April 18, 2010

  • From my "book". I haven't taken a look at it in a year, so there's likely plenty I need to fix about it. But for now I'm just posting it.

     

    If there’s one complaint I have about my generation, it’s its ability to be so vastly unaware. They get gutted through one of the most violent and harrowing childhoods we have yet to see. Inheriting the meaningless (and, therefore, often unprotected) sex, alcohol, and drugs from the generation before, we add this completely inward suffering. You’ve seen the suicide rates, damn it – self-injury, depression (at times bordering manic!), anorexia and bulimia, and all other dwelled on miscellaneous. We’re a generation of disorders, drugged out just for damn sanity; we’re the shit that our parents either didn’t care enough to raise properly (let alone at all) or we’ve gone rotten from what they’ve managed to pull together. A decent job and a house in the suburbs has never looked so good. See, the thing is – they went on trying to achieve mediocrity and we got left with the results. Egocentric of me? Look at the fuckin’ results!

     

    And after all of this, after all this questioning of why and how come – we fall in rank and file. Get a job, raise a family, all that sweet bullshit. These fucking damn geniuses, who at a point tried to see what else there was beyond themselves just roll over and allow society to dictate what they’re supposed to be again.

     

    Not to say I encourage or support rebellion for the sake of rebellion. I’m not a radical, I swear I’m not. 

    But how do you go from this childhood – we were the ones who normalized tattoos and piercings, who made dying your hair an everyday thing; fuck, we were the ones who stressed acceptance – to suddenly just existing. They might not end up like the shitheads their parents were, but they settled for the same crap. Egocentric, damn ego- you wanna talk egocentric? Sexism, racism, sexualism – weren’t we the generation who had acceptance and Martin Luther King fed to us every day? We forgot our own pain. At some point, as we reached 17 or 18, we stopped talking about our depression, or the way we were going to be different, or questioning where all this shit came from. We either got off the meds or learned to live with them. And we got a job and couldn’t see past our houses, our own problems of trying to pay taxes or get that job or make sure we had that car from our paychecks to keep up with the Joneses.

     

     

    And two reposts:

     

    The red carpet was nice enough (I'm actually quite fond of red), but I think the room could have done without it. Granted, I'm far more a minimalist when it comes to decorating (or most of anything, really). Well, I suppose my writing would be an exception. It was an Oriental rug, with white designs winding within the borders of the fabric. It was authentic, of course. From Wal-mart, or some such. I would've used black instead of white, but that's just me.

     

    She tended to yell more, when she was angry. Her face would turn red, like a tomato.

     

    The living room had underwent long and tedious thought as to how it ought to be decorated. The rug was placed in the middle of the room with a table on top of it. If you moved the table, you could see where the table legs had crushed into the rug. She thought that the table looked better in the center with the rug, so the table mounted the rug. Sofas surrounded the table, crowding it in. She hadn't been able to fit the sofas in entirely well, so they ended up elbowing each all too often. I remember my grandmother, on my father's side, would often use plastic covering for hers. My mom would often come in and re-fix the struggle for space the sofas suffered after a group of people had left the room.

     

    Her voice was reaching the sound of a poorly tuned piccolo now. If I knew us by now, dishes ought to be flying soon.

     

    She had a collection of Lladró porcelain figures on display in the room, amongst other things. I suppose, if I wanted to be really cruel, I could have always thrown these. They're a little less easy to replace. The collection is framed on each side with these big, outlandish birds. I don't know what type they are, but they always remind me of parrots. They're a myriad of colors, flaunting and touting their feathers in a fashion of immense pride. By one of the birds was a cat, and a dog by the other. The rest of the figures were people, doing various different things as the sculptor had casted them. They all looked so shiny and sleek. There wasn't a possible flaw with any of them to any public eye that viewed them. A plate, one time, nearly flew directly into the middle of the whole thing. None of the things in the room, actually, had anything visibly arresting or out of the ordinary due to her care.

     

    The door flew open, smashing into the side of the house.

     

    "Fucking bitch!"

    It was a full moon that night, I remember. It was rather beautiful, shining clearly in the night sky.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    I didn’t bother to look at their faces. I knew where they would reside, in the end.

     

    So many colors, the flames that drew black coal in wispy strokes. They left marks, you know. In subtle glory, they refused to leave after they had long gone.

     

    Am I babbling? I suppose so. But everyone says that, now don’t they? God, they were beautiful. Freshly made little flames, of so many varying shades and color. I swear to you, they seemed to dance upon that table, utterly and entirely separate of one another (a fragile, unique beauty). They lit up the night, fighting against that sordid darkness.

     

    Some would argue that darkness consumes us, in the end. Perhaps that’s what it is.

     

    They only speak to each other, those of the shadow. Beacons of radiance that refused to be out in the daylight. They were frightened. I would like to think because they thought their light couldn’t shine in the glaring of that huge light.

     

    There are possibilities in multitudes.

     

    Some would argue this is the way of the world – it’s natural. Everything – from the species to the rocks – is diverse and multiple. The irony of so broad a singular statement is not lost on me. Yet even lovers of these cold crevices love that which they cannot have.

     

    There is solution in multitudes.

     

    They fade. Like a blackout, they go out – if only all at once! No, they etch away. Maybe it’s an amusing sight for whatever bastard decided to lay that blanket of darkness. Did he expect us to cuddle up under its warmth, clothing our naked selves when we wanted to hide?

     

    Quiet, don’t cry. Oh, please, don’t snuff. Don’t you see? You won’t be able to see otherwise.

     

    And it grows. Towering over us, the edges of that table don’t make sense with the dark covering them.

     

    Nothing is clear anymore.

     

    I’m scared.

     

    And they all turn, all change. Who wants to fight in this? They were so fragile, you know. I watched them. I hope I don’t sound out of place if I were to say I raised them.

     

    It’s so hard to hide, that dark. Every time you think you’ve blocked it, you see it peeping out from around your armpit. Or it’s covering you.

     

    Oh, I must be babbling. Why didn’t you tell me? I’m sorry; really, I am. It wasn’t intentional.

     

    They were just…so beautiful.

     

    They turn a color, before they fade. It’s a dim, ruddy color.

     

    And, soon, they’re all that color. You know, under all that blood and blue skin, beneath the sloth of fourteen hours of sleep, engrained in the guilt of their increasing blame is a flame – the brightest and smallest flame you may ever find.

     

    Are you human?