A Death of Scattered Signifiers

The truth could never be given with a word. It could never be understood with a sentence or on the pages of this text. And maybe you wouldn’t understand, but maybe you would, and if you do, then take my hand as I reach from the grave. I started writing months ago, and what began as a rant became more, and what began as therapy became even more until I saw the dark cloud that loomed on the horizon. It wouldn’t go away when I blinked; even when I cried and cut my fists, it was always there, steady and silent, waiting for me to truly understand. It was black and hard and I knew therapy could not fix it, words could not fix it, but I tried anyway, because I had to.

They just don’t get it. You can spell it out in big words,
And little words
And black and white
And you can make it as simple as possible
And they just don’t get it.
Now they call you demented
And your wife apologizes for you
And someone wonders if you were having marital problems.
But you told them, and you used a few cuss words and your rage was palpable,
But that’s life, that’s anger at injustice, that’s red blood pumping and pumping and pumping.
And they’re calling you demented and crazed,
They’re as blind as you thought, and even spelling it out did not help.
Their eyes are gone and they just cannot see the dots and lines,
but you tried.
You wrote it.
You told them.
Your wife does not get it.
Years and years, hidden under sheets. Years of sweat and tongue and she still doesn’t understand.
And that’s what makes me sad.
You left behind a black charred body, you tried to scream, a final exclamation point in your crash,
But they just shake their heads…another lunatic.
Your sacrifice was for a point the sheep cannot see.
There will be no legions behind you,
No revolution
No violence.
Tax day is coming and the post office will be full and the stamps will carry our money away on wings,
And little will change.
Your sacrificed life will mean so little.
Your death will be a ripple in the ocean, so faint and distant it could be nothing at all.
And that’s what’s makes my heart want to bleed.
The malls are full.
The battles wage on.
The machine grinds steady.
The freeways are crowded.
The money keeps flowing.
You could not change it.
Can it be changed?

My heart has grown weary from the failures. All the fathers have crumbled. The lies are out and as I stare, I vomit and watch them grow. Children still recite the Pledge of Alliance out of synch and they still teach that Columbus discovered America even though it was refuted so long ago. They just cannot change ignorance. Young men still sign on the dotted line, believing in honor and the vision of Country. But I can see all those cracks, not one has escaped me and I cry for the innocence I once knew and I have turned hard while the lights of florescent bulbs flicker. It is all too much. They are all lies, each one of you in suits, each one of you beneath stripes and stars. How dare you speak? You white skinned, white haired, blue eyed liars. And while those men die in roadside bombs for corporations they will never know, profiting people they will never meet, I am prepared to die. The band plays behind me, and I am a patriot. I am a revolutionary in a forgotten country of words without substance. Add me to the pile if there is anything left. Follow if you can, and if you cannot, read my words.

(Text inspired by Joe Stack’s suicide note.)

Consequences

It was late at night and it was very dark. The clouds were hidden behind a thick layer of fog and the world moved around her in only three colors: black, gray and white. The roads were nearly deserted, just a bus with its hazard lights on blinked quietly as she passed. And she drove on, driving up the twisted road that skirted like an asphalt snake along the edge of San Bruno mountain, her car’s headlights outlining the bulbous forms of gray clouds that enveloped her like a hungry ghost made of mist and sheets of moisture. There was a musical piece on the radio, an electronic composition without words that seemed so tender, coming right from the unknown heart of its creator and entering hers with an unrelenting curiosity to see what lay open in the late hour. Small tears pricked her eyes as she reached the crest of the hill. The music was too beautiful, how could something like this arrive to fit the moment so well? This was music for the tender dark hours, when night and day blend into one. When the sleeping and the awakened dance between clouds of fog and pull dreams from the void. The music held her, as though the notes themselves were made to caress her curvaceous tears, as though the notes knew why she would cry and they pulled the tears out with a little more force, taking her with them on their voyage through time. As the road flattened out, she suddenly realized she might never know the composer, another song would come on and the beauty of what she had just heard would remain forever in her memory, encapsulating the moment like a dream. Someone, somewhere had made this music, and that person would never know that now, there was a girl driving in a small black truck in the middle of the night, going home. She could never tell them that the notes cast themselves around her like a magic circle, holding her as no other piece of music could. It was made for this. It was this. She was that, and it was her. It took her hand and led her down a psychedelic road where owls feed and coyotes sometimes wander. It held her in its palm, a loving teacher that pulled on her metal gates just a little more. “Open up,” it said. And whoever made this piece…they would never know. What were they doing right now? Sleeping? Eating? Working? Making love? The infinite consequences of their creation were unknowable. Once born, the creation had its own life, moving through time, radio, stereos, ears…moving into and out of perception…being heard by some, being shut off by others. Were there others crying? Others dancing? A thousand ways this piece could go…its creator would never know.
The consequences of what we create are unknowable. We create for the sake of creating, we do for the sake of doing, and then, it is sent, it goes out into the world, drifting like a carefully constructed leaf in the wind. Will someone catch it? Will it go straight to the sea, straight to the blue waves that will swallow up the orange and yellow and green? Or maybe it will drift to land with the high tide, and perhaps a little girl will pluck it from the ocean foam. And maybe it will end up in her collage of thoughts and dreams and her memory of changing seasons. There is just no way to tell what will happen, so we just let them go. Just as we were once let go, like tears already dispersing into the fog before the song that provoked them has come to an end, like ribbons of stardust dancing in the bottomless void of the infinite night.

Objective Nature

The wind blows… down the street, through the tiny red leaves of a maple tree, pounding against the pane of glass at the end of Burwood Dr. In the driveway of 356 Burwood, I lay facedown, cold and still. The wind caresses my wavy brown hair, moving it like a tender lover’s hand, but I do not respond, I am cold and still. The wind does not cry with my mortal absence. It plays with the edge of my skirt and hardens the line of blood dripping from my mouth, turning it from red to crusted brown. The wind does not cry. The rain does not despair when it sees my vacant eyes and pale blue lips. The drizzle of raindrops vibrates against my skin, but I feel nothing. The cold does not give me goose bumps, the wind does not send my teeth chattering. The rain pours and washes the blood from my mouth. They play upon me, but they do not cry. They will not rejoice, they will not sing, they will not scream. The ants will traverse my curves, I am a new mountain to climb. Soon, the vultures will come, they have found another meal. But there will be no party and no time of mourning. Nature is neutral, a kaleidoscope of forces that move softly, that move violently, that kills and breeds and explodes into delicate layers and intricate snowflakes.

The wonderful tree we all enjoyed for its shade and regal branches and sculpted movement, it was torn down by the wind, fifty years of growth destroyed in a single stormy night. And the leaves crackled when the sun came out and we despaired that our beloved tree was gone, but the squirrels were not sad and the stray cats did not worry and the broken boughs did not laugh.

When the jasmine bush toppled under its own weight and the wind coming from the sea, I worried about the little birds that once played in its hidden chambers, would they think we destroyed their home? I regretted sawing through green vines and white flowers to clear the path, but the plant did not mourn its transformation. It grew and moved and toppled in neutrality.

Birth, death, rebirth, death. There is no intention behind it all, no malice, no pleasure. The wind simply moves. It is a force without emotion. It takes down houses and trees and telephone poles without revenge or care. It moves. Rains descend freely from thick gray clouds, giving no thought to inconvenience or floods. It comes without associations. The rain will not win any bets if we live, it cares not for our thirst or if we make lemonade. It comes from a cloud, moves down a river, down the mountain and to the reservoir, to the tap, to the pitcher, through my body and then out again, down the toilet, to the sea. It frets not for its voyage or transformation, moving from one location to another. The droplet is not tinged with salt, not a trace of sadness colors its orb while the blood is cleansed from my mouth.

In creation, there is no good or bad, these are invented words, invented perception.
There only IS.
Fire, water, life, hunger, destruction, it moves, it comes and goes and it all comes from a neutral place, neither hoping for our survival or vying for our defeat.
I lay still and cold.