All posts in Reft

Time Stand Still

Damn these blogs. Behold our fossil record. My words, a decade old, frozen in the amber of Usenet. I am not one to take photographs, preserving time. I believe in the sacredness of the moment, a soul that cannot be captured. So I do not write for the sake of preserving my thoughts, but the mechanism preserves them even so.

In thinking about how we have timeshifted ourselves in blogs, I realized that some people timeshift *me* in their minds, interacting with an archived version of myself.

There is a version that has never done drugs or gone to bed with strange women.

There is a version that is still a childhood friend.

There is a version that is still in love with her.

There is a version that has not grown, learned and healed.

There is a version where there is still a tower.

And then there’s Me. I’m standing over here. Put that thing down and look.

“Acceptance of Loss”

You stupid fuck.

-Ro.

Isn’t it ironic?

I notice that many responses to my blogs are from people who don’t identify themselves or who use different names. Sometimes they change the name they use. All these different names and people. And *I’m* the one who has to post in a consistent voice with a single name?! It’s like I’ve manifested my internal state on the blog, like my internal world will always reach out to impact the external one.

The Needs of the Many

Tommy wants someone to play with and feel safe with.
Taran wants someone to talk to.
Ramirez wants someone to dote upon and swear vows to and adore.
Romero wants a peer to talk to and he wants someone to protect.
The Other wants to fulfill the work of loving and bringing light. That’s overly simplistic, but I don’t know how else to translate it.

These seem complementary and not unreasonable.

Inside

It occurred to me recently that my dreams happen almost exclusively indoors. Malls, hotels, houses, vehicles, etc. All interior scenes. I never dream of being in the desert or the jungle or flying through the sky (even my flying dreams take place indoors). The one dreamlike place I used to visit that wasn’t indoors was a green hill. Now there is just a fountain of light where a tower used to be.

My stories often have many outdoor scenes involving travel and expansive locales. It seems there are two types of subconscious forces at play here: one that presents when I am passively seeking it (asleep) and one I dip into actively. There may be a balance in this, as one subconcious is aware of the other, seeking to pull it outside of its confines.

Numb and dumb

Ordinarilly I am a kind, considerate person, but tonight I didn’t feel anything at all. Not the music, not the people, no feelings. There were two songs I could feel and I could dance then, but I went back to feeling nothing at all. I closed my eyes and the whole world went away, but it wasn’t any different when I opened them. No one around me seemed to be there, they didn’t show up on my radar.

And I’m old enough to take care of ourself. I don’t need to make someone help me. It’s the worst thing to do when you are me.

Better climb in the window

’cause I’m closing the door.

Super disconnect in

3…

2…

1…

Distant Thunder

As the last iron plates of the tower slid away, a fountain of light erupted from within. But it was not a single being inside, as had been anticipated. Instead a storm of birdlike creatures streamed out, up into the night sky, now full of planets.

There they stood, ranged along the hillsides, met

There they stood, ranged along the hillsides, met
To view the last of me, a living frame
For one more picture! In a sheet of flame
I saw them and I knew them all. And yet
Dauntless the slug-horn to my lips I set,
And blew. ‘Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came.’

– Robert Browning

This superstructure is not a life. Each year at t…

This superstructure is not a life. Each year at this time I must destroy its facade, see it plunge from many stories and shatter on the pavement below. It is not enough. The framework no longer serves its purpose. There is nothing for the facade to grow on again. My patience has paid off at last. The faces slough off like dead skin. I am winning.