Thinking; I Should Get Paid for This

It seems every day I’m dragging a weight,
I stretch myself thinner, ‘till I merely abate.
I’m not even a man yet, but already I’m aged
As I look in reflections of dull eyes and greys.
I could have sworn that I perished the other night,
And I kept up the illusion ‘till the midday light.
The sun was at it’s highest peak, as in every other day
As I’m sprawled on the ground for the vultures to take away.
And there’s no use dwelling on mistakes, they say,
But I’m running out of ways I can break away.  

Hanging from the gum tree out the back.
But I know that branch couldn’t take my weight.
From the rafters of every class at school.
But I know the knot would not stay.
From my bedroom fan.
But that didn’t work last time … 

This is not a piece of creative writing per se, more a reflection that some of you might relate to.

This evening, my sister, eighteen years my senior and now with a young family asked me if I could track down my old Meccano kit, and if my three-year-old nephew, Lochlan, could have it.
I said, “Sure, I’ll have a look for it,  but be careful, there’s a tonne of screws and bolts that are very easy to lose, or swallow,”
Immediately, this made me feel old. I’m seventeen. I’m sitting here with a beer as I write. I know I’m not legally old enough, but having more facial hair than Chewbacca does come in handy every now and then.
Just earlier today, my father, who in recent years has worked as a school bus driver, told me a cute little anecdote about all the kids on the bus talking about Pokemon, and how it reminded him of me when I was that age. Pokemon is one of the most successful media franchises of all time, and I’m well aware of this. When I was very small, I could name all one hundred and fifty Pokemon. Now, I decided to take a look at what was going on with Pokemon lately, as I knew the cartoon that I watched back in the day was still running over a decade later. Frankly, I felt lines begin to cut their way across my face as I read. I’ve seen plenty of Pokemon jokes on the internet that have gone over my head. New Pokemon, and whatnot. 
Dear lord. There are 648 of them now. Given that the cartoon started in 1997, with Ash aged ten … that means he would be twenty-five now. So … does that mean that Ash has been wandering around for fifteen years, showing little ageing? Or is the time supposed to be compressed? And how can kids today follow it when it began before they were even born? Are they doing constant re-runs. I’d rather not think about it anymore. But that brings me back to my original point.
It occurred to me that I had not seen that Meccano kit since 2005.
In January 2006, my parents and I moved from Western Sydney to the Gold Coast (Western Sydney with beaches) and when we got there, I simply took all my boxes and put them in a cupboard, being a lazy kid. I figured that it was easier than unpacking.
Six months later, we had to move out of that place, because the landlady wanted to move back in. Okay.  Next we wound up a few suburbs further North, where I did the same thing. My parents encouraged me to unpack, saying we’d be there for a while. Fast forward another six months, my parents divorced, and I was shipped off to live with my Grandparents whilst they sorted their shit out. Finally, they agreed on Dad having custody, and we went right back to the same house I was raised in (which they’d been renting out during the time we were away) and it came full circle.
That being said, somehow, in the process of those three moves in eighteen months, I lost a lot of stuff. And it made me think, that way I never unpacked, I never could have seen that coming.
I was twelve by the end of it, and in my third term of High School. My mother never returned to mothering duties, and my father took over all mantles. I had never been a happy kid, and whilst the parents divorcing in itself didn’t affect me that much, but growing up without a mother did. I had been more messed up by being picked on in primary school when we left. But it toughened me up. So did Mum pissing off to QLD, just as my nephews and nieces were beginning to be born. Or, at least, it gave me the illusion of toughening up.
In the last five, six years, I’m barely recovering even now. Despite being a selective school student with previous wins in writing competition, and a decently gifted musician and artist (not to blow my own horn, I should probably state that playing guitar and drawing things are about the only things I can do) with insane marks, I threw myself into … well, just being stupid I suppose. Petty crime was the first thing. Between the ages of fourteen to sixteen, I wound up in a lot of shit. Later on, smoking, boozing, occasionally other things.
Now I kinda do all those things. I just get good marks to go with it.
But it makes me feel shitty. And aged.
And I’m at a crossroads where I’m hitting adulthood, but I feel my childhood has passed me by.
Now I’m passing the torch, much as I’ll pass the Meccano if I find it, to a younger generation in the hopes they’ll use it better than I did.
I should have no problems getting into the University course I want to …
I should have no problem making my life a “success”.
But I’ve missed out. And it’s only recently it’s hit me.
And shit, if my sister or her husband ever set off a chain of events like that, without thinking about their children, I will put the fear of God into them.
Anyway, perhaps comment as you see fit, I don’t even know how to enable that, I’ll figure it out later. By all means, let me know if you feel this.
Anyways, off to look for a dusty as shit box of Meccano somewhere in the mountain of boxes in the garage. 

The night the Higgs Boson Particle was found, God came to me in a dream.

On an otherwise empty floor, in an empty room, he walked across a carpet of starts towards me. Solar systems around stars like sand in a Japanese rock garden.

He looked an awful lot like Morgan Freeman.

“So,” he said, looking me up and down, “Now you monkeys have all of the “how“‘s and none of the “why’s”, huh?”

Lucidly dreaming, I said, “Shouldn’t you be narrating migrating Penguins or something?”

“I came to you in the form you most associate with me.”

“A black guy in a Jim Carrey movie? That says a lot about your religions, mate.”

“Fuckin’ ignorant cracker,” he growled “Africa’s the cradle of life! Makes more sense I’d look like this than a punk-ass whiteboy such as yourself,”

After a moment of thinking, I said, “Fair enough. Now, um, while we’re here, although you’re likely just a manifestation of my subconscious, er, what’s the answer?”

“First up, are you gonna take advice from a cracker what thinks wanting to fuck your mother is the defining event of your adult life? And second up, it’s forty two. Monkeys shoulda been reading that shit instead of The Holy bible. I don’t know whether to read that defamation speech or wipe my ass with it, answer is forty-two.”

“Very funny. Does God even defecate?”

“You ever been to New Jersey?”

“No, but I’ve seen Jersy Shore?”

“I rest my case. And you can’t have an answer without a question.”

“Alright. Why did you create the universe?”

“Honestly? Singularity gets pretty boring. I wanted some fairy lights before I had a nap, turn my back and then you monkeys are all up in the place.”

“So … the universe was a mistake?”

“I created chemistry and physics, boy. Call it a bug in the system, but I didn’t anticipate so much matter coming out of a dense-ass gravity ball. I just want me a goddamn lightshow, and we got goddamn rocks everywhere. Somehow, some of that stuff got all sentient, so for the last few minutes I’ve been watching you lot find ways to make weapons out of all the other shit I wasn’t expecting, and then some.”

“That explains a lot, really. Cancer, global warming. It’s no perfect system. I knew Intelligent Creation was a faulted theory, even if it is logically viable. Speaking of logic … will the universe expand infinitely, until there’s not enough energy left to create light and it all goes cold and dead? Or will it hit a finite point, bounce back and return to singularity?”

“Well, it’s not really relevant. I didn’t take much notice of what I was doing … I just set the lights on a timer so they’d go out when I was ready for a nap. Whether it fades out or goes back in, doesn’t really matter. It serves it’s purpose.”

“How about the afterlife?”

“Pfft. Does a rock have a soul? You’re nothing but a random assemblage of molecules. It ain’t that different. It all gets reused. Bits of you are gonna be raining back down on your ancestors. Your body will give the soil nutrition, which will feed daisies, which will go back into the ground, and fertilize it, only to be eaten by a cow, processed, shat out, and consumed by a dung beetle, which will be eaten by a bird, which will piss it out, the liquid part will evaporate, then part of you will rain right down on your own grave. For an accident, it’s really rather eligant.”

“So … no plans for making one?”

“Maybe I’ll bring y’all back for another go after my nap. Although, in a way, you already get many … just in different forms. Really, the Buddhists had it right, and they don’t even believe in me.”

“So … why did you come to me, and why are you telling me all this?”

“Well, son. You’re just another damn monkey cracker, ain’t ya? Who’s gonna believe you, and what’s knowing it made you any better off for? I’m just sick of talking to people what make religious movements. Last sonofabitch I talked to was Mohomamd, next thing you know, the monkeys that follow him, the ones that follow Moses and the ones that follow Jesus are all bombin’ eachother again. I can’t see you making no religious bullshit.”

“I guess not. Before I wake up … One last thing. Where’d YOU come from?”

“Well, s’far as I can figure out, I’m pretty much everything, just an all-conscious embodiment of it. Much like your Earth is to you, I am to everything. Oh, on that matter … quit with your pollution shit. For all means and purposes, you monkeys are cancer to the Earth. It’s more alive than you are. Seriously. How’s all the ecosystems and whatnot any different to them squishy things keepin’ you walkin’? Keep that in mind. As much as you lot like to kill stuff, you won’t admit it, so maybe turn off your fuckin’ air conditioning tonight or something. It’s giving you that awful chest cough anyway.”

“Oh. Well. I suppose that makes sense. Everything becoming conscious.”

“And noooow you’re gonna ask about where everything came from, right?”

“It’s … a bit hard to wrap the head around.”

“Well, even nothing exists, don’t it? Humans have a finite mind. Maybe I’ll actually make some angels and shit like that, and explain’ it to em once I wake up. Wanna be St. Michael? You get to drive Lucifer outta … somewhere, I forgot. But it’ll give you something to do?”

“Oh god,” (he chuckled at my blasphemy,) “Reality inspired by fiction. Whatever, it beats being a fuckin’ pencil pusher. Have you ever intervened at all?”

“I don’t believe in an interventionist me. I did show you monkeys that fermenting sugar makes ethanol, though. Well, I’ll see you in what’ll seem like no time at all. Anyways, I gotta get back to doing the voice over for a penguin movie.”

“Wait, what?!”

“Gotta pass the time,”

And God Almighty shrugged. I watched as the planets and stars sped out further away from the center of the room, and only then I noticed that the room was expanding. As God walked away, faster than even the lights were moving, I saw them hit what seemed like walls, and speeding back in. Remembering to take note for my daughter’s science project, I watched as Morgan Freeman, God Almighty and Academy Award-Winning actor faded into the distance, I woke up.

Fuck I hate Mondays. 

You climbed so high, then fell from the top story,

And watching you fall, was the hardest for me.

Now I’m dragging this lake, trying to live to the fullest,

But darling you’re still number one with a bullet.

Another glass is empty,
Another well-wish sent me,
A smoker’s cough guards the entry,
My lung’s wisdom, my only sentry.

Smoke fills the room, and it’s not permitted
Incense burns, it’s intermittent.
My ashtray’s full, and I’ll try my best
Not to pile ash and butts on my desk.

Someone told me to go placidly amongst the noise and haste,
But at this pace, slowing down now would be but a waste
I’d rather rush at a thousand miles an hour and hit the wall
Than to drive at a safe spped, run out of gas before I hit it at all. 

I’ve been bruised, battered, broken hearted,
But I’m tougher now, risen ashes than if it never started.
I’ve slipped over soliloquies, been diagnosed with OCD,
And there are few who are as broke as me.
There’s been many pretenders,
But here I stand, the token me. 
Broken free, through poetry. 
Now I can be stoked, as me.

I’ve walked this far, I’ve borne this load
Now I stand approaching crossroads.
And I don’t have time to wonder why,
Because in this moment, it’s do or die. 

Irony presents itself in many a way,
I see it happen from day to day.
Such as how it’s not quite humorous
When you fall onto your humerus,
And cancer’s hardly funny,
But think of what rhymes with ‘tumorous’?

And when they said that roses are red,
And that violets are blue,
It makes me wonder if poets
Really speak what’s true.

Because I’ve seen roses that are white as snow,
And violets that aren’t blue.
I’m quite sure that when you say Violet,
You might mean purple too.

So why call a blue flower purple?
Or keep your roses red?
The flower doesn’t choose it’s colour,
Has no choice in what is said.

So why give ever lasting love to those
Who won’t ever get to reap it?
And whilst they say you reap what sows,
They never say if you get to keep it.

This is a little something I wrote for a rather wonderful girl, a good friend, and an incredible songwriter/performer. She mentioned once how she writes songs for other people often, but none were ever written for her. So I changed that. I’m in the final stages of recording it right now. The chorus is referential to one of her songs, a touch I hope she picked on when I drunkenly played her an acoustic version earlier this year. She seemed to like it, but I’m sure the bias of a song being written for you (and being drunk) helps that. I would put chords, but I don’t want none o’ y’all stealin’ mah progressions. :P Enjoy … all … like, two(?) of you who follow me.

All the world is a stage,
And she is the spotlight
Like early breaking sunrise
After the darkest of night,
She takes the stage,
Like the brightest of sunshine -
She inspires me.

I hate to sound like a fanboy, but I have to say,
I could listen to her voice ringing out all day,
It’s strange, because I love her and she’s my friend
But her stories are legends that should never end.

And when I’m weak of will,
She takes me to a place where the sky stands still,
I’d kill 
To know what’s going on in her head,
But I’ll just sit and let the lyrics do the work instead

She leaves the stage,
They extinguish the spolight
And if but for a moment all on Earth’s still right
As darkness takes over, there is still sunlight-
It’s in her eyes.

I hate to sound like fanboy, but I neglected to mention
How she captures both the crowd’s and my own attention,
She’s a siren and muse with the best of intentions 

And when I’m weak of will,
She takes me to a place where the sky stands still,
I’d kill 
To know what’s going on in her head,
But I’ll just sit and let the lyrics do the work instead

You are but an image,
Out the corner of my eye.
You are but a concept,
Never realise.
I’ll not separate the truth from lies,
Lies separate from you and I.  
Your beauty here is all I’ve viewed,
Your eyes alight, your touch alludes.
I watch you ever from afar,
I watch you fall into his arms.
I watch you in that hallowed bar,
I see what I see, not who you are.
A sad tale’s a sad tale, no matter how you tell it,
From drunkard’s ragged vocal cords to pages of crushed velvet.
And I’ve been to the mountain top -
Where I screamed your name, till my lungs gave out. 
I screamed away the last of my youth,
And in the echoes begged for truth.
But an echoed question was no reply,
As the cold sets in, and Summer dies.
And I’m wondering, hoping, praying, dreaming
Dreading my persona seeming
With raw red throat and ragged cries,
Will there ever be a you and I? 

The City smile’s crooked skyline speaks in booming cries,
The Mountains sit in bluest haze, speak softly in reply.
On winding roads, the heavy loads on backs of ox to city goes,
The Mountains cry in swift reply and write in often broken prose.
The badlands, arid, dead and silent lay between the two
Each madman, rabid, red and violent seeks out not what, but who.
“Who is what, but what is who?”
Says Mountains from a mist of blue.
“What is but an object, and a who is but a fellow,”
Said City through a haze of yellow,
Pollution makes him cough like bellows.
Eats him alive, but he says “Who the hell knows?”
Meanwhile, who is but a man, with ox and heavy load,
Weaving through the arid lands on the broken winding road.
Stormclouds overhead, steep behind, and forward laced with tumbleweed,
Tapping on is broken head, deep sigh, “And here, I thunder heed!”
Beneath the trees of dying grey, you’ve never seen such a sight!
Eating seed, and drying hey, was man and beast alike!
Meanwhile a man with crimson blade and heavy spade stalks out the way,
Eyes the size of dinner plates, red and violet, awful shades.
He stalks under tarp, after dark blade a haze of stains, raised
About to thrust, but a second takes before the other man wakes.
And in the morning, the oxman died,
The madman walked, the Mountains cried.
And the City looked down in barely concealed delight,
“For now, the valley is mine this night,”