i was asked what i am about. . .

i'm about love life and living. Beyond that i haven't quite figured it all out yet. I'm a musician and artist, an actor and writer- a poet in short; by the crudest and most inefficient means, still trying to get a handle on life and somehow grip that illusive dream we call love. What are you about?

Hopes

May 27 2009 Hope is an awful thing- the year started off full of it. Blindly I dove right in. But soon enough the promise of a friend would turn hollow and vague- even into betrayal and lies. But let me be lead on a while. . .

There is an old familiar home in which I have sought refuge many times over the years. It was once a place of freedom and friends, but had turned into a prison for souls. Mine was trapped there for some time- until an Angel pulled me out from the darkness, and with no small sacrifice to herself. But I never lost faith in her- and she has proven time and again her virtues. Together we've returned to that house. But it's foundations were unstable and heading for collapse. Yet there is always some one willing to take on the task of mending its mortar. And so another came. He came like a storm- the great pacifier. But behind his powerful smile was the grinning of a wicked man. He lied, he cheated, he stole. He played like a little child as if people were his toys, pitting one against another and seeking ti destroy them both for his enjoyment.

It was in the presence of this man that I was built up in hope. And as one thing separated itself from my life so did others, but never hope. Even as new love fails my heart, and old love tears at it, I still find hope in it all. But soon lies told with a smile became clear to be just lies. And promises became smiles. Hope? Hope became denial. Denial became life. Life became futile.

-A/C

Sometimes we put up walls not to keep people out, but to see who cares enough to knock them down. - Unknown.

I've borrowed that quote from a friend. She doesn't know where it came from, but it's source is no less than truth. And truth is a powerful reference. 

I find this simple sentence says so much about people, especially me. I've built up wall after wall, cleverly expecting them to be rent apart by those who love me; but they are not. So I have fortress upon fortress built to imprison my own soul. Alone for so long, I've been trapped by my own hand's labor. It's time to tear down those walls. And so I tear at them from the inside, and hope there is someone tearing at them from the other.

I hear the faintest voices of those I might have dreamed into the reality of my mind. I only pray now that they are real, that they are not the figments of my mind I have thought them to be.

Layer by layer I burrow towards what I pray is outside this prison. These phantoms grow louder with ever stone I cast behind me. Are they real? Are they louder as I close in on them, or does my mind make them so in my madness? The prospect caused by my hope is too great now to turn back. I can replace no stone. No walls will be rebuilt. My fortress lay now in ruin; a pile of rubble now marks where I have sought sanctuary for so long. There is no refuge now, only forward. Hope. Fear. I had no hope while in my exile from the world. But, without hope, I also had no fear, no ambition. I had nothing but the knowledge of things I should have been. I had regret, sadness and misery, but no fear- but no hope.

In my madness of isolation these phantoms convinced me to pursue hope; a pursuit of great cost; fear; but the further I pursue hope, the more of it I find; and one grain of hope dissolves fistfuls of fear. And so I go on; with fistfuls of hope.

Sunday, December 28, 2008 at 2:01am

When the tears subside I will tell you a story. I will tell you a story of passion and of pain, a story of love and fear. I will tell you a story that will swell your heart with pride for love, and also your heart will swell with pain. You will be blinded by tears from your eyes, and washed in their flow. You will feel as I have felt. You will fear as I have feared. You will break as I have, but you will mend as I have not. Such a story can be told to you because your ears can endure it, and your mind will recover. But if I be told it my ears could not bare it, my eyes could not see it. . . my heart still could not take it. My mind would falter and fail me, as my heart would also. My eyes would drown me, and my ears would bleed for hearing my own wailing. All this would I suffer if I were told such a tail as I have to tell you. This is why, for such a story to be told at all, I must live it. I will never tell myself a tail such as this- and no other could conceive it. And so I live it for you. Because you so love to hear my stories. You so love to feel my heartaches. You so love to escape it all, in me. But I can not tell you now, not until the tears subside.

Dear 2008,

(edited for simpler minds. Disclaimer! This entry in directed to the year 2008 not to any person in it- I would never be so cruel.)

Well I'm up late again- i can't sleep anymore. Bad meatloaf i think. i'd like to finally put this year to rest but it haunts me. i cannot escape it in sleep- nor in work- nor in friendships. All that i have has been acquired this last year- and all I would like to have- yet lost again. That doesn't make sense. Oh well. Here's to 2008! may she rest in peace, as well as all the poor bastards she took with her. That foul wrench of a whore who gave men promise of love; that silver tongued used car salesman of a year that gave us hope for a brighter day, then snuffed out the light as we made our way; here's to that year that brought about life- and death- hope and despair- she gave us love, she gave us knowledge- she taught us of the demons inside ourselves, bringing them out into the light for all the world to see. She brought us down in shame and humility- and we torched our hearts with pride and resentment- we wallowed in the darkness until we were broken down, defeated, and so badly bruised; stumbling over obstacles put in our path to break us, we trotted on until we had no pride left- and then, as i lay broken and defeated, as i curled in a ball on the cold bitter floor, she flickers the lights some to taunt me- letting me know there is more than my fetal position- more than my arms reach- more than i will ever obtain because she has broken me down so. She seems to delight in the knowledge that she has held me down, tortured me, bruised my pride, broken my will, and blinded my mind as to what could be. She is the devil. So here's to 2008. There is no doubt that i am stronger for having survived her- no doubt that i know more about myself than i had the year before- no doubt that i have risen above myself because of this year- no doubt that i had to as well. So 2008, you may have saved me- you may have taught me a great deal- in fact, i am better for having known you. But (obscenity), i hope to (the man upstairs) i never see the likes of you again. You have been like a whore- and now that all the (another obscenity) is over, it's best we just part ways. - Ammon

Apart

is this it? I wonder. As the tears begin to fill my eyes, I can't help but wonder- it this when it hits me? I've held together so well, for so long. But now. . . It creeps up on me. As my eyes begin to water and my breathing is interrupted, my head aches from it all. I get terrible headaches when I cry. My jaw tightens and my neck goes stiff. All I want to do is sleep. But I am not tired. I would only dream anyway. Dreams are for children. They only shield you from reality- a reality from which we all should be protected. Maybe most of us are. That's how we survive. I don't dream anymore. I used to dream. But life. . . a life worth living- that's the dream now. Reality is when I am asleep. Nothing. No thoughts when I awake- no memories, no regrets, nothing. That's reality. But not mine. I think happiness is a word made up to describe an unobtainable phantom. We use it to describe what we don't have- to balance what we do against that dream. What a race we are- to have such a word as happiness. It doesn't exist in any order of things. It exists in the absence of them. We couldn't even know its meaning if it weren't for the fact that we live without it. So who asked to be happy? Who said this is not the way it is meant to be? The one who did such a disservice to man kind should be heralded as the greatest fool ever born. To seek something so vain, so deceptive, so illusive- even imaginary- as happiness. . . . I would like to know his name- so I can curse it. Damn the fool who enlightened us as to the sorry state of our naturality! Damn the fool who imagined this thing- this fairytale dream of life! May he rot in hell for having ever spoken the word! Happiness!? Please, don't speak to me of happiness- don't speak to me of dreams and fairies. Tell me of the world as it is. Take the blinders from your eyes and realize that the dream is dead. Only then could you even begin to know the meaning of the word happiness. And only then would you find yourself in a position to seek it- if it is even obtainable at all. Maybe not in this life- I have some doubt. But in the next, maybe. What a curse to the world, the notion of happy.

. . .

I’ve tried to write you- I try to message. . . But I can only look at an empty box where my words would be. After all, what can one say to the girl who has broken his heart? What will she hear? I love you- what’s the point in saying it. You know I love you. I miss you- I always miss you. You know that. Can I tell you I am broken? Without you- I feel broken. Or would anything I say just be a nuisance- a trouble to hear? I don’t want to trouble you. I just want to hold you. But I can’t say that either. Do you want to hear anything from me? Should I send this- or just let it be. Should I even dare write it for my own sake? Would you rather I say nothing at all- so you can forget me. Would you like to assume I am forgetting you? I don’t know how to. What more, is I don’t want to. I want to hold you. I love you more than anything I have ever known- or ever will. I have given all the pieces of my heart to you to hold. I do not want them back. They never come back in as good shape as when I handed them away. It’s best you just keep them now. Hand me back no broken heart. Give me back a whole one, or nothing at all. For what love could the shattered bits hold now that would not just seep away? No love at all. So I leave to you, with no obligation- my tattered heart. Do with it as you may. Mend it if you will. Treasure it if you like in a deep corner somewhere, where you remember me. Or give it away to someone else. Use it to shield yourself. Those broken bits have scares that are tough. They could make a formidable coat. My love. . . My last love has been housed in that battered old ruin; the roof's leaking, the walls torn, and the floor soaked with tears. I cannot dwell there anymore. Raze it down, and let it rest in peace. Pieces. . . Let it rest in pieces. I . . .can do no more there- not without you. But I won’t send you this. Don’t worry, you won’t have to bare the pain of me any longer- not unless you seek me out. Seek me out. Seek me out, and I’ll be waiting. Waiting to embrace you- with love that will mend that old ruin back to the mansion it once was, with all its many rooms. One for every memory made- forgotten now. Seek me out and I will find them again and dust off the sorrow of them- the sorrow of love abandoned. In the ash they have laid after the fires dwindle out. Only a smoldering mess of emotions remain. Would that I could put out the fires, if I knew they would only smolder for so long then cool months later. But I don’t know. So there in them I reside for now- sitting at the edge of ruin, looking in at the smoke rising from the ash of my hearts pieces. May it carry the memories with it into the heavens, where they can live out their fates. May it carry me too. I love you.