Someday I Hope You'll Understand

Someday I hope you'll understand this cuz I'm not real good at writing yet but I really want you to understand this someday. I want you to understand how much I love you and how you've always been real nice and you mean so much to me and I think you're the nicest and prettiest and most soft girl I ever met. I like when people are soft cuz when people are hard they like to hurt the other people even if they don't mean it they still like to do it sometimes even when they don't know they're doing it. Sometimes people think they're real soft or real hard when they're really the other one and when people think that sometimes it hurts all the other people then too cuz then even the soft people can hurt real hard. But you're not like those people cuz you're soft and you know you're soft but not in that hard way where your knowing makes it hard and makes it hurt all the other people.

I hope you can read this but I know I don't write so good so please don't think I'm hard even though my writing is so hard but writing is hard for all the other people too I think. I want to be soft like you but I think maybe you can't be as soft as you are without some of the other people being soft too and showing you how. So I guess what I want you to understand is that I want you to show me how cuz I'm tired of writing hard and being hard and being hard to all the other people when all I want is to be soft but no one will show me how but I want you to. So will you show me cuz I love you and I want to be soft like you.

Fullness

I am empty, and I hope that someday I can be full. I have felt fullness; I felt it that night in that car, and I felt it during that long conversation, and I felt it on that cold winter walk. I cling to those moments in time, those memories that contain within them all that I desire and dream. That dance, that bonfire, even that day in the classroom when you pushed me away. All of these events linger constantly on the horizons of my brain, and I race toward them even as they recede hopelessly into the sameness of the past. There is no going back; it is futile to look to the past for the fullness I desire for my future. And yet, what is the past but a future that has already occurred? Fullness is infinite, and the fullness of the past is more vivid to me than the fullness of the future. Perhaps one day fullness will be more than a fleeting moment of contentment. Perhaps the fullness I have only experienced momentarily will become a way of life, and I will be able to laugh as fading memories of emptiness replace the past I covet so dearly now. Until then, I can only pray that I can find the momentary joy of fullness buried like hidden treasure in the desert sands of my life. Fullness in a book or film that caresses my soul; fullness in loving the people around me; fullness in my trust in a God who will one day make all things full.

May that God of fullness bless you and keep you through all the fullnesses and emptinesses of your life. If you are empty, may you find the peace and fullness that comes through the experience of being human, living, breathing, creating, and loving without reserve or limit. If you are full, may you hold fast to the blessings in your life, never growing complacent or forgetting the infinite value of the life you have been given to live for whatever length of time remains for you. And for the sake of both the empty and the full, may He come soon to restore His kingdom, where fullness will be found by all, and emptiness will be banished forever into the abyss of history.

Peace be with you.

Story

The world is a set of icy fingers

Wrapped around a fragmented page

On which are written broken words

In a language I can’t understand

Telling a story with no ending

At least, not one that is written yet.

I am trying to write an ending

But I don’t know what words to use

And the ink is drying on the quill

With only a little while left

For me to learn the language

Much less to tell a good story.

But just when I lose all hope

I think, maybe, I understand

Just a few little words, like

“grace”, “laughter”, “patience”

And maybe that’s enough

To carry on just for now.

Not an ending but a beginning

A story still being told.

And maybe I’m not the only one

Who gets to tell it.

Maybe I’ll leave the next part

For you and for you and for You.

Broken

This narrative is broken. Behind a carefully constructed facade of seemingly ordered words, only chaos reigns. Just as a life, a seemingly unified unit of animate existence, is in fact a constant struggle between constituent pieces, a roiling conflict that seems to have no singularity in itself, so also this narrative is filled with internal conflict, failed expectations, colliding inconsistencies.

I want to tell a story about a man and a woman, but I cannot. I want to relate with clarity and truth the ways in which they lived their lives, caught within life's cyclical routines, never escaping, never changing, never accepting the touch of another, never looking outward to see the face of the Other. I want to talk about a certain day, a day in which the previously divergent paths of their lives became connected, a day in which the endless cycle seemed to

stop.

Stop writing. Stop this nonsense. Stop this misguided attempt to tell events as they are. The narrative will not support any attempt to tell the truth. Symbols on a page cannot tell the truth. Words refer to words refer to words refer to words refer to words refer to words refer to

Words exchanged on a sunny day. Secret smiles, shaded symbols. A kindness shared by two blossoms, two rose blossoms rose together. A second meeting, not by chance. Meals shared, meaning shared. Time passes and the narrative continues. Two cycles merge. A bicycle trip, a world common to both, days, weeks, months. Life and love abound.

A bound manuscript, bound with bonds, bound with chains, bounded by cut corners and missing pages. A shadow crosses the sun, the page, the world, the life. Meanings diverge, multiply, deconstruct, crumble. A misunderstanding, a fight. Battles, losing focus, out of focus, out of sight, binocular breaking, one circle becomes two, one cycle becomes two, a unicycle trip. Time apart, time parts, parting time.

And so the narrative remains unfinished, unfinishing, unfinalized, unfinalizable. The circle closes but the ends miss each other. He misses her and she misses him. Cycling again, but the narrative remains unfinished. The story goes on and on, up and up, story upon storey, Tower of Babel, endless babble, babbling brook, broke, break,

broken.

The Story Cycle, Part I: Origin

So, a few weeks ago I posted the prologue to a new, longer piece I've been working on for a while. It's been stalled for a while, but I thought I would go ahead and post the next section. Before reading this, MAKE SURE to read this prologue.

Finished with the prologue? Enjoy Part I.

~

Part I: Origin

All stories have a beginning, an origin. All people are born. Darkness gives way to light as new life enters the world, and so begins a single story. That story, following on the infinite, immortal path of countless others, will make its own permanent mark on the greater Story of existence, which contains and combines all the rest.

Even I have a story. It is not like yours, as I am not like you. My story is already written, and it will not be altered by time, chance, or decay. Your story is fragile; it has a beginning and it will have an end. My story will remain the same even after I no longer exist to tell it; it is a fixed point, an unmoving center in the flow of the eternal.

Your story is different. You inhabit your story; you are the protagonist of your own existence. Your story begins, an explosion of life out of non-life. Choices determine the flow, both your own choices and those of the people around you. Their stories move into and out of your own, enriching it and being enriched by it in turn. Your story contains both comedy and tragedy, truth and lies, heroes and villains. You make it, but you are also made by it.

Your story begins in helplessness; you are unable to define your plot in even the most infinitesimal details. As you inherit full ownership of your status as a protagonist, you gain more and more control and understanding of how to alter your story, how to change it in ways that are both subtle and bold. But you will never gain complete control. The Story is something outside of yourself. You are free to make choices, but the choices are defined by the ultimate flow of the Story.

You cannot predict your story. It flows on despite your best efforts to slow or stop it. You can revisit the best moments by means of memory, but you cannot go back. Your story echoes itself in a million ways, but it is not recursive. Your story is short. You have precious little time to change your story, to achieve the plot you seek to achieve. You cannot define your story, but you can alter it; you can direct it toward your dreams and desires. And so you should.

The Busy Week, or Inevitability: A Brief Poetical Tragedy

On the first day, I woke up, realized that all ideas of time are merely an illusion created by the brain in an attempt to make sense of an unexplainable, chaotic existence, and went back to sleep.

On the second day, I woke up, realized that there is virtually no likelihood that any of my thoughts or observations have any relation to reality, and went back to sleep.

On the third day, I woke up, realized that love is nothing more than a meaningless series of chemical reactions, and went back to sleep.

On the fourth day, I woke up, realized that there is no link between cause and effect, and went back to sleep.

On the fifth day, I woke up, realized that my existence is entirely irrelevant, and went back to sleep. 

On the sixth day, I woke up, realized that meaning is meaningless, and went back to sleep.

On the seventh day, I rested.

~

Postscript: This note was discovered next to the body of Eve Adams, who was found lying in her bed on September 17th, 2012, three days before her twenty-second birthday.

Fraction

Proposition 1: I am going to die in a fraction of a second. The bullet currently flying through the air at approximately 1500 feet per second directly toward my face will almost certainly guarantee that. And I don't want them to keep me on life support if a few bits of grey matter somehow don't explode out of the back of my head. I don't want to be a vegetable. I would rather die. In fact, based on the set of circumstances that got me here in the first place, a very persuasive argument could probably be made that I want to die.

Proposition 2: The gun from which the bullet was ejected is performing its proper function. This one is a no-brainer (excuse the pun). The function of a gun is to fire bullets, and this one seems to be performing very much up to speed. The bullet is not the result of some malfunction on the part of the gun; it is only a good little device (can I call a device good? Never mind, doesn't matter now) doing what it was told by its master. Which leads me to the next step.

Proposition 3: The owner of the gun wants to kill me. This would seem obvious not only from his actions (firing the gun at me) but from the chilling look of murderous rage that is wildly contorting his face. This begs a question: why? Why does this stranger, who I have never met before, want to fire a gun at my face? I suppose I can't blame him, really; the knife I stuck between his ribs is probably sufficient to create a causal connection, or at least some major blood loss.

Proposition 4: The knife is fairly large, a 4-inch steak knife taken from a drawer in my kitchen. Needless to say, I took it. Apparently not as sharp as I thought, though... who knew it took so much effort to stick a knife in someone? That's what gave him time to pull the Glock (it's a Glock, right? I think so... that's what it is in all the movies, at least). But how am I supposed to know it doesn't just slide in? Well, I got it in eventually. 

Proposition 5: And who am I? Why did I do it? These are the big, important questions, aren't they? And yet... I'm pretty foggy on both of these things, especially the last one. Because I didn't do it for any particular reason. Unlike the seemingly logical progression of this narrative, the preceding events lacked any semblance of causation. A series of unconnected events resulted in a series of connected ones, and that's the best explanation I can give. I can give a slightly better answer to the question of who I am, though: my name is-

Conclusion: *drops of blood speckle the page*