don't spend too much time on the other side

blowing out bouquets of cigarettes

there is paint on my face and horror on my palette,
and i can hurt the sensation fighting through my shoulders
like an vacuum's suction,
a bouquet of freshly rolled cigarettes
packed tightly in my forearms, waits to be lit.

and i hate and i love - its all the same to me,
an apathetic distance to softly shoo away
the alchoholic child that buzzes in my ear,
always forcing things down my throat
and finger pointing sentences.

another 5 line stanza just spewed out of my splash,
its vomitous existence reminds me of all this.
ivory irony irritates the art in me.

another period holds this all back
like a stronger comma,
a limitation
blowing out cigarettess and
unplugging appliances and
shooing away all singing children
damming.


but a period can't last long enough
to hold back destiny
or the devil that lives inside my mouth
sweetly infiltrating
sizing me up
crossing wires in my brain
until the thought of tearing someone in half
becomes remotely interesting (blood)

another parenthetical indication
of my pretentious misery
just crept its way into the wire
that the devil crossed while sitting on my tongue

no more punctuation
or parenthesis
or 5th lines that live for cliche sacrifice
and kamikaze stubbornness
blowing out cigarettes

i still love and i still hate

what is everyone doing?

go, person, go.
just be and exist and don't feel lonliness.
you'll always have your self to know.
move your little legs.
drink you some tea and buy you some bread,
and make sure your teeth don't hit the dregs.
succumb to the street.
where others will walk and talk and create,
but no one on earth will you ever meet.
die, person, die.
once you've made a few babies and told a few lies
and made sure to never ask, "why?"

roadtrip chronicles VI: birthday blues

cambria, california.
monday, 7/17/06.
10:17 pm.
some odd number of miles - who really cares at this point anyway?






Some things I've learned in the past two days:
- It is impossible to sleep in Vegas
- The Eraser is a good cd
- You can thoroughly clean your whole body at a rest area
- No one in L.A. knows what a trashcan is
- The Hollywood sign is not worth trying to get a picture of
- Niether are elephant seals
- L.A. has 547 Starbucks
- Something is wrong with my ankle
- Forrest Gump is a good movie
- Joon's airbags work
- Hostels are the way to go
- America is a sad and lonely place, until it pities you

roadtrip chronicles V: oh, my sweet disposition

las vegas, nevada.
saturday, 7/15/06.
10:11 pm.
3,050 miles.

Will and I woke up early yesterday morning at the Arizona Welcome Center. We actually got cold that night and had to cover up with a blanket. The sun had set into a cliff that night, and when we woke in the morning, we noticed several teepees and buffulo stand-ups and billboards boasting of authentic indian jewelry clinging to its rocks. We washed and headed for Flagstaff. The stretch of I-40 east of Flagstaff is sullen. The city is always in the back of your mind and you know it is close. For some reason it never seems to come and it is always looming in the distance. We passed by the Petrified Forest, we passed the dinosaur fossils, we passed the largest petrified tree, we even passed the largest meteor crater in the world, hoping Flagstaff would suffice for missing all those garnished attractions, but it remained in the distance. I think the reason for this is because the flat, dusty land is torn upwards in Flagstaff. You see the mountains waving in the boiling heat about 30 miles out, spinning your mind to an oasis trance. Eventually, and thankfully, the mountains become visibly solid and authentic giants.

I found myself feeling sad on the road. I thought how foreign the desert seemed. So foreign that it felt like another planet. I could actually understand why so many people in this part of the country have conspiracy thoeries and some even claim to have been abducted into silver saucers and anesthetized in spherical ERs with black-eyed doctors. I also thought about people back home. I wondered what would happen if I just stayed here and never went back. And it made me sad. Not because I knew that would be a terrible thing to do, but because I realized that I often seek other's love by acting like I don't want it. Instead of pursuing conversation or fellowship with friends and family, I ignore it until it hurts. And I was hurting this morning because I didn't know how to wander through Arizona and seek my friends at the same time. I think that is why I didn't want to even bring a phone or computer with me in the first place. Maybe I will stop dialing up and signing on and opening my mouth for the rest of this trip. Maybe then I will actually have something meaningful to say to someone when I get home.

I entered Flagstaff drained by my desert sadness. Will felt the same way. We decided to climb a mountian that shadowed the city, so we made our way down route 66 to the Elden Lookout Trailhead. We hiked up the 3 miles to the summit and rewarded ourselves with a cool glass of gatorade once we reached the bottom again. Something happened as we hiked that lifted the weight of our sadness, so we took our rejuvinated sprits to enjoy a Celtic festival that we found going on at an amphiteater in the historic downtown. I fell in love with the city then. The gray haired women, the german shepherds, the chaco wearing children, and the bearded fathers all poured onto friendly streets that invited me in with no questions. I found myself lying on the downtown sidewalk, wishing things and tearing things up inside me. I could not hold a single thought steady for more than 3 seconds, but I knew that something was wanting to change. It started to hurt after a while and I sweated in the coolness of the night. I was very sad to leave that city.

This morning we woke in a parking lot on route 66 and stole north toward canyon country. The canyon is too big to try and describe, and I don't think I will ever quite appreciate its beauty. It is grand, and it is a canyon. Now I sit in Las Vegas after taking Hwy. 93 over the Hoover Dam. This city of lights is obnoxious. It is too hot to care, and my fingers are melting as I type. I didn't actually plan on ever coming through Vegas, but here we are, and we could have done without. Driving through the downtown strip made my legs shake like a math exam. When we finally left downtown and headed to our vacant lot for tonight, I felt as if I had just been given a second chance at life after a traffic jam trip to hell. I'm just trying to appreciate the little things right now - like the fan in my car that's really just blowing the hot air around, or the granola bar rumbling in my belly, or the streetlight thats shining in my face. I really can't wait to leave Vegas.

roadtrip chronicles IV: another for the road (come on baby, light my fire)

on our way from albuquerque, NM to the arizona border.
Thursday, 7/13/06.
7:15 pm.
2,469 miles.

I think Jim Morrison had magical eyes. I know the Doors had a keyboard/organ player, but as I listen to them right now, I imagine him fueling all the music in some kind of solo, spiritual trick. His hands are raised high, pointing the fire how far up it should go - how far forward in time it should go. And that organ is presently tickling a BNSF train into a slow crawl in western New Mexico. I wonder if Jim Morrison knew that he could make a train move in the future. I wonder if he knew that I would be in the back of Joon letting his stare tickle the ivories that are my fingers. Come on baby, light my fire.

This morning, Will and I left El Paso destined for Albuquerque, NM. This stretch of the trip was very refreshing for the both of us. Will decided he wanted to talk for a while and slow his mind down. I think he is like me in the sense that his thoughts start to overtake him after a while. I do the same thing - if I am left alone with my thoughts too much, I sometimes try to hold them like little child with a hand-full of marbles. They slowly begin to slip through my fingers, and I am left crawling around on the dirty ground desperately trying to relocate, reconfigure, and reorganize. This is the comfort of conversation - it forces you to let only one or two thoughts form at once. When you have to shape those thoughts into words, your mind finally slows down a little and processes everything. Together, we processed thoughts. We talked of the roadtrip, and what it meant to each of us. And I told him how I have been trying to figure out why I really decided to go on this adventure. I know that is just what I wanted - an adventure. But why? ...I haven’t quite figured it out yet, but I know it wasn’t because I wanted to see the Grand Canyon, and I know it wasn’t because I wanted to sleep in the back of my car more than I already do in Knoxville. Perhaps it is because I am bored, but I’d rather think it is just that I am changing, but I'm still unsure as to what I am changing into. And maybe this trip is a way of letting go of all the stuff that gets in between me and God's changing hand. I am trying to see all the options and let Him shove me through the right door. I really just want God to punch me in the face, and I am pretty hungry for that right now. Hopefully He’ll punch me with an Arizona sunset tonight, or the Pacific Ocean in a few days. And hopefully, when I get back to Tennessee, He can punch me with my beautiful friends that I miss. I miss them like Winnie misses his pooh.

We also talked about how depressed I get sometimes when I leave Mckay’s Used Books in Knoxville. I usually feel this way because most of the people checking out beside me are old women with a cart-full of Danielle Steele novels. And I wonder if this emotional escape is really any different than pornography. And I wonder if I don’t try to emotionally escape through Sigur Ros or Bright Eyes or Wes Anderson or even C.S. Lewis. On my best behavior, I am really just like them.

I think our conversation eased both of our spirits and readied us for a beautiful afternoon in Albuquerque. We both sat in Lindy’s coffee shop for a long while as we wrote and read. It was incredibly hot outside when walked around downtown - women woo-hooing on motorcycles, hobos selling timepieces, businessmen with phones close at hand, so we just sat inside and the mad-hatter ate lunch at the table across from us. Albuquerque was pink and yellow with splashes of blue and green. It made me flex my mind and wish I was on a jungle gym or digging up geodes like I was 11 again. We left Albuquerque quietly.

The red mountains and silver shelves of New Mexico are passing by me right now as we drive toward Arizona. Joon is kicking up dust and the sun is about to give way to the moon. This place belongs in the moonlight. The tickled train is long gone, but Jim Morrison is still enchanting a keyboard. One in the past that sings his song, and one in the present that types these words. I feel God in the air right now - through the windshield and through my hat and through my skull. I feel Him in the silence - through the trucks and through the music and through the thoughts that constantly scream in my head. He is so much more than all that. Thank God.

I hope the sun sets in Arizona. We’ll be there in 11 miles and the sun is just now turning red. We’ve got some time.

roadtrip chronicles III: sleeping under the mountain star

El Paso, Texas.
Thursday, 7/13/06.
7:30 am.
2,048 miles.

Texas is selfishly big and strangely populated. Yesterday, we drove over 700 miles and about 600 of those miles were spent driving through no man’s land. The road cut into a curiously dry landscape covered in brown brush and cacti. Wrinkled hills and thin-skinned mountains lead quietly into older flat-lands that give nothing to sight besides a horizon held down by the most vast sky I have ever seen. (It seems like the sky is all there is in Texas). The strange part is that all this creation that’s spread out around us comes dotted with concrete monsters that try to swallow us as we yawn along the highway in Joon. Houston almost ate us when we hung onto its teeth for 7 or 8 hours, tempting its appetite.

Will and I finally left Houston and drove northwest. We slept at a truck-stop in Ellington and spent the next morning in Austin. We did our best to keep it weird. After a visit to Zilker Park, Waterloo Records, and the post office, we were off toward San Antonio and beyond. Once San Antonio was out of mind, we entered the 600 miles of gorgeous nothingness that gave me a casual crick in the neck and a speeding ticket. 9 hours later Will and I were in the midst of the El Paso lights. The lights spread out too far to account for in one direction. There was a storm cloud hovering ominously over the city, drilling it with lightning every few seconds. Under the cloud, the sun was setting, and we knew we had to sleep here.

I wondered what it would be like if we got jobs at one of the local Fuddruckers and rented an apartment among the Hispanic footprints. This is something I’ve been thinking about most of the trip, though. When I see shopping malls and Starbucks and neighborhoods, I wonder how different these people’s lives really are from mine. Will and I went to a Walgreens in Houston and I felt like the people there were just like me. They were buying stuff just like me, they all have homes and families and friends. They all wake up in the morning and go to sleep at night and read books and watch movies, maybe even the same movies I watch. I don’t know why this was such a weird thought, but it was. It honestly shook me up for a brief moment. I think I could live in El Paso.

We found a Texas Star made out of lights resting on one of the great hills that overlook the city. The 40 or 50 foot star drew us to it, and we found our way up the hill on a scenic drive bordered by overlooks and coin operated telescopes. We decided to sleep in a neighborhood just below the hill, and drove up to the summit at sunrise this morning. The eastern horizon was on fire. If I am ever in El Paso con una chica, I’m taking her there.

I am both happy and sad to leave Texas behind. Unfortunately, I will probably forget about its beauty for a while when I see New Mexico’s and Arizona’s for the next few days. I’m just like a little kid - both happy and sad, forgetting things I learned yesterday .....and wishing my mom could fix me a PB&J (with no crust).

roadtrip chronicles II: santa goes to the dentist

houston, texas.
tuesday, july 11th.
2:10 pm.
1,203 miles.

If you thought I was skinny before, wait until after this trip - I will be a skeleton. Last night was the first night that Will and I slept in the car, and it was almost unbearably hot... but just almost. Even though about a gallon of sweat left each of our bodies over the course of a few hours, we decided that we could handle it for a month. Plus, as I told Will, it will make his dorm room seem like a heavenly land of cozy, cleanliness. Once we rolled down the back windows and took off as much clothing as possible, we were able to cope. Man, I can't wait for Washington....

We left Pickwick late Sunday night and drove Cassie back to her sister's place in Birmingham. We stayed there the night and left early the next morning to get my glasses fixed from an unfortunate mishap at the lake - thanks Cassie (it was really my fault, though). After leaving Birmingham, we headed south toward Mobile and then west to New Orleans. Will and I spent a few hours exploring the city and feeling somewhat desolate as we were surrounded by destroyed, empty neighborhoods and strip-malls that were gray and feather-lite. It was quite surreal, actually. I felt like I was in a ghost town even though Katrina hit 9 or 10 months ago. The people we did see, though, were no less surreal. As Will noted, they seemed to know something we didn't - whether it was in their arrogant swagger, or in their meek stares - they just looked as if they knew what was up. That's really the best I can describe it. This observation was especially accentuated after a visit to the French Quarter, which, altough colored and heavy with life and money, seemed just as desolate as the abandoned cars and apartments or the trashed downtown streets.

We ended our New Orleans experience on a fisherman's beach, with concrete steps falling into the sea, and water lapping at Mexico's feet. We watched the sunset and listened to Spanish voices and planned our next move - food and sleep. So we drove toward Baton Rouge and ate. And we slept just outside of the city, and this part of the plan was almost foiled when a concerned homeowner decided to shine his flashlight toward our car from his driveway, forcing us to find a different resting place. And we did, and we sweated, and we talked because we couldn't sleep, and we woke up early and drove to Houston, TX where I now sit. We went to a Texas beach this morning, too. It was scuzzy, to say the least, so I think we'll leave the beach part of the trip up to California and Oregon. .....I'm hungry, I think I'll go buy Thom Yorke's album at Waterloo Records in Austin.....

roadtrip chronicles I: humble moon

pickwick lake, alabama.
saturday, july 8th.
9:50 pm.
220 miles.

I'm so glad there is no formula to life. I've always been pretty terrible at doing things the way they are supposed to be done anyway, so I like to think that there is no "best" way to live life. I try to think of it as an adventure. It is getting lost in a fusion of interstate exits, saying goodbye to loved ones, breaking your only pair of glasses, and fighting the wind with your lashes. Yet, so much of the time I look past all that. I long for something more - I long for heaven on earth. Maybe I should stop trying to pull the whole glorious place down here and just settle for splashing glimpses of it in people's faces.

Yesterday, my little brother, Will, and I set out on an adventure. We left Nashville, TN in a haze and drove to Pickwick Lake in northwestern Alabama to be with friends for a couple of days before we head west. I already feel like I've been away for a long time, but I'm sure this will all hit me a lot harder in a few days when Will and I are driving through the desert with nothing recognizable or familiar around us. And I can't wait.

This afternoon, we all went out on the lake. We stayed out long enough to see the sun sink into the horizon. Just after it set, I noticed the moon, on the other side of the lake, already high in the sky. Most of the time when I see the moon, it seems like it is right where it should be, above my head, desperately trying to shine and highlight its celebrity. But tonight, it seemed like it was next to me, tilting my head even higher, begging me to see beyond it - or through it. Through to the heaven that lies behind. And I didn't pull that thought down into my earthly reality - I was content with a glimpse. I hope America is as humble as the moon was tonight.