Gravity Files

by JL Wolf

  Floating along in foggy bliss we know it's there. But we pretend, always pretending.

  Preachers and personal trainers have the same message. Listen to us and reach inside and all will be right. 40 is the new 30. 50 is the new 40, I have been all those ages and nothing is the new nothing.

  Shame oozes in, the second cousin of realization; shame comes in long after realization takes hold but reaches long into the past.

  Other see through the fog that we cannot navigate, so easy to see in others, so hard to see in ourselves,

  Realization is solitary, and lonely, shame is slicing public pain. Misunderstood by all who are not the shamed.

  * * *

  TWELVE

  They tell me I have a condition. A condition, like a car before it's sold: Excellent, Good, or Needs Repair. I never thought of myself as old, but in car terms I am an antique. Not a classic but a true antique.50 and moving forward, there is no retreat.

  The things I knew about this old body have been like evolution. Small and incremental changes until a complete transformation into an old person has emerged. Hinges and joints that squeak and creak, Wheels and shocks that are warn to the margin. An antique in need of repair,

  Bipolar is what they said. Two poles, but don't we all have two poles, a north and south, a top and bottom. Looking down to the creatures below and up to the ones above. Everything is in twos, eyes, hands, feet and legs why not poles. But they say mine collide, not just coexist but intertwine. But opposite poles attract does than mean I'm exactly the way I should be? No is the answer from them and from inside my head. But if the two are separate but connected and there are two of me, does that make each of me 25 with the sum being 50? Now that is something I can live with. The feeling of 25 and the wisdom of 50, But I fear both sides are 50 and the sum is 100 and that's how I feel some days.

  * * *

  THIRTEEN

  I can’t control it. I want to, but the words can’t come out right. I have never felt better but my words are poison. I want to sit alone in a room, but I want to share the feeling. My secret feeling, my feeling not of my own,

  Manufactured feelings are fleeting, the second you feel, the wave of panic sets in that the feeling will end. When will it fade? How do I keep it alive? If I let it go I will be back in control, the control that I so desperately avoid. Control is not mine it belongs to feelings. The feelings I love are never mine. I never get up feeling good. I get up and have to think about what feeling I am having. When I can alter, I do, when I can’t I think about how I can.

  I care about others more than I care about myself. I grieve the loss of friends and family, of good time and good people that are no more. I relish the thought of my own end. To be free of thought, of feeling, of a past, present or future,

  Pretending is a skill. Pretending to live with passion, pretending to live with desire, and with purpose. To listen to pain is to heal. But healing is unknown and without a past. I live with past pain and future disappointment. There is no escape until my future is my present and the disappointment in me is the feeling of others

  * * *

  FOURTEEN

  Reaching for a new day can cause stretch marks. Let it come like an orgasm, slowly and unexpected. The bright yellow of the sun turns black if you stare at it too long. But, the blinding black hole offers hope and omnipresent light to all who see in the dark.

  Dark is power; light is knowledge, whoever said the evils of the night, has not witnessed the sins of the sun. No one ever died of darkness. Light is not knowledge but illumination of suffering. Darkness is not power it is the clothing of the naked light.

  Willingness to pursue a dream is the desire to fly without wings. Dreams are magic and pure. Pursuit is tainted and without community. Unnaturally selfish acts of a naturally given life,

  Dreams are conceived in the dark and attained in shadows behind the light. Power is an organic result of a primeval urge for domination of the dark and control of the light.

  * * *

  FIFTEEN

  I love this song; I'm going to listen to it again as soon as it's over. Today is great; I can't believe I feel so good. I'm a lucky man. How did I get to have so much? There are things that aren't that great, but I still feel great. But there are things that are wrong...I hate my job and can't keep going there, but what am I supposed to do. This god damed song, I like it sometimes and sometimes it's so stupid. Where is that other one? Here it is, the one about reality? The one that brings me to reality, Life is ok, I should be grateful, but If only things would have been different, I could have really been grateful. Grateful and proud, that is the ultimate, no wait, grateful, proud and noticed.

  How come I am not noticed? I have done some amazing things, jumped from planes, climbed mountains, made a film, published a piece of writing. I am proud, I endured when others quit, and I chased the dream and never gave up, left others to wonder what if while I was out doing.

  But I never made it, I am where they are, what a complete waste of time to chase things that were never going to happen anyway. How embarrassing to think I could do something, that in some way I was better than them. That I was smarter than that, how could they see it when I could not? They knew I was like all the rest.

  * * *

  SIXTEEN

  I want to live, to love, to experience the life that others tell me that I lead. I want their perception: witty, clever and adventurous. I don't see myself though that lens. Do others view themselves as I view myself? Can they see the virtues and the faults? Do they wonder of the world both past and long long past,

  Sitting alone as the waves come in and the stream trickles. These chairs are strange, not horrible, but certainly uncomfortable. That one over there looks better. (Gets up and walks over) Yes, that is better. Old magazines and ultra modern glass tables are a faux attempt at comfort. Add the sounds of water and the aesthetic void is complete.

  They want discomfort, we expect discomfort, and we’re not here to tell them great things are. This modesty of furnishings, this attempt at physical comfort is disconcerting. The plants that sit on middle shelves of tower lamps. The nearly good corporate art works that are impossible to understand there by increasing our anxiety and self doubt.

  Living things mixing with lifeless art all viewed from a semi comfortable chair in an overly warm room with an uncomfortable silence that is washed by sounds of salt and fresh water rolling under my feet,

  There is a water cooler with one cup left. Do I use it and throw it away, or put it back and pretend it was never used and have a secret joke on the next life questioning soul.

  Time is up; another soul comes riding out on an artificial wave. Do they weep, smile with a new revelation or ponder the meaning of it all. I never feel the same coming out as I do going in. There is the best chance I will feel the opposite.

  I have been called. Now the long walk to the comfy couch and the most difficult question in this human's history, "How are you?" I love and hate that question. It is the perfect question, it is impossible to answer, but I try, and I will try each week until that question is easy to answer. I think I will be coming hear a long long time.

  * * *

  SEVENTEEN

  The clarity with which a child sees in both the physical and philosophical fades only with the optimistic pessimism of age. The clear waters of the stream that flow south are the adventure of youth, and the quickly passing time of those with graying temples.

  As the breeze blows gently through what is left of this life, it fills a void of stillness that is sought but disappointing. The warmth of the past is not only the victories, but for experience and candor. Honesty comes easier when the talk is of yesterday.

  Get up, and dust off your knees, a broken spirit is harder to heal. Step by step heel to toe your shadow is long though your impact light. Walk amongst us with will and vigor, confidence without fear. Rewards come to the eager and the revered. Becoming revered is to be asking f
or demolition, heroes are hated; the weak win the prizes the strong invent.

  I live in a moment, a most terrible one. One that is told to me as a terrible thing, but freedom comes with knowledge. As I take off my glasses and search for the vision of a child, I see only faded and soft images. Images if experience of honesty and of yesterday. Tomorrow will not bring the clarity of sight but will leave behind the wisdom of remarkable events.

  * * *

  Chapter 2

  ONE

  Dirty windows show a filtered world

  Living earth keeps a dead flower

  Moving train holds a stand still life

  Stopped clocks are right twice

  Innocent bystander

  Willing participant

  Primary suspect

  Convicted Perp

  The middle of the night

  and

  the company I keep

  Sally and Sue are the current two

  Jackson Browne

  argues

  no difference

  white and lean

  reflected beauty

  Front of the car

  Back of the bar

  It’s three AM

  Gonna be a star

  One more beer

  and

  just one more

  one more for the road

  where to next

  Fuck

  Fuck

  Fuck

  The sun is up

  * * *

  TWO

  Grab tight

  Pull close

  Face to face

  make me

  want you

  Don't let me go

  If you hold me

  You'll be safe

  Pull me

  I'll be pulled

  I'll push back

  But

  Only to breath

  I'll come back

  If you don't let me go

 

  You had your chance

  I can

  feel your breath

  I know

  you want to

  One last chance

 

  I hit you hard

  Left hand to mouth

  Your eyes glaze over

  Like a lover in love

  Your hands drop down

  Like

  A leaf in the fall

 

  I hit you again now

  You thought I would not

  You made a mistake

  You're bleeding and broke

  Large talk and a body

  Won't help you this time

  You mistook this guy

  For a person who cared

  * * *

  THREE

  I wear a mask that covers no face.

  Ever changing ever present

  To reveal my secrets

  is to die a slow death.

  People see me

  Mine is invisible

  Mine is the me behind the mask

  A weapon of the weak

  A defense against a soul

  Man on a corner

  Woman on a train

  People at a party

  I am alone

  Pull me from the corner

  Put me on a train

  Take me to a party

  I am all alone

  Masks are for children

  Hiding what isn't there

  Defenders of the lonely

  Keeping safe the unforgiving self

  * * *

  FOUR

  In alley’s rules change

  No thought,

  no shame

  occasional regret

  Back against the wall

  Head back

  What’s on your face

  Pain?

  Ecstasy?

  Water slides

  down the wall

  Slipping into your shirt

  Bricks grow moss

  on the north side

  Downspouts grow the mice

  Light slashes

  across your eye

  Is it a glint

  or a new tear

  It pushes in you

  Hard and fast

  Glistening upon retreat

  The sting is sharp

  Penetration complete

  Regret upon receipt

  It slices through a vital part

  Slurping as it does

  Moaning comes naturally

  Screams are over done

  You should

  have kept your mouth shut

  You should

  have seen the signs

  Some live without respect for a life-force

  The blade

  has killed you now

  * * *

  FIVE

  Living is not simply breathing or alert days broken up by inert nights.

  Living unnoticed is a choice but not a desire.

  Living unmotivated is not living nor is living with excess motivation

  Living because you are alive is not living

  Living in balance is a trick with an unrevealed secret

  Is there more?

  Is there more to living?

  Is this the living that all experience?

  Is this the normal?

  Why is there happiness in others with the same experience that is my unhappiness?

  Why are expectations unattainable?

  Why with expectations so low can I not attain?

  Why does motivation force unreasonable expectations and unreasonable expectations kill motivation?

  Can I do what I say?

  Can I say why I do what I do?

  Can I be heard and then listened to?

  Can I be understood when the words don’t come out right?

  Can and action answer a question?

  I have a plan

  I will make a choice to be forgotten

  I will take action

  I will demonstrate motivation

  I will use action to answer the question

  It has come together

  It feels so right

  It brings comfort

  It brings closure

  * * *

  SIX

  Looking hard now

  There is no truth in the mirror

  Seeing only what I want to see

  Like water

  I am everywhere but going nowhere

  Water is it’s own metaphor

  Soft

  Cool

  Gentle

  RAGING

  Black ribbons offer hope

  Rivers of destiny in their infinity

  Navigation is easy

  Destination impossible

  They are only roads

  Seeing the waves now

  So ambitious

  So Majestic

  So Optimistic

  Only to dissipate naively in the sand

  Looking harder now

  The mirror has truth

  Unwelcome

  Real

  RAGING

  * * *

  SEVEN

  Man on a barstool

  Woman at a booth

  Drinking away their future

  Thinking about their youth

  Whispering to his hand

  Talking to her drink

  Wondering where

  it all ends

  No one cares what they think

  * * *

  EIGHT

  My vision

  is clear

  The image is numb

  Feelings

  are sharp

  I wander

  emotional deserts

  Walking barefoot

  miles to go

  Standing tall

  quaking in pain

  Seeing ahead

  not looking

  but

  seeing

  How the world spins backwards in the pouring rain

  Souls stack up

  In a tenement house

  living
to inhabit

  The

  Bodies

  The bodies in the holes

  He picks up a hammer

  Or

  A knife

  Deadly both

  In the hands

  From the holes

  Crushed and cut

  Sliced and pulped

  To those

  Who've lost love

  Seeds

  will not grow

  * * *

  NINE

  Pulling the rain from the sky

  Holding my feet to the ground

  Fighting always fighting

 

  Up is down in another land

  The fight is real there too

  So strong but forgiving

 

  Like the rain it pulls on my mind

  Down

  Down

  Out and

  Down

 

  Punches are wasted

  Air has no mass

  Causing pain without blame

 

  It pulls more than the rain

  than my feet

  than the light into the dark

 

  Can it be real

  Can gravity cause depression

  * * *

  TEN

  Time

  Time

  Way too much and never enough

  Stop for a smell

  Hurry up

  Early

  Late

  Never right on

  Polite or rude

  Is there

  an in between

  I want to go home

  but a house is all I have

  Planes fly fast

  but move to slow

  Trains speed

  but never arrive

  Cars never reach an end

  Signs from the ground

  move to fast to read

  towns from the air never arrive

  Sticks and stones

  Knives and guns

  Talk is cheap

  but

  action has a price

  Time slows

  in the face of forever

  Decades speed by

  Days drag on