The influence of gaslight or electric light on the growth of paraheliotropic trees

Oh, the late great exhaustion. The be-all-end-all-end-of-everything. The now for something new. The feeling of failure, surrounded by winners. The too-soon-to-say-it-was-a-mistake but too-soon-to-say-it-wasn’t. The loving expecteds with hangers and hangers-ons. The absent other who was supposed to be there but isn’t. The lost life. The road not taken. The yellow wood. The yellow road. A city of emeralds. A city of diamonds. Topless towers. Is this the face that launched a thousand ships. What for, where for, how? A riddle. A road. A somewhere else. Blue eyes absent. A broken spirit. A broken spine. Could be worse. Could be dead. To die of cancer. To die of an undiagnosed heart condition. A pool. A large child, in front of me. Clutching, hanging on, drowning, the pool is emptied, the child is removed. Gone. An uncle. Gone. Life. Talk about that. The ten thousand beautiful women I saw today while I walked on Sixth Avenue. The little story I saw in the restaraunt — the lovers, and the woman-friend who is not of the lovers. The couple in the Bed Bath & Beyond, he with his hand gently cupping her ass for a moment, a loving gesture, maybe, me xeroxing, running trying, chatting with the notary, kept looking at her breasts, by accident, I’m frazzled, she said “congratulations” — walking across the stage — who knows what the Dean said to me as he shook my hand — I know but I won’t tell — Valerie Jarret, undistinguished though she had a job — seven years in the Sears Tower, traded the view, moved into the city government — four things you will need she said 1) Passion 2) Integrity 3) Resilience 4) Courage, two out of four ain’t  bad — you will fail, she said, don’t I know it, the wheel’s still in spin, cannot let the failure break my spirit, one more failure, a series of failures, been down so long it looks like up to me, my sister, she is not a failure, my mother she is not a failure, my father has done well for himself, me, the wheel’s still in spin, my brother, the wheel’s still in spin, which is a nice way of saying if the vote was held tomorrow —

Three years ago. Blog began. Something. Somewhere else. I was down then. Felt like a failure. Got an email that admitted me to law school. Felt like I had a future. A something. A something else. Now I have it. $200,000 in debt. No idea how I’ll pay it off. Poor. But something. Oh, disaster. Oh, disaster. Oh, disaster. Find a job. Slave now. Good and slaved. Smiling. I forged these chains myself. I slipped them around my own wrists. Why? There was a reason. What was it? I had a reason. No one to blame but me. Not AS. Not NS. I did it. For poor reasons, maybe, but I did it — need a job, need something, at least its reading — it least its writing — at least its thinking —

Thinker, Kneeler, in chains, sold, mind sold, brain sold, not sold, rented out, colonized, camp here, brand here, playing Scattegories, remember brands like Honda, Xerox, Audi, advertising plays along, this and that, silicone dreams, electric sheep, this, that, the other, now another, please another, do something, hazak v’amatz, hazak v’amatz, freedom, liberty, nothing, nothing, nothing, WE will not RISE TO THE OCCASION, WE ARE ALMOST CERTAINLY DOOMED —

Can it be saved?

The Prodigal Son returns. His tail between his legs? Or is that just how I want to return? Is that the narrative structure of the redemptive arc I want to tell? Let’s have it this way — no tragedy, no failure, it is a degree, it is something new, a time of great uncertainty, I am not alone in this, I’ve Never been Alone in This — all God’s Children Knows the Blues — what does a healthy 28 year old man with a law degree know about the blues — nevertheless — I’m poorer than most, now, I am deep in the Red, black and blue and Red All Over.

Structure and Form. Form and Function. Rhyme and Reason. The Function is the Form, and the Form is the Function. The medium is the message. Up down and over there. To Grandmother’s House. Where when how. What’s next? Give me something for the pain. Oh, the pain. Oh the endless broken jingle jangle of law school finals, and nothing nothing makes you happy about that ever, and here comes another, and here comes another, and here comes another and now the BAR, one more thing — Sometimes you eat the Bar, and sometimes the Bar eats you — friend of mine told me that —

Oh Oh Oh — made my father happy — but I am DOOMED, having made the different choice than my father did — font of wisdom — HE knew, he knew — and I thought I knew better — only having ever been loved once — what is that — I cannot love easily because I am so jealous of my heart, so protective, so frightened and terrified of MORE PAIN —

But all I want is LIFE. Life without Pain, first, but then Life with Pain, second best, certainly, to a point at least, to an inflection point — In order to LIVE, we must BEAR IT — bear the endless overwhelming pain, WHY wasn’t anyone else UTTERLY BROKEN by it, was it the Psychadelics, was it the Drugs, was it the Infinite Loneliness of Life, the Interstellar Coldness that had been my existence up and to that point, that I had not been SAVED by LOVE before I was STRUCK by DEATH, and therefore never-ever-was-able to be SAVED by LOVE after, the way I had wanted to lose my virginity before I tried LSD — succeeded in that one — certainly — what did I say to Stephanie my junior year about that — something like “time is now, running out of future” — what did Stephanie say — she said “anyone who thinks life is short isn’t paying enough attention” & “I’m really just waiting for a good bathtub” & me and her in my apartment, her to seduce me, me obliviously showing her my brainmap, not knowing even after, not until her boyfriend / my best friend told me about it a year or more later, though of course I had a good reason, my loyalty to him, one night, later, a band, she was there, and her eyeliner sparkled, this was the mid-2000s, and we all went back to someone’s place, maybe EB’s, seen a year later, maybe — nothing happened then, of course, but I offered to walk her home, of course —

This that the other —

Me, her, another —

I am a Hedgehog, clearly. The problem of Being is the Problem. The Problem of Not-Being, the Problem of the Other, Incompletely Apprehended, accepted on faith, the absence, the singularity — under one view the singularity is a black hole, an absence, a gap, on the other view it is a Bright Shining Light, a Soul, an Endless Beautiful Becoming, a Being-In-Time, the Thesis and the Antithesis — and all unknowable, unprovable, taken on faith —

This is the end of the blog. This is the last point. If other posts follow, they nevertheless precede this one. This is the anti-omphalos, the place of Endings.

This is the Ending. The Ifs collapse into Whats. The then is made now. The moment of conclusions reveals itself and robes itself and hides itself and uncovered itself — the Truth naked, peeking over shoulder, Callipygos, beautiful buttocks, tumescent life rising in me, now, now, ending now, tumescent, Tem, Temu, pulling, pulling, an entire world, an entire reality out there, not if we are here, but that we are here, that we are here at all, WHY ARE WE HERE AT ALL?

SOMETHING RATHER THAN NOTHING … LET THERE BE SOMETHING … LET THERE BE SOMETHING … LET THERE BE … BE … BE …

Spilled waters. Chest opens. The sky opens. The sacred marriage. Forever and ever. World without end. But only right now.