To my dear old boots

thank you

we met by chance,

you arrived so unexpectedly 

and yet, right when I needed you. 

I still remember it all. 

you shouldn’t have been there, in that 

discount store full of sports apparel

I found you in a pile of sneakers 

for a size that didn’t fit me

but you were perfect

even with your mismatched laces

I wore you everywhere through the dirty streets of Manhattan

It was a whole, crazy new world of

skyscrapers and endless art and endless broken people

my first great adventure as a man. 

I had known so little back then - and oftentimes 

I would hold so much fear as I walked about, the uncertainty crawling through my pores. I know you could feel it. My feet would get clammy. My pace quickened as I side-stepped the vagrants and brown puddles. 

Running to and fro, from job to job, struggling to keep myself afloat while it

poured and poured. 

I even wore you when I got myself a longboard to cruise through the city streets. 

I didn’t want to stop wearing you. I felt stronger. Taller.  And you put up with it. 

I tried really hard to avoid the puddles but

still, sometimes, I’d get careless - I felt invulnerable in you. 

And man, it took a long time to break you in, do you remember that? 

I didn’t know any better so I just wore you until it didn’t hurt anymore.

I felt like I could climb mountains with you. 

For my first auditions, my first jobs, my first love - you took me everywhere. 

And you only got prettier to me. 

All your imperfections. Your scuffs, your tears, that one heel that was shaved down. 

You were with me through it all. 

All the sprints and walks, 

the runs and escapes, 

the triumphs and failures. 

Thank you. 

my fingers weep

from writing so much bad poetry

deflated beasts of better ones

that i could never grasp

my little ink demons

crawling over canvas

their crude corners chock full of

chaos and rage

enough to make a saint 

swim with the sirens

as the butchers sharpen their knives

as the cracked pendulum swings awry

I am a poet 

when God speaks 

(loud enough for me to hear)

A dream

I step into a warehouse somewhere in a strange city that – seems vaguely old and young at the same time

it’s a retro warehouse party 80’s vibe and everyone wears funky hair and leather

I approach a man I’m familiar with a kind of nonchalant cordiality coworkers have

and to my surprise I find you standing there, with him

you look away as do I

much time has passed since we were lovers

the ache isn’t so sharp but, seeing you once again

your dark hair your eyes your lips

the melancholy returns for just a breath an afterthought

it wouldn’t make sense to miss you so terribly after all this time

besides I came here to party not to idle over lost love

all of this passes in a moment and the oblivious man pulls out a joint

I take a puff it’s strong we pass it around

you and I act like strangers meeting for the first time

yet you consume me as you always have

And I wonder if you’re faking it like I am as if I can’t see how lovely you are

but you’re hard to read you always have been even though you could always see right through me

well, much time has passed

I knew she’d find another Neruda was right And so I puff, puff, puff,

Letting the lights, the music, the motion, the weed, pilot the night

everything gets hazy and I find myself in the back of a strange vehicle top down cruising through the city

you’ve sat between me and your man

ah, that’s right. you’re no longer mine.

to stay the ache I stare away from you, I throw my gaze to the skyscrapers the neon signs the dark skies the passing lights anything to forget you

but then I feel your leg rising over mine and you press into me silently and we pull each other close

I forget the world as we ride down the avenues

I press against your neck a space so soft so warm all over again it returns

you pass me the joint and press into me closer

I exhale a plume of thick black smoke that finishes clear

it’s been forever but there’s nothing to be said

as if we’re just two strangers in love

I want this to never end. Please, God, Let this moment last forever.

but I hear something ring a chime my phone wrenching me away

no one seems to notice but me

not the guys doing blow in the front nor the friend to our right or you looking off into the distance

I try to stay with you but I am wrenched away and awaken in my cold dark room alone

fumbling to answer the phone.

my producer is calling me he’s got issues with the script I just wrote

my eyelids practically glued shut I peer at the time I’m late for work.

Amen

2020

Somewhere far from these

drooping palm trees

rolling blue waves 

and the soft neck of a 

young woman

whose love I devour

while sharing none of mine,

a bomb

plummets onto a building full of 

newborn infants 

resting in the arms of new mothers

somewhere far away 

far enough to disappear until 

I think to write

a poem 

Dreamer

Silly dreamer,

Why do you persist,

Hasn’t your endless failure taught you nothing?

How much time must pass,

What more will you endure,

Before you have had your fill?

Silly dreamer,

Stars were never meant to be reached,

Only to be gazed upon,

To come alive with your wonder,

For that is what makes them glimmer,

Far into the night.

My desk is cluttered.  Pen caps, business cards, random things like an empty champagne flute and a bottle of dayquil.  I am so tired, so sleep-deprived, that the numbers I stare at on my computer screen have seem to lost their meaning to me.  To my left lies a woman diligently working, typing rapidly on her computer screen, back up straight like a pencil.  Meanwhile I grow self-conscious of my hunched back and I too, straighten up.  I silently thank her.  

As much as I’d rather fill this space with words and prose, I cannot for I have tasks that await my efforts.  For this is what provides me my living needs.  And that is all.

The Thought

Is it so wrong to be depressed?

Is it against our world to delve into sadness, to bask in misery?

There is a beauty in everything, even the grey skies, in violence, in sadness - it is life.  And life is beautiful.  

Silent admiration I hold for those who bear scars and a hurt so deep they can never heal.  They carry on like wounded soldiers determined to live.  

Eyes are different, those that no longer seek happiness, but peace. 

What do you seek?

This and a Grey Sky

I can see the people in the building across from me, little figurines hustling to and fro in their vanilla walls.  One lady wears a black dress.  She’s a droopy hourglass, trudging along the room.

Her belly protrudes from her dress - perhaps she’s pregnant?  Maybe she’s fat.  But I’m leaning on pregnant because her arms are just so thin, like unfolded paper clips.

The lights dim and the people exit.  Now there is no one.   The skies are grey iron, droplets of rain dancing on the window pane.

I struggle to feel what it is that courses through me, a dull exhaustion that seems to gnaw at my heart.

So many things are left undone, it leaves me to wonder if that was their purpose.  These things, unfinished, started and stopped, wasting away into nothingness.  Why bother?

Like a great machination of creativity that sputters along, I craft this and that, only to abandon them all in the pursuit of the new, the different, the other.

Time is my enemy.  It bends against my will, twitching to my every nerve.  It flees when I need it most, yet it presses it’s unyielding forces against me when I need it least.

Time is my enemy.

Once we were friends, but perhaps that was an illusion.  A trick on the mind, a play on the eyes.  

Bravo, I applaud you good Sir.  You are winning this gruesome battle of wills, for mine has been diminutive for some time now.  I wonder if I’ll ever look back and feel a sad nostalgia reading these words of mine, shaking my head, wondering what had worried me so.

Till then, yours truly,

                                                                                              - Aldus

Clarity

Many nights, I find myself widely aware of my place.  I feel a very strenuous sensitivity to the world around me - the world which has become my reality.  Half empty bottles of sweet tea, head-shots of myself stapled onto resumes that needed to be beefed up with a larger font to fill the void space of white nothingness.  

My guitar with a missing string leaning next to a dusty corner of my desk, an empty box of tissues resting atop a stack of papers that I've filled with writing over the years.  

Curiosity gets to me as I snatch a handful of the papers and realize they're all filled with academic notes.  Senseless things to me now - no matter how vital they may have been to my pursuits in the past.

My left foot resides on top of my violin case - the half moon case it's called.  And inside it contains a piece of my soul, an instrument that has followed me to many places around the world.  

And as I attempt to describe the messiness and living signs that litter my room with clever imagery, I come to a sudden realization. 

A realization as to why I find myself so keen on writing. 

Because many times I find myself wondering if I'm writing for the pure sake of finding myself an audience; if the sole reason I choose to illustrate my thoughts is to merely bludgeon a group of innocent readers into absorbing the emanating energies of my soul which takes it's own form in writing.  Like a greedy goblin wanting nothing more, caring not a whim for anyone or anything, but just to be heard above the crowd and multitudes of millions who scream and shout, live and die, rest and wind...  

But it is not so.  I write because of my undeniable, relentless, mortality.

Death is just an absent heartbeat.  One day, my insides will turn gray - the fuels that thrust me into this life of mine will be exhausted, and my thoughts will be no more.  My organs will crumble and dry, and this ship my soul sails on will stagger, shudder, and then sink.  And I am powerless to prevent that.  

And so I write to leave behind a remnant of who I am, who I was, and who I aspired to be.  

Broken

Day after day, 

I hold onto an illusion.  It is an illusion that fills me with hope, a hope that I will find her love.  But if this hope has been birthed from something that doesn't really exist, what are the odds that this hope will bring about love?    

If a man can find vision from a dream, couldn't one find her love through an illusion?  It is after all, the end that really matters.  But again, the authenticity of that which I lack seems to fall away as easily as an illusion itself...

At times, all I can do is watch the illusion slowly fall apart, and a stinging clarity embraces my heavy soul.  It's almost too much, like a light that blinds.  And so I gather the fragments of my illusion, piece by piece.  I am careful not to forget any sliver or shard, for every piece will add up in time.  I slowly reconstruct and revitalize the illusion until I am satisfied with it's shape and form.   And slowly but surely, hope begins to permeate around me - I feel a sense of comfort and satisfaction.  I begin to hope and imagine, great things and little things alike.  I begin to fathom the depths of love I could encounter, the arms of a beautiful woman wrapped around me; her lips, soft and cool to the touch, resting lightly on mine.  We share an embrace that defies time and logic - she is mine, and I am hers.  We are completely separate entities, yet our souls collide into a collage of affection.

 And I try to ignore that soon, quite possibly now, the illusion will once again be broken into oblivion, leaving me with nothing but the bitter truth.  Her love does not exist.  It is not with me, nor will it be in next minute, hour, perhaps day, month, or even year.  Before I begin to embrace the idea of never finding the woman I will love for years, perhaps even an eternity, I find that I have already pieced the broken illusion once again, back to it's former self.  My heartbeat has quickened, I tremble slightly - but it returns.  This hope of mine.  She will come.  Or I will find her.  But before I find my love, I will will remain eternally, blissfully, broken.  

Introduction

Hello to those who have read these very words!

First and foremost, I must humbly thank all who can bear to read what I pour forth with a brutal honesty that seldom reveals itself. You see, in the real world, I portray a man of great strength, intellect, and vision.  But I am not always so; within my soul lies memories and tragedies alike, moments of the most severe melancholy, to nostalgia that can leave me in bliss.  Feelings and emotions too powerful and great to sling around in our current society.  And so I abandon my true name and I become my pen-name, Aldus!  As for my identity, I would like to keep that concealed for now... Once it is revealed that I am either someone that everyone knows, or someone that nobody knows- any revelation of my identity would put the reader at risk for things such as judgement and a narrow-minded view.  If I were to claim myself an establish best-selling author, I have no doubt readers would plow through whatever rubbish I post with a pre-disposed acceptance that I write things most profound.  And vice versa, if I were to post with the identity of a simple soul, one would most likely be pre-disposed to a shoddy read.  

If first impressions count, I am left at this sentence, whirling around my mind for something intriguing to write.  But I realize that whatever pair of eyes comes to light upon these words, it was destiny.  You see, I believe that whatever we do next in our lives, every past moment has been leading up to that very moment.  All the misery, happiness, heartbreak, and joy that one experiences stacks upon themselves to reach us/you to - these very words.   And so I am left in awe and wonderment.  I wonder who you are, whose eyes skim these carefully selected words.  Are you a beautiful creature?  No doubt you are.  Or perhaps you are something nefarious and dangerous to be around.  I will never know.  

Now, I've always kept a journal- something my college writing professors have always encouraged me to maintain, but it is only now that I realize I want to share my words with the world.  (I'm still in college.) My novel is taking an exorbitant amount of time to complete, and so I would love to perhaps entertain the variety of internet users with things such as:  the deepest and darkest memories, the heart-break that nearly killed me - the times where I could not stop laughing, the moment I had fallen in love... the dreams that have left me wide awake with my heart beating like a jackhammer.

I write with the selfishness of fulfilling my needs to vent the catastrophic events that churn within me, but I realize that it should be enjoyable for others to read.  

There are many things I seek in life, many goals and ideals that I'd like to see completed before fate whisks me away into oblivion.  And one of these visions, is to teach English to high-school students.  I want to teach them just how powerful and vital writing can be.  To properly translate thoughts and emotions into legible writing... it is a skill that must be learnt.  

If you have made it this far in my first post, thank you once again.  No matter what talent or ability I have in writing, I am always humbled by those who take the time to read the words I write - it is truly a profound experience.  

I write because I know that somewhere out there in this vast universe, there is something so powerfully connective, albeit a similar experience of memory.  And as I train myself to become a better writer, I find myself ironically more tuned to reading, rather than writing.  And so I would love to hear your thoughts and your memories - I want to feel the emotions that glance off each word, the unique personality that thrives within each and everyone of you.  Some people out there are still naive to the world's calamities - and others of have had more than a lifetime of heartache and pain... I want to read it all, to become a fuller person, to fill my soul with the memories and words of those who I will most likely never even meet.  Just because it is possible.

And so, adieu.  

If I could impact just one soul amongst the multitudes, I could bear the resentment of millions, the criticism of hundreds; my goal will have been accomplished.

The sun rises as he fades into the grand colors of light