My Whole Expanse I Cannot See…

So, last night was my third open mic night. I’m becoming a fixture, a regular. I think I’m getting to be the resident liquor, drugs, death, sex, melancholy romance writer. They technically call it “open mic for musicians and poets,” but I mostly write flash fiction, not really pure poetry. I definitely don’t think of myself as a poet, I’m just a writer. Fortunately, they don’t seem to hold people to that poet tag. I read two pieces voiced by my now regular voice, Jimmy.

She’s like opium

Of course it’s not

Of course it’s not started out as a short story that I ended up not wanting to tell. All I really wanted to do was talk about some reasons one might have to get lost in a vice, and how ultimately pointless it is to put your hope into something hopeless. So, I cut out the awful story and re-wrote it in the second person as flash fiction. Honestly, it’s just me trying to put into words why I’ve been known to drink myself toward nothing. I wanted to try to explain it to someone.

Now some pictures…

Jimmy and I discussing Christian hypocrisy, while I'm wearing a fuckin' awesome hoody.

Jimmy reading my writing.

So, a reader recently commented on a post I wrote awhile back, Everything burns. It wasn’t a religious post at all, just sort of a look at how life is so temporary and why right now is so important. I wrote about how knowing that life could end at any second is a source of motivation, and depression, and sometimes impulsive choices for me. It’s sort of a liquor, depression, romance, live life right now because it’s going to stop one way or another, post.

Well, this reader replied…

i’m a little upset that nobody has anything to offer you but “your writing is wonderful”, writing is wonderful, it’s a gift and i’m glad you use it to express how you feel in a culture thats so difficult to understand the depth of another persons thoughts and emotions. Were so tied up into alternate reality through media and situations where its hard to ever find someone who really understands.

anyways. I have a lot of friends like you, even though you don’t know me. It’s funny how you can feel like you know someone through what they write down. You are right everyone burns, it’s an instinct we all have when we are bound by our… well for lack of explaination, depression, or our insecurity, our meaninglessness, ect.

There is truth in your words but you lack understanding, understanding which (since it’s so hard to find) will only be obtainable to most by pursuit of it. Your depression is the same depression as everyone elses depression, it’s a separate entity if you will.

This entity is none less then one from the story in the garden of eden. When satan the angel rebelled with other angels in pursuit of being god. Because of this god cast him out of heaven. Satan was in the garden of eden and tempted eve because he hated man, man was created in gods image. He hated us then and hates us now, and his goal is to deceive everyone of us. Because he has eternity of burning waiting for him and he will drag everyone he can down because of his hatred towards us. Satan and his angels (or demons) are the forces that tell us to do wrong and tell us that we have no hope. بينجو اون لاين They are things like depression, and suicide, insecurity, homosexuality, sexual immorality, ect.

Even though you have done wrong and you have listened to those things, you can still have life. Take a step towards understanding, grab a bible, read it start with proverbs and John in the NT. Understand that this is why Jesus died, so you may live. Repent and stop indulging in the things that are draining your lifes blood and taking you to hell. Understand im telling you this because Ive been in your situation.

I was like you, until I had someone in my life forgive me for what I had done to them, he had told me about god and about jesus dying to take those things that bound me so I may live and be free. I was struck by this and pursued trying to understand christianity until I found it. I hate to see people depressed without anyone to be that person for them. You dont have to burn forever, Jesus died so you may live.

So. I guess I’m a good writer, but I’m definitely going to Hell if I don’t “pick up a bible” and find Jesus. It’s nothing I haven’t already thought about, I’m Catholic enough to know about Hell, and what it takes to end up there, and that I’ve done several Hell-worthy offensives. I’ve committed at least three of the Seven Deadly Sins, and I don’t at all feel guilty about at least one of them. I don’t feel bad about most of the “Hell-worthy” things I’ve done, and am going to do. That means that if there is really a Hell, I’m definitely going.

I’m tired of “Christians” judging people, and hating people in the name of Jesus. People seem to forget that Jesus was a radical, and that He was down with the outcasts, people society considered disgusting. Jesus taught love, not judgment, not hate. His teachings were not at all popular with the religious elite of the time, and that’s what bought Him a really fucked up death. People who judge, and condemn, and hate in His name are hypocrites. مراهنات رياضية I imagine Jesus would call such people out as hypocrites, if He ever ends up paying us another visit. مواقع ربح المال If every Christian actually practiced what Jesus preached, we wouldn’t have such an immense homeless problem, we wouldn’t have countless hate crimes committed every-day, life would be better.

I’m not a religious person, I think organized religion is ultimately just a way for a few people to control many people. The Bible is just a book written by men, men with flaws and agendas. It’s not some perfect guidebook to human existence. Too often, people use the Bible as weapon against other people, which definitely isn’t Christian. Organized religion has never made me feel welcomed.

I try to be kind to people, I try not to hurt anyone. I try to love unconditionally, I try to be empathetic. I don’t do any of this perfectly, but I try. I try to be a good person. I write a lot about liquor, and drugs, and depression, and sex, I write it all from experience. I regret some things, I absolutely don’t regret others. I believe in God and Jesus, in my own way. I could be entirely wrong about everything, or not. I don’t know. If I’m wrong about everything, I guess I’m going to Hell. I’ll see what happens, when it happens.

So, I wrote something new for open mic night. I’m going to to read it there, then post it here.

So, it’s the afternoon before my last trache change. My friend, Kim, and I are just sort of lazed out and listening to music. I’m trying to decide on my pre-trache change tattoo. I always get at least one in between traches, it’s been my routine for awhile. I have a bunch of ideas, different lyrics from different songs. They’re all good, but they don’t fit my current melancholy. Then Elliott Smith starts singing A Distorted Reality is Now a Necessity to Be Free. He sings, “I’m floating in a black balloon…” I say to Kim, “Oh, idea! Draw me a black balloon…” She grabs a notebook, and a cheap black pen, and she draws something perfect.

Tattoo by Colt, hardcore fuckin' badass at Doc Dog's Las Vegas Tattoo, Ybor City

It’s a perfect visual metaphor for how I feel much of the time, just floating around all lonely, all dark.

So, this domain, lithiumcreations.com, is renewed for another year. I know, it’s exciting

In the next year, year number two of this blog, I’m going to focus more of my writing on tiny babies, tiny baby unicorns, tiny kittens wearing pashminas, and turtles having sex. Turtle sex is really hot, just think about it.

So, it’s open mic again tomorrow, and I’m running out of old stuff to read. I want to write something new, something really worth reading, but I’m just kind of stuck lately. Sometimes the words are so easy, just so right there, and other times they’re just not. I’m a fellow in need of inspiration.

So, there’s this Nirvana song, Hairspray Queen, and my favorite line ended up being my twenty-seventh tattoo…

I don’t sleep easily. I have trouble turning off my head, I almost never feel content enough to just close my eyes and drift off. I’ve tried liquor to lull me, and meds to make things fade, but honest to Christ sleep is very rare to me. I don’t sleep, I have only the dark to keep me company more often than not. I stay up, sometimes until the night starts to go from black, to grey, to blue. I stay up, and think about so much.

At night, I always feel things that I want so badly, things that the day can drown out. Most nights, I just want a particular someone asleep next to me, asleep with my arm around her. When she’s close I don’t feel lonely, night is actually peaceful. Loneliness is the feeding I hate most, loneliness is all that scares me anymore. Loneliness is why some nights I’ve felt like opening my wrists just to make it stop. At night, what I want is so clear, and the wanting is so intense, whether it’s something beautiful, or… not.

Tattoo by Colt, hardcore fuckin' badass at Doc Dog's Las Vegas Tattoo, Ybor City

“At night, wish the hardest…” It’s so true, at least to me.

I have to say that Negative Creep is probably the most fun song to sing when in a dark mood. The words are garbled, Kurt’s pretty much just screaming into the mic, it doesn’t really tell a story, but it’s just so full of raw energy. I like to sit here sometimes, screaming with Kurt, and sometimes I still expect to feel air move past my lips and hear the voice I hear in my head.

So, a few months back, I had a poem published in an issue of Weird Tales Magazine, and I wrote it a few months before that.  I got the idea in my head listening to a Nirvana song, Stain. I was feeling especially lonely, especially empty, and the song just sounded so right. I felt like a stain, something awful. I wanted to take the word “stain” as a metaphor and make it something more literal. I wanted to write about how being close to someone can end up causing so much pain, how it can cost a person everything. I wanted to write something beautiful, and dark, and brutal, all at once. So, I went out, had couple of vodka tonics, and wrote what I wrote. It’s just a quick little piece about a woman who seems beautiful, and this fellow, and an encounter that ends very badly. I wrote that, and it got published.

I often still feel the way I felt when I wrote You’re a Stain, and it’s the first thing I’ve ever had published in print, and I love the song…

Tattoo by Colt, hardcore fuckin' badass at Doc Dog's Las Vegas Tattoo, Ybor City

Hence tattoo #26.

Aside from love of the craft, I write to be known, and to make honest connections with people, that’s why I started this blog. Nobody has to read what I write, or like it, or even like me, but the writing’s always out there. Lately though, I’ve been really down on my writing, just hating every single fucking word I slam down. Which isn’t really right. I love writing, and I know there are some people who like what I write, sometimes it even helps people. The problem, a problem, is that I just hate how I feel. Lonely, bored, depressed, uneasy, functionally suicidal, afraid, it’s all me, and it all shows up in whatever I write.

For awhile now, I’ve been very self-conscious about showing these things in writing. It’s very easy to write wide open when you feel like you have absolutely nothing to lose, it’s so easy. Palahniuk writes about it, there’s a certain sort of freedom in losing all hope. It’s a horrible freedom, the sort of freedom where slitting your wrists seems like a fuckin’ awesome idea, but as a writer I could feel that feeling, write it into something, and not worry that someone I love will read it and maybe stop loving me back. You don’t have to worry about someone to lose, when there is no someone. When there is someone, honest writing gets complicated, at least to me. The thing is, and it’s something I almost forgot, if I want to feel genuine closeness to someone, I can’t stop being honest. I want the freedom found in honesty, not hopelessness. I can’t stuff things in a box, and stick that box in the attic, and expect to feel close to someone.

My writing has been the one place where I don’t hide things. I’m the sort of writer who bleeds out in words, that’s how I write. Even when I write fiction, I’m still in there somewhere. People write differently, for different reasons. I write descriptions of whatever’s in my head, dark or otherwise, because I don’t want to fade out feeling like no one ever really knew me because I never let anyone in. I’m not perfect, and I write about those imperfections. I want someone to love me, imperfections and all. I want to be worth it to someone. I’ll never find that if I’m locking things away.