alone in a nighttime cityscape (previously "a requiem for synecdoche')

i walk aimlessly,
through spaces which,
although not occupied by buildings,
are filled, nonetheless.


amber lights
from tall, lanky lamp posts;


tired engines bubbling past, while
taillights trail a half-second behind;


hazy silhouettes of slim, steel staircases
cast by dim neon lights;


traces of faint cigarette smoke
tainted by the frigid, brooding autumn breeze.


as i look up at the indigo sky, that's when i realize
i will never feel more at home with this
luminous, atmospheric, post-industrial labyrinth
keeping me company;

but
at the same time,
never could i feel so...

leaving wonderland

i stand here, motionless, letting the water run down my back and over my shoulders. i reach behind me and turn the knob counter-clockwise, slowly, letting the increasingly hotter specks pelt my skin, like hundreds of little bb pellets leaving indents wherever they make contact, until the sensation becomes uniform. i wish i could just stand here in the heat...



stand - not with things called muscles contracting as a result of electric signals being carried through a nervous system originating from a brain that is fated to natural deterioration sometime within the next 60 years;

in the heat - not under a shower head releasing water and steam that was subjected to conduction via hydrocarbons stripped from the earth and ignited to produce an excess of greenhouse gasses;

here - not on the 2nd floor of a university apartment located 20 miles from my hometown on a vast continent in the western hemisphere of a planet that's adept at assembling atoms and molecules in such a way that life comes about via a concept we call 'emergence'...




sustained ideas of things with no meaning -- ideas of things restricted from being integrated into the mind -- are what some philosophers call "isolated phenomena." in this state, they produce a sense of wonder. undeniably, time can (and maybe it always will) be one of these things.



ever wonder why we were so carefree as children? it's because we were naive; we didn't understand anything, and didn't care about trying to. that's how children are. every thing was an isolated phenomenon; every thing brought about wonder. yes, 'every thing', not 'everything.' but man, i wish i could traverse this arrow of time and stay locked in an arbitrary moment of 'back then'...





time. one of the mind's last uncharted territories. definitely the most sacred wonder. i think i should turn off this water and take a step back into reality. this is the one thing i need leave unperturbed...

aloof

i know i seem distant to people who know me, and just quiet to those who don't. i guess i've always been this way. as a kid i was so eager, so curious as to how the world and everything around me works. i still am, though often it may not show. i was also a bit outspoken and kind of a know-it-all.

but somewhere between then and now, i guess i wasn't too happy with the answer that i demanded of my question-of-everything. somewhere between then and now, despair crept up on me -- and in turn, i frantically started trying to figure out how to fix this million piece puzzle that i call my mind. somewhere between then and now, i discovered that i don't accommodate for change as easily as i thought i did; and somewhere between then and now, i've spent a long time trying to figure out how to construct this fort high enough and complex enough for me to see over while remaining secure behind it. and now, i'm stuck trying to figure out how to dismantle the damned thing...

in a post i wrote a few weeks ago i said i didn't know how to love. i said i wanted someone to show me. i wasn't sure that anyone ever had, despite hearing those eternal three words from family members and from my then-girlfriend. but what i didn't realize is that i was too busy trying to build that fucking wall to notice that if i had been around the right people, i didn't even need one. i was too busy trying to keep from having anyone upset at me. i'd gotten adept at putting up filters on my personality to try and keep everyone content with me because somehow i thought that doing so would keep me happy.

i didn't need anyone to show me how to love; they were doing that all along. what i think i needed was for someone to remind me...