This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things

A portly man sits in a gilded chair atop a dais. His hands are folded over his long red tie which cascades down his belly like a bloody waterfall. One hand lifts to cover a yawn, then descends below its partner to scratch a deep red, neglected rash on the underside of his belly, the part that hides the zipper of his navy blue suit pants. He makes a mental note to to ask his assistant to make an appointment with his doctor only to toss it away to make room for the delicious cut of beef and the pungent cigar his favorite lobbyist had given him. He longed to be free of this drudgery and enjoy them with him. And his family, of course.

He clears his throat and looks around and straightens his back. A thumping, beating sound, the type of sound you feel more than hear, vibrates through his ribcage. He coughs on the loosened tar. A draft tickles his fine hairs and sends a chill down his spine. He leans to his side and asks his aide to close the window. The sound deadens as a quieter, almost timid one finds its way back to his ear.

A hunched and sweaty man read breathlessly from Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle to the chamber of bored and aggravated senators as the glassy stare of the portly man bore into him. Between every word the chants from outside would rattle the windows, rattle his chest. The horrible sound of glass shattering. The image of his daughter’s mangled body on the hospital bed, only 26. He trips over the next word and his legs are about to give. He reads on even though his daughters matted hair and the tubes from her mouth bleed into every silent space.

The windows continue to rattle. His mind wanders out of the chamber, past his daughter’s dreary hospital room, through the rattling old windows to the mass of protesters outside beating their voices against the capital building’s walls like would-be trumpets at Jericho. He was with them, no, more than that he was them. He stood there holding a heavy poster-board in one hand and his daughter in the other, he chanted with them for the powers that be to do the right thing.

So long ago.

Long before he became a senator. Before the complications and attacks on his integrity. Before the piles of gifts, ignored, and the expensive dinners, politely enjoyed. Before the car crash, before the promised check. Before he stood up from his seat, book in hand, to stand up for the wrong thing. Before long it became too much.

“Alright, alright,” the portly man booms from his dais, waving his hand dismissively in the way a father would dismiss a child from an arduous punishment. The hunched and defeated father slumps into his chair mid-sentence as the other continues. “That’s enough, senator, that’s enough. We’ll table this issue for another time. And really, I never expected this from you who seemed to like the idea of ‘free’ healthcare.”

“It isn’t free if the taxpayers have alre-“

“Now, I said that’s enough.” He repeats in the same fatherly tone. “You made your point quite clear that you didn’t want the vote to go through today, and I think we’d all like to go home to our families.”

“Of course.”

As they descend the steps of the capital building to the deafening singular voice of the protestors chanting “do your job” the portly man adjusts his suit and lifts his head high. He wraps his heavy arm around the slouched shoulders of the tired and worried father slipping a check into his coat pocket and whispering, “you did the right thing.”

Swiftly Go the Days

The Sun hangs low in the sky
On my early morning drive.
She rises just below the visor
Directly in my eyes.
Our eyes
Just one in a river of cars
Barreling toward the morning Sun

What does the sun do all day?
Does it get to go out and play?
Does she watch the children play ball,
Or the first time they walk or crawl?

I may never know,
Because I only ever see her
Shining directly in my eyes
Just under my visor
On my late evening drive
When the Sun hangs low in the sky.

Float On

After months on vicious, roiling seas
A blind man steps into the crows nest
And we ask what he sees.
“Why, an island in the mists,” he cries
And everyone believes knowing it’s a lie
Because the alternative is starvation,
Is loneliness,
Is loss of control.
But nothing is that easy.
There is no plan, no destiny.
No island, no land.
Just reeds
Too wet to grasp
in a river flowing too fast.
No one is in control.

There’s nothing we can do.

So settle into the calm reality
That even to the best of our ability
We can’t escape that cold inevitably.

Lay back, and float downstream,
Let go of struggle,
Let go of control,
Because we never had it anyway.

A Houseplant is Dying, Tell it Why it Needs to Live. (prompt #2, of 642 things to write about.)

Earlier today I noticed my ficus, Fifi, was still droopy, so I watered her. It was all I could do. It must have been about a week since she began to wilt. I’ve done everything I could think of. I moved her to a spot with more light but that only made her shed more. I began watering her twice a day, up from once. I even bought some really nice plant food and poured the whole bag into her pot. I am at a total loss for what to do as I sit next to her stroking her few remaining leaves, blowing carbon dioxide I made from my lungs onto her leaves in breathy “I love you”s and “please, don’t leave me”s.

Tricia and I bought Fifi on a whim from a booth at the local farmers market on sunny Sunday when we first leased this apartment. I thought it was a silly purchase but it made her happy. “It’ll bring the place some life, Nate.” She told me as she handed me the pot to carry to the car. “You’ll see, we’ll take care of it together. It’ll be like having a kid that doesn’t shit all over itself. We’ll call her Fifi.”

“Her? How do you know it’s not a boy?” I asked as I adjusted the pot in my hands so as not to drop it and a large chunk of soil tipped out down the front of my white t-shirt. I laughed and so did she.

I guess to her it was more than a plant it was a symbol of our love, our life together. Over the next few years we kept the plant in the same spot, a few feet from the small window in our shared bedroom. She would water it everyday before she went to work, caress it’s leaves and whisper something before turning to me caressing my hair, whispering, “I love you,” and kissing me goodbye.

The plant grew and shed leaves all around it’s base. I’d pick them up before she came home, begrudgingly. “‘It’ll be like having a kid that doesn’t shit all over itself,’” I’d say in a mocking her. Every so often during her morning ritual I’d poke fun at her for loving the plant more than me. She’d raise her eyebrow, put her hands on her hips and affect a mock indignant tone then she’d give me a little more than a kiss.

It was beautiful, and happy, and light, and it was some of the best times I ever had. Then seemingly out of the blue Tricia became tired. She would still wake up water the plant whisper to it and kiss me but it was more like soap actor going through the motions than my beautiful, passionate Tricia.

As time wore on she would stay in bed more often, slowly neglecting her morning ritual more and more. She said it was nothing and she’d be better the next day. She’d say the same thing the next day and the next and the next until I finally forced her to the doctors. He said it was cancer. He said it was much too late to do anything about it, it had already spread to most of her organs. It was a matter of days he told me. All they could do was to make her comfortable.

She was admitted to the hospital. I made them let me bring Fifi into the room with her. Everyday I would go to her. I’d water the plant, stroke it, and breathe, “I love you,” onto it’s leaves. Then I’d cross the room and sit in the chair next to her bed. I would hold her hand, stroke her lank, greasy hair, and whisper “I love you, please don’t leave me,” in her ear. I would do this every day, every day until she mustered her last bit of energy and rattled, “I love you, Nate, I’m sorry. Please, take care of Fifi for me.”

Open Letter Concerning the Traitors at Malheur National Wildlife Refuge

Dear Everyone,

I have been hearing about a new set of “Occupiers” in icy remote regions of Oregon. This name so many news sources applied to a group of men invading a small government facility on preserved land is reminiscent of another group of people I half-heartedly gave my allegiance to so many years ago, the Occupiers of Zucotti Park in New York and so many other places across the united states. These original Occupiers had similar gripes; tyranny, corruption, government overreach and incompetence. However, the Zucotti Park Occupiers did not bring guns and did not spew hate. They merely occupied public land whereas these new Occupiers (from now on referred to as Militiamen) invaded and seized public land for themselves, violently. So I ask you to please discontinue, like I have, calling them occupiers.

Calling the Militiamen occupiers obscenely undercuts the severity of the crime they are committing, namely treason. They are not occupying public lands in the same way Occupiers did, they are invading and seizing them from us, the american people, the lawful owners (as opposed to the rightful owners, the Paiute Indians). It is incredibly unjust and ridiculously stupid what they are doing. They claim to be upholding The Constitution while seemingly having only read half of it at a 3^rd grade level. They are in many ways opposed to The Constitution and the everyday American way of life and therefore are enemies of the American people.

The occupiers however were a peaceful group of loving hippies who just wanted a better life for themselves and others who had been mistreated by the status quo. Albeit they ultimately accomplished very little other than being beaten and shot by the very thing they were trying to elucidate. They however didn’t bring guns, they were rarely violent, and were very accommodating to anyone who wanted to help or be helped. Many homeless found shelter, food and compassion from these dirty hippies, something they’d been sorely lacking from the government and most of society.

So while friendly and peaceful occupiers were beaten and bruised by police in their various outposts several times, the traitorous and hateful Militiamen continue unabatedly occupying government land. It is offensive to call them occupiers, even militiamen when we should be calling them by their true name, traitors.

Sincerely,

Nickolas B.

P.S. The Occupiers were much better prepared with snacks than the traitors have shown to be.

What Can Happen in a Second

(My best friend for christmas gave me a book called 642 Reasons to Write this was the first prompt. A simple question, “what can happen in a second?” brought this about, idk if it’s worth a read that’s for you to decide. It only takes a second to decide what you’re going to occupy the succeeding seconds with, so in that second I decided to be arguably productive.)

What can happen in a second? If you think about it a second is a long time. It takes a second for a bullet to reach your heart. Only a second from when a beautiful girl catches your eye until your heart starts racing. A second can make or break a relationship, there is only a fraction of a second difference between “I love you,” and “I think we should break up.”

A second is the difference between winning or losing. I was in a race in higschool, 100 meter freestyle swim. My opponent and I were neck and neck way ahead of the other racers. Each stroke put us ahead or behind the other. We had no idea, however, we only wanted to be the fastest we could. It’s hard to see your opponent in the pool and looking would cost an all important second. A second away from your time and in a race that often takes a minute ± 4 seconds that is a lot of time. The race ended in just under a minute; 56 seconds for him, 57 for me. In that second all of the immense effort I put forth into swimming my ass off became meaningless as it only meant 2^nd place. I’d beaten my best time, and most of my teams best times, but in that second I became second place.

Paramedics work in seconds. In that second that they lost getting stuck behind a wall of idiot drivers at an intersection they lose the heart attack, spider-bite, stroke victim they were racing toward. Same with police or firefighters. Any emergency is measured in fractions of a second. I’m sure and have heard stories of people being saved on 9/11/01 by the second they “wasted” at a stop sign, or turning back for their keys, or dressing their kids.

Songs and film even paintings work in seconds. In a second a piece of music can swell to a heart wrenching crescendo, or an actor can deliver that one line that brings the whole plot reeling from twist after twist to that final satisfying conclusion. When observing a painting, the extra second one takes to breathe and truly open their eyes to it can mean the difference between understanding or disregarding the piece.

In writing a second can mean everything. In the second that a potential reader takes to read the title or the first line of a story is the subconscious decision to continue reading or putting the book down.

The universe was created in a second, it took several more for it to become what it is, but it only took a second to explode into being. You, me, and everyone who’s ever lived were created in that final climactic second of passion. Well, speaking technically (read: less poetically) some people were created in that second of fertilization when a sperm – be it from the oh so satisfying natural way or the miraculous life changing science of insemination – all humans were created.

So there you have it, all life, humanity, animals, everything began in a second, and every second afterward can mean the creation or destruction of any number of things. So, and I usually steer away from such platitudes, but it seems so appropriate to say now, make every second count.

What Have I Done?

I was too scared
At that critical moment
Rife with indecision.

Could I have known
That their absence
Would reveal perfection?

I am terrified now
That I’ll never know
If it was love or infatuation.

I chose me over us
in a moment of weakness
Now I wish for the moment I missed.

I hold my pillow close
Wishing for their warmth
On a night I’m feeling selfish.

Nonproblems of a Member of the Privileged Class

This afternoon I was struck with the dire decision of where to get first meal. I’d slept in later than normal and when I got up my roommate was watching the episode of sherlock with That Woman. So, of course, I had to stay and watch before getting on with my routine of yoga, breakfast burrito, coffee and writing.

Anyway after watching I was way to hungry to do yoga but also feeling fat so the breakfast burrito was out of the question. Now incredibly hungry, a little stoned, and without the predetermination of a routine I got into my car and haphazardly drove off to figure it out on the way. As some of you may know that was a terrible decision.

As I waited at the first stoplight the true weight of the matter fell upon my feeble mind. Where would I eat? The myriad restaurants passed through my mind faster than I could process them as every car on the road seemed like they wanted to slam into me. It had to be somewhat healthy (veggies, no grease, etc.). I know I was disgusted with myself too however I skipped yoga, my dubious excuse for eating like an american, but everything that came to mind was the opposite.

Breakfast bagel from my favorite spot? No, right direction but too late. Breakfast burrito? No, stupid. Okay fine, something from the coffee shop? No not enough food. The buffet of choice overwhelmed me as I drove aimlessly. I lamented the plethora of choice and my own indecisiveness. It seemed there would be the perfect solution if only I sifted through the proverbial haystack.

That or I should just pick something, anything, and get on with my day. I mean, it’s all clean, edible, and in most cases delicious. How was this even a problem. In fact it wasn’t and shouldn’t have been at all. The plethora of choice of food is the pinnacle of society.

I began imagining a nondescript third world community of huts, scavenging the slim amount of edibles from the plain on which they live. They had no problem deciding what to eat all they could do was happily accept the bland wheat and whatever meat would pass by. Their entire life is based around scarcity. Everything from what they could eat to their job in the community is determined by working with what they have.

I envied them. In The States, well at least the part in which I live, there is no scarcity. We have an abundance of places to eat, types of jobs and anxieties about which to choose. It reminded me of an episode of Malcom in the Middle where Malcom was caught in the middle of the indecision the plethora inevitably creates. He was faced with choosing a career, and only told he could be whatever he wanted. Some would see that as nice problem to have, especially the fictional third world community I made up above, others would point out it’s fiction.

However, it points to a very real problem what do you choose when you could literally do anything and nothing seems right.

Then my stomach growled and I was on a road with no food at all so I pointed my car toward the coffee shop and settled on the terrible sandwich shop next to it and wrote this.

TV Land

It’s easy to forget we live in the real world, that our actions have consequence and others are the main character in their own show. It’s even easier to forget that sometimes we aren’t the hero, or the protagonist, we’re just a person walking around happening to he where we are any the time; nothing special, just real. It’s easy to think that at the end of the day everything resets, that the arcs and storylines from yesterday concluded and that today is a new day. Well, it’s not. Sometimes we’re the villain, sometimes we’re background noise, an extra, but all of the time what we do has an effect on others.

It’s easy to forget that in film, television and stories that situations are exaggerated for entertainment. A simple fact it to me years to realize. The circumstances, actions, reactions, even down to the emotions of the characters are all fake. Mind blowing, I know. Now extend that to so called reality tv, televised real people in real situations. Real people with real emotions doing real things is boring as fuck. There’s no way they would show the real life of these human beings doing taxes, grocery shopping, taking shits, and when they do there’s always some contrived drama that allows the story of the episode to move forward, and eventually conclude with some cliff hanger set to dramatic music so you’ll tune in next week to the Kardashian’s crazy and totally real antics. It’s not real, reality tv is not real or else it would have no place amongst the cartoons and the dramas that are so much less entertaining than real people in fake situations. We accept that it’s real because we want it to be so we can sit back with our popcorn and say “oh, I’d never do that,” or “if that was me I’d totally do it this way,” and be satisfied that our lives aren’t that ridiculous.

What brought this thought about was an all too common video of police officers forcefully arresting a cooperative man in front of his family. They were man handling him, slamming him into the wall as he was saying “just let me go, I told you I come with you calmly.” Another officer came to assist the first in trying to handcuff the criminal. He continued to plea that the force was unnecessary and that he would go calmly without the cuffs, I suppose to retain some shred of dignity in front of his wife and son. A 3^rd cop was trying to stop the wife from filming as she was screaming that he wasn’t resisting. They finally force the man out onto the walkway in front of his apartment, at this point all three officers were tackling and beating him while the wife begged them not to punch him. Suddenly a taser was pulled, and a small dog entered the scene. One officer was tasing the man, another was holding his son back while the 3^rd kicked the small dog out of frame. I couldn’t watch anymore.

Now it’s possible that there was something that happened before the video started to cause such drama, action, and brutality. However it had a tinge of theatrics, an NYPD Blue sort of quality. What I’m saying is that growing up in a time where NYPD Blue, and cops were some of the most popular shows on television probably inspired a lot of kids to become cops so they can take down bad guys. In that simplicity and with that inspiration it would totally make sense to make any routine arrest as dramatic and exciting as possible.

This doesn’t extend solely to cops either. I see it on Twitter and Facebook and real life everyday. This dramatization of real life leads to a point where someone will see a Kardashian pulling someone’s hair for saying something mean and think it’s okay to do that in real life and then wonder why the cops were called to beat the shit out of them. Then people will complain that their life is too boring to simple. Well fucking good you’re doing something right, it’s not a bad thing if your life isn’t dramatic, real life is hard enough with cops forcing you out of your house for missing a court date, or some dude trying to beat the shit out of you for looking at his girl. In real life things aren’t as important or extreme as shown on tv.

I’m not saying we should eliminate reality tv or that police brutality is a rampant and terrible problem, I’m only saying that maybe we should all collectively take it down a notch.

Wine May Not Have Blue Mountains but it Gets You Laid

Wine is by far the best party drink. Forget your 4lokos and your (now plastic) bottles of mickeys those are for frat boys and teenage girls, respectively. You want a man’s drink better come prepared with a corkscrew and a muscly arm because no spindly little twig arm is getting to that sweet sweet merlot.

Now imagine this you’re at a party, your bro’s hitting it off with a 9, you walk over to give him a cheers. You’re long thick glass bottle taps against his puny tin can, and even though those mountains are bluer than the mediterranean on a clear day, you catch her eying your thick long bottle of sauvignon blanc. She bites her lip but you don’t notice because your enjoying that translucent yellow liquid splashing against the back of your throat.

You walk away so as not to put a damper on your bro’s game, even though it would be no contest. You find a group of buds and push your way into the circle. They’re all clutching frosty cans except one, he “forgot” to get beer again. He’s been trying to bum a brew from the other responsible party goers. Your eyes lock, you know whats coming so you put your mouth around the mouth of your big bottle of cabernet sauvignon and take long slobbery draught. You catch his eye again, he looks away.

That conversation went stale, much like the taste Natty Ice. So you turn around try and find that gorgeous pair of legs and breasts that intimidated you half a bottle of syrah ago. Now, however, your cheeks are ruddied and your step is wobbled and you got balls as big as John Cena’s and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s put together. There she is right over there, by herself, you can fix that. So you swig a mouthful of chardonnay move toward her.

But what’s this? Some pussy steps up first and in his hand he’s clutching a plastic baby bottle of Steel Reserve. Pah, he’s some kind of bitch, so you step between them and start laying down that vagina moistening game harder than you thought you could. That guy taps your shoulder and starts swinging, sayin that’s his girl, but you’re a classy motherfucker so you tell him you can’t own a girl, and that she has the free will to choose whoever she wants to rail her. He brings that bottle of Steel Reserve down on your head, but the plastic crumples and bounces off with hardly a tickle. You ain’t mad but he mussed your hair so this loser’s got to learn a lesson. You cork your thick glass bottle of zinfandel swing it hard into his ear. He goes down, she draws closer and tells you to take her to your house.

Now you’re getting laid and that malt liquor drinking barbarian is lying on the grass with cauliflower growing out the side of his head. You wanna know why, because you’re that classy motherfucker who brought wine to a party.