Icarus's blog: "The Chestnut Tree Cafe"

What is that mystery smell coming out of the recliner? It's like a combination of garbage and surgery patient. Just like that summer I lost my arm and forgot I had a heart. Y'know, it still hurts when it snows. Going on five years now. It gave me a whole new wealth of excuses. A new mutilation to fear. Why was I even thinking about that today? Because of the smell? Of the chair? Or the ambulance ride? That wasn't a good summer either... How many times did I fall asleep to those green masks neutral tones, and white sterile lights racing by? How many more times? Two if I'm lucky. It's the second scariest thing to fall asleep to that cold amputated chaos and bustle the first is silence. Black quiet nothing. It's not even cold, and I made up the light at the end of the tunnel, There was no tunnel only weightlessness, without fear, without redemption. You just sink to the bottom of the bathtub all the way through the floor. And you're gone, Maybe not even forever. But it feels like having never fallen in love...

Well, I'm back home and I got two things done today First I took a 50$ boot to the groin from Dell to have them send me something they should've packaged with my PC and for them to confirm my own PC diagnosis. And I've got a lovely pus-sloshing head cold. Progress is being made with four servings of my critically acclaimed chicken soup. But I'm dry, bored, and in an irritating but not debilitating amount of pain. Meeting's in 36 hours. a 1% chance of bumping into my ex (wearing business casual and looking FINE, but a chance I'm dreading nonetheless) and UNCOMPENSATED work, note taking, and so on. Well at least they're buying me lunch before the innevitable reacharound this time. Speaking of rough sex- sure could go for some, and some pistacio ice cream. Anyone care to join me?

I will build you a castle of words. Walls of poetry and prose. Ramparts of pregnant promises. I will chase the dreams of errant romantics down. Like glowbats in fields of soy. Until I am grey with the dust of lesser men's lives. I will find a new life at the edge of madness. One foot and the next Good thing my favorite place is in your sigh, or a willful freefall. See you at the bottom. Where I left your smile. Where I found my way.

When I get to the pearly gates I hope God has a sense of humor. I mean... he has to right? Look at duck billed platypi and Australians. ---------------------- My dog is whimpering and barking in her sleep. I think she's dreaming about eating a cop. I don't discourage that. As for me, I'm... exhausted. I wish I had something insightful to tell you people, I wish I could work on Icarus Rising proper, but sometimes you really shouldn't force things when every muscle creeks, and your brain is so... dry. My ex is getting married to the man she cheated on me with. My dog needs surgery. My dad is changing careers at 55. My mum is losing her mind and spiking her blood pressure. My gramma is a demanding tyrannical invalid. My extended family members are all loud snotty shits. My best friend A doesn't make enough money and is having his first kid in a month. My best friend B just got layed off and has immediately lost all remaining hope. My brother is like the walking dead since he got layed off. All my lesser friends are dead. I have no hand to grasp in this. I'm 23, slightly published, losing my mind, running my lungs out chasing hope, starting a slave's wage job, yet somehow, I know I'll win in the end. I think mostly because I'll accept nothing less. So... who wants to date a poor philanthropic intellectual with severe PTSD? I promise to try to be a good lover a supportive listener a good time, and a good provider... in a minimalist sort of way. I crack myself up sometimes. In my defense, I'm tired. can't I just get away with vacationing another 3 months, fuck the girl of my dreams, live happily ever after and phone in the rest? ... I'm going to Denver the ninth. Meeting a bunch of douchey retards I don't want to know, nor will I remember. And I'll be sure to work myself to death for a job that doesn't actually pay but does give me a "living allowance" I'm pretty sick of having permission to eat. Can I make my own fucking money yet? buy my god damn boat and hurricane proof ranch off the coast of St. Thomas? sipping mai thais on our fifth anniversary... I promise to never wear shoes again meet everyone on the island and try not to spit on the tourists... Love you. I've heard you're fond enough of me to where you wouldn't push me in front of traffic... unless I had a kickass insurance policy. Anyway, why "feast OF famine"? Tis the season to give thanks and evaluate the harvest and the trials right? ... We survived. Barely. I'm not gonna say what I'm thankful for but I am gonna say thanks for the blisters on my soul the callouses on my heart. The tough meaty hide I had to grow from weathering this bullshit. What? No. That's really it. 08 can suck it. I'm excited about our new president, and I've got an umbrella for the next fallout of 8 1/2 years of blunders. Some of which were my own. But I've got my dog, my giant hunting knife + umbrella, and a book or two of poetry. I'll be fine.

None of you are real. There is no place for me. And you will all sing in the great name of my derranged. Half here, half forgot. In your worst nightmares. Where the screams are silent the breath is agony and the rivers run to the sky. I'm the one sitting still in the tearing madness all the colors have bled to the floor all the meaning has dried. children thrashing in the womb the song turned to sirens the debris of the shattered sky cracking dirty pavement. No one will be spared. None but the engineer. Watching the stillness come. Waiting for the hammer to fall. In one perfect conclusion of shockwave and dust. A never ending rampage of ash and terror. Sweeping me aside for a fresh glimpse. A new sun. Old fingers. Old tired fingers and then peace? finality? absolution? Rest. You'll never know how tired you can be until that moment. Was it defeat? Or simply cessation? Was I ever there? Were you? ...were you that smile I caught like butterfly wings between those old tired fingers? Or was it just another sad, crazed delusion of an old heart trapped. Rejected? Stolen?

Think of me when the time comes. In the shower, at the office, stuck in traffic. Any long, and particularly cold quiet night. I'm good for all occasions. I come in many flavors, but only one bottle. When you use me up, return to sender and hope to encounter another. My time here is measured by successes romantic and professional at the moment I'm tragically stalled on the line. You could be my starter pistol. Four wisemen once said happiness is a warm gun. Who are we to question? Just picture me, nose to nose grin to grin pulse to pulse feel my thumbs running over your hipbones my breath slide down your neck. Warm, moist, and smelling faintly of rum and sterile crushed white pills. My eyes aren't dialated, but I'm high on touching you. Ever synapse, nerve, and fantasy firing a cacophony of chaotic rapture an exploding overture of bliss as lips gingerly roll over dewy skin. Touch. Close. Purr. Was it as good for you as it was for me?

"Christ, I'm exhausted." Me and my brother were playing hooky from yet another ridiculous list of 'dig-a-ditch fill-a-ditch' jobs. If you're at my parents' house, for whatever reason, and they're doing something- you have to be doing something perceptably useful. Only... my mom's not the most well adjusted to-do list maker on earth. We had just spent three hours cleaning out closets, only for her to walk by and tell us to make a throw-away pile, and then put the rest of the junk BACK into the closet since there was nowhere else to place it, and they wouldn't have a moving truck for another month. That's nothing, I'd tell you about the time me and my brother had to vaccuum the walls, but there just isn't time for that kind of madness tonight. So we were drinking beer on the back stoop waiting for someone to remember we were here... and had a pulse, so we were more than qualified to re-shingle the roof. When my brother opened with a rather unexpected question "Are you happy?" I blinked a few times the beer fizzed and bubbles popped in that awkward eternity. This wasn't really what we talked about. Normally it was insane plots, government, projects, jobs, our parents. He doesn't really do that "concerned" thing. I mean sure, my life had been kind of at a screaming low-point, and he's the best brother I've ever had... but I didn't think my situation warranted such a loaded question. For a split second I wondered if his question was a reflection on his own life. That my piteous quandry was the measure of happy, or at least getting by. That if I could say "yes I'm happy in this RAT HOLE STINK SHIT HELL I CALL LIFE!" then he would do fine with whatever was bothering him. I mean, times were getting thin... unbearably thin. And when I really thought about it, it was such for both of us, and I was a prat for hogging the pity party. So I answered honestly. I coulda lied, I could've gave him what he was desperately fishing for... but there it was. No take backs, no pretense. "No, but I'm getting there."

The sand is crackling with words of discouragement. That's the problem with the stuff cakes in, digs everywhere. Like clown makeup and failure. Always takes one more shower than you'd expect to get off. As I pull creaking joints from finely obliterated life, I'm stuck eyelevel in contra with the high noon sun skipping off the waves. At least for today, I'm the last man on earth. Three sets of footprints in the wash. The fear of the man I was, the love of the fool I became, and a man afraid of rescue, gradually forgetting his name. I can't help that I love her. So I threw darts at a map of the ocean for somewhere to drown, with my luck I found this paradise. No shark bites or mai thais. No amazing islander accent so thick with errant english and rhythmic insanity. No volleyball to mock me. Maybe the problem is that I can't help it... maybe its that I can't prove it. Not from here... but god this is so much easier. What would you do? Catch the stars and set them in rings? Bleed the rubies to quench her thirst? Crumble the mountains with a toothpick to spell her name? Or would you write love letters in the sky, fill bottles with sonnets and huck them blindly into the sea? I would. So I did. For as long as she'd read them. I have plenty of sand to count while I wait for her reply.

My dog cracked me in the nose pretty damn good. 135lbs of hip smacked me right at the bridge. I said "fuck!" in front of my parents, my eyes teared up, and I checked to see if I still had all my teeth, and if my nose was still on straight. Bled a bit, stiiiillll friggin hurts from the top of my head to the base of my teeth. Well, I now have unlimited text space, and I've decided what I'm going to do to celebrate that: *breathes in* BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo*GAAAASP*OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOBSSSSSsssssss!!!! *scratches his head* That wasn't as fulfilling as I had hoped. ...I wonder if I should try writing an edition of "Icarus Rising"

I just finished weatherman, oh wait.... what did I actually want to talk about? I'm going back "home" tomorrow evening. Thanksgiving shindig, my brother's coming in, I haven't seen him since... June? Gotta help box up my stuff still at the house, pull up some carpet, and probably get suckered into helping cook too. He goes back Friday the 28th. I'm looking forward to several things, top of the list is of course seeing my brother. The next would be using a PC to write without text max restraints. Maybe my soul will get a couple good meals down there too. The connection between imagination and fingers is a little gunked up. This visit should help with that. Wish you were here. Good night.