heart.  Of all tragedies to endure, at least this one is beautiful.  Wherever you are, Dearest Friend, I hope you are well.


Wishing each and every person all the world,

Spatter

040

The mad scientist gets to heaven and rests his tired bones on a bench outside the pearly gates. Peter calls his name, but the scientist does not respond. Peter calls a second time, and again, the scientist ignores. Peter calls a third time, and the scientist replies, "Send me back Peter, I'm not finished yet." A lifetime later, the same scientist again sits outside the gates, and Peter calls to him. The scientist does not respond. Peter calls a second time, again, the scientist ignores. Peter calls a third time, and disappointed, the scientist wanders into the unknown, somewhere far from heaven. The problem with believing in a perfect deity is that at some point, you must quit believing in yourself....

We're all afraid.  Afraid to take the leap, stray the mean, wander alone.  If you aren't, you either lack the experience, or you deny it.  Wield a fine eye on life, and you will see the small discontinuities, the little things that don't add up in people.  Maybe I'm wrong, given that the sum of the pieces is greater than that of the whole.  But I don't think so.

A Letter From Andrew to Peter

Woke up a bit confused again,
Next to someone new again.
Memorized the lines to say,
To run somebody through again.
Hope she isn't faint of heart,
Or this is gonna hurt.
Think about the snow again,
The lows have gotten low again,
I miss the cold from where I came,
It's freezing here in other ways.
I make due with what I've got,
Supplant the storm with rotten crop.
"Good morning sweetheart, you've got to go..."
Better break a heart
Than let her know
What life is like in afterglow.
Eat my meals on a mirror,
So I can't claim I didn't see it coming.

As always,

Live long,

Spatter

039

You can't control everything that happens in your life, but you can control how you perceive, how you react, and how you move forward.  Move forward with an open heart, a peaceful mind, and a stronger will.

Sad, sad sunsets,

Fall on bitter days.

Rag tag shallow lovers,

Cross in numbered ways.

And the dust begins to accumulate...

On what beauty could have been.

Jaded but not innumerate,

It's time for me to leave.

Cause a pretty, pretty sunrise,

Is waiting by the sea...

To light my eyes up blue again,

And etch my smile to the breeze.

All my love, live long.

Spatter

038

There you are, minding your own business.  Someone comes along, and turns your life upside down.  They make you question who you are, what you want, and how you feel.  They ruin your perfect little bubble of security and comfort.  They tear all kinds of shit apart like a tornado, and then they're gone.  Thank God for people like that.  They show you how to love, and how to let go.  They learn you well the lessons in joy and pain, in passion and loss.  They force your change.  Even though you want to keep them forever, they teach you that you can't, and that's ok.  Live long.

Spatter

037

Learn the lesson, and then move on from the bad, and focus on the good.  Just because something didn't work doesn't mean blame should be assigned, and just because something breaks, doesn't mean someone must be condemned.  Do the best you can for those you love, and do the best you can for those you don't.  We get so little time on this earth, and we take about 673 million breaths of life.  We only take one breath of death.  Stop spending your time looking for something worth dying for, and look for something worth living for.  Sometimes that something might be someone.  I've found a few really wonderful things to live for, and a few extraordinary people.  Often these amazing people don't even know that they're amazing.  Tell them.  Let them know.  673 million breaths, but you never know which one of those is death.  Me?  All my love to Di.  Live long.

Spatter

036

To combine the greatest forces of the universe: physics, philosophy, and love.

Twinkle, twinkle, little star.
I love the wonder; what you are.
You scintillate, but you don't know;
Twinkle, twinkle, little glow.
When we come a' searchin',
You weren't even ever there.
I wonder, little wonder,
Did you ever even care?

Live long,

Spatter

035

Today was the most difficult day.  You look into the eyes of someone you love, someone you admire, and you know it's the last time.  It has shallowed my heart.  Someday I'll be a better doctor for it.  All it took was a life.  Makes me wonder...what are we willing to give?  I hope you find peace in the next place...And I hope it haunts me, so I can do better for them than I was able to do for you.

Spatter

034

Sometimes it's too late to succeed, but it's never too late to try.  We get this awesome gift of existence, with all its wonders and mysteries.  We get to explore and inquire; we get an adventure far more incredible than any novel or story has ever portrayed.  There's magic here, in every breath you breathe, in every step you take.  Physiology.  There's wonder here, in every quirk that builds, every black hole that swallows.  Physics.  The examples are endless.  Forget the fairy tales.  Embrace what's right in front of you.  Don't let anyone ever belittle that, don't let anyone take it from you.  Don't let it ever become small.  It's so easy to get wrapped up in things and people that will pull you away from all of the beauty in the world, sometimes you won't even notice.  Learn from that, and chase your dreams, not your lust.  Live long,

Spatter

033

"You will think you dodged a bullet.  You will breathe deep relief.  As my life spirals into the great unknown, into yet darker and darker days, you will believe this fallacy.  Stupid girl.  You didn't dodge a bullet, I took one for you.  This is what you will come to know." - an excerpt from Memoir 33, Dante Stradat

One infinity is not equal to another.  This idea is raised and proven within the laws of mathematics, in particular, integral calculus.  An obvious problem with forever is that it lacks quantifiable character.  Forever may not be time, maybe it's magnitude.  Maybe it's both.  Maybe forever is 11 dimensional, or maybe it's not structural or temporal at all, but intangible to the depth of its absolute nature.  But we know about forever, don't we?  You know when your forever is greater than another's.  It is clear when your infinity is more true than another's.  Find that which without, your forever cannot exist.  And then run from that place, and never look back.  You see, forever is the end.  It is the warm blanket of goodnight, and the peaceful rest into which we fall.  It is filled with complacency feigning comfort.  It is the declaration to forego change, and remain.  And as it grows, it will shrink you small.  Forever is the great lie you've been told.  Fuck forever.
Live long,

Spatter

"Suddenly it occurred, at 3:30 on March 3rd, it came to me like God's word." - Germaine

032

The Long Goodbye

The number line will find both its beginning and its end,
Infinity will find its peaceful rest.
The universe will expand and collapse its final time,
And God will take His very last breath.

But not for you and I,
Not for the long goodbye.
It has always been, and it will always be,
The exception that proves the rule...
There must exist eternity.
And The Long Goodbye is what is left,
After eternity is over.

Spatter

031

It's been some time since I wrote traditional post, so I figure now is as good a time as any.  On break from medical school for 5 weeks, of which two have passed.  I already find myself restless, yearning to get back to my mission.  I realize I have changed.  I'm running, it's been quite a few miles, I'm tired, I think maybe I'll walk the rest of the way.  But I can't.  My mind won't let me slow, everything that can push me, does push me.  My thoughts go to places to feign purpose to finish my run.  It would be too easy to stop Andrew, we don't do easy.  You're not tired, you just think you are, will it kill you to press onward?  You know you can, stopping now wouldn't be of necessity, it would be a choice, a weak choice.  You hate weakness.  [omitted] is waiting for you at the end, [omitted] is there, at your final destination.  Don't waste time, there is no time to waste.  Keep running.  You will regret it if you don't keep running.  In fact Andrew, run harder...My mind plays its game, and I run harder, knowing deep down that the reasons are loosely based in lies.  I manipulate myself so that I can press on, so that I can move forward, so that I will not quit.  This is what happens to me during a run.  It's not just a run, not for me.  For me, it's life and death, it's everything.  For me, there is no next moment with which to redeem oneself, there is only this moment: to grow, to learn, to live, and to love.  Live long, all my love to Di.

Spatter

030

I always loved that moment in The Outsiders when Johnny tells Pony Boy to stay golden.  I sit on a dock that pierces into the ocean, and cogitate Frost's words under a blanket of starlight.  "Nothing gold can stay."  Such an elegant piece of poetry, such an elegant part of the story.  It makes me happy to ponder such things, as I inevitably arrive at wonder; a magic too often forgotten.

I remember last November,
Last November it didn't snow.
It wasn't cold, but I didn't mind,
Maybe it was gold.
Maybe...
For a moment I was king.
I was king, and you...
You were everything.
Threaded in my dreams.
Tugging at my heartstrings.
For a moment, I was king,
I was king, and for a moment,
I believed in God.
And this moment happened over again,
Like a loop that existed within a dead end.
Like a circle before the circle begins,
Like the meaning before the logic sets in,
Like the knowing that arrives before it makes sense.
I was the supernova in your eyes.
And I don't even mind...
I was king.
Isn't that just life?
To learn to die just right?
For a moment, I was a king.
I was a king, and you...
You were God.



Spatter

029

One of my friends thinks it's absurd to love someone who doesn't love you.  He thinks it's weak, he is actually repulsed by the idea.  He is disgusted.  I must point out that he is both a learned and good human being, though he will not be the one to inform you.  He still wears a mask, I'm afraid.  Another friend of mine believes it is strength, he believes that it is the intrinsic human will, it is a defining characteristic.  It is a loyalty known to few species, as it so often lacks evolutionary merit.  I stand divided, but certain.  I believe one should love another human being if it can benefit the being in question.  I will not love for myself.  The purpose of love is to make better or to support another, if that love will do neither, then that love is selfish.  Maybe that's why I must become a physician, to love those I do not know.  Maybe this endeavor will keep me clean.

Live long,

Spatter

028

Every moment is the first moment of the rest of your life.  It seems that for some time I have forgotten to just stop, clear my mind, and rest for a spell.  As a great many have said it before me, I'll say it in my own words.  For you, whomever you may be.

There are scars upon my face, they shine a pretty shade of blue.
They line my eyes like teardrops, like a fading, sad tattoo.
I'll be your clown...I'll be your fool.
I'll be anything you want me to...

There was a shadow in a valley, in my mind which I pursued.
This place of skull would serve a hearty lot of grim abuse.
I'll be your heartache...You'll be my muse.
We'll fail each other soft and true.

Someday, I'll come back to you...
There there now little lover,
I'll come back for you.

Time will take your body, age will exact its toll.
Someday pretty soon, you won't be beautiful...
Then what will you give to them?
I guess you'll give your soul...

That's when I'll come back to you.

Live long.

Spatter

027

How I've neglected the power of learning, the power of the textbook, of the teacher.  I sit here, buried in information, and I realize that it takes away my thoughts.  It removes the world, and all I feel is anticipation, excitement for the next words, fore I know they will teach me things of new.  The one love that is always there, the one friend who waits patiently for my return, knowing I come back time and time again, a different man.  I open it with care, the crisp smell of ink and vinyl acetate ethylene, or the sweet ethyl benzene that takes it's place, they bring me back always, I am immersed in them.  My true love.  How you stay so clean and pure.  Nothing makes me smile like you do, nothing brings me home.  They will never be as much as you have been to me.  they will never be as much as you are.  What I find in the human being lasts but a moment, it grows stale and weak, it breaks and lacks substance.  You will never leave me, never let me down.  You are a love worth living for.  Thank you, for reminding me who I am, and why I've become so.  I would say live long, but you will live forever.

Spatter

026

An excerpt from my text
Memoirs of A Walk Through November
Memoir 42

I don't know where this starts…or where it ends.  Actually, I suppose metaphysics tells us that a given point on the scale would represent both and neither, but that's for another time.  Funny.  For another time.  Ah, the pen is dead, my digital life, no inflection, no voice, no right brain on the paper.  It's not like Kurt Cobain anymore; he knew what he had to do.  He painted the room with his thoughts, scattered though they were, they moved me.  Although my words may seem staggered, I find them seamless, they transition through my mind effortlessly, and I glean some novel idea here, some unique insight there…it dances through my intellect so softly now, almost as if it refines itself to the sound of life in real time, the music we call existence.  If you cannot follow, simply consider that it is not my words that lack purpose and direction, but rather the perspective by which you take them.  Like space bends reality from our eyes, my mind bends language to my will, a gift from where I know not.  Where was I?  The beginning, perhaps the beginning is somewhere in the middle, like axes on a graph; the origin.  I suppose I'll begin with her…it seems a perfect place to start, good as any, perhaps.  She wears a red dress, in a sea of white dresses.  Her body so small, so fragile.  It matters not, because she has the soul of a pirate, her skin kissed by some sunlight from a distant land, her beauty knowing no equal.  I stand next to her, she doodles in her manual of all things that are and are not, because chemistry is small to her.  Her mind is fascinating, I think I feel her teleology, slipping through the air in compressions, wrought with profundity.   I wonder how she can be so wonderful.  If you've ever smelled the wind in the Midwest American spring, the smell of the Earth giving back the life she once swallowed, her voice would dance in my ears as this scent would dance in my primary cranial nerves, directly linked to my hippocampus, and the rest, dear friend, is just memory.  Maybe I'll never speak to her again…maybe I've learned how to harness a sensation that is forged for all time, unable to become dirtied and adulterated by our heartrending character.  Freeze it, so it may not breathe again, but there are many ways to cheat he who comes to take us into darkness.  Maybe if I could find a way for it to breathe…like it breathes in my slumber…Happiness is bittersweet, it seems the universe has a way of reaching equilibrium, a place where maybe Schrodinger would tell you the cake is both had, and had not, and Hawking would explain that eating it too is much more complicated, if only you understood space-time.  But she exists in all of my time, no matter my gravitational force, no matter my velocity or dimension.  Relativity loses itself, and there is no observer, only us.  In a moment, one single moment, I have an absolute.  Maybe I have omniscience for just one infinitesimal fraction of time, one wave of cesium dances, and in that instant, it is all so very clear.  And like moments often do, it vanishes, leaving behind perhaps a minute token, left to haunt my neurophysiology for all of my days, until my mechanics betray their purpose, and my days no longer measure.  And I seek these truths with fierce invasiveness, no cost too great.  When I feel tired, exhausted from this endeavor, I think of her, relentlessly I press on, and the brief peace is worth infinity, no matter the violence that rages through my mind.  I see her and imagine the rain on her face, how she has such a way about her, effortlessly making the world a more beautiful place.  Her smile offers light to the star, so that it too may shine bright, because she has kindness in her heart.  I don't recall the number of the days that I have spent there, somehow it evades me; the seasons don't change, where she is from.  See, it's always lovely in this place.  And then the rarefaction surges through my experience, I submit to existentialism.  And the moment is over, she's gone.  The happiness is gone, because I know it's always lovely there.  She's never seen the leaves burn like fire in the autumn throes, nor observed the blue moon hide behind the skeletons and snow.  She's never hurt so bad she broke, been so lost that she extinguished hope.  There is a place, if you could find a tree in this place, the tree would have no leaves. If you could find the sun in this place, it would be hard to see behind all of the grey. I go there sometimes, but it's empty, you see. My father takes the blade out of the razor, and hands it to me. He shows me how to shave my face. We shave together, just me and Dad. I'm just a child, so happy to spend time with his father, with a father patient enough to play a little game with shaving. That seems like an eternity ago, in a different world, with different people. My father grows older now, as do I. We don't shave together anymore...who has time to do a silly thing like that? This place is empty, you see, I just don't know if it's empty here or there...It would break my heart if hearts were broken in this place, but her red dress is just as red, her loving smile is just as soft, and she wanders through my hell.  And I grin, the story that etches my face cracks, I could never follow her, because where she goes is a mystery, the one mystery I dare not chase, because it's mine.  I digress; I lift The Giving Tree off of its place in my world, like often I have done so in the past.  It soothes my grieving soul, and I find what I am looking for, though what it is I cannot discern, and maybe I never will. 

Live long,

Spatter

025

One life comes into this world, while another is on its way out.  I suppose somewhere, lightning crashes.  That's what life is, isn't it?  A serendipitous mixture of hellos and goodbyes.  Some much harder than others.  One day you're alive and well, and the next day you've got a few weeks or months to live.  I guess we should make an effort to really live in the precious time between.  Most of us are guilty of planning for the future and forgetting the present.  We are guilty of letting ourselves be consumed by what is to come rather than what is here now.  Myself, I often live in the future.  Living in the present can be scary, and it can be so sad.  I think the present has for so many years been a difficult place, that I protected myself by transcending its grasp.  Better get used to it now, because later it will just become more difficult.  When it rains it tends to pour.  These last eight months have been one hell of a storm.  I suppose it would be possible to come out clean, unscathed.  I suppose I could walk out of this crisp and neat, head to toe.  I think I'd rather come out drenched, gasping for breath, carrying all the hurt of the world.  I think I'd rather come out alive than dead.  Don't run from pain, let it run its course, and look it straight in the eyes while it does.  As always, all my love to die, and live long.

Spatter

024

As I read my journal, this passage strikes me, and there will be no sleep tonight.

"It is March 26, 2015.  Today is the second day.  We are about to go to psych services together.  I wonder whether or not it will help at all.  It feels like I’ve lost my whole identity.  I don’t know how to let go of you, but I know I must, because each day is closer to the last day, which I believe will approach rather quickly.   You whispered “I love you” to me while at psych.  You reached and held my hand as we walked.  You kissed me hello and goodbye.  You pulled my chair closer to you when I sat.  I wish I knew what it all meant.  I wish I knew who you were.  More than anything, I wish I didn’t know what is to come.  I’m going to lose you, and that will be my greatest regret."   

As I press ever closer to great change, I wonder how many years it will take before I turn and realize that this change was for the best, or if that day will ever come.  I remember being sentenced, I remember being away for so long, feeling such loss.  But that led me here, maybe this will lead me somewhere happier, somewhere better.  My life has always been intimately tied to extremes, I've not known how to live within the first standard deviation.  If it were my decision, everyday would be different, but it is not my decision. So the days feel wasted, and life again fades unto gray.  I find myself buried in the text again, hiding from the colors that were once my world, as if they never existed at all. Sometimes it rages through my mind and heart, tearing everything in its path apart, and sometimes it makes me smile, knowing that few people get to live as I have lived, to love as I have loved.  I suppose it makes me happy as it makes me sad.  Live long,

Spatter

023

The road has been long with twists and turns,

The mountains we have climbed...

With rotten hate the lesson's learned,

Love rapes you over time...

With open arms embrace the pain,

Struggle to endure...

Convey your tongue and taste the rain,

Nothing else is pure...

Scrub your body raw,

You can't wash the dirt away...

Dry your sorry eyes,

You can't cry my love out of your veins.

If I never knew your name...

I'd have loved you anyways...

If I knew my heart would break,

I'd have loved you just the same.

As always, all my love to Die, and live long.

Spatter

022

The solace I find within the blank page is incredulous.  It has not yet been altered, it stands clean, it begs my attention.  I take care not to waste that cleanliness without purpose.  The writing helps me heal.  I let my mind speak itself, without reserve, without editing. Sometimes it reveals pain, sometimes beauty.  Sometimes it reveals nothing at all. Sometimes, it reveals the truth, and sometimes the anger bares its teeth.  No matter, I'm arriving at a strange and unfortunate realization: It is all too often that people are not who you would take them to be.  It is at the fault of many, sadly.  People consciously and unconsciously act in ways to appeal, it is human nature to please.  It is also human nature that to turn blind eye to one's own knowledge; you rationalize, or worse yet, completely disregard actions and behaviors that do not adhere to a standard of the decent and honest human being.  The discontinuities between philosophy and action run the soul raw, and run the heart weary.  Today has been a long day, and long days seldom find a peaceful end.  I suppose that somewhere, in some time, we all come to terms with our mistakes, and we all come to a place where we can forgive those who have hurt us so very deeply.  I would like to believe that, and so I shall.  It isn't the forgiveness that tends to be difficult, it's the reckoning.  It's accepting the end.  It's the battery acid that accumulates in your veins.

So I'll put it in a song, and leave it where stands, frozen, so I don't have to think about it anymore.

Die,
Oh, Die,
In my arms,
Like you do.
Them Christmas lights,
Won't burn as bright,
As in the stories,
I told you.
But every story's different,
Least that's what I'm told.
Every sunrise has a beauty,
But no beauty won't get old.
I guess that what I'm saying,
I'm finally letting go.
I hate everything about you,
Except what California stole.
Lies,
Your lips move,
But your actions
Speak a truth.
And I,
Struggle to find,
Who am I,
Without you?
But every story's different,
Least that's what I'm told.
Every sunset has a beauty,
But no beauty won't get old.
I guess that what I'm saying,
I'm finally letting go.
I hate everything about you,
Except what California stole.

I heard somewhere that the Pacific has no memory...that sounds about right.  Sometimes, she's my mom collecting snowmen, sometimes she's the wind that rakes the leaves.  Sometime's she's October, and she's the burn of all the trees.  Too often I see my future, and all that we'll miss.  I see the Christmas tree, the pretty lights.  I see us curled up by a fire, I see us sharing our lives.  I guess you can't lose something you never had.  I didn't know her back then, but I can see her peek through now and again.  Think she forgot that girl somewhere out on the Pacific, cause the Pacific has no memory.

021

I have no poetry today.  I have no deeply moving words conjured for the page.  I have one simple word, an act that we must all carry out, a burden and a blessing.  Fail.  When life leaves you beaten and weary, fail to quit.  When love leaves you empty handed, fail to let it empty your heart.  When all seems irrevocably lost, fail to extinguish hope.  Realize that this universe needs you, by thermodynamic law and intrinsic metaphysical logic, you are invested into this great adventure.  The energy that is you could have been anything else, but it isn't, and this energy is fundamental to the existence of the entire cosmos.  You are here, you have life, fail to waste it.  Fail, and get to know who you are.  Live long,

Spatter

020

It is of most importance to resolve to be mindful of your life’s direction.  I believe that seldom few people are in fact aware of that which they so seek.  Blindly wandering through what is, a reaction of this great universe, a propagating quantum of energy without intention, but rather purposelessness.  Like the string theorist, I search for the fundamental.  I subsist within a space riddled with question; I exist in curiosity that is insatiable.  Someday, many years from now, I hope to end my pursuit.  I will step aboard my vessel, without regret.  I don’t believe I’ll ever return, but simply chase the horizon for the rest of my days.  I lie beneath a blanket of the past, and as the starlight washes over me I experience 15 billion years, I absorb a life as old as time.  Your journey is over, dearest, little traveler of space.  If only you could speak to me, tell me of that which you’ve seen.  If only you could describe the face of Father Time when he was young; if only you could speak.  You carry the aroma of far corners, far further than I have ever imagined, I imagine.  But now you are a part of my story; and such is the subtle dance of existence.  How amazing it is to exist in this time, the time of relativity.  It is now that we look beyond the Greeks, as far back as Hesiod.  The problem with believing in any deity is that you must first quit believing in yourself.  As always, all my love to die, and live long.

Spatter 

019

Have you ever considered what your life will bring?  Have you ever measured your potential, pondered what impact you may have?  I walk quietly through peoples' lives, and I embody the change that comes to pass, I take responsibility for that which I am responsible.  The magnitude of the conscientiousness is magnificent, but we are all a part of this universe, and we all play our small roles about its singularity.  My words, my actions; my life sets a pistol on a nightstand here, provides the inspiration to lift a text there, and all that rests between the fine lines that separates the ambiguity between madness and genius, between righteousness and wickedness.  We all have a duty set before us, and I cannot begin to extrapolate its genesis, but I need not look that far to actualize and personify that which I wish to represent.  And I stand in no fear of my failure, because it is by my failures that I have grown.  It is through my pain that I have endured, and in my darkest moments that I grit my teeth and with a keen mind I chose and sought to pick myself up from that which brought me to my knees.  Like the light that transcends the windowpane, I also reflect.  Can you not discover the innumerable links, the truth speaks to me from its tangibility, and my fingers move across the keys that write the great volumes that they identify.  Like the light refracts perfectly in total internal reflection in response to media, I move in all directions across my actions.  I scour that which I have done, and that which I am prepared to do, critical to the very last moment, until I succumb to my own power, and decide.  And in this decision I solemnly promise to face the truth which I have now created.  There is an oak tree waiting for me somewhere, and it is time that I rest beneath its wonders, and soak in the waves that have carried me out to sea.

There is a philosophy in this world, one that resonates with meaning.  Some men, brilliant men, have argued that there is no proof that life carries meaning.  Some would call this cowardice, but this is ill advised.  Maybe life doesn’t have meaning, but is it not us that lend the meaning?  Perspective truly is everything.  Life only carries importance if you assign that importance.  Have you no feeling of responsibility?  I am not driven, though many claim that I am.  No, I am not motivated by self to do the things I do, I am compelled, and I simply embrace the byproduct of determination.  The riverbed is a dangerous place.  Full of jagged edges and drowning forces.  You can spend your life fighting the current, until you tire, and then what have you accomplished?  The same end achieved, but lacking any substance.  Friend, you may be doomed to do that for eternity.  No, I will let it take me places, and I will enjoy the intensity.  I will let these waves carry me into the great unknown.  Fear is only fear if you let it be as such, with just a slight modification in your view it becomes fear no longer, but excited anticipation.  I want to get back to who I once was, but there is not going back.  Onward, says the soul.  Onward, we are not yet finished.  Live long.

Spatter

018

As I have progressed through medical school, I cannot describe the change that has occurred in me.  Someone taught me about love, and unconditional care, and loss.  I would have sworn to you that I knew these things before, but in the world of the relative, I would be lying.

Before the age of 18 I was in rehab three times, county jail many more than that.  At 18 I was a soldier in the United States Army Infantry, 11B Active duty stationed out of Fort Benning 3rd ID.  I turned 19 in Basic Training and 20 on 48 hour Guard Duty.  When I turned 21 I was in prison, and at 23 I was married.  At 24 I was divorced, and accepted to college.  At 25 I was accepted to The Ohio State University for Biology and Chemistry.  I maintained a 4.0 GPA and was awarded a full academic scholarship.  By 26 I was in three honors organizations, the most prestigious being Golden Key.  At 27 I was doing research for Ohio State Medical Center, now the Wex.  I wrecked a motorcycle on the highway and was in critical condition.  I would take my MCAT just 27 days later, and score in the 84-92nd (estimated) percentile.  When I was 28 I was awarded First Place in Research at The Denman, and inducted into the most famous and honored research society, Sigma Xi, where I joined brothers in ranks such as Einstein, Fermi, Pauling, Watson, and Crick.  I was also accepted to medical school, with a combined masters in neurology.  This is the year I would meet her, after this crazy life, I would find peace in another.  This would be the hardest year.

I was blessed with the ability to do a great many things.  I would write you the most beautiful words, but words mean little to you.  I would sing you the sweetest song, but you have no place for music in your heart.  I would build you through my struggles, but my fight has been so very small to you.  I would draw you a Mona Lisa, but you don't care that I draw.  I would cure any disease for you, find any galaxy, but my mind doesn't stimulate you at all.  I would give my heart to you, but I'm afraid it's not worth much anymore.  Dearest Friend, for whom I've always been searching, you have come and gone so quickly, and I've been searching for so long.  It seems I've missed you.  I hope these words find and touch someone, and that you live long.

Spatter

017

In life, you will be broken many times.  It is up to you which pieces to pick back up, it is up to you what pieces to leave behind.  So often we become hardened, life turns us bitter.  We've kept the wrong pieces, we try to act in self preservation.  Keep the pieces that make you kind, and generous, and giving and open.  Keep the pieces that allow you to be vulnerable, keep the pieces that allow you to break.  These are not the weak pieces, they are the strong ones. 

Spatter

016

My Dearest Friend,

It appears we have reached that inevitable point on a timeline that was destined to never reach infinity.  We are at the end.  The bitter, anguished breath that spells a firm goodbye escapes my lips, as I relinquish you of responsibility, so that you may move on without burden.  It must be so, that one of us will not be destroyed, and at least one thing remains pure and clean.   At the price of my being I salvage some small shred of worth from our time.  What I have felt for you will endure into the smallest hours, where it will cover the deepest corners and envelop the slightest nook, and it will saturate all that is in between.  I have lived only to know loss, never experiencing your love, that which I sought with such ferocity.  I have come to know you, and I have come to observe without prejudice.  Tongue of the serpent, heart of the pirate; deception splattered in your eyes, fallacy sprawling in your smile.  You couldn’t change if you wanted to.  You live that you may fill the hole within your soul.  All the pain and suffering in this life and the next could not possibly satiate your hunger.  You move on free of guilt, free of chains, because I do not have the heart to tell you what you are.  I do not have the heart to accept you, that which I love so dearly; your beauty so shallow, and your selfishness so deep.  So I will hide it all away, you will never know that you were the driving force of my misery.  No human being could rival your apathy, you must be the evolution of the future.  You will live a long and joyous life at the cost of those who fall under your spell.  Yet when that final day comes, and you must face He who comes hooded, He who comes to take back that which you owe to the universe, my heart shatters for how you will hurt, knowing everything you have ever achieved has come at the cost of that which cannot be measured in this life.  You will leave this place with grand regret, and I will leave this place the same.  Goodbye, my Dearest Friend, I hope, with all my soul, that I never see you again, and that time may erode your memory as it erodes the river bed.  You have made me lesser, you have taken all that was good in me for yourself, and left me empty.  I don’t know this feeling, I wouldn’t call it love, but I wouldn’t call it hate.  But I will take it to my final moments.  I forgive you, my Dearest Friend.  You will always own my heart.    

Spatter

015

An excerpt from a text

Memoirs of a Walk Through November

Memoir 4

Dante sat down on the bench.  He stared out into the ocean.  He always loved the ocean, the way it pulled at him, always calling him.  The sound of the waves crashing on the shores, he sat for hours.  Sometimes the sun rose and set, and left him in the stars.  It was growing dark and quiet now, the sea settling as if to sleep.

“Hey hun, I figured you might be out here.” 

Her voice broke the silence; the kind of sound that radiates across the universe. 

“There’s that smile, darling.  I swear, when you smile it’s like the whole cosmos is in your eyes.”

She was beautiful, and Dante loved her. 

She sat down next to him and nestled her delicate body into his.  She rested her head in his arms.  His hands found her waist and drew her in.  Dante knew that she was there to teach him, there would be some great journey between them. 

“Do you love me, Wild?”

Her words washed over him like sunshine.  He touched her face with his fingertips and kissed her forehead slowly. 

“I love you.” 

Dante whispered the words to her, closely, intimately.  He had searched for himself for so very long, only to find that what he had been looking for was within her.  He was just a reflection of her beauty, an abstract result of something he couldn’t define.  It humbled him to his roots.  He had no words for her.  He had no beautiful or poetic lyric.  They didn’t make words for this.

“I’ll spend the rest of my life showing you, if you’ll let me…” 

His gaze was locked to the oceans in her eyes; the dark mystery that was her; swelling in like the tide; her breath on him as soothing as the spray of the sea.  She could feel the fire and strength in his voice, the passion in his stare.  She knew that there was no lie in him.  In that moment, she knew he would go to the end of his life with this love.  And indeed, it was to be, that he would go to the very bitter end.

-Spatter

014

A new year has begun, and it reminds me that this year I must work harder than the last.  I have found myself complacent in my goals, my responsibilities, and my personal endeavors.  Once recognized, this must be dealt with swiftly and seriously.  To become comfortable is to become stagnant.  I refuse to let life pass me by.  Live long.

Spatter