Let's just talk about the weather

Life really does have a hilarious way of letting you know that you're worthless and directionless, that your dreams are unattainable, that your talents are overrated, that your love life (as if) is laughable, and most of all, that the reason for all the aforementioned is that you are simply not good enough at what you do and how you live to matter.



In other news, it was uncharacteristically sunny in Hell today.

Bomb the Blogosphere,
Mike

"Your new aethetic"

It's one of those days.

One of those long, lonely nights that I sit through and think about how I'm utterly sick of writing poems with happy closing couplets.

I'm sick of investing hope in things that break too easily.

Like... people.

The "I am what I am, take me or leave me" philosophy isn't worth the bullshit its written in. Because you never what someone thinks of you, really. You never know what's whispered behind your back between chuckles at your flaws. You can't tell if your participation in a group of people is real or some kind of running joke shared between the select elite. I can't in good conscience name a single person at this fucking college that I am certain likes me for the person I am. Not for the things I say or the words that spill from behind my teeth or quivering pen onto page. Not for some fragile link, a connection via some rediculous common interest. A single person that thinks for just a fleeting moment, "I thoroughly enjoy time spent with Mike. He is a genuinely good friend."

And it isn't limited to within this environment, however God-forsaken. Friends from home move ahead in life, advancing towards tangible, goal-based futures. Creating relationships based on something like all that is left of what was once called love. Forging friendships and sailing unblinking into tomorrows brightly lit by life led without me. Where am I? What am I doing here? What makes up my tomorrows?

I'm sick of doubting.

And I'm sick of the turnpike stench and knowing that there isn't a corner of the globe I can huddle in to escape it.

Every city, every state is an imperfect reflection of the last. The paradigms and dynamics fall into place in ways the deviate frighteningly little from the known. The people occupying schools or streets: blurred shadows cast in the setting sun creating outlines on the pavement. Constant, consistent outlines. At least that's how it feels when you can't help but believe that you are so totally alone in your life experience. In my life experience.

Where's the life? Where is the beauty in character or personality besides lost behind synthetic emotion? The horror in symmetry. These are just aethetics. I am not a fucking print. I am not a fucking copy of the Mona Lisa that the poster store sells a hundred thousand of for $8.99 plus shipping. I breathe and I hurt and I long for company. For companionship. For love?

But is that what you want? A manakin that you can pose and manipulate and reinvent? Is that all we are? All we do? Faces in a tool chest. Filling roles and performing tricks.

This is what I get for being honest. For trying to embrace a life of minimal delusion and falsery. And yeah, I've said some fucked up things. I've made some fucked up choices. I've hurt a lot of feelings and maybe broken some spirits. But my perception does not define you! I don't claim to be law any more than I claim to be God. These vibes that I get- this instinct I trust my social conduct to- it's so tragically imperfect. But when I'm right I succeed. And when I'm wrong I fail. Isn't that just so beautifully "so it goes"?

And I've made a lot of mistakes.

I've been wrong about people before. I'm detached and defended against someone while being raped raw by another. I've had my spirit broken too. I've fucked up in letting myself be vulnerable before, and I keep doing it. Not for aesthetics. For honesty. And if who you know isn't who I am... I've lost myself.

This arrogance. This pretense. This is my aethetic. This is my defense.

One day maybe I'll learn to trust again.

Bomb the blogosphere,
Mike

Blown a wish

You know, I have never had a valentine.

Just throwing that one out there.

I was doing better at updating regularly for a while, and now I'm back to slacking off again. Though, as usual, I have the "nothing to report" plea to fall back on. Valentine's Day this year brought with it some snow. Or rather, quite a lot of snow. Enough foul weather, in fact, to cancel all the classes at good ol' RCNJ. Good new, right? Sure. If it was any day but Wednesday. Mother Nature has a sick taste for irony, doesn't she? Piling us with snow on the one day of the week that I have a class I enjoy. It couldn't be tomorrow- rescuing me from an early math class in which a group project is due and a late Readings in Humanities class in which an essay is due. An essay that, of course, I have not yet begun. Typical, eh? Typical.

So in many senses, the bleak wintered stormy weathered Valentine's Day is oh-so appropriate. Like the coldness of my heart, emo-me says. But seriously, I can't stand Valentine's Day. I hate the idea of recognizing a holiday celebrated by a select population. It's like... a day for the people who are happy anyway to be extra happy and rub it in the faces of those who aren't. Let's all just celebrate how fucking happy we all are! Please. Sure I'm bitter. But I am so not alone in this.

I woke up this morning for long enough to check my email and make sure that I didn't have a class to prepare for. Then I rolled over for another good hour and a half. After finally getting up, showering, and dressing it was time to work on that math project. The one that's due tomorrow. We finished it up (and when I say "we", I really mean Ashley and Jess. I am so useless at math. I pretty much sat there and stole Ashley's music. I'm such a waste.) and parted ways.

Then I watched Eurotrip and chilled with some legit people (at Ramapo!) until around 6:30, at which point I had to make good on a promise I made to Casey a couple weeks ago. A promise that I'd accompany her on guitar while she sings "You Get Me" by Michelle Branch to Mark. So we did that and it was cute and sweet and adorable and "awwww"-inspiring. Yeah. Oh, how I hate you, St. Valentine.

So I went back and we ordered up some Chinese, hung out, and played Scene-It for a while. Afterwards we just talked about all aspects of life for.... for hours. It was seriously incredible. I'd missed that. It was really refreshing and I felt so welcomed. I can't really phrase anything without sounding lame so you'll have to trust me. Even without the typical ingredients to a good college time... I had fun.

"But you... but you... You write such pretty words."

But I guess there are worse things than being alone on Valentine's Day. Being single on Valentine's Day. Because there's all this promise, right? All. This. Hope. That maybe she's right around the corner or in the blind spot beneath my nose. Maybe she's staring me in the face but glancing away when I chance a look. Like we're taking turns flinching and missing each other. Or maybe she's waiting somewhere in the coming months. Here, home, elsewhere... Who knows? All I can say with some semblance of certainty is that she's out there somewhere. Somwhere watching the Earth turn and hoping that I'm out there. Counting stars in the same way we're all blown a wish on the wings of tomorrows and tomorrows and tomorrows.

Awfully romantic for being anti-V-Day, wouldn't you say?

Yeah. I guess I would too.

Bomb the Blogosphere,
Mike

Note: Today's title refers to "Blown a Wish" by My Bloody Valentine off the album Loveless. Ain't I clever?

I use the same words in every poem.

It seems as if the RSS feed that spoonfeeds this monster into facebook no longer works. It's just as well, really. I don't have too much of value to say these days. Watch though, I'll preface this blog as such and suddenly everything miraculously fixes itself and I look like a huge douchebag. Wouldn't be the first time.

My life varies only slightly from week to week. My "everything" seems to be a small array of unending cycles that spin round and round fluctuating only minutely from cycle to cycle. The thing is that they aren't cumulative. Nothing ever builds on itself or anything else. It's like Groundhog Week meets The Mike Stringer Show meets A Comedy of Errors. Good God, give me something to work with!

On the other hand, I'm writing lots of poetry. Lots of poetry that I'll actually look at and read without wincing. I'm happy about that despite my conscious rejection of the knowledge that you can't raise a family writing poems. And unless I plan on writing the great American novel, I can't expect prose to pay the bills either. Some people are good at math or science or something else that translates into an economically stable future. I end up being the starving artist. Though I suppose that the art comes from the pain which comes from the struggle. How's that for twisted?

Regardless, I both dread and eagerly await recieving the decision on my transfer application to Rutgers. It could be quite altering. Imagine losing a year... as I'd essentially be doing. Is it worth it? Is it really better there? One can only hope.

I remember talks I used to have with old friends about "real" people and "fake" people. But now it feels like the argument isn't so accessible anymore. I don't know these people. I make judgements and I end up being wrong. I get caught up in a whirlwind of being myself and trying to be likeable and I wonder... who am I to say who's "real" anymore. Am I even? I really sincerely hope so.

I've always been facinated by lying, the nature of falsehood, and bullshit. And I can't help but think that of all the things these people have told me - all this shit I've swallowed as fact - there's gotta be some bullshit in there. These are the things that I think about when I'm being introspective.

Maybe I should post some writing on this bitch.

Maybe.

Bomb the Blogosphere,
Mike

"Nothing feels good"

Interestingly, the sheets of paper on my dorm room door declare that "FM Stringer's Song of the Week" for this particular row of calendar squares is "Nothing Feels Good" by The Promise Ring. If you haven't heard the song, don't sweat it. You're in good company, I'm sure.

But yes, "Nothing Feels Good". Am I a champion of apropos song selection or what?

Please excuse the following. I'm rather fractured.

So I'm sitting in the dark with The Honorary Title blaring in my earbuds as my roommate flicks channels back and forth between "the Strongest Man in the World" competition and an interview with Bill Nye "the Science Guy" on CNN. CNN of all things! Oh... it's Larry King live. Never mind.

I have math class in six hours.

But see, the terrible irony in writing this thing is that the people who really should be reading it almost certainly are not. And she's done so much for me. Despite the cryptic conversation and speaking between intentions. Despite the months of hatred and miscommunication. Despite heated words and broken hearts. Despite time gone by... I still bleed for you. I sing your graces between swigs of the Captain because, let's face it, that's when we're at our most honest. And our most vulnerable. I read that poets drink not to make the pain go away... but to fuel it. To remind ourselves that we're alive. And my best poetry is about you.

Even though there are few moments that go by in which I don't pray for someone beautiful to glide into my life in skinny jeans and flats (holla Rick)... even though my most magnificent dreams feature some- some angel brushing her bangs out of her atlantic blue eyes and asking me if I'm into Okkervil River... even though I can't think of what I wouldn't give to love and be loved again...

I think that on the back burners of my brain simmers the lukewarm hope that you'll take me back.

But I'm being silly.

And it's time that I put these absurdist fantasies to rest and start running the singles gambit again. Because kissing girls in dark rooms before stumbling back to my own is only worth so much. It's the conversation that carries the most value. The giggles between butterfly kisses. The comfort. The cuddling. The needlessness of libido.

What it comes down to isn't anything profound. This isn't an entry in which I, in all pretentiousness, unleash upon whoever fucking reads this my worldly pretty-talk and smirking quirks. This is putting down in text how truly alone I feel.

One day I'll make a living being vulnerable. One day maybe you'll take advantage of me. One day maybe you'll rape me and leave me battered and broken. But I'll get up. And I'll write. And I'll make a living being vulnerable.

But for now... this is me feeling lonely.

Math class can go fuck itself. Really.

But then

It's been 26 hours since my last cigarette so I guess things are, in some strange way, looking up.

Bomb the Blogosphere,
Mike