It's cold, and I've been drinking.

I've got nothing special to say
to anyone. I don't have some ultimate
truth, or some message that
needs to be shared. I'm just an average person,
one of 6 billion-
Oh, wait. Make that 7 billion-
people on this earth. And there's been billions before me.
How could I be any more important than anyone else?
I'm not. I'm just a product of my society.
Or at least, that's how I feel right now. But I guess my opinions are
always changing, so what's the point in voicing them? Well,I guess not
all of my opinions change.

A few things I do know;
I am not content with letting this world crush me like an insect.
I am not content with living a meaningless life, dying, and being forgotten.
I will do my best to make someone smile tomorrow,
even if I've forgotten how.

here and gone

She gave me a fake name
And so did I

We stole the bouquet
And a bottle of champagne

We sat at the piano
Eyes locked

Our lips were inches away

We danced slowly to the last song
I told her I was sexier in a
Beached stained t-shirt and sweats

She believed me

Close your eyes she said
And count to five

I did
And when I opened them

She was gone

Lies

Before we go our separate ways she asks me if I think that we will be together again someday?

I tell her another lie. Everything I have told her has been a lie. I can't even tell if the feelings I thought I felt were real. I tell her maybe someday. I tell her I need time to get my life in order. Whatever that means. It gives her hope, it fills me with guilt.

She smiles and leaves. I have no idea if she can see through the bull shit or if she just wants to believe there is good in me. Unfortunately I have made her lie to herself. My lies have become a cancer and have now spread to her life.

She calls me a few days later, reminding me of another lie. I told her we can stay friends. I want nothing more to do with her so I let the voice mail get it. Soon after she is forgotten by me. I wish it were that easy for her. The lie has grown.

Its several months later. She is still holding on. I want her to let go. She won’t.

The room is dark and I want to leave. I some how convinced her that having sex would not complicate things. Another lie. I stay the night for her, or at least that is the lie I tell myself.

Another call is going to my voice mail. My guilt festers. Why did I let it get this bad? Why did I take the call when I was lonely and horny? Such a bad combination. She is asking me if what happened last night was just sex and I don't want to be with her at all.

I can no longer spare her feelings. I say nothing. Nothing some how washes away all my lies like a tidal wave. She wakes up and sees me for what I am. If only she had seen this before. My guilt becomes her regret.

She leaves in tears. Tears of joy? I hope so.

Time has passed and I get a text message. It’s her. She found someone and is happy. I can't help but feel jealousy. Not that he has her but that his lies are better. I lie to her again and tell her that I am happy she is happy. I never see her again. I tell myself it’s for the best. Another lie?

they say
an old lover
isn't the same
person anymore
than those waves
are the sea
where the ship
went down

i lay over her
like a salvage boat
wondering
if this is really where
we sank
or if that place
disappeared long ago

AS CRAZY AS I EVER WAS

drunk and writing poems
at 3 a.m.

what counts now
is one more
tight pussy

before the light
tilts out

drunk and writing poems
at 3:15 a.m.

some people tell me that I'm
famous.

what am I doing alone
drunk and writing poems at
3:18 a.m.?

I'm as crazy as I ever was
they don't understand
that I haven't stopped hanging out of 4th floor
windows by my heels-
I still do
right now
sitting here

writing this down
I am hanging by my heels
floors up:
68, 72, 101,
the feeling is the
same:
relentless
unheroic and
necessary

sitting here
drunk and writing poems
at 3:24 a.m.

-charles bukowski

She asked me what i think

i think about
a lot of things
and most of them
don't stay for long
but if i had to
sum it up,
for you,
i think i'd try.

i think about my memories
and replay laughs
and lessons, kisses
and the first time seeing
people who i now know well.

i think about the near future
and try to tame expectations
and try to focus on the now
but sometimes it
gets tough.

i often feel like
dipping in and
out of life like
something rolling
back and forth
along the wave break
resting now and then.

some times i think
i'll take a seat
from society
and let the world
go on without me
just because
i know it
can and
will.

but mostly i just
think of that
which is before me
like a map or
flower or a shadow
or whatever form i find.

so when you asked me
what i think
it at first seemed
a riddle, for
i'm not so sure
i think at all
now that i
think
about it.

The world is meaningless, there is no God or gods, there are no morals, the universe is not moving inexorably towards any higher purpose. All meaning is man-made, so make your own, and make it well. Do not treat life as a way to pass the time until you die.

Do not try to "find yourself", you must make yourself. Choose what you want to find meaningful and live, create, love, hate, cry, destroy, fight and die for it. Do not let your life and your values and you actions slip easily into any mold, other that that which you create for yourself, and say with conviction, "This is who I make myself".

Do not give in to hope. Remember that nothing you do has any significance beyond that with which imbue it. Whatever you do, do it for its own sake. When the universe looks on with indifference, laugh, and shout back, "Fuck You!". Rembember that to fight meaninglessness is futile, but fight anyway, in spite of and because of its futility.

The world may be empty of meaning, but it is a blank canvas on which to paint meanings of your own. Live deliberately. You are free.

circa 2006

You were standing beside the road just like yesterday or maybe a week ago. Hands at your side and not looking my way. With a sigh I pulled over slow. Your head just as quick, eyes glazing over me in that “gray or blue” I can’t tell which, kind of way. Opening the door you climbed in and I devoured every detail. Your hair tied up, fingernails unpainted, lips pulled tight in a grim line. It wasn’t the first time that I wondered what type of kiss it would take. To soften them, not seduce. I noticed a new wound in your jeans and wondered who you were escaping the night it appeared.

We drove in silence, as ever before. Unlike our first trip when I flooded you with questions and comments, I had slowly subsided into silent altruism. Though I’m not sure which you preferred. The car bounced with every change in the road. You held on tightly, staring straight ahead. Nothing was different, this trip was the same as everyone before. But I felt it, the tension. Even in your silence I could tell that this would be the last time I stopped for you. We pulled into the gas station. The abandoned one across from the lake near town. You opened the door, grabbed your bag (which I had always admired for its colourful needlework) and stepped out of the car. You hesitated then, and I braced myself. “This will be the last time”, you mumbled, looking down at your feet.

You probably knew me by then. That I would do anything in a heartbeat. That I was ready for the late nights and the tears and the failed attempts only to try and try again until everything was finally ok. You only had to climb back in. I wanted to scream, to shout, to ask you why and where and who and when, but most of all hold you tight, a shield from all the heartache. Giving peace and destroying pain in one single surge of emotion completely dedicated to you.

But instead I just nodded, my lips tightened, imitating yours. A strange thing happened then. I half expected you to look up at me and explain it all. Indecision, maybe, flashed through your mind. However fate prevailed and you walked off. Turning the corner of the building without another word. I knew that I would never see you again. And it was awhile before I would be ok with that.

This one took effort

Write lyrics like spreadsheets with number crunching
Calculate the isotopes
numerical accuracy in the vein of vain attempts to overcome
the show off tendencies of artist who exhibit flow to illicit
concern about existence beyond what they can see of pedagogical poetry
more concerned with numbers and patterns
who gives a fuck what the stress is on the vowel in the third stanza
lyrically despondent personal correspondents for a publication that says
more about what you know than what you feel
and who you are
computer says no, statistically impossible, synaptic haiku
five seven five
musical ronin
go go gadget of talent
extend-o-pole and flying nimbus as you train like son-goku
hyperbolic chamber where time is an illusion only to collapse
true Saiyans are warriors from the womb until death and after
over nine thousand and the scanner short circuits
write on the clouds with light so hot that it burns on thought
not contact
no constants, just variables, electron microscopes to try and hear the angels sing.
Large Hadrons small dreams, no love, just roman numerals
XIV, HIV, Blood transfusions in the realm of “O Positive” and you're just a pessimist, negative Nancy at the end of evolution
Flesh and bone as a tent in your double helix of a genome,
flesh like clay in the hands of some master
but you know no master
no nations, under no gods but Darwin
all 23 chromosome pairs making 46 parts of your brain
screaming neurons fire
WRITE
WHAT
YOU
ARE
If you should so choose as to end not with a bang but a whimper
then your memory is forfeit
contribute in some meaningful semblance of sarcasm and sinsethesia with anesthetic medications of pop remedies and voided memories
of sinthesisia
Smell the colours and taste the sounds of pen on paper
when you never own a pen or a pad
just a bright white rectangle you stare at for hours on end
No thoughts just Digg and Reddit
your only contributions a thumbs up or a red thumbs down
like buttons
but no dislike, because if you've got nothing nice to say
then say nothing
unless you're outrage and full of spite
and morose
at the state of human nature
beauty and song thrown out in an effort to leave nobody behind
and so we have a generation coming in
at the age of 5, who are told new math
new science
wrote memorization of equations
no thought process, no argument about relation
theory of relativity, the genious mind just numbers and letters on a page with squiggles and lines that don't have to mean anything more than they mean on the book
we have a generation with no lust, no hope
Do they dream in black and white?
do they dream at all?
is the consequence of IQ tests and graded paper intelligence
the thirst for knowledge and creativity?
WE HAVE TO SCREAM
at the injustice
Burn it to the bricks and ashes
we hurl through the windows
in the streets and in the parks
car radios and clock towers sold
for cheap homemade booze
dance around the fire like the wild things are
LET THE WILD RUMPUS BEGIN
but then we're still hollow
no happy medium, just excess
in the pursuit of Dionysus, trepination,
demon possession is illegal in the eyes of the police and federal law
spread your legs and lean against the car
as they frisk you and plant the seed
of doubt
in the cuffs of your jeans
You have the right to remain silent
but I hope you don't
refuse
question
resist

Have you ever been in love? Horrible isnt it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses. You build up a whole armor, for years, so nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life… You give them a piece of you. They didnt ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isnt your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple a phrase like ‘maybe we should be just friends’ or ‘how very perceptive’ turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It’s a soul hurt, a body hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. Nothing should be able to do that. Especially not love. I hate love.

Mexico’s shine.
Birds, lizards, neon flowers.
Luscious concoctions
make me hesitant
to exhale.

I want to own
the colors
and aromas.
A lifetime of nature’s
pallet and perfume.

Mexico’s glow
riding upon the sea.
Perfectly rounded
gray-lavender rocks,
like moons stacked upon clouds.

The rocks remind me
of us,
happy and waiting
to explode into the sands
and know the light of Mexico’s shine.

"Let's find a Way today..."

Let's find a Way today,
that can take us to tomorrow,
We'll follow that Way,
A Way like flowing water.

Let's leave behind,
the things that do not matter.
And we'll turn our lives,
to a more important chapter.

Let's take the time and try to find,
what real life has to offer.
And maybe then we'll find again,
what we had long forgotten.
Like a friend, true 'til the end,
it will help us onward.

The sun is high, the road is wide,
and it starts where we are standing.
No one knows how far it goes,
for the road is never-ending.

It goes away,
beyond what we have thought of.
It flows away,
Away like flowing water.


~ Benjamin Hoff ~


(The Te of Piglet)

The Break Up

You see her for the first time in the super market,
shes the most gorgeous creature you have ever seen.
You strike up a conversation,
it goes surprisingly well.

you ask if you can cell her sometime,
..sure, she said.

You go on a few dates,
couple of walks,
and very soon, you're hanging out all the time.

You tell her you love her, and she loves you.
..Things have never felt better.

But one day, you notice something about her that you haven't noticed before.
She cant understand it,
and neither can you.

You hope that it will go away.
and for a while, it does.

But when it comes back... its worse than before.
When you bring it up, she get upset.
So you drop it.

You carry on with everyday life,
spend more time together.
Tell her that everything will be okay.

And just when you think, things are improving,
they just get worse... and worse.

You wake up the next morning to find the bed empty,
you search the apartment.
But shes gone.

You try to get on with it.
Pack up her belongings,
and put it out of sight.

Where ever you go you still feel her.
You block her out and keep busy,
put your head down and try to move on.

Its a few months later when you see her again.
Shes even more beautiful than you remember.
You cant believe it.

Shes still hurt by the way things turned out she says.
She had no choice. She had to leave.

You walk back home confused.
You question your vision.
But then you realize, that at the end of the day.
There is no one really to blame, no one else..
except you.

Life Story

After you've been to bed together for the first time,
without the advantage or disadvantage of any prior acquaintance,
the other party very often says to you,
Tell me about yourself, I want to know all about you,
what's your story? And you think maybe they really and truly do

sincerely want to know your life story, and so you light up
a cigarette and begin to tell it to them, the two of you
lying together in completely relaxed positions
like a pair of rag dolls a bored child dropped on a bed.

You tell them your story, or as much of your story
as time or a fair degree of prudence allows, and they say,
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,
each time a little more faintly, until the oh
is just an audible breath, and then of course

there's some interruption. Someone mentions food, or one of you rises to pee
and gaze at himself with mild astonishment in the bathroom mirror.
And then, the first thing you know, before you've had time
to pick up where you left off with your enthralling life story,
they're telling you their life story, exactly as they'd intended to all
along,

and you're saying, Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,
each time a little more faintly, the vowel at last becoming
no more than an audible sigh,
as the light seems to dim darker and darker,
every passing minute.
And then one person draws one last, long, deep breathe of exhaustion,
and close their eyes forever. Then?

Well, one of you falls asleep
and the other one does likewise with a lighted cigarette in his mouth,
and that's how people burn to death in their homes.

New track. Check it.

http://soundcloud.com/nickmode/siren

These feelings inside of me are so vein,
But what you see seems so plain.
Forgive me for not being so open,
As you may know I am already broken.
So look into my eyes and if you can see the passed,
You will surely know we will never last.
Not because of normal things like family or bills,
But because I'd like to drown myself with all these pretty pills.

There's a crawling in my skin,
That causes me to sin,
And though I may look sweet,
I will certainly bring you defeat.
Please give me some of your Heroin
So I can feel free and bare myself again.

RIP Jaime

to the future me

Dear Me,
So. I want to go somewhere and get out of here. So far I've managed to do pretty much everything other than what I needed to do.

I've managed to end relationships and pursue new ones.
All the while I started, maintained and fostered empty relationships that look the way it should but definitely doesn't feel that way. It doesn't feel like much of anything other than annoyance and vanity.

It always happens this way. Its always the same, ALWAYS. Then after I had ended the relationship we would have sex months later. It was the best sex you'd had in your entire life. What the hell does that mean? You dropped the L-bomb and you MEANT it, now you're leaving forever? Why fuck with her mind like that? Why fuck with your own mind like that? There are times when you love somebody and it's better for them not to know it. It was more than goodbye sex, it was "in another time and place we would've been together forever" sex. And now you have to live with that. This wasn't driven by a desire for sex, it was driven by a mutual desire to be close to one another, to feel that energy again. Sometimes love is like crack, you want it more than anything in the world and convince yourself that those brief glimpses at what a relationship can be are worth all of the other shit that comes along with it.

Now I'm frantically scrambling to tie up all of my loose ends. And I want to take a trip in the middle of it all because I love to indulge myself like that? Do I have the money for it? No. Do I have the time? No. Do I really give a shit? Not really.

Then I would come back and be faced with saying my goodbyes to all of the good friends I've made here. It's like I start fires with people and never bother to put them out. I have intense conversations, dive deeper into personal and emotional topics than most others do, and as a result I form real and lasting bonds with what were formerly complete strangers. The problem is that I do this with SO MANY PEOPLE. I am never content to have a group of close friends and have that be enough. I have my friends here, my friends, there, my ex-girlfriends that I never fully sever contact with, and everyone else that I've shared a bond with. Sometimes BONDS BREAK, simply because there isn't enough time in the day or real attention to be paid to make them worth keeping. The problem is that they're ALL worth keeping. How am I to decide who stays and who goes?

There are a lot of shitty people in the world. There are also a lot of amazing people. I find an amazing person and I don't want to let them go. I want to surround myself with them, I want to be tied to them somehow so that I might continue to feed off of their energy and understand what their perspective on the world is so that I can enrich my own. I want to see where our paths take us and where they might cross so that I can have another intense conversation, another fruitful discussion. I want to learn and grow and see how other interesting people are doing the same.

Then Ill go home. Ill see my old friends. I've changed. A lot. Some of them haven't. Will they think that because I've changed we can no longer be friends? What parts of me have changed? What insights into myself will my old friends give me? It's hard for me to do the "let's have a few drinks and remember old times" chats. I want to have a real conversation with the person you are NOW, and I want you to do the same with me. It's worth it. It's emotionally and intellectually draining.

Then Ill go to here and there to visit other friends and family. Same gig, different place. Do I really need to read so much into it? Will my friends even care that I've been away for so long? Will they be looking for changes? I've got more piercings, I've grown my hair out some, I carry myself differently. These are the manifest physical changes - what of the others... Will anyone care enough to notice...

Then I see a friend get married. And say goodbyes. Always saying goodbyes. Goodbye Mom, goodbye Dad. Goodbye sister. Goodbye brother, goodbye friends. Goodbye home. I'll miss you while I'm away.

Then ill go on throwing myself curve balls. Ill ship off to the land thats unchanged, Thailand. What about a move to a culture so entirely different from your own that it's hardly recognizable as an American as a "real" life? Helping myself understand the way people used to live and how we hopefully still can. They may be starving for food in the slums there, but we're starving for meaning and FEELING here in the U.S. I would certainly gain so many insights and experiences while there, and I will surely continue to change. Markedly. Then I'd come home again and do it all over again.

At what point does this chapter in my life become meaningless except as a distant memory? When do my high school friendships become relics of a time passed? I want them to be living, to be real. I want them to grow with me and remind me that I was who I was but that doesn't mean that I've changed so completely that it isn't a part of who I am today. I always want it to be a living part of me.

I strive for continuity. I strive for community. I strive for meaning. But in so doing I preserve and create connections between so many disparate events and people in my life that it becomes difficult to derive any of the three aforementioned qualities from any of it. It's simply a convoluted mess, devoid of any underlying pattern or structure. My life is my canvas. I've painted nearly a third of it (a quarter if I'm optimistic here at 23) and it's already so schizophrenically colorful, intricate, and dizzyingly amorphous that I can't imagine that it will come together as a single work of art that can be appreciated any more than those stupid fucking splatter paintings are.

The answer: there is none. I can only continue to be me and do the best I can to make sure that I'm true to myself and continue to do those things that I believe will help me best realize and optimize my abilities so that I might effect positive change in some way. My life wasn't meant to be static, it wasn't meant to be easy. I truly believe that I was meant to be a semi-transient being, torturing myself with the emptiness that I feel while settling for nothing less. The comfort that I seek is an illusion. I am doomed to continue moving and seeking and building and growing and dying and destroying and stopping until I've tramped the globe and satisfied myself that there is no Truth, there is no Love, and there is no such fucking thing as Contentment. To be content is to stop searching for something greater, and until I either find or create that I will not rest.

How fucking pretentious is that? What makes me think that I'm too good for an office job, that I'm too good to settle down. Why can't I just COMMIT to something and build my meaning and my truth around that? It's possible to find everything I'm looking for in a village without ever leaving. It's possible to find that by devoting yourself to a trade or study. Maybe it's a fear that if I do finally devote myself to one place or one hobby or one job that I will devote years and years of my life to it before failing. I would rather have tried everything and say, "Look, I failed, but damn did I have a lot of adventures on the way." I hate the idea of looking back on my life and thinking, "I was happy enough, but somewhere deep inside I just KNOW that the part of me that still remains empty today could have been filled had I looked a little harder."

Maybe we all die with that empty feeling. We all build our lives. They are our fortresses. They are the things we point to and say, "See here? This is my LIFE, isn't it wonderful? Look at all the great people I've met, the passion I've felt, the things I've accomplished. That's my life and I'm so fucking happy that it's mine." I want a castle in europe, not a ranch-style home in the suburbs. The question is, am I capable of building it or am I dooming myself to failure by not being satisfied with what I am capable of?

One thing's for sure, I'm capable of rambling on and on and on and on and on and on and on

If you are, you breath. If you breath,
you talk. If you talk, you ask. If you ask, you think.
If you think, you search. If you search, you experience.
If you experience, you learn. If you learn, you grow.
If you grow, you wish. If you wish, you find. If you find, you doubt.
If you doubt, you question. If you question, you understand.
If you understand, you know. If you know, you want to know more…
And if you want to know more, you are alive…
-Someone

Rome is burning, he said
as he poured himself another drink
yet here I am, knee-deep in a river of pussy

Here it comes, she thought,
another self-indulgent, whiskey-soaked diatribe
about how fucking great everything was in the past
and how all us poor souls born too late
to see the Stones at wherever
or snort the good coke like they had at studio 54
well, we had all just missed out
on practically everything worth living for
and the worst part was, she agreed with him

here we are she thought, at the edge of the world
the very edge of western civilization
and all of us are so desperate to feel something
anything
that we keep falling into each other
and fucking our way to the end of days.
-californication

People tend to say
That remembering hurts
But forgetting is just as painful

I can't remember
Exactly what shade of blue
Your eyes were

I can't remember
What it felt like
When I held you

I can't remember
The tone of your voice
When you laughed

I can't remember
How your mouth tasted
When I kissed you

I can't remember
The sparkle in your eyes
When you looked at me

I can't remember
The curves of your body
As my hands traced them

I can't remember
Why we agreed
We were better off alone

go after her. fuck, dont sit there and wait for her to call, go after her because thats what you should do if you love someone, dont wait for them to give you a sign cause it might never come, dont let people happen to you, dont let me happen to you, or her, shes not a fucking television show or tornado. there are people i might have loved had they gotten on the airplane or run down the street after me or called me up drunk at 4 in the morning because they need to tell me right now and because they cannot regret this and i always thought id be the only one doing crazy things for people who would never give enough of a fuck to do it back or to act like idiots or be entirely vulnerable and honest and making someone fall in love with you is easy and flying 3000 miles on 4 days notice because you cant just sit there and do nothing and breathe into telephones is not everyones idea of love but it is the way i can recognize it because that is what i do. go scream it and be with her in meaningful ways because that is beautiful and that is generous and that is what loving someone is, that is raw and that is unguarded, and that is all that is worth anything, really.

"I've met God across his long walnut desk with his diplomas hanging on the wall behind him, and God asks me, "Why?" Why did I cause so much pain? Didn't I realize that each of us is a sacred, unique snowflake of special unique specialness? Can't I see how we're all manifestations of love? I look at God behind his desk, taking notes on a pad, but God's got this all wrong. We are not special. We are not crap or trash, either. We just are. We just are, and what happens just happens. And God says, "No, that's not right." Yeah. Well. Whatever. You can't teach God anything."
-Fight Club

I don't know much about her but I'm kind of infatuated with this girl. Or maybe it's the idea of her that I've created. I found myself thinking about her tonight on a walk under some makeshift constellations struggling through the light pollution of Baltimore, fleeting thoughts coming and going like Pennsylvania snowfalls. It's not a lusty, I-want-to-fuck-her kind of deal. I want to hold her close and sing her soft rainstorm melodies and move her in a way that makes her feel unspeakably alive because there's nothing that has touched her to the core like that in a long time. I want to bear my soul to her in the way that symphonies are written, so that at its completion, my story will have completely enveloped her like B minor at the predawn of a snow-covered day, and she'll realize that there is nothing more painfully right than the overlap of the lines on our palms and all the countless intersections of her eyes and mine.