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Starry-Eyed

When I was much younger, think fifteen, twenty years ago, in my early twenties, I had a brief foray into dating a star. It didn’t last long, although back then those sort of things always seemed to be longer than they actually were. But for a fair amount of time afterwards, longer than I probably should have, I longed for her. It took a lot of time, and an incredible woman that would eventually become my wife, to help me stop having that twinge of wishing she was still with me, that waking up next to nobody and still smelling her presence there.  We met at a science museum. I was there taking my niece to see something I’ve forgotten by now, probably a dinosaur exhibit or underwater one. At the time, as part of their space exhibit, they had somehow managed to create miniature stars in controlled labs. While my niece was quickly bored by it, I found myself mesmerized by her on display. I sparked up a conversation with her, found it easy to make her laugh. After a short while, I asked, why are you still here? She didn’t have much of an answer. I told her, I’m about to leave with my niece, do you want to leave with me? Drop my niece off and we could go somewhere and walk for a bit, maybe stop and get drinks? She readily agreed, perhaps because I had charmed her in some way, or perhaps because she was just glad to get out of that museum, which up to then was all she had ever known. I told her I would be back in a bit, I just had to find my niece and we’d get going. Of course, when I did, my niece didn’t want to leave yet. She pouted and moaned and sulked. I gave her a little more time, but probably not as much as I would’ve if I didn’t have a star waiting for me. And of course, when I went by to get her, the star, my niece was wildly confused. Why is she coming with us, she asked. Isn’t she supposed to stay here? I told her no, she was her own being, she could decide what she wanted to do and where she wanted to be, and she wanted to come and spend some time with me, could you please just be happy for me for a minute? That quieted her down, because everyone in my family knew that I had recently been a little heartbroken over my last failed relationship, something that had ended a couple months before meeting the star. 

After dropping off my niece we decided to talk a walk in a nearby park. By that time, it was night out. I honestly was a little tongue-tied; I had no idea of what to say. What sort of music does a star like? Does a star ever get a chance to read books? What about a star’s siblings, do they have any of those? Everything I thought up seemed incredibly dumb or dull. “The stars look wonderful tonight,” I said, absentmindedly. When I realized what I had said, I quickly added, “of course I count you among them.” I felt silly afterwards. There was definitely something less cheesy I could’ve said, but there was no way I could’ve thought of it on the spot. There were multiple times that a friend or family member pulled me aside and asked me what I was doing. If I was sure of this. They asked, what do you see in her?  “I don’t really know, honestly. A lot of light,” I’d respond, avoiding eye contact and clearly uncomfortable. It was true, I didn’t know exactly what it was about her that I was attracted to. Maybe it was her warmth, maybe it was having a feeling of being her protector. It could’ve just been superficial, in all honesty. But it wasn’t. I truly cared about her, and wanted what was best for her. But how could I know that? I hardly knew at the time what was best for me, how could I know what a star needed, what they needed most out of life? So I tried to make her happy. I tried my best to amuse her, to make her feel cared about, to make her feel like she was someone special. There were, of course, things we couldn’t do together. We never even bothered trying a movie in a theater, or a play. My niece eventually did take a shining to her, but that proved to be troublesome when she was acting in a school play and wanted the both of us to come.  “But whyyyy can’t she?” my niece would moan, and either I would be tasked or I would put it off to her parents to explain why. It hurt to see that she, the star, was just as disappointed that she would be able to see her performance. I wracked my brain for several ideas for how to make it work, but it just wouldn’t: her brightness would be too distracting. I still went, and was unable to focus on the play itself at all, thinking much more about the star, and what she was doing, and beating myself up for not thinking up some miraculous solution. Concerts, though, that we managed to work out. Everyone assumed she was part of the lighting aspect of the show. Some people would be mesmerized by her in turn, staring at her intently, which bugged her. It reminded her of being back in that museum, where she was gawked at and kept in captivity. She was glad, though, to be able to get out and do activities with me. She just wanted to experience whatever she could with me, and I felt the same way. One time a woman moved in between her and I at a concert. I glared at her, frowning, until she noticed and quickly yelled over the music. “What?” “Um, excuse me,” And I moved to her other side, back next to the star. She looked at me incredulously, obviously weirded out. “Are you like, on something?” she asked, even though I had stopped paying her any attention and had resumed watching the band. “Uh, no, I’m not.” She looked at me again, eyebrow slightly raised, and stomped off into the crowd further ahead towards the stage. “Some people, huh,” I said to the star, jabbing her playfully. “It’s like, yeah, I do think I’m coming to love her,” I remember telling my friend several drinks deep at our favorite haunt. I munched on a couple fries in ketchup. “But it’s frustrating, because, I feel this pull toward her, and when I get to close, I get burned, y’know?” “Yeah, man, yeah. I get it. I’ve been there,” my friend replied, also slightly inebriated. “But it’s worth it, though, to me, for some reason? I don’t know,” I added. “Who’s asking if you know? Why are you getting so far ahead of yourself, why don’t you just have fun with it and not take it so seriously?” my friend reassured me. He was right, I knew he was right, I agreed with him then and there and told him he was right, but it just did not get through my thick skull. How is it I knew what I had to do, and I still wasn’t able to do it? The thing is, because she was technically a miniature star, not a full-sized one, her lifespan was significantly smaller than if she was a big star. It would’ve been lightyears and she would have far outlasted me. Instead, she only had a half life of two weeks. So a full life of four weeks. And she had been in the museum for a week before I had met her. It wasn’t until the last four days we had together that she started to brighten significantly, and I thought back to what I learned in high school science class, and wasn’t able to remember, and looked it up on the internet to remind myself. I felt ridiculous when I found the information. Why didn’t I see this coming? How could I have not known it was too good to be true, how had I not known it wouldn’t last? And because there was no significant distance, when she burned out, it would be immediate to me, I wouldn’t get to see her image for an extra amount of time after she had burned out. It was just before that started happening that I took her to a family barbeque. At this point, everyone had just gotten used to it. They did their best to accommodate her and include her in all the games we played at get togethers. Sometimes she wasn’t very good, especially at stuff like volleyball or polo, but she was surprisingly good at cornhole. There was a cornhole tournament we did, like for a lot of the other games because there was so much family that wanted to play, and we managed to win it all. The team we beat, which was a second cousin and his wife, were a little peeved off by losing but were able to shake it off quickly. I was surprised, sometimes my family had been the sorest losers and taken shots about there being cheating or the like for them to lose. But no one made such allegations against us, everyone seemed happy to see me as happy as I was. “You guys will repeat next year yet, I bet,” my mother joked to us after we had a victory embrace. I smiled widely at her, and her back at me. I thought, could this go on forever? Or at least, a long time? What more could I want? I tried to discuss this with her, tried to plan ahead a little. I wanted her to know I felt secure with her and didn’t want no one else. Talking about that stuff though, she never responded. It must’ve really agitated her. I think she was trying to get me better to understand that I need to try harder to live in the moment, to take life for what it is. I still struggle with that, to this day. Before, I was so preoccupied with what was next -- now, I can’t stop looking back to what could’ve been. And then it happened: we were innocently laying in my bed, listening to the repeat of a record we had just listened to, and she had gotten to be so bright I could hardly look at her. “Wow, you must really like this record!” I said, partially joking, but her response made me ask whether she was okay. She didn’t say anything back. Her light began pulsating, brightening even more, throbbing, and she even began expanding. I wanted to reach out to her, to grab her and hold her and tell her the grand lie, the biggest lie, that it was all going to be okay. Then suddenly, poof! My whole room was lit up, and I was temporarily blinded. I rubbed my eyes for what felt like forever, ineffectively, frightened whether my vision would ever come back. Which it did, of course, shortly after. I looked around my room and saw no trace of her except for small bits, little smithereens floating down my room, tiny amounts of ash trailing in the air as well and falling to the floor. I called out to her, and felt stupid for it. Of course she was gone. I knew something like this was going to happen. I had remembered from my haphazard research about how after stars nova, there were possible periods of nebulae floating in its wake, and usually a white dwarf left behind, but there was nothing but the ashes, the ashes that scattered and disappeared from the breeze of my slightest movements. I felt robbed: any sense of her presence would be better than this, even a collection of gas or a dull orb. But it wasn’t to be; maybe it was a side-effect of her unnatural creation. It took a lot of reflection, and most importantly time, to realize I had put a lot on her, I projected a lot on her that maybe wasn’t actually her. I realized that in her silence, I filled in the spaces with what I wanted to see most. Did I really get to know her, get any sense of her? Or was it all projections? I like to think if I had more time with her, I would’ve definitely gotten to know her, to understand her, to fill in those figments of her with the reality of her, but who knows. It took her exploding for me to stop and reflect on how I was acting before, who’s to say I would’ve been able to figure it out without that. As if I have it figured out. I’ve gotten it wrong before, so, so wrong. And I’ll be wrong again, definitely, before my own light goes out.

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I find myself once again looking Into the vacant eyes of An American Apparel model knowing Her eyes are surgically enhanced To look more vacant, the full lot Is meant to be vacant, the mind Has been vacant except for which TV Show to watch next. Sexy, Isn’t it, the way life becomes Unbearably tedious? Nothing to me is Nothing. I mean, what do I mean? Tell me? Please? Essentially there is no essence to contain, Our container leaks and it seems as Thought something is bleeding. But It doesn’t taste salty, it tastes too sweet Like shit. I forgot: my taste buds Are malfunctioning and everything sweet I eat Tastes like shit. Nothing worth doing, Boy oh boy I love doing nothing. And nothing is more gorgeous, nothing More sexy, as that absolutely black hole Of absolute nothingness.

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There’s a party in my mind When I start smoking pot And I keep smoking pot Because I don’t want it to stop I don’t like you I love the muse A lot more after fume du kief On a balcony no one else wants To smoke a joint with me Until I mention the opium sprinkled Throughout the memories they can Wait but don’t, don’t blame Satan if you never forgave him. The ghosts can’t bear to be mentioned again Can’t bear being brought Into existence by reference To a lost reference text CB241 Ibid, 666. Ibid, 666. Ibid, 666. With no original text, no more Original thoughts, the high-concept has Its prongs embedded in the chest And shocks intensely each moment passes And no new ideas come, no new slogan Or chants that would be just as worthless

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#NowPlaying @chancetherapper #coloringbook 🎉 http://ift.tt/1NtM0L0

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I. I am a brute, a barbarian. Uncouth, with A heavy brow, I stare at the pages And I do not comprehend one single word, Not a single mark of punctuation. II. That’s trailer trash, huh? I was born To a trailer park’s resident whore, meant to Drink Budweiser’s and shoot guns and impregnate My own mother. Lest I shoot my father accidentally And unknowingly while out hunting, I was sent away. Instead I drank ambrosia, nectar of the the gods, In a coffee cup left atop a trash can, and found it Sweet, too sweet, sickly sweet even. III. When all the books have been scanned and archived When a second moon has been 3D printed and cast into orbit When an elevator to Hell has been built and tickets sold in Family Packs When I fall, I fall intentionally, and with purpose I do not intend to get up.

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I hate to be in love! I lie Together tangled in the tapestry Of my intertwined hands. Are you there in the meadow, the flowers, The blades of grass? Am I in fear Of stepping over a line I cannot revise? In the eyes of the concrete Belief in the sanctity of sidewalks, I am worthless, I lie to myself In the corner of a queen-sized bed Of sunflowers. In an hour I will rise again In a sweltering sea of thin sheets Beating heat onto my ghost feet. What meaning is in the bends Of your elbows, your knees? I’m figuring I cannot figure it out, but I continue to investigate With my curious lips, seeking answers.

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King of Shit Castle, Pt. IV

Shit shit shit The Scumlord Club denied my application Nothing better to do than Drink forties and throw rocks at the empties as they float down the creek Throwing myself down the creek So my fake friends I only hung out with to smoke the little weed they had with them Can throw rocks at my limply floating body Shit There is a short verse by Apollinaire I will never be able to find again I am twenty-seven too and see the world the same: A core of feces Wrapped in a mantle of poop Covered with a crust of shit We wade knee-deep through In the morning The birds wake me with Chirps that distinctly sound like shit shit shit I go downstairs to find my father Flipping pungent shit pancakes My mother pours me a glass of Fresh-squeezed shit juice How does that pop song go again, the one currently topping the charts? Something like, “doodley-doo-doo Life’s a shit boat sailing down The Shit River when I’m with you” Yeah, that song is playing on the radio And my sister whistles along with it Poorly, but none of us stop her

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How many ‘likes’ do you need For your beauty to be validated? All the followers of Europe and Asia Could not satiate your insatiable hard-on For validation

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“Three-Headed Monster with a Trumpet in His Name and The First Naked Lady” handmade collage by MWR  © ∞

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“Battle Cry of Spring” by MWR 2016 (Collage I made for Ghostfeet’s Fish Oil Poems)

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A Letter For Helen of Troy, Never Received

Because these fingers have lithe tongues. Because the Troy of Idaho had been invaded, but not deceived. No temples burnt to the ground, an empire yet found, because this time we're not allowed to slip into the cozy, blank white space. "Don't mention the apparitions" And how could I not. Something to be said about a banshee. No, not her – the banshee swells. Shrieks and shrieks. The deafness is deserved until she finds a pause stop in a synaptic gap. Who deserves a full stop peace? Even the most sturdy fortresses are erected solely to go without silence. Silence, alone and sighing, continues to wander on without us, meanders past the tents and shanties. Dreams a vision in a dream of purgatory. To a minor poetess of 1797 Despite being illiterate We are awarding you the prestigious grant Of being the revisional Poet Laureate. We've grasped and wrung the neck of oblivion To restore the already fleeted shade to your face. What is your first decree? Zip goes the memory (1816) Splash goes the name on a tombstone (1989-1989)

Warble is a fancy way of singing without opening the mouth

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plane

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“Battle Cry of Spring” by MWR 2016 (Collage I made for Ghostfeet’s Fish Oil Poems)

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So Who Are You (2016)

Cosmic Doodle by MWR