BrownEyedElliot

it’s in something the pictures can’t capture. the way the lights streak out in a million of the tiniest little rays and become a blur of colored stars. in the way the quiet takes hold of you, so peaceful and alone yet completely aware of the chaos that comes in the morning when all of the family that sleeps, in homes here and far away, will gather in a whirlwind of bickering and laughter. somehow despite the knowledge of such calamity lingering, nothing can shatter the warmth and tranquility of this moment. i hold onto it, as long as it will allow. wrapped in blankets and surrounded by the only the glow of the tree.  for reasons buried deep in my faulty memory, this is the only thing that signals christmas to me. sitting alone with the tree, late at night.

give it a minute. let it settle into your brain. the sparkles of a first snow, the skids of first steps in the glistening white. a privilege of first come, first serve to the white world of winter. no one stirs at the hours i must, the stampede is still fast asleep. before the plow, the shovel, the trouble i tread, sneaker clad, through the shimmers and glimmers. fresh fall for a fresh bruise, as if God looked down and new this swollen soul needed a good ice pack.

the still and the quiet still intact, flakes flounder through the sky at a the flowing pace of feathers. no tracks, no flecks of dirt, just the cleanest blanket of white Chicago has ever seen. the newborn snow melts into a layer of glitter on my bundled body and i exhale a cloud of warmth.  my bruised knuckles and blemished pride fade from mind, and my tense demeanor softens with each subtle squeak of snow beneath these scuffed chucks.

this pulse is broken, pitters and patters led astray. get weaker weekly in denial of malfunction. puncturing in the name of pathology and beginning to wonder if, just as pain, desire and disease are just constructs of my brain, built to defend against the misplaced malice of my world. blurred and burning, vision eludes me. what then, when the heart and eyes fail.  when you cannot see or stride, or pull out from the inside. make a mantra of His provision and peace, pull together the shards of hope and look blindly in the direction of happy. as if that is was even slightly what this life were about.

there must be a crack in this wall, a secret passage i subconsciously left for myself. through the fog of cynicism there had to be a freckle of light, something buried deep telling me to leave an escape route. there is no rewind, no fast forward, no pause, no stop. only a play. only ever just a play. so figure out the play. figure out the way. figure the way out.

he said i’d been writing the same thing for years, like i’d not even grown an inch. i shutter to think that’s true. to acknowledge that this could all be the whining of some twenty something year old who never let go of hurt long gone. to think i am one of those three lettered heartaches walking the streets with wounds they chose not to nurse.

and when the death swells up around me, not even close enough to touch, i shudder and fall. sure that while death doesn’t scare me, it somehow intensifies my fear of life. i sit and wish for tomorrow, only to realize tomorrow seems no brighter, nor the day after…

i fear the words i have to say. i fear saying the wrong thing to you. to you who death reached out grabbed by the throat, while i was only near enough to cringe at the hold it had you in. i fear my weakness, that it’ll never be strong enough for you, when you need support the most. or that my selfish weeping will offend you, you who feel this loss so wholly.

so i write this, cause i never have been able to say the words that matter. not at your middle school bonfires, or trips out of state and not now when you need them more than ever.

here it is again. that wonderful moment where, even though you shouldn’t stop moving, you finally feel like there may be just a minute to spare. to breathe.  to sit in the back of an empty studio space, alone with the screen and inks, the tables and chairs, the recently erased white boards, and just breathe. armed, of course, with your trusty keyboard and headphones, ready to take on the world. knowing that this moment will pass too quickly and your breathing will inevitably increase in frequency but decrease in depth.  that the feeling of readiness and determination have to quickly compute into action and perseverance because life is too short to only always have goals and no gumption. because God put us here, gave us all this, and can so quickly take it all away.  because dreams of making a difference don’t make a difference, just the initiative and enterprise born of those dreams does. 

so breathe now, while you can, and keep moving.  it may not get easier, but you wouldn’t have it any other way.

I am at the same time inspired and encouraged. I can’t seem to ruffle through all the feedback and all the quotes I want to take from this film.  It is incredible.  I want to be one of these people, I want my creativity to solve things… and yet…

ART & COPY trailer from Baldwin& on Vimeo.

Oregon loves too few.
Oregon loves just you.

Curse the rose, curse the rain.
Now two bodies, can’t start the same.
How our sun has gone away, there aren’t days, 
there’s just different gray.

How can anybody only just sleep?
How can anybody only just leave?

Who talked to you?
Who’s in your ear?

Probably a better man.
Who’s probably got better plans 
for wealth or success.

too many thoughts that i can’t filter into words. too many words to decipher what, of all of this, is truth. too much truth to settle for all these shades of gray. too much gray to conclude what i have learned. too many lessons i haven’t found the bottom to. too much time at the bottom to understand this middle ground.  too much middle ground to find a place to dwell. too much dwelling on our irrational emotions.  too emotional to make any sense of this. too much sense to listen to this nonsense.  too much nonsense to be content with spoon fed reason. too many reasons to cross this road to worry about the traffic. too much traffic to live through this journey.

there’s not yet been a more harrowing journey than this one.  with no end in sight, i still search. digging and cross referencing, sure that there is an answer to be had. a conclusion to be drawn. and here i lay in an emotional pit stop.  sure of one thing, and glad to have at least that.

there have been lower points. other’s near me in my journey would say, i have come a long, long way. there is stability in my swagger now, more calm than calamity. and here is the story of a death that brought me here.

here lies fate, and may she rest in peace. i held her softly through my youth, with naive romantic fingers. cupped between glowing hands she led me, eager to see where i was meant to go. and as the time passed and i began to feel the turbulence and jostling of adulthood, i gripped her firmly. and with every piece of my heart that was borrowed and never returned, my grasp tightened. with needy desperate hands i kept her. the chokehold existence she lived in was not much, but i needed her to live. to be true.  and then i reached a place, the place no one wanted to follow me to, the place she took me blindly. in broken misery i lost her. sure that she may be somewhere, but not there. and i learned to forget her.

and now, far removed from that time and place, you speak of these things that are meant to be. these fated things beyond our control. now you speak of the love destined for our hearts and i shudder.  to think i had forgotten these hopeful, fearless notions… and so i searched for her.  for this fate you speak of. 

i found her. peacefully at rest in a casket build from the scraps of my youth.  i had known she was missing, with the other naive convictions of innocence, but i had not stopped to wonder if she could still be alive… could i believe that following your heart leads you anywhere at all? or have i outgrown that, and come to terms with a logic driven love, full of reluctance and fear?  for these questions, there were no answers and so i left her buried there. sure, now, of one thing. 

these romantic ideals, this sureness you hold, they are buried here. dead or alive, they are buried and never to be dug up.

i feel explosive.  like there’s a bomb in my chest just waiting to go off and throw bits of my heart all over this city.  one throb, one pump, one tick, one tock. tread careful, close lipped. gaze downward, unengaged as if the tiniest flutter will set things aglow. be warned, there’s peril lurking between these lungs.