everything is changing now...
Everything is changing now.
Nobody is friends anymore, not the way we all used to be. Somewhere between ourselves and the people we say we are there formed a glitch. We all smile sideways and it reflects like a frown. The truth looks like rose colored glasses, slammed against the sun, and the sky is melting down drops of wax from a candle I kept in my bedroom when I was in the third grade.
I tried to light it once with no one around. I burnt the tips of my fingers. I didn't understand that they weren't long enough to get close to the wick, but stay far enough outside the belly of the flame to keep from burning my flesh, or my bridges.
That's what it smells like around here. Everyone's skin smells like summer time and fourth of July, but only after a few beers have been spilled on our ankles and we can't remember if it was this hot last year, or how the hell the time between this summer and last passed so quickly, or how we found a way to survive that long.
Because every summer feels like another survival guide to prepare us for when we all get too busy with things to do and facts to learn and remembering how to kick into gear the part of our brain that enables us to think and act like grown ups, while inside we feel no older than three.
When I was three years old, I played with bugs. I think I liked them because they couldn't speak. At least not in a language I could hear or understand.
It seems as I get older, there are more voices, more words, and more noises. Yet, the more sound there is around me, the less there really is worth paying attention to. It's all hype and propaganda, even on the playback, it sounds like burning flesh smelled when I was in third grade and tried to light a candle by myself, only to realize my fingers weren't long enough because I wasn't old enough to light the wick without catching the flame so close to my palms. The misspelling of adjectives, nouns and verbs and the misuse of conjunctions are the only reasons we have to get close to one another. That is, if we've written them down on paper. Nowadays nobody wants to watch your lips pursed in speech, but rather prefer the echo of your fingers in motion on keys. I'm not surprised my pinky is the strongest part of my body.
As I get older, I realize, I will never be old enough to play with fire, because my fingers will never be long enough not to get burnt.
Not to be burnt.
Because everything and everyone pile onto the train of change.
The ticket is free, so sometimes we hop on and off, or stay on and ride all day, until we get closer to the heart of the city...until we've watched the entire world pass by through our underground railroad that can't go fast enough to be progressive. I hop off and I still see misfortune, greed, poverty, racism, sexism, classism, intolerance. Silence. Deafening silence. Amidst the noise, all I hear worth listening to is silence. Because most of the people I know are made of wick, and the more they talk, the closer the flame gets to the latter side of their existence, until they are burnt to nothingness. And in their wake, in the pile of ash, nobody will care to look to find the real meaning, to align the leftovers into a puzzle we can all read, because nobody cares when a nobody fades away.
Everybody is changing, and I wonder where the outdated, underrated versions of their faces go when the new and improved, modern, state of the art, all accessories included model arrives in their place. Maybe if we recall the last document, we can reinstall and say hello. Or just remember them in photographs and videos. Or not even waste our time, because if we spend even a second reminiscing, we will fall behind on staying modern and with it and in the now. How will we ever excite anyone by being new and changing faster than they are when we're busy making plans with an old set of eyes?
Nobody is friends anymore, not the way we all used to be. We're too busy making plans with the future, making breaks and getting gigs to pay our way through our brighter tomorrow to stop and ask an old friend for a regular cup of coffee from a mom and pop shop that doesn't have 4,000 names and doesn't come in a cup that has its own signature and fingerprints. No, just a regular cup will do, filled with regular coffee, and regular milk, with a sugar or two. Or maybe just black. Yeah, let's go that far back. Let's make it that simple. Maybe there will be less in the way of us just talking and relating like human beings do. Maybe with less in the way we can actually say some things to one another that are true, that remind us of why we smiled when our lives collided, why we tried to stare longer in between blinks to memorize the geography of one another's faces because we knew the familiarity of today would fade and with tomorrow would come a new form of us that would be unrecognizable to the we of yesterday. Maybe there will be less fiction in the friction. Maybe if we made it all more simple there would be less static in the havoc of our speech, less to tune out, more to sink in, and plenty to leave us thinking, "I'm so glad we talked. You make me feel at home and at ease."
Clocks only run in one direction; no faster, no slower, than any other clock. Days are always 24 hours. Hours are always 60 minutes. Minutes are always 60 seconds. So what are we rushing to beat? Where are we rushing to go?
Why is everyone so hurried to be ahead of where they are?
As I get older, I notice, more and more, that everyone is equally afraid of being left behind.
Nobody is friends anymore, not the way we all used to be. Somewhere between ourselves and the people we say we are there formed a glitch. We all smile sideways and it reflects like a frown. The truth looks like rose colored glasses, slammed against the sun, and the sky is melting down drops of wax from a candle I kept in my bedroom when I was in the third grade.
I tried to light it once with no one around. I burnt the tips of my fingers. I didn't understand that they weren't long enough to get close to the wick, but stay far enough outside the belly of the flame to keep from burning my flesh, or my bridges.
That's what it smells like around here. Everyone's skin smells like summer time and fourth of July, but only after a few beers have been spilled on our ankles and we can't remember if it was this hot last year, or how the hell the time between this summer and last passed so quickly, or how we found a way to survive that long.
Because every summer feels like another survival guide to prepare us for when we all get too busy with things to do and facts to learn and remembering how to kick into gear the part of our brain that enables us to think and act like grown ups, while inside we feel no older than three.
When I was three years old, I played with bugs. I think I liked them because they couldn't speak. At least not in a language I could hear or understand.
It seems as I get older, there are more voices, more words, and more noises. Yet, the more sound there is around me, the less there really is worth paying attention to. It's all hype and propaganda, even on the playback, it sounds like burning flesh smelled when I was in third grade and tried to light a candle by myself, only to realize my fingers weren't long enough because I wasn't old enough to light the wick without catching the flame so close to my palms. The misspelling of adjectives, nouns and verbs and the misuse of conjunctions are the only reasons we have to get close to one another. That is, if we've written them down on paper. Nowadays nobody wants to watch your lips pursed in speech, but rather prefer the echo of your fingers in motion on keys. I'm not surprised my pinky is the strongest part of my body.
As I get older, I realize, I will never be old enough to play with fire, because my fingers will never be long enough not to get burnt.
Not to be burnt.
Because everything and everyone pile onto the train of change.
The ticket is free, so sometimes we hop on and off, or stay on and ride all day, until we get closer to the heart of the city...until we've watched the entire world pass by through our underground railroad that can't go fast enough to be progressive. I hop off and I still see misfortune, greed, poverty, racism, sexism, classism, intolerance. Silence. Deafening silence. Amidst the noise, all I hear worth listening to is silence. Because most of the people I know are made of wick, and the more they talk, the closer the flame gets to the latter side of their existence, until they are burnt to nothingness. And in their wake, in the pile of ash, nobody will care to look to find the real meaning, to align the leftovers into a puzzle we can all read, because nobody cares when a nobody fades away.
Everybody is changing, and I wonder where the outdated, underrated versions of their faces go when the new and improved, modern, state of the art, all accessories included model arrives in their place. Maybe if we recall the last document, we can reinstall and say hello. Or just remember them in photographs and videos. Or not even waste our time, because if we spend even a second reminiscing, we will fall behind on staying modern and with it and in the now. How will we ever excite anyone by being new and changing faster than they are when we're busy making plans with an old set of eyes?
Nobody is friends anymore, not the way we all used to be. We're too busy making plans with the future, making breaks and getting gigs to pay our way through our brighter tomorrow to stop and ask an old friend for a regular cup of coffee from a mom and pop shop that doesn't have 4,000 names and doesn't come in a cup that has its own signature and fingerprints. No, just a regular cup will do, filled with regular coffee, and regular milk, with a sugar or two. Or maybe just black. Yeah, let's go that far back. Let's make it that simple. Maybe there will be less in the way of us just talking and relating like human beings do. Maybe with less in the way we can actually say some things to one another that are true, that remind us of why we smiled when our lives collided, why we tried to stare longer in between blinks to memorize the geography of one another's faces because we knew the familiarity of today would fade and with tomorrow would come a new form of us that would be unrecognizable to the we of yesterday. Maybe there will be less fiction in the friction. Maybe if we made it all more simple there would be less static in the havoc of our speech, less to tune out, more to sink in, and plenty to leave us thinking, "I'm so glad we talked. You make me feel at home and at ease."
Clocks only run in one direction; no faster, no slower, than any other clock. Days are always 24 hours. Hours are always 60 minutes. Minutes are always 60 seconds. So what are we rushing to beat? Where are we rushing to go?
Why is everyone so hurried to be ahead of where they are?
As I get older, I notice, more and more, that everyone is equally afraid of being left behind.