Old note in my phone

I want so badly to lean over to the woman in the seat next to me on the airplane and shut the window. She has the window seat and it’s 11:28am so it’s very sunny. I feel like her face is hot and she wants it to be cool. Earlier she started to close it but then realized I was reading and might have wanted the light to read, so she stopped midway through. I didn’t need it and wanted to touch her hand gently and say something like “don’t worry about it–you’re totally fine”, and then close the window, but I feel like she would be uncomfortable with me touching her hand because not everyone is as tactile as I am. But I can’t stop thinking about closing that damn window. Why do I feel so compelled to do an act of kindness for someone whose only relation to me is that we both happen to be flying to Cleveland on flight #387 and I’m seat 7B and she’s 7A.

2min after writing that:
The flight attendant offered us both candy canes (it’s Christmas 2012) and we both accepted. I gathered up the courage to say “hey, I was going to mention earlier that you can shut that window if you need to,”
She said “oh okay,” and gladly shut it then said “I just didn’t want to take away your natural light,”
I said “no no, you’re totally fine,” while thinking “do I look pale or something,” and then spent the remainder of the flight wondering whether or not I looked pale.

YOU ARE A POEM I AM ABOUT TO WRITE

when i woke up this morning all i could think was that i needed to keep leaning forward and kissing the back of your neck
next to the tattoo that you love
it seemed like something i had read about that was romantic
so i kept doing so
i didn’t want you to wake up
because you might think it was a mistake
or you would just pretend like ‘it was just a fuck’
i was afraid you wouldn’t be into it
like i’m into it
our mutual friend who had introduced us only two weeks prior was trying to set us up
but she kept repeating over and over
‘don’t get feelings for each other’
and things like
‘it’s college’
but earlier that night at the concert when you were standing in front of me
i couldn’t help but feel that I wanted this to be more than just a fuck
because you looked pretty
in your jean jacket
and when you stood in front of me during the show
you seemed perfect
then
after the show
outside of the venue
we smoked a cigarette
and i felt like we were together
somehow
but i wasn’t sure about it
i didn’t know if you were into me or not
later that night we headed back to your dorm
we hung out with your friends
i showed you stupid pictures on my phone
you said you were tired
i felt it too
so we went back to your room and you laid down next to me
i felt excited that you were close
you were wearing your night clothes and it felt like a statement that said
‘i am comfortable with you’
or maybe just
‘i am comfortable’
i was wearing boxers and my t-shirt
i felt naked
i was naked
you touched my chest
you touched my dick
you took off your shirt
i kept thinking about telling you that you have a very attractive body
and that i was into you
but i didn’t
instead i just kept making goofy comments about the size of my nipples
so after a while we put out clothes back on and you told me about your life
your mom
your anxiety
your abusive boyfriends
you were a string of sentences
your life was falling out through your teeth
and as we lay in the bed that you made us on the floor
from a bare twin mattress and precisely 2 comforters
i just wanted to kiss you again
and tell you that you might be the only perfect person i know
and that i could have created you with my hand and my pencil on paper
you were saying sweet things in my ear that i didn’t expect
it was 5:30 am now
and you said ‘i’m tired will’
i smiled when you said my name
and you were the good things
you were the words that had been needing to come out
you were the ink that gets smudged on my hand
when i try to write about my feelings
you were a perfect image
a perfect metaphor
a simile
idea
but i realized that i didn’t want you to love me
i want to love you and pour over everything about you
i want to write about you
in notebooks
and maybe on my computer
i want to feel mused by you
i want to obsess over you
but i don’t want to be anything to you
i want you to want me to love you
and let me do so
and then you can break my heart sometime later
because vegan sam who lives down the hall is a sweet boy who treats you nicely
and you like him for that
but i want it to be that way
i want things to be complicated
i want to send you books in the mail
with footnotes that say ‘this passage reminded me of you’
and you will send me a text with just a smiley face
i want to see you once every few weeks
but every time i want you to act like my girlfriend
and walk down massachusetts street in the fall with our arms intertwined and i’m leaning forward and laughing
just like the cover of that bob dylan album i love
just like that
and i want to feel excited when i talk to you
when it’s 3 am and the radio is on and i hear a song that says something funny
and i’ll text you to ask if you’ve heard it
and whether or not it made you laugh
you’ll text me back and say
‘no
‘but i’ll check it out’
but i never want you to love me
the way that i could love you
it would be too scary
to know that someone feels the way i do about someone
but that someone is me
i never want you to love me
because it would be different than it is now
and right now seems perfect
so i will write it all down
as a collection of clunky and awkward statements
about you and me
because i’m not sure what the right words are
but i know you’re worth writing about
and as you are getting ready to pick up your dad from the airport
i’m bleary-eyed
half-asleep
thoughts won’t organize
but i’m okay with it
because
all i can feel are these words
which you are now reading
and because of this you will live forever
in this moment
and you will live forever with me
in this notebook
until one day
you’ll flip to this page
and you’ll read this
and you’ll remember something about me
or us
then maybe one day
years later
you’ll feel sad that nothing ever happened between us
but you will take comfort in the fact
that you were a poem i was about to write
and then did

Today

There are some days when you wake up and feel happy to be alive
And you go to class early
to sit in the parking lot and write poetry in a black notebook you keep under the seat
Your friend texts you something funny and you smile
Then there are those days when you want to drive slowly but everyone seems to be angry that you’re doing so
They honk at you in their trucks
And then pass you and you forget about it
And there are days when you listen to Leonard Cohen’s Chelsea Hotel No. 2 over and over again and you get on the computer and Google the lyrics, then maybe post them on a social media site
You drink hot tea and try to feel like you might be able to write something as perfect as that
Then there are days like today when you don’t feel like any of this
And your friend still texts you but you don’t smile
You sit in a parking lot trying to write in a black notebook but no words come out
You sit on your back porch and read a book that you told yourself you’d read 3 months ago, only to be saddened by the ending, even though you saw it coming
You try to write something of value and feel sad because you know you’ll never be as good as Leonard Cohen at writing
You think of words that mean a lot to you like ‘converge’
And try to somehow include them in this poem
But it doesn’t sound good so you quit trying
Today was one of those days
And there’s nothing I can do to make it better
Except to sit on the front porch and drink beer by myself and smoke cigarettes like Clint Eastwood’s character in Gran Torino
Have you ever done this
It feels like you are the only person alive
And that
Is the best kind of feeling

First attempt at portrait photography

Last of the Philadelphia Photos

More of Philadelphia

Philadelphia / Travel

i feel it’s become far too obvious

A note: a wide eyed alligator opened his mouth and behind the shiny teeth and inside the damp mouth I saw myself by myself with scars on my hands as I sit and contemplate the nature of time and love and mathematics, I was this person in this time but I was somewhere else, with a pen and paper and describing what I saw. The hardest thing about watching myself was the fact that I can never really go back, and the past is a prologue for what happens in the future. 

On the turning of another evening where I sit alone in a mexican restaurant and the fucked up waitress with a beautiful mouth asks me what I would like to order

I ask her if she thinks that we’ll ever truly be able to go back in time

She says ‘no’ and leaves me alone

I think for a long time about this year

It has been the longest year of the century and I’m tired

The artist has grown too weary to paint

The lover has too much to say so he shuts his mouth

The business man makes a deal with a large client but he goes home and decides to quit his job

A pretty girl has finally wrinkled and now sits in a powder booth snorting lines of coke from a sandwich tray

A train gives up and overheats

I thought for a long time about this year

Me, in reverse

Seems like I get happier as things fall away from my shoulders

And I’m no longer bearing the weight of my own decisions

That are heavier than a precisely one million pounds

And they are sharp like truth daggers

I take my dick out of someone whom I barely know

Clothes float on to bodies

Liquor evaporates from our bloodstream

Conversations retract themselves

She gets in her car

She drives home

Kelsey comes back home and doesn’t leave for college

We don’t say that we love each other

She doesn’t cry

Josh doesn’t hate me

And forgets about his dream to be a graphic designer

We don’t ever go  to the YMCA

Eli is my friend

The summer isn’t hot but feels perfect

A relationship folds in on itself

I don’t hate Megan

Clocks turn backwards

Blood runs back to my nose

My hands get warmer

My eyes dry themselves up

Sentences are pulled back into my fingers

Cigarettes get longer and find their way back to a package and onto the shelf of a gas station

Drums get softer and less frequent

They pack themselves back into their cases

They return to the music store

I stop sweating and become bone dry

This year, in reverse

Seems like everything has become far too obvious

My feelings run into each other

And my thoughts evaporate

They dissipate

A wave of happiness doesn’t wash over me

I don’t feel like love can last for at least a short while

As the oceans of time and space wash upon the shores of seratonin in my brain

The words that I burrowed deep inside the ear canals of the police captain’s daughter

Now run out like someone set fire to the supermarket

And the promises I made jump out of skyscrapers and glass houses and break on the ground below

The affection fades like a dim street lamp as the sun slowly rises above the trees and encapsulates the skyline

I don’t kiss your face

I don’t hold you close to me

I don’t get frustrated with your lack of communication

I don’t dream of a life with you

I don’t tell you I like you

I don’t feel like a fool for the first time

I have the upper-hand

And our hands depart

Text messages disappear

I forget where you live

We grow apart again

Like we had for a long time

You walk backwards out of the door of the coffee shop with my ex-best friend

And I walk away from someone’s grave

And swear that anarchy will save my soul

I have faith in God and love and humanity

And I love my family

I love myself

The paramedics don’t drive speedily through town like dogs following their master’s kill

They don’t smell the sound of blood spilt on the Catholic pavement outside of a house where a sleeping Chevy Tahoe sits after having been to the hardware store

A limp body is propelled to the ceiling like God himself had reached his hand into the volatile affairs of the peasant people and lifted them up the way he would never do with scriptures of prophets or a son named Jesus

My friend loves himself

David takes the rope off of his neck and steps down off the chair

He doesn’t kill himself in November of 2010 on a Monday

When the leaves get brown and all of the flowers die

When it gets cold but he stays warm

When he stumbles out of a house party, drunk, and discovers that he is gay when he sucks a bloody man’s cock in an alleyway in a street near his parent’s house

I don’t feel like it’s my fault

He calls me to ask if I want to hang out

I drive back from my house

People don’t become vicious animals

Teachers are supportive

My dad doesn’t move away

My parents don’t split up

My grades don’t slip

Books don’t get read

Thoughts aren’t had

I don’t pull a tooth out

I don’t cut holes into my bedsheets

I don’t meet anyone

I don’t learn to write

I don’t learn to read

I don’t learn to speak

I don’t learn to walk

I don’t learn to crawl

I am not born

My parents don’t get married

My mom kills herself when she is seventeen

My dad marries a music teacher

My grandpa doesn’t kill people in WWII

Europe and its sons and daughters don’t hate us

The civil war doesn’t happen

People don’t kill people

Brothers don’t bleed out on the dining room table

Mothers’ bodies aren’t carried by covered wagon to a burial site where the rest of the family lies

Columbus contracts tuberculosis and stays home

The last crusade is now the first crusade

Mesopotamia crumbles

The world never starts

And I will never have to either

Tyler, the Creator

It’s a bit weird to me that I’m always met with astonished looks as I walk down the hallways sporting my neon-feline Odd Future t-shirt. These looks are usually coupled with “Will! I didn’t know you liked Tyler, the Creator,” or “Why are you wearing that?” Perhaps it’s the fact that I’m not the typical demographic Tyler, the Creator’s music appeals to, but regardless, I listen to him because he is quite possibly the most important rapper and lyricist of the 21st century.

Tyler, the Creator is a Los Angeles, Calif. native who is most famous–or infamous–for being the frontman and mastermind behind the rap collective Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All. Quite a mouthful, I know; this is why it is often shortened to ‘Odd Future’ or just ‘Tyler, the Creator’ when referring to the group’s music. With his music only recently achieving marginal financial success despite a large cult following, Tyler’s critics often argue that his music is vulgar, baseless and has no artistic merit whatsoever.

If we look at the more broad spectrum of music in the 21st century–particularly the rap or hip-hop genre–we’ve seen various artists make profits off seemingly the same ‘vulgar’ and ‘baseless’ lyrical content. I don’t need to give examples here; it’s not hard to find a popular rap song that talks about sex, drugs and the acquisition of currency while simultaneously disregarding people of a female disposition. Now, looking at Tyler’s lyrics, we see what some critics have described as being “horrorcore”. Basically, this is described as being a subgenre of rap music where the lyrical content centers around horrific images and storylines with “slasher” themes. Oftentimes Tyler’s songs revolve around such taboo topics and murder, rape and suicidal tendencies.

On a very basic level, this would be enough proof for any discerning grandmother to shriek in horror at the lyrical content of his music, but I tend to see it differently. Tyler is a master of words, particularly in the imagery department. His lyrics create cacophonous, dark images in our mind that takes us to an extremely scary place where we want to curl up in a ball and die. On top of this, he may not be the fastest rapper alive, but he spits out lines that belong on the Wiki page for such literary devices as consonance, assonance, alliteration and mind-rhymes. What separates Tyler from other rappers is the literary merit that resides within his songs. He doesn’t use AB rhymes often, and that in itself makes for a more interesting listen than Mac Miller or Drake. I haven’t felt as though an artist so accurately paints a picture in my mind’s eye using intensely clever wordplay since Bob Dylan with songs like “Mr. Tambourine Man.”

Aside from lyrical content, the most interesting part of Tyler’s music and career is that he is very postmodern in the way he presents his art. Tyler’s music is very obviously aware that it is music, and he often alludes to lines that were just said in the following lines. His most popular album “Goblin” features much of this “self-awareness.” The record follows the fictional dialogues between Tyler and his booming-voiced therapist Dr. TC (first heard on Tyler’s “Bastard” album) as they discuss Tyler’s overall mental well-being after becoming at least marginally successful with his previous album. Although many artists rap about being famous and negative effects of such (see: Eminem), never before has a rapper gone so far as to be brutally honest about the way people see his music, and how he himself feels about his music. The album opens up with the title track in which the first lines states that ‘he isn’t a role model’, and that “you guys caught me: I’m not a [bleep] rapist or a serial killer,” openly disregarding the claims that his music is influential in teaching kids patterns of violent sex crimes and murder. The song follows his story from rags to quasi-riches, and continues to discuss the common misconception that Tyler is a delusional psychopath, where he claims that “it’s not like no one has these dark thoughts when alone if their room.”

Because of Tyler, the Creator’s self-awareness and lyrical mastery, he has proved to be one of the most important artists of this century. You may not like his music because it makes you sick to your stomach because of the controversial material, but in the same way that watching all of the Saw movies in one night will leave you sleepless for a week. Henry Miller took a risk when trying to get Tropic of Cancer published because of its high sexual content, so why should it be any different for Tyler? He shouldn’t be punished or criticised for his “horror movie” lyrical content; he’s just infinitely more creative than any of the other over-produced rappers that MTV pumps out every 2 months, and happens to be taking risks with his art. That is something to be respected.

trip to louisiana day 4–final