I drempt...

I had a dream two nights ago. For whatever reason, I feel like it is of some importance, and so I am writing it down with as much detail as I can remember. For those of you who remember me telling you about it, I feel like it somehow links to the porcelain warriors that I dreamt of a few years ago… Still looking for those if anyone finds one…

It started with an old, Vietnamese man. I could see that he was an older man, probably well into his sixties. The creases on his face spoke volumes about the hard work he had spent for many of those days in the blistering hot sun working in his fields. He was tired. The man was wearing a rice picking hat & had a long silver moustache that almost touched his collar bone. His eyes were the damp green blue of the ocean, back arched hard over under the weight of the years he had spent picking. The man wore some meagre rags, but for all this I could see he was not an unhappy fellow. Though exhausted (I could see even from the distance that I was standing), the man smiled as he spoke through whatever teeth that he had left. 

The man was talking to a bunch of the younger men - Five or six at the most. I don’t remember their faces. He spoke with a quiet voice, though the passion with which he spoke was clear. As I moved closer, it became apparent that this man was looking for some extra hands to tend the field he had been working. The men seemed polite enough, but the more he spoke, the more reticent to accept his proposition the men became. Reticent? Maybe not - It seemed that it was almost fear that was driving their wariness. 

I had known that the Vietnamese man worked on a rice field over the bridge. To get to the field, you needed to take a train which, though old & rusted, seemed to do the job just fine. Each morning like clockwork, all the men who worked on the other side of the river would sit together huddled on a tiny flatbed carriage, a foot each tucked under makeshift straps across the floor. As dusk approached each day, the same train would just as reliably return with the workers. Each one with his foot under a strap. I thought back to seeing the train chugging back into town each afternoon, and I could not once recall so much as a shoe coming back over the bridge with the men. Upon their return each day, without fail, all the men were naked.

As the old mans voice, though still quiet, remained steady. Though wary, the curiosity of the men seemed enough to allow the discussion to continue and the older man kindly accepted the opportunity. A younger man spoke up. Apparently he too had noticed that of an evening the men that travelled the bridge would return naked. The younger man wanted to know why.

The group fell silent, eyes falling to the Vietnamese man (I don’t know how I knew this because I couldn’t see any of their faces). It seemed to be an explanation that they were all keen to hear. He seemed to laugh a little, almost nostalgic like he had been in the younger mans shoes many years earlier. He shuffled over to a barrel & sat down with his legs crossed. Suddenly we were all on the train travelling along at speed. Feet tucked under the straps. The old man was saying nothing, but at the same time, seemed to be explaining. 

The train had travelled the same track everyday since he could remember. Even so, there was not a soul in the village that had any recollection of when the tracks were built, or when the train had come. Just that it was there. For as far back as he could recall, anyone that crossed the river, either by bridge, or through water it would be the same. As you crossed the river anything you had worn would evaporate into nothing. Still without moving his mouth or a finger, the man explained that somewhere in the journey across the river there was a moment where everything became nothing. Yes, everyone was still there, huddled on the train, but all the things that would worry the men, or ache in the field, would be somehow released. The train sped on. As it did, the realisation seemed to dawn that we were heading towards the bridge and that soon we would all be sitting like the workers, naked on the train. It didn’t feel like this was a bad thing. The man, still silent, seemed to be anticipating the moment coming soon. Seemed prepared. The sound of the train changed as we hit the tracks over the river. As he had (or hadn’t) explained, the cloth on my clothes seemed to become lighter & lighter as it dissipated. Soon, we were all sitting there, nothing to hide behind. I wondered why the straps did not dissipate like the clothes had. And then suddenly, I didn’t wonder at all. About anything. It was like everything for a moment had slipped my mind. Not only slipped my mind, but I felt it drain out of me - Out of my head, down my fingertips & out the back of my feet. Everything just gurgled away like watching a sink. Reset. Shakes. Wakes up.

As far as I know, I never got to the other end of the bridge before the dream ended. Even so it felt like I was heading to somewhere familiar. Its weird how on the occasions where I remember dreams with this much detail (And can still recall years later) I seem to be in Tibet or Vietnam or some similar place that I have never been. I imagine that one day when I actually get there, I will find something I don’t even know I’ve been looking for. 

No fear.

These bones have carried new bones

Whole body now grown & its own

Scars fit to heal & knees to kneel

Carried me longer faster wiser

All the inlets through life

Round about all manner of things

Each moment & every breath the day brings

Process my diseases

Every sniff 

Any mischief i might consider

Every thought ill ever deliver

Walled arms and open legs

Closed minds and openness

Every figure ive known its shown me

Every second ive grown its grown me

I sit

 i stand 

i be

Nothing to present but me

Scared to show me?

The more scared youll never know me.

So drop all your second thoughts & second guesses

Every secret the mind confesses

Each simple gesture saved

And the smallest of signals gave

Feet feeting i creep

Toes & tales strong & weak

The bones & sinew required so this being might continue

Though brittle & breaks

Steps missed & near escapes

All the being i can stand

Palms lined and lined in hand

The crazy days of haze

And hiding away

All carried in this vessel

And rests with heavy eyes

Watching & thinking

Stop your heart from sinking

Proud of every nook & cranny

Crease and wrinkle lock & nail

Perfect i am not - Nor, pray, will ever be.

Just clawed grasps of flesh knitted in time

Fallen on a pail

Wilted into dust

Settled on a pathway

Resolved. 

 

Bend at the knee, guy.

Give me a chance to be who i am

Not just the walking sideshow you dont want to conprehend

Glass isnt half full

I isnt half empty -

I just refuse to be

Anything - but me

Cause im not perfectly bright

Im not perfectly sane

Im not perfectly right

Caught between two worlds i tolerate

Can i be the only one suspended in this state?

Between your world

Between his too

Not quite right for their reality

Not quite right enough for you.

Im too quiet & shy

Always way too "the out there guy"

Far too quiet for the mob

But sorry - youre just not the right look & feel for the 9/5  job

Being twisted between both sides

Dont want to fit into the right set of lies

I have my own rhubix to figure out -

Without filtering it through what you think i "should" be about. 

One step forward

Another straw for my back

Wading through the world

Another step through tar i track

(Bridge) 

Cause you can be you as much as you want to be

Just dont expect its easy when theyve trained humanity

Cause you can be you as much as you want to be

Just dont think it will fit into someone elses version of reality. 

Stay down like a dog

&soon enough you will be

Stand up like a man

And theyll try bend your knees to fit, see?

theres forever been your own internal truth

But so few can commit to be the one that stays up on the roof as 

everyone climbs down eventually

Soon enough the sheep will call you down to face reality

Crumpled, the world embeds like wrinkles

The more sand falls the less time you take for sprinkles

You dont have to see the world like me

Just be the guy that still wants to see. 

Snapped heart

Sometimes i feel like im the only on that feels, 

Like if my skin melted & all my bones, my heart would still be real.

But the glue i use is breaking.

The shards too small for faking. Sometimes i wonder why be me, because its all ill ever be. 

My hands are shaking,

body aching. 

And if i could be so bold, 

maybe you just prefer me cold. 

Guess its just a mess from here. 

Id ask, but fear what id hear. 

Because, maybe you complete me. 

You could be loving me so sweetly. 

But instead you hide. 

So i keep what i feel inside. 

And just keep rolling like my tears - 

just thought there was something special here.

I am so fucking tired right now...

I should be sleeping, but my brain is ticking... "Tick, tock" it says... Time will crumble through one piece of sand at a time... 

"Tick, tock", like tar... Oozing through the hourglass... Slower & slower. Time is slow. 

Time is stopped. 

Static. 

Still. 

Dead.

20 burns hotter than the burning 8, today. Time slides backwards & slinks into itself. It weaves & flips. Flicking its poison tongue like...a serpent and ashing through itself. Time is dust. Time is sand. 

"Tick, tock" another grain falls through and time jolts forward. Just a second. Just an ache. Only an ache closer. And then the tar and serpent are back to drain her. She is not linear. She is selective. And you must wait until she has had her fill. Until she has had her say. Once she is done the clock can lurch forward another inch..."Tick, tock" I will wait impatiently while she slithers & dances around me. Until, once again, she will steal the moment i want all too soon.

A million grazed knees & hopscotches. Thats what makes me perfect. 

Part 2.

There is a moment where all time stops. Or maybe it doesnt. Theoretically, time could be a static point and our perspective is what is in flux. Either way, there is a perceived moment in my mind where I bundled all of time into a single moment. And not only time. This moment was the same one where everything became glaringly clear to me - the universe simultaneously became infinite and insignificant,  everything became the same thing and the place where i was became the the place that i am. 

I felt an intrinsic feeling of calm with this realization. I could literally feel all the things i stressed out about & worried for, drain away from me. In place of them, an intense feeling of singleness with all things. A purposeful, conscious link that, perhaps, my brain had chosen not to reveal to me until that precise moment. 

...I am finding this exceedingly difficult to explain. Not in any sensical way, but it is difficult to put into words something that there are no words sufficient to describe. What i experienced within myself was profound, and my core is irreversibly changed for the better because of it. I cannot tell you that you would have the same inner feels were you to experience the exact same thing. I have no doubt that the universe will choose to speak to each of you with a different voice it spoke to me from, and what each of you hear will be within the context of that and the experience it chooses to speak through. What you hear is a reflection of what your home needs in that moment. The universe chose this moment very simply to demonstrate in overwhelmingly precise detail, that i am not the island i so commonly felt like. I am not alone. That it is quite entirely impossible to be so removed when everything ad infinitum is the one thing.

People have a habit of choosing tracks to journey along and, without significant experiences or reason to influence them, many people will continue on these paths for no reason other than the fact that it is a familiar path, or that it is the path of least resistance. Some people continue on their paths simply because they have no additional data to incorporate. My path has taken me in many directions. I have lived what i thought people wanted me to be for many years. Lived what i thought i wanted to be. Lived under a shadow that i burdened my own self with. Today, my path feels clearer than i recall it ever being. It is certainly not the road i was traveling even one month ago, and i have an awareness of my own core being that i have never quite been able to sense. I travel to work each day & see the faces of these people... sullen and burdened. i view the experience now with almost a sense of irony. They look at me like im crazy, but what is crazy really? If you ask me, doing something because it makes you smile and feel sated inside isnt crazy, even if it may look like that from the outside. Day in, day out doing the same thing you didn't want to do in the first place for credits on a little plastic card; thats craziness - but people look on that like thats sanity. If the dumbest, craziest thing i do with my life is go to work, i can deal with that. I can deal because it affords me the luxury of doing all these things that enhance my calm and make me smile. They let me feel. They bring me home, and thats the whole point, isn't it? You are made up of all these experiences which, when you combine them, bring you closer to who you are meant to be. Each experience is something that you use to create yourself, so at the last garrison, you can stand proud and free of regret.

My body is just a tool. A vessel that carries me. One day the vessel will get old. It will get damaged. It will crack and break and crumble and sink. Until then i will paint the ceilings & run my fingers over the walls to find the cracks. All the unique facets & flaws. the dings, scrapes & cuts. They are the things. They are the things that make me. 

When the day comes for the ship to run aground & sink i will stand firm at the helm knowing that my journey is complete. I have found home. My core. My being is complete and sated. I have not lived in halves. I have experienced each season. And i am finally me in my completeness, ready to be free once again. 

Part 1.

Its funny how one small thing can totally skew your perception. People live their whole lives & never dare to even dream of something in case they lose it, and other people dream so big, people think they have. The last few weeks have been big for me in that department. Really big. Douglas Adams had the words when he said "you really dont know how really really mindboglingly big it is." But instead of space, this is the drop off the edge of my brain into the universe. 

Ive never really tried too hard to understand my place in the existential universe much. I had my theories though - For a while, it was mostly in consideration of how vast existence is that my own happiness was not even a blip of importance. I spent many many (too too many) years contemplating this and forgoing my own happiness to create someone elses illusion, with the eventual conclusion that this was untenable. There were a few years there where i then sought the philosophy that perhaps the opposite were true, and that instead i was the universe, meaning that my importance was whole. These years i spent being very selfish. At the time i thought i had been conceding a large portion of myself for someone else, but in the wholeness of time i have come to understand that it was selfishness that perpetuated something that was never really meant to be. Its funny how long your mind will hold onto something for lack of something else to put in its place.

I bring this up because, in a way, i was correct with both of these theories. There are reasons to support the fact that we are insignificant, and those to support the fact that we are indeed the most significant thing in existence. My current theory (which is based soley on a few glorious moments of clarity) is that we are simultaneously both of these things. 

I feel that i should put some context here, and i am well aware that by doing so, i may do myself a disservice. However, it is an important link in the context of everything i am about to share. There are moments that happen in your life when you are bountifully aware that the goalposts you had set & assumed had been set in the correct place begin moving. For me, this realization has never been as glaringly obvious than while suspending on hooks for the first time. I can be impetuous at times, and the decision to suspend was as easy as breathing. It was something that made sense to me, which in context of my own mind is somewhat of a feat in of itself. From the moment i had considered hooks, I had a singular vision of what i wanted to do, and it even gnawed at me as i stood for the first time watching. 

I would be lying if i said the thought of my first hooks made me nervous. I had thought that i would be, but it was more a curious excitement if anything. For all intents & purposes, i went to the warehouse that day knowing very little about it, and purposely so. I find it best to build an impression of something first hand instead of it slurring out of someone elses mouth. While i had seen a handful of pictures, i had no concept of the technical aspects, and standing & watching for the first time, i had three very clear thoughts. Of all the pictures i had seen, every individual had a smile on their face. Not a tentative thoughtful smile, but the kind of smile that just exuded enormous warmth. Secondly, i remember watching Wes' toes as they slipped from the ground in that first moment... It was not like watching someone jump. It wasnt like anything id seen. It was... I guess the closest word i can use is freedom. As humans, we are somewhat thwarted by gravity, but at this moment, this was of the least consequence. Of course, his feet were unsure about leaving the ground. Thats where they had always been. You can see that quandary for a moment where the brain is trying to preserve its goalposts in their place. But as soon as that last toe was off the ground, there was a calmness & clarity that i had never quite seen before. The third thought i had was "i need that."

By the time it was my turn, there had been a couple of people go up. They had swung on back hooks, but my head was still certain that my hooks belonged in my chest. This was solidified in my mind as the first hook went through, and then my second. I cant tell you how many times i looked at them before i went up, nor how many times i have looked at the pictures since, but what i saw was perfect. Like they had been supposed to be there the whole time. 

What seemed like a million minutes passed. Rigging was set and, having not seen a chest suspension before, i considered what would be the way to go up. I started at standing, but then switched to sitting back on my heels. Both sensations were completely apart from anything id ever done. Neither were particularly comfortable to begin with because, as Wes' feet had done, my feet were now convinced that they wanted to remain on the ground. 

It is worth mentioning here that there is very little you can do to convince your brain that it should let you leave the ground. As much as you want to just do it, your brain needs to be coaxed into it a little because we are habitual creatures, and most of us are not in a habit of throwing hooks & leaping into the air. Not that i recall, but the video shows me lifting one foot completely off the ground, and the other foot tip toeing until it couldnt any longer.

I cant rightly describe the process my head followed from that point. I could feel my toes dangling & had my head back watching the ropes for a few seconds before someone grabbed my hand, and even that sensation was not what i had expected. At the time, it felt like i was feeling the mechanics in my hand, all the bones & such, from the inside out, but having thought on my experience retrospectively, it was far more than that. 

In my life (as i cannot speak for yours) there have been, and quite commonly, times where i have needed to step away from my own thoughts & being, & detach quite completely in order to function within society's norm. I have a great deal of trouble with this, not only because i feel like when i do i am belying myself, but also because it is harder & harder to return myself home. When i go to work, for example, i see the same cattle run daily of static faces - the people who are white noise. The notion of becoming these hollow people is chilling. They look mindless & empty. But, this is what society wants. What it expects. It doesnt want individuals. It wants the docile drone, day in & day out. It doesnt want ruffled feathers. It wants order. I can tell you that for all my trying, i am chaos. I am lucky that where i work allows a certain amount of that, but again, they have certain expectations to meet, so there will always be a mask of some sort or another to meet those. 

My point is, i can not remove these expectation, nor remove the putting on of masks in their entirety. More so than that, when you are exerting so much energy to keep up the illusion of "normality", you lose the ability to really be in and enjoy any moment. There is too much analyzing & consideration required to do so. 

Now, when i tell you that what i was feeling was the mechanics in my hand i want you to understand something. I am well aware that my consciousness is attached to a physical presence. If i flex my hand now, i can feel it moving same as it ever was, but i assure you that, at that moment, they were attuned so completely that it wasnt even a thought. It just was. And so was everything else. Nothing exactly changed, but at the same time, everything had irrevocably changed. 

Dirty Johnny

Heres to the land of milk & honey  

Your dodgy deals & dirty money

Easy girls & porn star bunnys

Hotel sheets and dirty Johnny's

Heres to the land of puppy dogs tails

The rhythms right but the melody fails

Lates night smoking, drinking ales

Posting crooked in the mail

Heres to the land of all things nice

You dont win till you take your slice

And heres to the world of no tomorrow

And to the bitches taking borrow

Landing in your garden

Landing in your stream

Landing in your nightmare

Landing in your dream

Landing in your kitchen

Laying in your cult

Heres to the man that serves himself

Heres to the man that fills your cup 

Heres to the island of the thieves

Take a drink for violence please

Heres to the political retort

And one more for the drugs you snort

Heres to the elders of the village

Toasting as they rape & pillage

Heres to tit-face, boobs in her eyes

Lips filled with flubber from her thighs

Landing in your pickle

Landing in your pool

Landing in your drivel

Landing in your drool

Leaning in your kitchen

Laying in your cult

Heres to the man that serves himself

Heres to the man that fills your cup 

One more for the man on the road

The smartest fool youve ever known

Heres to the world we tolerate

To peace & love & spewing hate

Heres to your brother, sister, son

Harlot, stripper, liars, bums

Heres to the fools that we've become

Yes hell awaits us, every one.

Drown in the sunshine

You were never rose & light

Just all my days & every night

So much pain & wasted tears

I wanted to waste all my years

Now im on the other side

Im barely dead, barely alive

Youre only just the only one

Not only light, you are the sun

Chorus

My kingdom for a moment

My kingdom for a horse.

I'd sell my seven seconds

For just one moment more. 

Br

My kingdom for a second

My crown just for a beat

My crushed being for a lifetime

Splinters unnoticed at your feet

You were never rose & light

Just every reason, every fight

You were so right you were so wrong

You are the muse for every song 

No you were never rose & light

I gave you more than what was right

The rook the castle and the crown

The queen the horses and the town

I was just a shadow there

And you remain barely aware

Youre still the king & own the land

My broken heart, my soul & hand. 

Fine ass, bitch

She shakes her ass through glass

Want nothing more than to touch as you stare

Alone in the booth on the bed in her head

And youre hardly aware

So sweet and sticky

Out of reach and pity

Show me one more fine

Show me just one more fine ass

...Bitch

If you could reach more than her mind

Oh what you would do

Just a few more words

Shell pass back what she'd do to you

All alone in the bath in the bed in her head

And youre hardly aware

The Button

Excuse me sir

Im going to explode

The codes are loaded

What was it you want to know? 

The systems set

Im counting down

The trap is sprung

Ill get you yet

Chorus

Just push the button

Let it all go

Blow it all up

Let the crimson flow

Just push the button

Just self destruct

Its time for you

To run amok. 

Doomsday has come

Time to repent

Time to destroy

The space you rent

Little Hansel. 

Spider. Fly.

Smoke on, we laughed

But now we die

Excuse me sir

Im talking in code

Theres nothing left

You need to know

Emo fuck

Sick & tired of life today. 

Sick, i want to run away. 

Sick of being second best. 

Tired of being a fucking mess. 

Over this, just let me go

Too many empty ties & so,

So many useless shattered dreams

So many wasted wanting screams

Sick & tired just let me be

Theres nothing left inside of me

Youve emptied all i have to give

Theres no more reasons left to live

I wish i could just run away

I wish not for another day

My want is darkness, e're to sleep

My empty souls forgotten keep

Youve left me nought, I care not now

And for an end to pain id vow

Not for another tear now please

Im broken crumbled on my knees

Please darkness now entomb my soul

Please close mine eyes, forever

And nothing further please from here

Just vacantness, forever.