Jesus Christ this pain is too real.

There are not swears strong enough in any language to convey how upset, how tired, how angry, how frustrated and just in general enraged at life I am.

False expectations...maybe self inflated hopes...there is definetly some room for self pity and loathing...oh God the loathing...

So much...so little...God I hate this.
All at once.
What was the point in the first place?
I can't enjoy the moment because of how much I hate.
Ignorance is a blessing because you can at least enjoy the moment you have.
Compared to not sleeping, being sick and hating life because of how broken, bitter and over all shallow you are as a human being.

Yeah good, encouraging happy feelings here!

In Words of Home

Words lack their due in that I'm going crazy.
If not exactly already there.
I want to go Home.
It can be a problem to breath,
to take step a forward
and not look back.
But oh I so wish to go Home.
So that I may breath my last
and be freed of this broken shell.
To know what freedom is truly like
an emancipation to never long again.

I wish I was smart enough
to stop long enough
to remmeber to not wear my heart
just on my sleeve,
where it collects dirt and scrapes.
Bleeding wounds
I never know how to staunch.
All I have left is this infection,
this disease inside my heart
screaming at my every thought
demanding control.
So, so all I want,
the first and last thought in my mind,
in this burning cold
is to go Home.

The lack of love
which is replaced with fury,
the lack of love
which has become this mass treason,
a degrading of all of my reason
into this trite existence.
Buffers into life and light
and barely being able to see in illuminated dark.
This poison is suffocating,
the smoke is chocking
and I hate this all.
My rage tapers off
into this passionless self hating loathing.
But, may it ever be in this last breath,
I long for Home.


** ** **

Painted images
posing as metaphors
upon this table.
I'm not sure I believe you
in what you say and do.

Yeah yeah yeah...Merry Christmas or something like that...

Shades of Seasons

The shades of all the seasons burn in your eyes,
pools of reflection on your face,
carved like a relief on this mountain.

Aching Truth

I want to scream until my lungs explode.
Let the air bags in my chest explode
and just bring me back to life
with the soul shaking force of pain.
Just wake me up with a scream.

I'm running blind,
living it
because of how dead I am.

It isn't just here and now
it has always been.
Every moment awake
just lost in you and just whatever drug you take.


I hate how weak I am. I just feel dirty because I don't have any sense of control. I just feed my lusts and indulge in whatever I want.

I feel so alone and scared right now because I feel like you should hate me and you always will. There is truth but it is so unknowable right now that I would like to simply die.

Everything is coming undone,just spinning out of sync.

I'm crying but there is no one to wipe the tears away. Every last burning desire is going to lead to this burning mass of fetid death.
If there was justice I never would have been born and if there was justice I would have been still born and never would have been forced to live out these days. These wearisome and troubled days.

Please do not forget me Jesus.
As I lay here gasping for breath.
Please remember me.
When I draw this final breath please be here to hold m hand,
hold me.
I know I am going to forget what it means to die,
I'm going to be lost in pain and regret.
I'm going to be human.
So please do not leave me alone in that hour.
That moment when the air leaves my lungs
and all that I know is the fear of no more.
Would you hold me close?
Hold me tightly and be my love?

I am so tired.
I have nowhere else to crawl to.
PLease do not forget me while you can.

Brewing Darkness

It's so good to know...
It's so nice to know...
Everything can be so perfected
in your syncopated
little mad world.


Every last piece of my soul wasted
dragged across this broken glass,
that are your nails,
every drop of blood
swallowed by these little pores
is something else
I would miss if I could feel.

I don't have the strength to vomit
but God I wish I could.
Wretch out every last emotion
every last piece of me
and just show
you how fucking
complicated I am.
I'll never be something you dissect,
some neat little project worth seeing.

I am.
That is it.
I am.
All I'm going to be.
This perfect mess.
This failure of complicated ends.
The beginning of nothing
but this final end.

Screams syncopate
into madness.
Blood collects where I have crawled.
This breath burns my lungs
because it's not longer air
it is just masked pretension
that is nothing more than the best interests
of better intentions
wrapped in whatever it is you use to sleep at night.

Every second we spend in this wasteland makes us worse.
We bite into each other,
rip out soul out...all for what?
To be a game for specters that we can never see.
But you don't see.
You do not see them egg you on,
see their delight at the blood letting orgy.
You don't see their yellow eyes gleam
in dying twilight as they set their eyes
on ripping our your throat
just as soon as you have finished feeding on me.

So what is it?
What is this?
We are just going to eat and dine on the others flesh.
Drink the blood with the wine?
Eat the flesh with the bread?
This juxtaposition of a poorly raised metaphor
that never should have seen life.
Because the dark is eating the light.
Every last momentous pain.
These demons smile.
Because they see what you can't see.
They rejoice in the pain.


But God,
if my soul was any darker
you would be cut by its shade.
You would feel the hate brewing inside
and would die from the heat.
But instead,
I'm judged for me being me.
I never said I was anything less
But here I am just being me.
And that is a crime, even if you don't think it.
Or say it.
Me being me was never enough.
It cannot be enough.
With insufficiency.

But God I try,
oh will I try.

Why am I here?

It would be so much more simplified...to me at least...if I was more than what I am...more than this loose collection of cells with a soul...I'm so tired...so fundamentally alone...

So tired...so depressed...so...unable to take all of this for much longer...

If life bothered to make sense theologians, philosophers and politicians would be out of jobs.

Opps I did not mean to actually post this letter...I was just writing it in here before copying and pasting...bah. Oh well. Archive purposes perhaps?

***

If I remember correctly you asked me yesterday what the Protestant view of sin was and God's response to sin.

I hope I don't sound too much like a jerk when I say this but some of the main problems I have with the Roman Catholic church is that they just took the (somewhat) established Christian theology and Bible canon around 300ish AD and ran wild with it for the next thousand years or so. Instead of just sticking with what had been previously established they just sort of started adding stuff left and right...incorporating pagan holidays to 'attract' people to Christianity and other stuff...

I mean I don't hate Catholics, I know some very nice ones. I'm just more along the lines disappointed that some very weird (and at times insane) decisions were made on a whim and the focus became the church instead of God.

And then you had the Protestant reformation that happened in the 1500's...which started out with good intentions and became a bloody mess with people loosing sight and getting caught up on human differences and thinking that killing each other would somehow make God happen.

This is all insane to me. In so many cases Jesus gets used sort of like a sports mascot and touted around and treated as if he actually gave/gives a damn about all these PETTY reasons and as if he would encourage actual war and fighting. Anyone who spends enough time in the teachings of Christ realize hoe radical he was and that he was more interested in 'sinners' and helping the downtrodden find their way back.

I'm jumping back and forth all over the place to give some sort of background of my thoughts and to hopefully help me sound less like a person in need of a nice white jacket and more along the lines of a...well certainly not normal person. =)

One of the more common beliefs with Protestantism is that God holds all the sin committed by people the same and to an extent I think that is true. But misses the point completely.

People get hung up on sin.

It's easy , it's flashy and makes for good loud arguments that everyone can be angry about.

To me the question that should be asked is not "What is the worse I can get away with?" or "Why is God such a prick and doesn't like people having fun?" or "What is the worse kinds of sins so I can go hold up signs and go set those sorts of people on fire!?!"

To me the VITAL overlooked question is:

1.What is sin and why does it exsist?
2.Why would God send people to Hell over sin?

Obviously Jesus believed in sin as much as he believed that he was Messiah and was here to deliver people from it...and the next improtant question...

3.Why would people need to be delivered from something? Especially if they do not feel they are in need of delivering of any sort?

I just have been digging myself a huge hole that hopefully i won't bury myself in trying to get out of...

1.What is sin and why does it exsist?

Following what little the Bible actually says about the time before the creation you have God making the heavens and the earth and sometime around those two one of the highest angels named Lucifer began to be jealous (for whatever reason) and declared that he would be like the most holy and then decides to rebel against God and takes about a third of the angels with him, which is where you get the whole fallen angels/demon and tempters and the 'snake' in Genesis that tempts and helps humanity to fall.

Looking at any case of 'sin' and to me the chief problem is pride. This bloated sense that we are self sufficient creatures never in need of anything from anyone, be it human or divine assistance.

So in a nut shell sin as I can best tell is not just telling God no but declaring ourselves not in need of his love and the relationship he has wanted with us. Sort of like a wayward lover leaving and abandoning her groom right at the alter...after they have been separated for years and were finally going to be united as one.

There is something deeply broken and flawed in all people that sometimes just shows as little white lies and stolen candy...but at the same time is the same potential for another Holocaust, another Rwanda and another Sarajevo.

It kills me and makes me physically sick at times but humans have such a great potential for good but we so often stop ourselves and to me that is sin as well. It doesn't have to be the one causing rape and murder...it can be the complacency in our lives that causes us to ignore and not cry out and demand justice.

One last thought...something put forth but Augustine and about the only thing he said that doesn't make me want to strangle him is that, to paraphrase, is that "All sin really is, is good that has been twisted and malformed."

And that gives me hope...that even the worse cold blooded person...that the 'chief of sinners'...me even is just simply twisted in the wrong way...with enough love and grace that things CAN be better...that we aren't helpless or hopeless...but that we are loved.

2.Why would God send people to Hell over sin?

There is no way I can sum up an answer to this because I am STILL trying to figure out my exact beliefs on this...but not just what I want but what is truth...all the same I think my thought can be summed up much easier by C.S. Lewis:

"There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and those to whom God says, "All right, then, have it your way.""

People love to think of Dante's Comedy and of imps, fire and everything when it comes to Hell...but I think the Bible is being somewhat metaphorical when it talks of Hell.

If God, Yahweh, Jesus...IS this infinite...incomprehensible source of life and light...that EVERY good thing...food, sex, kids, video games, sunlight, flowers, kittens, air, stars and everything good comes from him then can you imagine what the absolute worse thing in creation would be?

Eternal separation from that light, that life, that OXYGEN of creation...it is more than simple punishment...it is humans being so twisted that we begin to see light as dark and HATE the light because it burns...and I believe what is started in us here on earth is what we become in eternity...that if we have started to become like the Light we become light...but if we embrace the absolute darkness we become tainted and transformed and would hate the presence of God if he even offered it to us.

That is why there is no salvation for the angels. They are pure spirit and when they fell they instantly became riddled with the cancer of sin...and because we are half spirit and half flesh...we have time to see the consequences of our actions and to see what IS real and what IS truth. Not just the lies we get sold on and our own personal refuges so we can hide from reality.

*whew*

Hope I haven't put you to sleep yet. =)

3.Why do we need saving?

Simply put, the infection that is 'sin' is too great. We can't just beat it with the optimism stick because the nature of reality is that everything is fleeting and our ticket was up before we were born. None of us may have chose to live in this world but for whatever reason we are here.

It's beautiful and sucky and annoying and makes me double over in pain a lot of the time but all the same I believe we are here for more then just the sick amusement of divine chess players.

I believe God choose to come in human form as a Jewish person, a baby who became a man. Jesus was both God and man, an impossible mix of fully God and fully man. I can't say I understand it...life is like that though...full of impossibly good things that make sense because they make sense...if that makes sense.

God has been in love with us since the beginning and the Bible chronicles that...the Old Testament is Him trying to use a man named Abraham and his descendants as a way to show grace...from a small tribe to a huge nation...it is a tragedy that helps to show that humans simply cannot handle the responsibility of the divine.

And then, enter Jesus. This controversial rabbi who all to often is simply reduced to being the holder of a message of lovey dovey bad hippeness. Jesus was radical, he challenged the status quo, pissed off the religious authorities and ultimate died in the worse way possible.

Things would be SO LESS complicated if all Jesus taught was we should love each other and feed the hungry. Sometimes I wish that was all he was about because my life would be so much easier...but it is a lie to say all he cared about was our physical needs.

He fed the hungry and healed the sick to get their attention. To let them know they were loved, to know they were beloved children of God with not just physical ailments but deep seated spiritual needs...that whole sin thing. This seemingly living cancer that would eventually cause them to self destruct...no matter how well intended they were or how many good thoughts they had.

Sin grieves God desperately. So much so that he cannot be around it. You can't mix absolute light with absolute dark and God cannot be a part of sin...so for years the Israelites had to use a complicated religion system of sacrifice in order to try and appease Him but ultimately it failed because God WANTED us to see we can't save ourselves. That we are too utterly screwed to be able to do anything except lay down and die.

So the beautiful thing is that Jesus came and willingly died for a bunch of broken people able to do nothing but screw his message up and distort it for personal gain.

He loves us because He is love and wants us to be one with him. Those who are broken down and ultimately begin the process of being fixed by this love are told to tell others about that love...and we have failed.

Horrificly failed.

Just one look at a 'Christian' book store and all the absolute rubbish on the selves is enough to make me want to vomit. We theologians TOO OFTEN try to pin God down and define him in every way so that we don't have to serve someone who makes us uncomfortable and someone we can turn into a mascot for hating the modern day lepers...you know people who are gay, that have AIDS, those who smoke, people who are Muslims...all of these 'terrible' human beings that we somehow feel the need to judge.

I know it is not my place to carry around all of the failures of the church but I can't help BUT. I feel this guilt...this impossible weight that has to be fixed by God...but at the same time the responsibility I feel he is giving me to teach others and show them there is a better way then all of this rubish.

I hope I haven't gotten too off topic and put you our like a light.

Thanks for reading this and I'm going to feel like an idiot if I sent this to the wrong person. =)

You know...for someone I barely knew you have shaped me so much...more ways than I think you ever realized.

Every single piece of information analyzed...torn apart...built again and reanalyzed...what does it all mean?

It means I love you...I can't see or feel or hear you but I love you...almost as much as That Guy I suppose.

What are You getting me into here?

Another Day

This fragile breath cannot sustain,
while this frail hands seek to clasp life.
Contrary to popular thought,
I'm not okay.
I have tried lying through my teeth
but this time,
everyone but me bought it.
Threw in the chips
bought some prime time slots.
If you smile just enough
everyone will believe the lies.
Maybe its only pity
but who only knows such things?

You know, those pills...they look...quite nice today.
Yeah.
Today they are nice.

There is so much I believe in that I do not believe in or know.
Or understandingly know that I do not know.

The words of wisdom are folly
or that the air is full of lies
or that the rain falls in circles
or that this life is...
...just what it is.

There is such a strong streak of independence,
it runs here and there.

It is almost damning as it is life,
the relief of self into this...
...being of what is and will never be.

It demands it self be subtle,
yet at times it screams as is.
What is and will never be
as it lives and breaths as me.

Angst laced unrest is such a fun term to think about.

Especially considering the awkwardness of the world.

How self absorb the thought of self is, in and of itself.

It is hard for me to process or understand the stuff going on in and outside of my mind...the process of being...the thoughts of seeing...thinking...desire...want...all of these unknowable extremes of life and then some.

What is?
What less?
What more?

It all is and nothing more than will ever be.
Left and right turns.
It is all philosophical in their own ways.

I'm not sure who I am right now...or what is going on.

It is more than being tired...it is deeper than you or me.

This is it.
This is real.

Charlie Brown and Music

Just like I wrote December 8th, 2007 I am still the Charlie Brown of the music world, or at least in my world.

When I got home I had to run to the gas station shop to pick up some meds for my step dad...and while trudging in feeling and smelling like crap, I searched for the right pills and had to ask the girl behind the counter where they were.

Then the kid behind me asked how my band was doing.

Obviously this brought me up short.

Turns out he was one of the kids that I substitute taught last February BUT he was also one of the kids at the last 'concert' I performed with Tubbs and James under the moniker of 'Forgotten Purpose'.

Now, obviously I am not used to having people seem to even care about my personal endeavors, much less random teenagers, so I did what any other self respecting idiot in position would do...I lied.

I said things were slow but good, that school and work had us all tied up but overall we were good.

Why do I keep clinging to this fool's gold? This false idea? This absolute idiotic idea that it matters?

News flash folks! The dream is dead!

If I can be pretentious enough to quote John Lennon:

"The dream is over
What can I say?
the Dream is Over
Yesterday
I was the Dreamweaver
But now I'm reborn
I was the Walrus
But now I'm John
and so dear friends
you'll just have to carry on
The Dream is over"
-John Lennon, "God"

It's over.
The party is over.
I was a washed up, never was musician about the same time I became a washed up novelist.
It is all a load of bullshit I tell myself so I can sleep at night.
I always have the dream of maybe getting to play with friends again, make music, write songs and try to make a difference. The idea of writing words can somehow affect people and help them.
It is lies.
It is over.
Good bye.
Get the hell out of here now.
There is nothing to see.
This is just a walking car wreck waiting to happen, so pass on by because I do not care.

Some Days

Some days I just hate life.
This is one of them.

I feel so alone.
The distance is killing me but not as fast as I am.
Every half lie wrapped in a false breath.
The shadows play across the room
like a bad cinematic.
Every word you say
I quote to you,
just as you think to think
to say what you think you think
will make me happy
and placate your mind.
Not to mention your ego.

But, what do I know?
What can I say?
I would rather just rest right now,
in whatever shades of pain I have to embrace.

"To some people the church is their ticket to respectability, a certain bourgeois point of view, a safety net for when they go to bed. My idea of Christianity is no safety net, a scathing attack on bourgeois values, and a risk to respectability."

-- Bono

It is Finished (For this year at least)

Sometime Sunday morning, I forget the exact time, but I copied and pasted my latest manuscript and pasted it into the magic word counting machine on NANOWRIMO's website and cued up Queen's "We Are the Champions".

I clicked send.
I clicked play.
I saw the rather large "CONGRATULATIONS" message and laid back on the bed luxuriously bathing in the glory of Freddie Mercury's vocals and my own insane literary glee.

It has been a rather insane month that I only vaguely remember. A few of you were there to encourage me, to pick me up when I fell out of my desk chair weak from too much caffeine and too little food, you were kind enough to flatter me as needed and then threaten me with death when that was not enough. You saw past the grammatical issues that I still do not understand (The day I actually understand comma splices, the actual use of semicolons and how to properly pronounce hyperbole will be a key sign of the apocalypse; you have all been forewarned.) and saw a cause worth pursuing.

You were all godsends and I have to thank you all, every word of encouragement is worth more than the lower gasoline prices...

((crikey i have to finish later...stupid work ~_~ ))

Even more reassurance that hating all of humanity is the right choice for me:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/29/business/29walmart.html?bl&ex=1228107600&en=95e0984e8f92cc7c&ei=5087%0A

America

Only in this ridiculous country would THIS be considered top news:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081128/ap_on_bi_ge/holiday_shopping_black_friday

People can't buy as much useless crap as they normally would?

Boohoo.

It is nice to know I don't believe in love, in fact I think it is ridiculous and stupid. One of the most outlandish illusions we use to shelter our feeble existences so that we do not simply die outright from the shock wave of reality crumbling our futile lives.

On the plus side I'm not dead.

Woo.

So, okay, it goes a little some thing like this:

The pain I feel rips me from what false sense of security I had. The false pretensions, the false ideals and the fears I have had about life.

Every last idea I thought was mine gets taken away, every wayward thought gets ensnared within this odd shaped puzzle.

I'm exhausted and I feel so much pain right now. I wish there was some sort of relief I could get but right now, I just feel this huge hole I'm falling into and the darkness consuming me.