Of Hopes

Buried deep in my heart of hearts is a brief list of hopes and dreams.

Many of them are Star Wars-related. Here are some of them.

Of Year's End

I've spent the last week or so thinking on what I had to say about last year. It has been difficult; I actually don't remember the vast majority of it. The first two months of the year were absolutely without equal in my life, easily the happiest I have ever been--but it did not last, and I spent the rest of it drifting between misery and paralysis, suffused with utter confusion.

Mostly, I wound myself up on election news and played a lot of Diablo 3.

Of Daydreams

I have a few recurring daydreams, most of which are pure escapist fantasy; I like to pretend that this life is just the dream in between my adventures in space.

Over the past few years, though, most of those daydreams have been supplanted with one very detailed and unpleasant fantasy. It goes thusly: I am a talk show host. Essentially everyone watches my show. It is a political talk show, much like most of those that you can already watch, with a few key differences: First, my show consists almost entirely of one interview per hour-long episode. Second, I have some infallible means of compelling my guests to tell the truth. Third, when I ask someone to come on my show, they are legally obligated to appear. The questions would vary depending on the guest and why I want to talk to them, of course, but the first question I would ask every one of my guests is, "Why are you such an asshole?"

That's also the title.

Of Poems IV

Bindings

I run into an old flame.
We stand and look at each other:
her with what I hope is that mixture of
pain and regret and sadness
that comes with love’s sabotage;
me with what I can only imagine is
bitter medicine.
she raises her hand in a half-gesture—
mouth turned in a half-smile—
brow arched in a half-sympathy—
but I’m looking at her thigh:
spun around it is a tattoo,
three peonies,
black and yellow and red,
so vibrant I can’t
hear anything else,
see anything else,
feel anything else.

I’m waiting for resolution,
      cold and hard and final.
I’m looking for vengeance,
      served with warmth unbearable.
I’m fumbling for love,
      hotter still, burning inside out.

She comes back in a flash,
with a tangled skein woven
around her,
filaments flowing from
me to her, heart-strings that bind.
I pluck one—the note is
totality of feeling.
I listen, and she listens,
we’re caught up in
everything we’ve ever been together,
until the wave breaks,
and rolls back;
the web around us fades
so slowly I don’t notice,
and every day I’m
weaving, weaving, weaving.

Of Works, VIII

Here is something I've been working on for quite awhile.

I'm just about ready to abandon it. The title is a placeholder.

Deserts

-----

It's a very specific freedom, born of blue sky and a horizon that just goes, a landscape without reaping: after six months in Iraq, Interstate 10 is more than just cracked concrete. West Texas is more than a sun-blasted wasteland. It assumes a new abundance, defined less by what it is and more by what it isn't: Flick your cigarette out the window; the route isn't compromised. Get lost; dawn is not your enemy. Take this exit; nobody dies.

Drive for days, and nothing matters.

Blue sky for miles and the kind of heat that scorches and kills but doesn't stick, an ethereal, shimmering heat that you can't remember at midnight for the cold that grips you.
Deserts.
I tell you.

Of Works, VII

An examination of the last decade. It is fiction, despite appearances, despite real elements. But it is also true. Here is

Grownups

-----

In the year 2000 I played at least a thousand hours of video games.

In the summer of 2003, I read Kurt Vonnegut’s entire body of work. Parts of Bluebeard, Breakfast of Champions, and Slapstick have all run together in my head.

I was desperate to be taken seriously.

Of Works, VI

My writing teacher calls this a guilty elegy. Without further explanation, here is

Apocrypha
---
I had a few days' warning before the hurricane hit--but I am perennially ill-prepared. I woke up that Sunday and thought to myself, "I heard something about a storm. I should probably look into that." I flipped to the weather channel, where a demented man attempted to stand on a beach in spite of the rising waves; he talked about how nobody should be anywhere near where he was. A category five hurricane was heading directly at me.