fragment prose

so let's start this stream on Monday night.. it's a new friends 21st birthday party (chanting, 'now you're legal everywhere! how does it feel?' 'meh.. overrated') and we're sitting on a freezing cold December beach trying to start a fire while my toes sweat inside my shoes and then begin to freeze oh so uncomfortable it's got to be an infected cut almost.. I've been chain-smoking all night for no particular reason save for perhaps that consistent headrush which pushes me into the kind of manic I like, rapping to an unlikely porno-funk instrumental in Pete's car on the way to the beach, it's the one thing I can do that everyone gives me kudos for, verbal versatility.. it's so cold, as in it's too cold to even be all that much fun, except in the dark when I think no one can really make out the details of my face (god I kno I'm not ugly, not that ugly, somewhat attractive I think actually depending but still) I begin opening up under the cover of some measure of anonymity, now endowed with a perceptive wit not quite felt so often.

There's some guy lounging around the fire that keeps saying he's thankful for drugs during 'gratitude circle' in which we each give our name and something we're thankful for and once we've all had a turn, we throw our hands up in unison and bellow, 'ahoy!' he finally admits that he's very high on acid but that it's too dark to trip out on anything all that interesting so he's enjoying the fire, and he goes off on some tangent about how all drugs should be legal, someone retorts back, 'I dunno if I could hand somebody a latte while high on acid.. work just wouldn't work' to which he replies (in all seriousness) 'really? I dunno, I think most things would be better if I was high all the time.. could just stick a blotter in my coffee every morning.' another fellow, one whom nobody knows, appears out of the darkness beyond the flame as we are blessing the air with a jam session.. he's too stereotypically hippy in my mind and I almost expect him to introduce himself by saying, 'hey man, consider the lilies' but instead he shakes my hand quite vigorously and begins telling everybody about how he is going out to a farm on the Sunshine Coast the following weekend to experience ayahuasca for the first time. I tell him I'm from the Sunshine Coast and am shocked ayahuasca is something that has ever existed anywhere near me.. I begin asking him how I'd go about organizing some such session for myself and he goes on some rant about 'it's all vibrations, man.. you put the intention out there, and people will come to you, you know? it'll just happen, you just have to be ready' seeming to be shutting my question down for confidentiality or sumthin so I respond with, 'well, you're sitting beside me right now, eh? vibrations, dude. all me.' he silently refuses to go much further.. probably stoned or too lazy to give any info, as confused as anyone would be in a situation like that.. he, too, later gives me kudos for a freestyle, calling me a 'real poet' and asking for 2 cigarettes in exchange for some pot, patting me on the back with 'I'm giving you more than 2 cigarettes worth but it's cus you deserve it.'

Eventually Pete and the rest of the friends I'd arrived with decide to venture home, probably the cold and frankly I can't blame them.. I consider following, but end up reckoning I might have a better time if I stay (despite the fact that I work at 12:30 the following afternoon and it's already close to midnight and my place is on the other side of town and oh well in the actual fuck it's'all good that's why jesus invented taxis)

- - -

creating something in silence (save for keyboard clacks) is a practice in subliminal listening. Thought is like air and you can hear it whispering through the trees of your foresty dendrites.

Misery mixes with ecstasy and love mixes with confused dislike-- for 11 days straight, I've been losing myself in the phosphene glare of love for a girl named Sasha.
She insists she's not a Xanax junkie, but by my standards I'm still not sure if I'm convinced altho this seems like an unfair snap-judgement that still hurts her feelings. Perhaps she needs it, and I'm just blanked as the next heretic to go on trial in the pharmacratic inquisition.

For the first time the other night I experimented (incorrectly) with DMT. Sprinkling it over a packed bowl of tea (marijuana), I drew back a breath and felt nothing more than life as a conceited dream with a strange alchemical hangover-fear of psychosis.

- - -

in the crazy clasp of a darker place is the beginning of a laughing statue and it was nothing like any of this as far as the ketamine kept me floating above every objectivity so who was I beyond the flattery becoming bespecalled across my essence by surrounding loveships in-order to my left-: Sibelle, a mysterious artisan I believe all writers with a habit to smoke most certainly would (or have) fallen in love with at some point after an introduction; she's got these feline eyes of curious enamour and curly, short hair like Picasso curls and a soft, tough speech to her (INTEGRITY!!) perhaps a hard nut to crack sometimes but worth the effort to sit and get to know her, highly definitley one of the most beautiful women I've ever met-- where the existential confusion in her eyes twists to a smile in-which manifested is happiness-of-the-absurd, she secretly loves everybody like we all do but won't quite venture forth into extradimension to mention (to mention) ((but she does now because drugs bring us into Mind At Large as Huxley called it))

Greg-- a well-spoken sage of preference to beautiful confusion, a legitimately happy Boddhisatva who has found his bliss in the random number generator of life.. he showers everyone with praise and every love he harbours is a very very true love you just want to hold him close and cuddle, me particularly in a way that forgets the homoerotic connotation that says 2 men can't hold hands as good friends.. who invented my mind anyway? a culture vulture? or culture as represented in sculpture? forget it, Greg is a good looking fellow but not just that he has the brains and brilliance, there is no doubt in my mind he is eternal. sometimes I wonder if he forgets me in the throng of university personages like Kelvin has, but what a beautiful place to start-- I'm glad I met him and he is already a best friend.

Hunter-- classiest person I have ever met he's got a crick in every step that softly whispers his manifestation of the human condition in an art-gallery frame for centuries of witness to come. He is quickly taking the place of a very best friend to me but I never like to say there is one above the rest as it's impossible to make love exclusive.. but he has always been in my life in his rusty little class-car Jerry (or so it feels) and I hope the four of us know each other unto death... a soft-hearted punk-rocker with a temporal soul of glowing brilliance and lucidity, I love the guy like a long-lost brother I intend to never lose again; he is somewhere between on-screen and behind-the-camera in all situations, like a movie character who appeared to show us all Holy Moments needn't be framed becuz yer eyes are cameras and this is the nature of reality (a filmmaker if I ever knew one).

- - -

spasmatic shadow (a wordy exposé)

I finish Chapter 35 of Kerouac's 'Big Sur' as things begin to heat to a shatter and decide I've got something to write about as well.. picking laptop off of the carpet still-buzzing in a never-sleep mode sipping chardonnay from a floral mug, having just finished a hearty supper of spaghetti with meat sauce prepared by my roommate, Isaac, upon my unmade bed between completed chapters-- as Kerouac shivers through his alcoholically delirious existential crisis of slow suicide I have the appearance of memories in my head and parallel universes where things have happened differently, and perhaps I wouldn't be so strangely lost and redeemed on an almost daily basis yet it's alright as long as I know it's alright, all of this being confirmed for me during a beautiful trip on mushrooms the night prior in which I could not help but be socially anxious in the presence of others-- unable to complete full sentences-- but this did not rob the trip of beauty despite..

and I imagine a world in which Anya and I had never parted ways so violently.. or rather, at all.. as I eat my spaghetti and remember the slow summer days we spent together in bed for hours, naked, speaking of whatever and nodding off to nothing until finally I would lurch upward and begin working on a brand new hip-hop track for the dirty of the panic attack mixtape vol. 1 in the nude and in her presence in her dreams.. in this parallel universe I imagine we are naked in my unmade bed this very evening until Isaac knocks to tell us the spaghetti is ready so we leisurely dress and silently slip into the kitchen to make a plate, return to my bedroom and perhaps undress again, eat the spaghetti and comment to each other how delicious it is and how good of a job Isaac has done in preparation.. eventually she dresses to use the washroom and grabs our dirty plates as she does, peaking through Isaac's open bedroom door to state a sincere thanks, to which he sheepishly yet appreciately replies, "oh.. oh, not a problem." 

Instead, I, high as a kite as a God as a star as a lover, text her at 3 in the morning amidst a cuddle of 5 fellow friends and shroomdoers all fast asleep to state that the trip reminded me of when we were at a festival in July and I, high on acid, began to freak out from the endless cocaine thump of terrible music in the distance (brainzapbrainzapbrainzap) and she simply held me all night whispering 'IloveyouIloveyouIloveyou' under her breath to such a silent extent that I had to later ask whether I hallucinated it or not (to which I didn't) and that it reminded me that I am still in love with her despite everything and that I will always love her and that I'm so deeply thankful that she is still in my life..  she still talks to me the following morning via facebook but avoids speaking of the text, never responds to the texts.. perhaps a strategem of hers in which she looks on me with pity as still being stuck on the end, and wishes to be the all-benevolent Saint of What Has Come to Pass by 'wisely' denying the sincere gesture even so much as acknowledgement.. or, perhaps she is still just as in love with me but knows it would lead nowhere healthy (at least not now) and as such keeps quiet keeps quiet keeps quiet for her sake.. our sake.. who knows.

She's got some other lover or as such something now whereas I just don't know so I avoid the question incidentally leading a couple girls on and not meaning to goddamnit I really was sorry for that but narcissistically pleased in a way.. maybe I'm as low as I imagine, and it's only on drugs that I realize "THERE ARE ACTUALLY PEOPLE WHO LIKE YOU, IDIOT, NOT EVERY GIRL TRIES TO FRIENDZONE AND DO YOU EVEN NOTICE WHEN YOU FRIENDZONE ANYMORE OR DO U JUST LET IT GO TO YOUR HEAD LIKE 'AHH, LOOK AT ME, I HAVE THE POWER TO FRIENDZONE, MEANS I'M IN THE RIGHT HAHA, FAAAANTASTIC'.. do you even FUCKING NOTICE when a girl actually LOOKS AT YOU LONGINGLY ANYMORE? or do you ALWAYS JUST IMAGINE they're just TRYING TO BE NICE cuz you're some WEIRD WANNABE FILLING YOUR VOID WITH ATTEMPTS TO SPREAD YOURSELF LIKE DENSE BUTTER on a CRUSTY, COLD PANCAKE?"

and it probably all boils down to my assumption that I am ugly and who can love my tired weather-beaten face when I haven't slept, because I can't, fuckit.. I try to fill my perceptive void lack-attraction with another kind of beauty I can love, arsty farsty summer craft poems and exposé rivers like this one I ride in a white-water raft to feel the turbulence of my soul and hope just hope I won't tip over and crack my skull.. 

oh, there's the shore.

bleeding spritzer

IT WAS SOME SORT OF DREAM and for a second time in my life I worked at a McDonald's but this time it was a McDonald's out of a Philip K. Dick novel.. a hoveryvibe with this strange baby-blue tint to the walls that sat so quaint and silent reminding the subconscious of aliens or restaurants at the end of the universe... there was a long cyborg tube that spiraled into crafted spritz almost made to look broken and being one of the strangest parts of the dream. working at a McDonald's again made me physically ill and I could taste vomit in my mouth but for some reason it felt like only moments before I had been quietly lying next to a male lover (co-worker with a Colgate smile that tipped his lips to haunt me) and as I leaned in to kiss him, stomach swelling with the lovers melancholic ecstasy, he began to fade, his lips presings softly to mine collision shape-to-one-another as he vomited a little with no loss to his Colgate beauty (I thought him dying or skipping a day of high-school?) fading away slooowwwllyyy to be replaced by that cyborg tube with me standing above it spitting that same kind of spit which forecasts a violent throw-up from the bottom of a wretch gut. I could see the little spritz made to look broken becoming spider-webbed with my saliva until finally the vomit propelled itself from my throat and I collapsed to the ground somehow still looking in only to awake to my alarm clock - - - wheel around in bed to hear music.

dispatches from the edge of revelation (a facebook debate)

haha, that's pretty good

except.. if you get far enough with it, man.. religion is a very important experience on an individual level.

altho I don't agree with orthodox and organized Christianity or Islam, the doctrines when seen as allegories and taken in the course of each religions particular mystics is a very beautiful and important experience that organized orthodoxies try to monopolize for the sake of control

I dunno. I just don't really agree with the activist and violent atheistic approach (not physically violent.. intellectually violent)

we shouldn't be destroying organized religion. we should be unmasking the truth and allegory behind their particular mystic teachings in order to allow people to understand said allegories, this causing the organized religious attempt at CONTROL to collapse of its own flaw

I completely understand your standpoint on the matter

but I respectfully disagree

to be blunt, I see it as naive preaching

especially considering I used to do the exact same thing and feel the exact same way

militant atheism is a part of the problem

All great ideas are shunned until they work.

it's just a more sophisticated version of fundamentalist Christianity.. based on the same weird militant principles

shoving it down peoples throats

and not allowing things to speak for themselves

Ahh

but that's not how I'll operate

I'll gladly let the opposition speak

and, via intellectual conversation, I'll also gladly destroy their argument.

the way you say 'destroy' though

that's militant

you allow them to speak so you can speak, not to listen.

all the while maintaining an utmost amount of respect for the individual

nay

Scientific Method Kyran

You never try to prove yourself right

you always try to prove yourself wrong

the scientific method should be a tool, not a worldview.

that's exactly what it is and will forever be

in terms of disagreeing with the orthodox principles you're trying to openly oppose, I agree. I just don't find it much of a challenge to make the obvious point that a literal interpretation of the Bible or the Quaran is wrong

there's something more important within each book, though

if taken as pure allegory and symbolism

it's an artful and important representation of the cosmos. a 'finger pointing at the moon'

the scientific method is the same thing, just down to a more refined detail

Off the top of my head, I disagree for one reason.

There's an element of humility in science that religion will never understand well enough to effectively implement.

That 'finger pointing to the moon' from the perspective of a holy book says "God made that - I'm sure of it"

well, God did make that

from the perspective of science

It says "I wonder how that was made"

God, as a representation of the greater incomprehensible universe

I understood your context of the word

not God as in a man with a beard in the clouds

I agree, as comparing philosophies, I prefer science for its openness

but there are just as many fundamentalist scientists and atheists as there are Christians and Muslims

scientists who believe that our emotions are nothing but chemical reactions.. serotonin release, dopamine, etc.

forgetting that naming and separating parts of a whole and giving them the entirely human name of 'chemical' or 'serotonin' or 'dopamine'

is only important as a tool.. and nothing more than a linguistic representation for the sake of study.. not something to internalize and create a mechanistic worldview USING these labels as literally as fundamentalist Bible thumpers internalize and take literally the idea of God

saying that something called 'serotonin' literally exists, is in the same vein as saying that an old man named God literally sits in the clouds and determines our destiny.

but FIGURATIVELY, as REPRESENTATIONS, I agree with both

Except that serotonin has been discovered as a chemical and has been an identified part of how our brain functions for a long time. Serotonin levels can be measured; they can fluctuate or be completely removed in the brain.

I feel like you know where I'm going with this: Serotonin can be physically manipulated, proving its existence.

okay, let me make this clear: there is a different between religion and science. both are important as representations.. but religion is not worried with measurements, science is

difference*

comparing them is like comparing water to a solid, and debating which is better.

have you ever heard of the Greek conception of time? Chronos and Kairos?

Yes

so you know about Chronos being the quantitative measurement of time.. as in, you put said amount of hours in, get paid said amount of dollars. it's all about measurement.. it's relative to something. the sun sets, the sun rises

right?

Yes

whereas Kairos is the qualitative intangible.. the unpredictability, the holy lack of measurement.. as Einstein said, put your hand on a hot stove for a minute and it feels like an hour, spend an hour with a pretty girl and it feels like a minute.

okay, so, the difference between science and religion is the different between Chronos and Kairos

science is Chronos.. the quantitative measurement, separating 2 things so they are relative to each-other and can be measured as a result

religion (spirituality), is Kairos

the qualitative intangible

That comparison portrays the very idea of arguing which is better as extremely futile, and to leave each be. I disagree with that almost as much I do religion.

now, I agree with your opposition to organized religion

organized religion is the fundamentalist idea of MAKING Kairos into Chronos.. for the sake of expediency and convenience of explanation, and to remain ignorantly grounded within a worldview

bu this same orthodoxy exists within SCIENCE as well

now, science, as a spiritual tool, is a good thing. unorthodox science steeped in mysticism

in the same way that religion, as a spiritual tool, is a good thing. unorthodox religion steeped in mysticism

in fact, the two really need each other

you can have the spiritual without the scientific, but you can't have proper science without the spiritual

I disagree with your earlier statement "there are just as many fundamentalist scientists and atheists as there are Christians and Muslims". We're vastly outnumbered and vastly underrepresented.

but I continue to disagree with what you're saying, that they're essentially two sides of the same coin

you're not vastly outnumbered, nor vastly unrepresented. I see as many preachy Dawkins books as I see preachy Bibles, and meet as many preaching Christians and I meet preaching atheists

20% of America defines themselves as without religion

and LESS THAN 1% of congress does the same

politics is a whole other ball game. and I'd say we should separate church and state, but you can't separate spirituality and state.

Hell yeah you can!

but you shouldn't!

for the record

I'm not correlating the term 'spirituality' with 'morality'

I agree that we should be removing the irrationality inherent within those who practice fundamentalist and orthodox religions

and neither am I.

two different things imo

but we should also just as soon be disallowing the fundamentalist scientist who believes our emotions are NOTHING BUT a chemical reaction to preach this kind of rhetoric or let it affect his decision making abilities

buuuut

The things is Kyran baby

They are only chemical reactions

we are basically legos

we can be taken apart piece by piece

but the damned thing is

those reactions make us feel

I think this is where we come back to each other

so they are important to us as individuals

and crediting those feelings and emotions to a deity is fucking disgusting

it reeks of cowardice and impotency

I agree, but what also reeks of cowardice and impotency is the scientist attributing his feelings and emotions to 'chemistry' in a literal context

we are more than the sum of our parts, right? we may be legos, we may be able to be taken apart piece by piece.. but these pieces have existed forever, exist now, and will continue to exist for eternity

and we ARE those pieces. those pieces are not separate from the entirety of existence or the universe

and the representation of that continuity is the IDEA of GOD! it's so beautiful!

That's the idea of 'speaking to the universe' I take it.

the fact that we ARE God, we ARE the universe. you can't have a part without the whole and vice versa

a part is only a part when it is distinguished as such and put in relation to the whole. otherwise, it's a whole no matter what

and in reality, it's always the whole, any separation is a false dichotomy

every explicit duality is an implicit unity

I understand that the greatest illusion in life is the illusion of separation, but I am not the tree across the street.

One of my favorite NDT quotes is "We are connected to each other biologically, to the earth chemically, and to the stars atomically."

but you are the tree across the street

the only reason you're not

is because you've been culturally condition to define yourself as the part you can voluntarily control

if you are your foot

you are that tree.

and you grow your bones and beat your heart in the same way that you shine the su

sun*

#alanwatts

unconsciously. but that's all you.

exactly

he's who converted me from a militant atheist into what I'm talking about right now

"Omnipotence is not knowing how everything is done; it's just doing it."

just shining the sun

just beating the heart

you don't have to think about and calculate all that

maybe in another life it's fine to crawl forever (part 1: the language in the listeners piss)

Plans are zilch this morning, and I slept on Tim's futon to little avail in the name of a visit after his return from Vancouver. He was off, head lost to alcohol and the misty metropolis, playing bagpipes with a pipe-band I hear so many stories of and could probably write a book of secondhand accounts about but have never actually met them myself-- altho Tim always mentions this blonde drifter (part of the band) who was, for a measure of his life, couch-surfing and somewhat into philosophy and life in the same way I am (the couple times this fellow was mentioned, it was followed by an intuitively inevitable 'and he reminds me of you').

I've never given life a chance to let me float along the raft of others couches, so I'd have to admit that he is living (or, sorry, past-tense, 'lived') one of my previous and still somewhat viable ideals of reckless abandon.

Tim's futon was hard and stiff, crushing into my back like ancient Egyptian stonework and either torture or therapy depending on the angle-- everyone at the house-- Brian, Gary, both also high-school best friends who have known me for years-- seemed distant, exhausted, and Gary even seemed measurably annoyed by my presence and even more ticked about my attempts to lighten the mood with so-not-funny-their-funny homoerotic jokes of the nature everyone had come to expect from me during our formative teen years. It became so apparent, that I contemplated a bus home but realized it was now 10 after midnight and there were no more buses that would get me as far as Esquimalt until later in the morning. I decided to assume it was half an overreaction on my part and half a correct interpretation, but not to the intensity I felt in which I needed to desperately escape. This reminds me of the previous night in which a 4 hour THC freak-out brought me to many sobering conclusions about my life, but here, let's start from the beginning because this is a story in itself deserving of a background and a build-up and a climax and a denouement---

2 of my best friends from Powell River-- Chip, a soulmate in a way who I once forged and battled beats to make amateur yet still half-decent hip-hop with, and Chris, my sobering yet still-quite-beatnik life contrast and character foil (always with the rational arguments that pierce my debate and cause it to shatter into millions of little shards I'm left to weld back together whilst gazing at him in admiration for such profound and sensible pokes of sanity)-- came to visit me and our friend Allen, a short kid with a boyish arrogance and uncanny sense of style and knowledge-in-enough-schools-of-thought to make him at least somewhat intellectually competent in all regards (and he can play guitar like no one else I know-- I feel like a step in the right direction could lead him into potential fame should his cards be dealt properly).
Chip and Chris and I have this unspoken sort of eternal bond between us where it's almost as if we can read each others minds in some respect yet always find it rude to actually do so in the sense of asking whatsup tho I can always tell when any of us are feeling existentially lost or socially anxious which happens more often than you'd think but not all the time. Both of them, I find, are more charismatic than I am-- or, at least, more charismatic than I can seem to be when I'm around them because for some reason I always hold back in fear of judgement even tho we're soul-mates of a sort and even if we get annoyed at each-other it's never an issue for long because we have this hidden and shared unconditional love that always perforates outwards if we spend a long enough time with one another. Actually-- I've got a profound story regarding Chris and I that I would like to share as a side-note before I continue onward with our adventure here in the city.. I'll italicize it so you know I'm off topic and can skip forward to the next relevant part, if you'd like.

-  -  -  

It was a week before I left for Victoria-- August 1st or 2nd-- and we were having a going-away party for me at Chip's house that became overrun with guests that really had nothing to do with me and were only there because one of their roommates at the time was a former high-school socialite who simply enjoyed the company of whoever, whenever, I didn't really mind-- and Chris and I were doing lines of K, introducing our notoriously anarchist friend Kaz to the designer psychedelic which he was at first reluctant to try but soon found himself enthralled with in confused and dizzying detail. For at least an hour or 2, all three of us sat on Chip's porch after Chip and his girlfriend Niko had decided to go to bed and my girlfriend of the time, Anya, had opted-out of the offered K experience as she had done it a few times before and it wasn't her thing, so she was out-cold on the couch almost purring in her sleep, God she was adorable-- and the three of us began quoting Monty Python skits and describing how we felt like those 3 crows in the Disney Cinderella or whatever, firing back irrelevant insanity's yet somehow understanding one another in a shared parallel universe. This continued for what felt like hours but could just as easily have been moments until Kaz decided he was going to bed, leaving Chris and I alone on the porch to continue our nonsensical spew of blah. Both of us eventually just STOPPED and stared at the grass, until I looked him in the eye and said, 'I'm really going to miss you, man.' he nodded, almost taken-aback yet flattered by my emotional forwardness and admitted in a shy undertone, 'yeah, I'm gonna miss you too.' we continued to stare, glassy eyed, at the grass in front of us, everything so vividly and un-problematically confusing that it seemed as close to zen as death. 

After a few more slurred sentiments, we walked back inside and took a seat on the couch where Anya was curled and purring away yet slowly stirred awake as Chris and I continued our surreal correspondence over a cup of nothing but beautiful psychosis. 
'you're an old soul. I can tell by the way you carry yourself,' Chris said. 
'and I can tell because I know I'm an old soul too.' 

Rarely had I seen this kind of spiritual warmth and frankness flow from Chris, except as a perception of his general essence at root-- so it was always a treat when he opened up and told everyone how much he truly loved them. 

'I sense that in you as well.. I feel an almost metaphysical pull to your soul like I do with Anya and Chip and Niko.. in a way I think I love all of you about the same, and that love is an unmeasurable something I can only hand out in small doses that will never properly express how deep and how wide and how endless it is.. but that's okay, because I think that's life and we will never be able to fully express that boundless love yet it's what life is made of probably, yes' I spout back in endless direct monologue. 

Anya is awake now and sitting next to me, having silently grabbed my hand as I lost myself in speech-adoration-- she witnesses the encounter and seems enamoured with the vibe. Chris and I's conversation continues until the early hours of the morning and I have never felt so connected to him in my life. Eventually, Anya and I decide it's time to leave for her place, and Chris and I depart like this: 

Me: "I'll see you around, man. I love you."
Chris (with that mischievous-yet-affectionate grin): "Happy travels, mate." 
and we hug each other tightly, letting go with an awkward nod of acceptance and final repeated 'goodbyes.' 

On the drive home, I mutter a few things about the beauty of life even in sadness and Anya looks at me and says, 'that encounter.. you and Chris.. that was beautiful. So beautiful.' 

We get back to her place and she passes out once again like a soft cat hanging on my waist as I sit-up and let the K high wear off, contemplating my future in the city and the friends I'd leave behind.

(and as a parting sentiment to Chris himself.. here is the song he sent me on the day I left):

-  -  -  

Prior to meeting with them upon their arrival, I am lying in bed attempting a nap (as I have been sordidly plagued with partial insomnia for the past couple months, probably largely due to the antidepressant I'm on), yet instead of sleep, I am smacked in the face with a sudden courage and inspiration to grab my notebook and practice what I preach by approaching people on the street and asking them if they'd like me to write them a poem-- which they can have for free (altho I clearly mention I am accepting tips as I am in dire financial straits as of late). First-off, I ask my roommate if I can test my skills out on him to see if I'm truly ready for this. He has no objections, so I lie on his bedroom floor with my legs dangling in the air like a Japanese schoolgirl asking him for context on his day so I know what to write about. He had a fight with his girlfriend, but otherwise his day was fine.. so I incorporate all this as best I can and begin scribbling madly in all caps (as my printing is terrible and quite unreadable otherwise). After about 10 minutes, I'm done, and I read it out to him. He stops for a moment in awe, still swallowing it, and says, "I actually really, really like that. Wow."

This is what I needed to hear.. and with the quickening momentum, I dress myself appropriately, obsessively fit my toque as properly as I can upon my head, and bottleneck myself to the nearest bus-stop where there is a girl with a brunette ponytail (obviously intoxicated) chatting loudly on her cellphone and saying things like 'why does life only seem good when I'm fucked up? Isn't that weird? God, I wish I could just be fucked-up all the time, HAH!' and I want to approach her, consider it might brighten her life a little if someone offers to write her a poem, but I am afraid I'd interrupt her phone-call so I stand in silence, awkwardly kicking the bottom of a garbage can in some sort of sentimental hipster-move where I'm trying to seem casual but am actually just nervous, narcissistically admiring my own shoes to remind myself that I'm capable of being perceived as suave, sexy, mysterious-- 

eventually, a blonde girl wearing a loose-beany exits the apartment behind the bus-stop and sits next to the brunette girl. They are obviously friends, as the brunette girl clicks her cell with a 'I've gotta go, text ya later, sweetheart!' and picks-up a conversation with the blonde girl that was obviously started someplace else where I wasn't present. My heart begins to pound inside my chest as I thumb through my notebook and glance sideways at them and think, 'if you don't have the courage to talk to these two, what makes you think you're gonna have the courage to talk to anyone else? now of never, man!' and so I take two steps to the left and say, 'do either of you happen to know when the bus will arrive?'

'No, I don't think-- actually, wait! we have a bus-schedule, so yes! Just a second.' 

they playfully rummage through their purses in quest for the schedule, but before they can find it I interrupt with--

'Actually, that's not really what I wanted to ask. I'm just really nervous and kinda freaking out because I've never done this before, but I'm going downtown with my notebook and a pen and I'm going to ask people if they'd like me to write them a poem for free, altho I am accepting tips because I'm not really in the best of financial situations.. so I was wondering, if you guys wanted me to write you a poem? Each? or, together? I dunno.'

The girls start giggling and say, 'what, yes! we'd absolutely love you to write us a poem' and before I can even seat myself to start, the brunette girl (who introduces herself as Carla) reaches into her purse and grabs me a tooney. 'aw, well, you don't have to tip me before I wrote you the poem.. wait till I'm done!' but she insists I take it and mentions that she also writes poetry.. asks me if I like William Blake, to which I reply, 'yes! I love William Blake.'

'And Oscar Wilde?'

'Very much so. His essays are really good.' and it's nice, because I don't have to pretend.

The blonde girl introduces herself as Francine. She seems to make obvious advances on me, and starts her introduction with, 'writing a poem for us.. God, I wish my ex had started with that.'

I ask them if they go to school.. what do they do in life, all the obligatory what's and when's you'd expect from all introductions.. as I slowly add text to paper in all caps yet slower this time, not like a mad-man because I am distracted by a conversation with 2 pretty girls while trying to keep up appearances + dolce cabana sex appeal (that is a joke-- I'm not even sure what dolce cabana actually implies in terms of clothes or sex appeal). The bus arrives, and we all get on-board, Francine takes a seat next to me and I pull the page away with an 'I'm not done yet, don't look!' and she giggles, they're quiet to let me finish.

Finally, without a word, I fold and tear the page and extend it towards the two of them. 'I dunno how good it is.. it might actually be kinda bad.. but either way, here it is, and I hope you enjoy it.'
Before even reading it, both Francine and Carla giggle again and say, 'I don't think it matters.. I mean, come on! We just got poetry written for us by a model!' flattered and shocked, I laugh and say 'a model? I'm definitely not a model, but I appreciate that.'

'but that jaw line!' one of them laughs. I laugh as well, still flattered but half-wondering if it's a joke yet knowing they actually mean it and being reminded that I am capable of keeping up appearances and really shouldn't worry about it as much as I do. I really am flattered and always find myself surprised when I realize I am a likeable person, as much as my anxious feedback can make me think otherwise.

They finally read the poem, and seem to genuinely like it.. Carla grabs my notebook and pen and opens it up to a blank page where she begins scribbling like mad while Francine and I make conversation in the background and I can sense Carla is writing a poem of her own, suspicion confirmed a moment later when she tears that particular page out, tucks it in like a bookmark, and hands the notebook back to me.. I'm quiet for a moment as I open it up and slowly interpret it in my head (drunk-writing in a mix of cursive and printing can be a little bit of a tough read, but I don't mind-- I'm just flattered they gave me a looney, stayed to chat, flatter me, and now write me a poem, this is a hobby I should definitely continue as the connection is a soulful one bursting at the seams!)

As the bus stops, they ask for my number which I give them, and they depart upon their evening adventure in search of.. who knooooowwwssss what. I get a call from Allen that Chip and Chris have finally made it into town and tell him I'll be there in about an hour after I test this form of busking for just a little while longer. The first connection was the most profound, but I did manage to get a kiss on the cheek from another girl, and a few happy nods from older folks who thought my cause a noble one, indeed. I eventually make my way to a bus-stop and head towards Allen's place (next to Tillicum Mall) to start an inevitable night of lovely insanity.

This doesn't even reach the beginning of my THC freak-out but the train is running out of steam, so I'm declaring a lay-over at this station until next time.

(to be continued in part 2)