Mike's Self Portrait

I am the Viking warrior.
I am a Polish slave.
I am a German worker.
I am a Scottish king.

Through histories fog and misfortune, I have been molded, scolded and folded into this man you see before you. This blond haired, blue eyes, misfit, this lazy ass tumbling, this “I don’t wanna budge” adolescent caught between willy nilly and 80 year old windows to my soul.

I am a conniving thief, I am a miracle, I owe you more, but you wont get it from me. I am mostly lost, yet it’s finally finished, I am done, I am scared, I give up, I stand up, I fight, I am a wavering walking contemptuous contradiction. I will give much, and leave you wanting, I will try hard, yet never will I be enough.

What I want I will not have, what I crave I can not fight for, when I think of me, I think of black and red, I think of white and I think of blue, I am a grayish purple hot rod soon to go out of style.

I am a creek of culmination, I am an estuaries end, I will be used, and I will be be abused, but you’ll never have me, I am confident only when you are not around and when you are I will give you nothing more than ambiguous answers but they will be simultaneously short and to the pricks point.

Look to the sun and you will see me, I am amongst the shadows, I AM close and I am all things to all men forever and then I will be who I want to be, someday I will come together, until then I am broken and in pieces.

Never Sleep

Have you ever kept your eyes closed and allowed the sensation of a quite room fill your heart?

Breathe in the air, a mixed fragrance of stale body and fresh water flowing in through the cracked window. The blankets making it a bit claustrophobic and yet your feet sticking out of the bottom of your covers just enough to get to breathe and for your mind to be at ease. I could feel the bed head catching drafts of fresh air as it circled my room, and with my eyes closed I can almost see the swirling of air, that had been around me all night long as I slept, or at least for the few hours I actually was able to. The warm air rising and the cool air falling to the ground, fighting dancing overhead.

I opened my eye and could see the gray dull light illuminating almost from the walls, but originating from the dull light outside passing through the white blinds. But as each little breeze caught the shades, the orange of a rising sun sprinkled into the room it seemed like magic, that we get to experience the color, that we get to see those hues.

I went to bed anxious and I woke up anxious, my heart beating fast, or at least it felt like it. As I took my pulse I couldn’t even tell if it was beating at all. I threw off the blankets and sitting on the bed placed my feet on the ground. I could hear the cars passing by a few floors below my apartment; puddles splashing, sand and pebbles crunching. Maybe too some voices off in the distance, or maybe just distant TVs. I kept waking up to that gray light that bleeds in through the drapes. With the orange lines of light stretched across my floor and the sticky gross hot feeling from an anxious sleep. The feeling came from somewhere in my chest. I knew the fuel that feed it was in between my ears, but nothing could stop the flow you’d need to put the fire out. Both working in a synergy I could not control. I took a deep breathe and closed my eyes trying to remember to relax my shoulders and concentrate on the breathing maybe I could just calm myself down with the old tricks my mom taught me, but they hadn’t worked in years and I knew it would be temporary.

I rose and walked to my door, the head ache was horrible, and the pounding of my heart increased, somewhat arrhythmic, but after a few beats back to normal, though the pressure in my head did not subside. I opened the door. The blue light shown from above the sink, forcing me to squint. I stubbed my pinky toe on the door frame and swore under my breathe. As I walked to the bathroom, I couldn’t decide, do I pee with the light on or off, was I awake enough to not pee on the floor, or did I need the light? One of the toughest questions that early in the morning.

As I turned on the water and pulled the metal thing to start the shower, my eyes fell back to the mirror. I had one of those moments, where I could not tell if I looked my age or not, if I thought anything was looking back, or if I thought reflections in mirrors were of any reality at all or just mere color I was able to experience. And then I remembered...

Today was the day. “Oh Crap!” I thought the air missing from my lungs, my eyes bounced around the bathroom. I had totally forgotten, that this was the first day of the biggest adventure I would ever take. The beginning of foreign travels, of mistakes and successes and the making of some of the best friends I would have, yet I didn’t know that yet, and the “Oh crap!” that was from the realization that I hadn’t packed yet. But first I have to back up, first you have to understand how I got there, standing in front of that mirror a bit dehydrated, engulfed in that feeling of great expectation and utter fear.

* * *

Old Poem

Here are the titles, here are the stories, here are the woes and misfortunes of the life that loathes and respects the solitude of souls...

Here are the porings, the loves the lusts and happenings, here are the darknesses represented in happinesses, the smiles the glimpses and the lapses...

Here are the broken, here are the thought to be healed and forged and tap dances, here are the feelings, here are the thoughts and emotions of the emotionless forgetfulness of lost friends, and new brothers...

Here is to long lengths, and extreme measures, here is to wash outs and walk ons, here is to pain and plain view disdain, here is to men of valor forgotten by opinions, and the women who stood at their side thought to be slaves, but never happier and proud to be the reinforcement for an army that would of never made it without them...

Here is my soul, here is my spirit, here is my mind and all kinds of lost hurt, here is the love that no one has seen, and no one will, here is to imperfection, and how it pisses me off, here is to my demeanor, and the way I walk, here is to pride and the way it destroys all men, until their redemption or as I call it their compensation...

This is what I see when I look down, a foot, now leave it alone...

This is what I see when I look up, a face, a case of mystery laced by my doubt and distributed by my bull shit and love to see people who are happy, and lost in their misery coming out of pain, only because I did that once and I wish I could do it every day until I die, for that was the day I fell in and out of love...

When I look at my left hand I see a person I do not know, and am not sure if I want to be...

When I look at my right hand, I see one corrupted by a world I knew nothing of until I was taken out of it, I’m not a victim, I am the perpetrator, I am the prosecutor and the remnant left behind by the sin that filled me, how could I ever be the perfection that was asked of me, I don’t think I could ever be what he asks me to be, from on high, I’ve always felt perpetually out of place and never at home, and they say that’s because this isn’t my home, and I ask should that debilitate me...

When I look at my heart it is a weak one, its one that the father shunned for its very nature is death, and I use it with my every breathe, but to no avail for by His power I deny it, but I still soak in the presence of what I will be until the day I die, which is that sinner, and that lie...

I am not something special, that he died as I still was a betrayer, and the only Love I have comes from a man, that I have never seen, and wont until he awakens my heart and makes it strong eternally by his uttered word, it is his command I wait for, everything from my fingers to my core...

Mirror

I came in and was dripping wet. The stainless steel furniture and white walls almost blinded me but I was ready for them to invade my space once again. When ever I came in from the damp character ridden world outside my door, the cleanliness of my apartment seemed to always catch me off guard. Though at once it put me to ease to know I was home. Work had been exceptionally difficult to cope with today. I had had unfinished business with an old flame. It had opened old wounds, but now it was all finished so I needn’t worry about it any more.

I slipped off my coat and let out a large sigh that to me rang off the walls of my little apartment. I sat in my favorite chair and again sighed. I still had my drenched coat in my hand and I stared long at the wall in front of me. After a short while my head fell back onto my chair and my eyes closed. I quickly entered a dream. It seemed to me it was more of a memory, when I had first met her. Lala. She was fantastic, and instantly I attributed her to the song of that name. Yet in my dream she never faced me. She was wearing all black. And her shoulders heaved up and down as if she was weeping. I tried to touch her, but every time I spun her around, it was her back I would see, and then I took my hands off her shoulders and they were covered in blood.

I sprang my neck forward and looked at my watch, 530. It had been a short nap. I looked down and saw my jacket on the floor I picked it up after slipping off my shoes and setting them next to the chair. I went to hang up the coat… “Damn!” my wet coat had created a puddle the size of Lake Michigan and now my right sock was soaked all along the bottom and I caught sight of it quick enough to see the moisture travel up the sock to just above my arch.

After I hung up my coat I took off my socks and jumped in the puddle my jacket had left behind, by spreading out the water it would dry quicker, and for once I could forget about work, and feel like a kid again. I walked down the hallway towards the bath room. But I stopped once again and began to stare, this time out the window. The window was fogged over, but water dripping on the inside and outside cleared little lines of substance for me to indulge in. I looked at my watch, 630. That was a good day dream. I reached my hand around the corner and flipped on the light in the bathroom and poked my head around the corner to catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror. I paused. Then headed for my bedroom.

As I entered my room, I slipped off my shirt. I feel on my bed. Grabbing a slice of day old room temperature pizza. I ate it, counting the cracks in the ceiling. Upon arriving at 44 I got up and went back to the bathroom. I squared up to the mirror. I looked in my own brown eyes for what seemed like long enough not to see anything. Then followed my nose, crooked long nose to my prudish lips. I practiced a few smiles but my teeth aren’t straight enough for smiling, though their color is well suited for the task.

My arms did not betray my occupation. Though my jaw line may to a person with a keen sense about them. My hands, my hands betray all things, from death to ignorance, to justice and wisdom. When it came to it, my body could and would not be seen as anything other than a young man, but my eyes… those eyes, those are the eyes of a murderer.

1-minute rant

The bliss the kiss the hiss of the black lit wondering aimlessly the wondering the wondering the seemingly lost the falling the left the broken the failing falling falling the generation contempt the post apocalyptic abundance of the fear oh you oh you little faith you oh you oh you generation of fear, where have you lifted your eyes where have you lifted your face the lingo the bingo you retirement home busy bodies why oh why have you lost the line walking walking walking the falling falling falling the left side gone wrong the right side gone gone and still we see we see we see we try and try to believe and the lingo so gone gone gone and by the way where have the hereos gone the lingo gone the bingo gone gone gone and here we are the busy bodies the busy bodies the lingo bingo bingo and the lingo lingo lingo and the weird the feared the misguided and the ones who look in gutters and see home the poor the lost the empty the craving the forgotten you my friends you see you see you see and yet you have not seen open your hearts my man open your hearts it’s the sight of the blind your missing I had a God once say to me how about your eyes on me and i’ll guide you where to you should look and I looked at him I rose my face to Him and I found life I surrendered and it looked to me the worst route the one I had given up on the one I looked to drunken ceilings passing out the eyes closing the last words dripping the the ones losing the ones losing the ones losing and still the sigh of the blind could not be predicted and the bitterness still rages in a soul still lost in the one who still searches like the seek like the knock like the asking asking asking you raking raking raking and still no one sees the lenses you view life through you middle class subservient dumby look around you the world doesn’t get you, your reality is not the reality of the real your own mind lost in predictions your own mind trying to grasp at straws that don’t exist and still you try you seek and you try and still you seek and you try and you seek and you try and like a rat going back to the shock you keep on going back like the dog eating his own lost lost lost and still you still do not get it, you fall asleep empty and still you do not wake fed you drag and drag and drag your feet from the mattress and still you do not see and still you do not see it is like you have not gotten anywhere and still you return from the same route like you like the goodbye kiss of depravity and still you do not get it, search the way your hearts wants to search and you’ll find what it is you want to find i guarantee it ok don’t worry about the things you want to worry about, don’t worry about the image the cribbage the symmetry that no ones else really wants to check out these words from one who only types to get the words out and it seems like there are those look over my shoulders and it’s all de’ja vu? haha.