Skeeter Writes for Me

The grass slowly grows beneath my feet as I go deeper into the ground. My limbs root and I choke and chew the dirt. The grass surely grows.

I didn't expect to enjoy spinning a top as much as I did and for now--am. There is a simple satisfaction of separating this balanced object from my surprisingly matched fingers. I've only spun this top about twenty times over a few days but as I watched this last spin I teetered at the threshold of what simpleness meant to me. I immediately crafted a fantasy of the perfect and everlasting spin and that seeing this would feel magically pleasureable. It quickly became clear that it was the unexpected quirky spins and movements I enjoyed. Each dance depended on the moment and manner of release from my meat-mitt grip. I studied this machined wooden toy and realized it wasn't as perfect as the others strewn across the display. My eyes followed the rings that had been dissected from the massive tree it was plucked from as they wandered throughout. This tree must have grown against nature as it pressed them during deficient conditions and during abundance grown wider. This s...

If you truly looked at me, you'd know a foolish little man with follies trying to be the philosopher. You'd see my stubborn grasp of rope as it frays to a thread with the abyss below and thundercloud above while imagining what the sun feels like. This is the fool. The wise man stands on a ladder. Sometimes I'm just sad. I always know why and I accept it. What strength is there in getting up feeling sunny everyday? It's the heaviness that requires effort to lift weighted eyelids, see the sun, and smile at it.

I've plenty of time to kill in the dealership's waiting to live area. A quote on a T-shirt today: Live with the relentless pursuit of better . I think this sounds dumb. Relentless--isn't this creating anxiety where it is useless or unnecessary? Pursuing better doesn't even mean you have to achieve anything. We hope to, and we can be okay with that. It's really the hope for the better, getting better, looking at our progress, and to me every little improvement adds up. Man, I really hope I'm getting better. I know that I am better when I consider my life, and where I started to be conscious about what better meant.

I absolutely abhor hearing someone say they are god fearing. Upon hearing this I immediately recognize your morality as being dictated to you without questioning your own character as being weak or strong. You say this meaning you are good and follow a higher power that has shown you some better way but what you mean is if there was no fear of punishment you'd easily succumb to the very things preached into yourself that you shall not do. I choose my morality based on my roles in life and my understanding of immediate and lasting consequences as they relate to others and this isn't always so black and white. Whether you realize this or not, you do this too and I now am the same as you. So why fear God? Why not own your actions and be good based on something else. Call it faith, call it good or justify your reasoning, just don't fear your God. Love yourselves, love others, pick someone you love and be good because you love being good. Be neutral, be fluid, and understand ...

The middle is full of conflict. We have a choice. One man says,"It will be darkness, for it is much easier to destroy the light within than the darkness without." I'll keep my flicker of light dancing in the gloom. I've never been comfortable with easy anyway.

Dear Sun, Too many days of rain. I dread this abominable rain upon rain. Too many weeks of dreariness and gutters overflowing with the rubbish of humanity. A deluge of memories dilutes my soul and pours me into the dinge to translucently consort with the world. Too easily is my patina tarnished and I sulk into an opaque worm halfheartedly contorting above a soggy demise. Too many rainy days and so many worms unearthed and then plunged to their deaths. Hurry Sun! Come--recede this morbid river from my eyes and dry my memories into the deepest wormholes of regret. Sincerely, Grey Worm

Very well--unfolded itself. The soggy day rearranged its folds into sloppy forms of what it could be. A bear, a humanoid, a crane until it settled itself and dried under the sun as a less crumpled version of the beginning.  A good day.

My heart's become a crooked motel full of slanted humor. Who will pay for these rooms? The queen of hearts? She laughs at my words and takes a bitter toll from my ears. No, she cannot pay, the queen's currency is stone. Everyone has their dues to pay.  Although, don't ask me, I'm overpaid and underwater. I'm overdue to set sail in a teardrop beneath the trampling feet of my people trying to drown the sun in weekends of whiskey. No matter how many times we fools try, I wake up in this uninhabitable land with the sun in my face.

Amish or Part-Timish Women are always 1000 steps ahead in thought than men. They make their mind up about you. Hello, you've reached Ben but I'm not here, or maybe I am. I don't know. I meant crazy. Real insanity, like pulling out all of your teeth and smiling crazy. The anxieties that used to take away my happiness. Develop the pirate idea. Maintain the theme of recognize the brightness and wonder of life juxtaposed against the hardships.

Loneliness has taught me a seemingly profound lesson. If you choose to love, stay on the ground. It seems the opposite of magic but the more I learn through observing my surroundings I see magical things. With our head in the clouds we are looking in the wrong places for magic. In the cloud of imagination we find fleeting and fantastic illusions of thought but these are only ethereal. All the while, dirt, storm, wildfire, and tumultuous deluge is experienced. These are the actual elements for passion and life. An imagination is a human quality that can dilute as easily as inspire life.  My observation of and subjection to life construct contradictions and examples that seem to be in opposition, but without contrast the world would be flat and bland. Herein we find the magic.

Trudge the Trudge To those who walk the walk, you have my envy for your bounds are clear. To everyone else, you have my condolences for we trudge the trudge. We endure the talk and we slog on. We trudge through well worn paths. We suffer talk and I envy the silent ones. They're the ones who hold a true belief. Belief should give some sort of comfort and peace to the holder of truth. The fervor and loudness that boils through strongly spoken beliefs probe deep into my thoughts and undermine the believers belief itself. This is the trudge. This is my own doubt of the believers conviction. Doubt and insecurity are loud only to obscure any reason or question of a conviction. Therefore talking the talk becomes shouting the shout and violently reveals doubt. I trudge on and I shout the shout while conviction talks the talk and walks the walk. I am trudging the trudge.  Are you?

I wasn’t the happy man. I wasn’t the good man. I believed  that   I was.

Skeeter says, "Please be careful during this snow that's coming."

The Price of a Smile Are smiles free? They may be received freely, but there is a cost. What is the price of a smile? A smile costs all suffering. All of it. When I smile, all of my pain and remorse is spent. When the corners of my mouth drop the coffers are rich again until the next time I need to cash out. A true smile is too expensive to be bought with money. A man rich with sorrow knows the value of his smile. A smile is never wasted and when he is humbled again by his vast remorse, he'll seek to spend every last sorrow for a smile.

Press a button get a beer. This is how I became a killer. Press a button get a beer. I realize that there are many reasons that I found myself emerging from the output of the machine pressing out killers but those were my own reasons for showing up. I was romancing the idea of world travel when I arrived on deck and boastfully fell into the hopper. I did receive a lifetime's worth of travel. Was I hardened after bootcamp? Not at all and unexpectedly not. With my orders delayed and the rest of my shipmates travelling off to their respective schools or commands, I remained behind. For two weeks I was left on my own and this is where I slowly felt the programed robotic numbness fade. Bootcamp won't make you hard, it only makes robots. It is designed to empty you of thought and into the void is a small opening to fill with the technical knowledge required to perform as a professional sailor or soldier. As my window began to close and I regained the ordinary senses of the world, ...

As I slung my sack over my shoulder and stood by the receptionist's desk I proclaimed, "I'm off to make sure all is right with the world." This meant heading to my apartment to feed Skeeter his daily snack, grab my laptop to send off a daily song to my friend in Guyana, and to belt out this proclamation. My ego is delusional, but without these acts, something would seem wrong with my world. To face a daily existence of these lunchtime rituals as routine without grandiose intention would mean a thankless and terribly boring existence. I find my delusion to be fulfilling and my accomplishments are my own. Ah, and to leave the office folk perplexed is vastly satisfying, but to be weird is my noble endeavour.

Now, it is time for my introspection. It is time to lick my wound. It wasn't as critical you may believe. It was deep but not fatal. I have died long ago from the mortal wounds inflicted from my own hand, and have been as a madman among your glass walls passing between and brushing the shoulders of the sane of your world. You live in a glass tower but it is glass and I can see into this tower. I see the interactions. I look for a while and turn up my collar and feel the sun on my back and I realize it warms me. I am more bear than man: I am a madman.

Ask any merchant what the worst product on the menu is. It will be an awkward conversation. When do Starbucks employees lose their mind?

I am a blueberry today. I drive a blueberry I'm wearing blueberry. I drank blueberry mead from wild blueberry yeast. I eat blueberries. I'm a blue bear.