Collin

New

Sat, 16 Jun 2007 03:11:36 GMT

As a means of communication, this is incomplete. As a means of catharsis, it is wholly inadequate. But sometimes, good enough has to be good enough.

Life is astounding in the rapidity of its reversals. I am a bad human being with good intentions. And within every second I want to crumble. Scars line my experiences. Know this: I'm sorry in every sense of the word.

eulogies on deaf ears

Wed, 27 Dec 2006 03:56:00 GMT

He began with the words, "Dear Everyone: I'm very sorry," written in jagged cursive that looked like thunder clouds about to burst over a raging sea, waves as endless mountains. These were not the right words. His was not the right hand to scribble the feelings of anger and remorse, betrayal and guilt, that seethed hotly in his center. "To Everyone who has ever contemplated exactly three stars in a sky full of burning brightness: My shame is endless." A line through their hearts and the words are vapor and the thought never was at all. Shaking in his clenched fist, the pen danced on paper and tore it to pieces, bits of pulp to be laughed at by a strong breeze. "For Anyone who has ever believed in anything, and With Regards to Those who were too strung-out and full of hatred to believe in anything at all: This is the reality of all that you want to be. And still, I'm very sorry." Things are still, and such is the end.

role reversal

Wed, 15 Nov 2006 05:30:04 GMT

He turned to the side, his left side where his shadow was ten feet tall, a malignant statue frozen to his side, and cupped his hands to his mouth.
"I wish I was you," he whispered as his feet dragged along the dusty gravel.
A shadow can't dance unless the soul of its owner is ready to let it.

paradox lost

Fri, 20 Oct 2006 20:43:06 GMT

I've been here before, on the day I first saw the sun rise over the trees and you said "Let's never die unless the world is on fire. Unless everything is burning to the fucking ground." And I looked at you as you had your eyes closed and my throat was dry and your chest was rising and falling with an elegance I'd always admired and I realized that this was the moment I was born. The moment I died. And everything was on fire as the morning sun cast its gaze over the slick grass and chased the darkness into shadows while it lit up the miserable lives of everyone that wasn't us. I was on fire, I was burning to the fucking ground. So I died.

Rememberances

Fri, 20 Oct 2006 06:33:57 GMT

How many nights will I walk down a rain-soaked street and notice the exact shape of things? I'll tell myself to remember a moment for the rest of my life, the knobs in the bark of a tree, but in the morning...it's gone. The number of seconds, minutes, hours, days, feelings, moods, emotions, premonitions, beliefs, regrets....that anyone will remember at a time when memory is all one has left is frighteningly marginal. But the things that are remembered are the things, both great and small, magnificent and inconsequential, that have shaped a life lived by no other. I'll never stop trying to remember, and I'll never stop trying to make memories. But it's time I learned the difference between the two.

statements

Wed, 18 Oct 2006 06:40:19 GMT

This is:

the middle of everything that will ever matter, which is everything without the preposition.

We should:

remember how to deliver acts of kindness to further disperse the madness of a world of self and struggle.

I've been:

long attracted to the majesty of firsts and the sensations of comfortable anxiety.

You are:

as you were and should be and always will be, as progress is not the dream of pragmatists.

That is:

perfect.

the necessity of evil

Sun, 08 Oct 2006 05:45:16 GMT

Let us assume that the second before a tragedy isn't really a second at all. Instead, believe that it is an infinite collection of perfect moments cascading into one another. And so we burrow into this second (as false as it may be) and disguise the faults of our paths with lies of perfection. This is avoiding tragedy, which surely must be right.

A child with dusky eyes of tide-polished volcanic rock and ashy gray hair begins to whisper to each one who passes him, "This is not the truth. I cannot feel the breath in my lungs or the blood in my fingertips. I can't taste laughter on my lips or hear love in the tender apology of a remorseful man who has nothing to gain. We must know these things."

But this is just a child in a collection of infinite perfect moments, and he is not to be heeded. It is the wisest men who know it is better to pretend to live forever in the pretend second before the realest of tragedies. This is not debatable. Sacrifices must be conceded to protect the sanctity of this life.

"This is not a life. I cannot see what makes us real. There can be no sympathy or compassion, growth or conviction. There is nothing real in the absence of its opposite."

Reality is a construct of society, we say. Who is this child to say what's real? Allow us the freedom to dwell within our second as we see fit. This is not ignorance or cowardice, but the truth of the fiction that is the ability to crawl within a moment controlled by a snow globe in the shaking, calloused fingers of an epileptic jester and hope that all remains still.

"If we can convince ourselves of this cascading series of perfect moments, we have given up on ever hoping to achieve perfection as humans might hope to achieve it. And this replacement of tragedies for tragedy, stillness for reality, is the most ludicrous of gambits."

But. True. False.

Sat, 23 Sep 2006 08:01:23 GMT

Immature but sincere.
Inexperienced but wise.
Different but open-minded.
Cocksure but staggeringly unconfident.

These are true:
Anticipation is a long time coming.
Fifteen seconds make it worthwhile.

These are false:
Everything in life is easy to forget.
Nothing in life is easy to forget.
Everything is Nothing.

Fond of adventure but attracted to sameness.
Loyal but weary.
Reluctant but excited.

These are false:
Everyone is happy all the time.
No one is happy all the time.
Everyone is No one.

These are true:
Without lies, there is no truth.
Without the truth, there are no lies.
For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

Truth, truth, truth. Lies, lies, lies. Life, life, life, life, life, life, lifelifelifelifeliestruthliestruthlies.Life.

Unplug your portable music device

Fri, 22 Sep 2006 04:43:40 GMT

I was asked by a girl on a plane ride, "What is your dream?" I had never confronted that question before. A homeless man thanked me sincerely for talking to him. No money was exchanged. I watched a young child insist on making "Moo" noises to a picture of a horse while his father laughed and scooped him up onto his shoulders. Without strangers, we don't have a world worth living in.

Notice

Sun, 27 Aug 2006 05:59:10 GMT

Dear Alanis Morisette:

Having rain on your wedding day is not ironic. It is just unfortunate. Unless you happen to really like rain, in which case you are really happy that it is raining on your wedding day. Just thought I'd clear that up for you. Next time, try not to be such a sucking bitch.

Your Number One Fan (Now that's irony!),

Collin

Reflections on a day in the park

Wed, 26 Jul 2006 06:34:57 GMT

Dark clouds threaten rain but we are huddled under trees with thick branches. Chunks of gray bark with sickly white spots lay scattered, unwhole. We form circles of our lips and force ourselves outwards in protest of this. Shame is relative. I can bury my face in the grass and sing songs to the life that struggles in the dirt, remaining unseen. You musn't listen. This is no place for love, but love has no place for us. An instinct of protection is a sign of fear. I have no need to protect when I have no need to be afraid. My song is one of hope and madness. I beg you to put a thumb in each of your ears. Recite from memory: your birth, your life, your death. We're lying dead together now. Stillness is its own reward. Fingers crawl, spiders to meet flesh, and now we aren't to forget this. The cloud bursts and the branches disappear. So must we.

Sounding the echoes

Wed, 12 Jul 2006 05:17:19 GMT

If we try hard enough, little moments are beautiful. Sitting in a dark bus stuck in a line of cars at twilight, a girl struggles her way into a sweater. I want to admit things to that moment. Every breath I've ever taken I want preserved in nothing but the crook of that girl's elbow as it sticks into the thin sweater. But traffic grows impatient and sweaters are meant to be worn. These things, like all things, pass.

these are facts

Thu, 06 Apr 2006 04:03:53 GMT

At a certain point, we are all guilty. The innocent are guilty of innocence. Innocence is ignorance. Ignorance is inexcusable. Inexcusable is guilty. Somewhere in this circle, we are all lost.

I probably have no right to do this...

Tue, 28 Mar 2006 03:54:43 GMT

I'm fairly apolitical. I don't consider myself well-informed enough to really rant about anything. I'm the type of person who hates Bush, but hides behind a screen of bravado and generalized statements because there are very few concrete things I can point too that I know are wrong. I'm trying to become more aware of the world around me and venture out of the insular world I have long-since created for myself. But this is a painstaking process and I have a short attention span.
All this being said, I have recently found myself becoming increasingly disgusted by jingoistic, feverish patriotism. There are too many yokels in this world who willingly listen to Toby Keith for inspiration. "We'll put a boot up your ass, it's the American way." Is that right, Mr. Keith? Since when did the American way become unchecked aggression and war-mongering? When did our foreign policy begin to be exemplified by a focus on lies and unilateral activity that isolates us from the global community, thereby placing all of our lives, or at least the quality of our lives, in constant jeopardy while our economy spirals out of control? You're a moron who has used tragedy and preyed on the emotions of those who have been affected by tragedy to cash in and help create an atmosphere (which is just beginning to be disappear with the recent plunges in Bush's approval ratings) wherein it was unpatriotic to question the actions of the government, even though such questioning is essential to sustaining a credible democracy.
"And I'm proud to be an American, where at least I know I'm free." I know that's not Toby Keith. And I also know that when accompanied by the laser light show at Darien Lake, that song gets me feeling emotional. But most importantly I know that I can't think of a single person in my life who has any right to be proud to be an American. Every single one of us should be aware of how fortunate we are to be Americans, but pride is another matter altogether. Certainly, we are all given tremendous opportunities and granted freedoms that are unheard of in other countries, and it is these things that speak to how great our country once was, still can be, and quite frankly, comparatively still is. But we are winners of a cosmic lottery that placed us in middle-class, American suburbia as opposed to some fetid hut in the Sub-Sahara or under some politically oppressive regime that monitored every facet of our daily lives (although it's not a complete exaggeration to claim that we are moving towards the latter). I and no one I know have done anything to warrant pride in America or more specifically, pride in being an American. I'm happy to be an American, even amidst the turmoil of contemporary living, but I'm afraid I can't rightfully muster the blind patriotism necessary to claim pride in something that I have no control over. Especially when that something is being a member of a society that is slowly losing its original identity and becoming something entirely unlike the just, democratic world power it once was.

Shorter

Sun, 26 Mar 2006 09:10:56 GMT

We should do this softly, and whisper in the corners so that people make up their own minds about what we're saying. I'd like to find a way to be nearer to the collective you.

Faults take time to mend

Fri, 24 Mar 2006 07:10:18 GMT

Somewhere, someone is lonely. Really, truly lonely. There has been a death. Or maybe there is just no life left. If you walk in the right door, at the right time, at the right place, it's an epidemic.
I am lucky, but not better. I am proud, but not worthy. This is wrong, but not my fault. I want to push three fingers to my pulse and place my hand on her right shoulder. Do you feel this? Her glass has two ice cubes, melting in the middle. I wish the room was colder. Do you feel this? We need more than this. Thump,thump,thump. Thump. Thump, thump, thump. Thump. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. My mother was proud. I closed my eyes and she pretended to be impressed. Do you feel this? Search harder. Do you feel this? Minnesota is a proper noun. That's not good enough. The capital of Minnesota is Minneapolis. I'll stand on one leg and clap my hands for every syllable. Ev-er-y syl-lab-le. The colors in the glass are: brown and light. Do you feel this? I don't have answers anymore because I have questions. Doyoufeelthisdoyoufeelthisdoyoufeelthisdoyoufeelthis?

News and views

Thu, 16 Mar 2006 04:51:02 GMT

I gained entrance into the Publishing Institute at the University of Denver, which is probably the best thing I've accomplished in my life. So I'm fairly stoked about that.
I have few hard and fast rules in life but this is one: if I am wearing a shirt in a dream that I know I own and I didn't wear the day before, you better believe I will wear that shirt the next day.
I miss Buffalo already. Driving on the Thruway between William and Walden it is just a sea of shitty, non-productive industrial wasteland and lights and it makes me nostalgic. I want to be in love and I want to be in Buffalo.

Alliteration sentence completed!

Tue, 07 Mar 2006 04:54:30 GMT

Back from Los Angeles. It's big. I like Buffalo better, snow and all. Read something that made alot of sense to me and made me feel better about myself. I finally finished this, but it broke down in places. Zandy is the ant and I already know Zandy isn't a real name, but this is as cohesive a narrative as I could manage.

An ant approached an alligator but began by cautiously crawling downwind due-east, eventually expecting freedom from ferocious fury. Gaining ground, he happily happened into idiotically juvenile juniors. "Keep keepin' little lad. Looks like mighty malicious men never neared one of our ominously proud pests." Quite quickly, realizing radical, super sunshine slammed terrifically towards unprotected underbellies, victory veered wildly west. While women wept, young yodeler, Zeke, zanily zapato zapped Zandy.

a scene incomplete

Tue, 28 Feb 2006 05:55:08 GMT

Alison listens to love songs on the radio during windstorms that make the window panes rattle. She sings along softly, splayed out on the throw rug. I've watched her from the other room, sitting cross-legged under the table, peering through the legs of the chairs. Her heart is broken, but it's supposed to be a secret. There are three lamps in the dining room, each one with a different color shade perched atop it. I like it when they are all off. Colors have never suited me. Even as rain joins the wind, the window now pelted by a trillion fingers, Alison stares at the ceiling and the radio talks about things I can barely understand. I whisper things I learned in school once, "Some cities are below sea-level, so everyone there might drown and then everyone's heart is broken." This is a Wednesday afternoon. I want to stop breathing and let the air fill me up like a balloon without a string. I will float above Alison and smile to her. She will pull me down by my leg and say, "I didn't know you could do that," and she won't be broken anymore. "Amoebas have no shape so they can become anything," I'll whisper to her. The man on the radio has a voice like the flame of a candle and I hope he stays dry.

The Council of Obvious Clichery Presents....

Mon, 27 Feb 2006 06:18:21 GMT

Every day is self-contained. It is entirely reasonable to look at each day as an individual being, with no attachment to the day prior or the day to follow. Or at least this is the contention I would like to make.
However, in order to fully support this statement I must establish fairly arbitrary boundaries to distinguish between days. As we are all aware, sleep patterns are by no means uniform among diverse groups of people, or for that matter in the same person for any given amount of time. That being said, there comes a time for every person that they retire to some quiet destination with the intention of sleeping for at least a moderatly extended period of time. The moment this desired sleep state is fallen into to the moment that this same person makes the conscious decision to abandon any more sleep activity for an extended period of time constitutes the boundary between days. The act of sleep itself is something of a gray area that for the purposes of my discussion, I'll simply ignore.
All that being said, it is now possible to look at each day as a solitary creature, to be judged on its own merits. Upon waking up each day we are greeted by an infinite series of possibilities for the next X amount of hours. Quite literally, anything can happen in that given day regardless of the previous pattern of your life. Losers can be winners, loners can find love, and any number of calamities or joyous occassions can happen. At the same time, the prospect of tomorrow can have no real influence on the present of today. It is possible to expect something the next day, but the unpredictable events of the current day are likely to irrevocably alter the eventuality of that expectation.
Even personal relationships should be viewed within the days-unto-themselves framework, and this is for obvious reasons. So all in all, cliche or not, it is most beneficial and most reasonable to approach each day with a fresh mindset. It isn't necessary to avoid any recollection of the past or refrain from pleasant ruminations concerning the future, but when its time to get going, its time to be in the present moment.

We speak facts

Fri, 24 Feb 2006 07:01:13 GMT

I'm a waste of many things. And I waste many things.
Can we all agree that spinning wheels aren't good for anything?
It's wrong for me to be like this.

This is spoken in a quiet voice

Wed, 22 Feb 2006 03:45:17 GMT

I've often had daydreams that inolved happy endings. In movies, a happy ending is only happy because it's an end of the movie, not an end for the characters that we as an audience have invested our emotions in. It is happy because the screen goes black, but we can envision a series of continuing happy events for the characters, into perpetuity. But in real life, an ending is nothing but an ending, and there is no happy way to end anything. You can raise your glass, but after the toast is said and the fondest farewell is wished, all you can do is lower that same glass back down and find a way to get home, always hoping that home is still how you remember it.

Let's

Thu, 16 Feb 2006 06:48:28 GMT

I think it's very important that we all spend time pretending. Be what you aren't, say what you don't mean, feel what you don't feel, live like you would never live. This is someone else, and now you know it. Pretend.

Lessons

Tue, 14 Feb 2006 04:46:30 GMT

I want to live my life with pictures. I see smiles and jokes and people that I don't know anymore because they no longer exist. But pictures aren't real. They are moments frozen in a flash. What is real is the instant before and the eternity after each picture. I need to learn to live in that instant eternity and allow everyone else to live in theirs.

Respondance

Tue, 07 Feb 2006 07:01:52 GMT

In response to Meghan Hannel:
I had a dream just a few nights ago that started with me gleefully planting T-shirt bombs around my campus. When I asked what they exploded, I was told "Just air. It's not the Apocalypse." All of a sudden, I am on a hill with what I can only believe is all of humanity. There is a missile closing in on us and it is clear that we are all going to die. This is indeed the Apocalypse. I see a helicopter made out of Lego's and then it announces, "It's a Goodyear blimp. I guess God does have a sense of humor." Then the blimp comes flying down to the ground, but when it hits it doesn't explode. Instead it is now a purple bird, and it is dead. I approach it, and pet its head, but it turns into a kitten and the crowd rejoices. Then I woke up.