Finding youth
DharmaBum07
Posts: 7
What follows is an attempt to chronicle my youth as it is now. Many stories of youth are done in reflection, when the author reflects upon their memories of youth and writes about them. Classical stories have been drafted in this fashion, Catcher in the Rye, Portrait of the Artist, Great Expectations. etc. However, my little work of prose in different. I currently am living my youth, soon to be a freshman at the Ohio State. This gives me a different perspective. Rather than reflecting on my youth, I am looking in at it, as it is now. While the quality of writing may be better with an older author, the accuracy and poignance of the immediate experience is unique to my young state. Let me know what you think. At times it breaks into third person narration this is entirely experimental.
I----
I’m a man.
Perhaps.
A boy in some respects no doubt.
I have not fathered a child, or a family. I have not found answers. I have not yet been conscripted in to the adult reality. I have not had to deal with real immediate death - a grandfather, mother, brother, friend, child. I have not yet found aged, hole-up-for-eternity love. I have not laid a road for life.
For now, I merely follow it. The life road. I delight in the aloof clouds of youth. I run amuck in the night, breath it in through hungry nostrils, search for things unfound. I covet human connection like the starving do bread. I embrace my friends like a dying man, and search for love like a sad man.
He lies there confused with out answers. Climbing a tree with no top, grabbing for branches he can’t see, feeling for footholds he can’t find. Emotion weighs heavy on his young, scarred, bitter back, and thought weighs twofold. Our friend is lost in this tree.
Life slams into me like a wave. Crash. Recess. Crash. Kneeling in the ocean I can’t stand. I don’t know where I’m going but I know that I am.
My voice has long been mute.
My ears, eyes - sore from the barrage of existence.
My nostrils - hungry as ever.
This is how I live.
This is how I survive.
II
I am real.
Dead fucking real.
My blood is no abstract.
My soul is no fiction.
My scream - you hear it.
What you read is a story.
But what you read is me.
The me is real.
I live in a confusing present [He has a promising future. Intelligent. Sociable. Practical. Aware. Discerning. Good-Hearted]. I think and can’t solve. I feel and am left empty. It’s inexplicable friend. So I’m just gonna grab your hand, steal you from your seat and take you there. In the middle of this shit.
I’m in a car. It was my grandparents. Now its mine. I’m driving to my friends house, because, like I said I’m lost. Tires whirring on hot pavement. Tree roof hangs heavy, exhausted over iron horse. Sun, mercilessly spears through the clouds. It’s a summer day. This road. It was so soft, so smooth when I was a child, fuck yesterday even. [His tire thuds in and out of a pothole]. Fucking A’, where the hell did all these pot holes come from? [His car drifts over to the left side, a jeep barrels towards him. Tires screech. A quick swerve back to the right. He is undamaged, but unnerved]. What the hell? I didn’t even cross over the double yellow. Wait, there is no double yellow. Where did it go? The paint has faded, disappeared, died. This is strange. The road doesn’t even have the same bends and curves that it used to.
Music blares. Pearl Jam “Last exit“ {1}. His fingers strum on the steering wheel. His heart beats with the drums. His mind with gaping, hungry, dying jaws devour the words. Music has a spiritual effect on him.
Rhythm, steady in unsteady life,
Words, loud in silent world,
Heart, fills in disheartening madness.
Shit, amidst a bumpy road, this stuff is a relief. I pass the final malfunctioning traffic light and make a gentle cresting turn into my friends drive way. Tires spitting up gravel.
I get out of my car. His front door, oddly, is open. I debate whether or not to go in. Usually you have to make some sort of ruckus before you enter, whether it be a knock, a door bell, a shout, a violent outburst, a dive into depression, an indulgence in mind alteration, a contemplation of suicide, or something. So yes its strange to me, that I can just walk in. Who really has the heart anymore to just leave their doors open, unconditionally, with out fear. After a few moments - fuck it, I say - an I just go in. What a familiar house, I’ve been here so many times before [A warm constant, he thinks nothing of it]. I find my friend. Make small talk with his brother and sister. He says one minute. I take a seat at the kitchen table. Its blanketed with newspapers, magazines and other papers. Bored, I pick up a newspaper. Terrible. The media is so exploitive. Always delightfully delighting in misfortune. I think a poem. Write it down later. {2}
He comes down. Bryan.
“Where to?” he asks.
“ I don’t care I’m kinda hungry,” I reply.
“Chipotle sound good?”
“Yea, whatever”
I don’t even like Chipotle. But then, again, we aren’t even really going to chipotle. Chipotle, is not the goal here. It is not the Kantian end. To be honest, we are just driving. And we drive, without any real destination. Its beautiful. Its impulsive. Its youth. Simply bask in eternal sun, drive on eternal road, live façade eternal youth. Don’t you see the beauty? Can’t you just drink in the endlessness? Of course we have stops, but we never actually stop, we never actually end. We go to Chipotle, Heinens for some Jones soda, and stop at a local park. Here’s the best part - There’s no fucking purpose! Its awesome. It won’t put money in my bank, or increase some test score, both of which are intended to get me into college, which is intended to let me lead a happy life, which on this day I am already living. What an appallingly useless cycle! [He throws the thought “Why run to live happy when you can stand to live happy” out].
The park is sprawling and huge. The parking lot is surprisingly crowded. I open the door, and crawl out of the tiny Mustang. Looking skyward I inhale, and the let the blue run travel down my lungs, run through my blood. Beautiful Blue. Pupils searing with sun, I unscrew a bottle of Jones Soda - Fufu Berry. Delicious shit, really. We joke, and say its an orgasm in the mouth. I look at the cap - “You will find answers while you are walking”. Lets hope.
Gravel grinds beneath their worn shoe soles.
Thought burns beneath their worn youth souls.
Dust and dirt dispersed as they trek,
The soul -a boiler - whistle’s blowing.
The hands above the heat - their own.
Ears of others - unlistening.
Slowly we make our way into the forest. The sun sends fleeting good-byes through the few windows the forest allows. It then disappears, almost entirely. We remain - wrapped in the canopy’s blanket of darkness. We talk. All kinds of things. We always do. I’ve talked to this kid about everything - God, power, suicide, humanity, sex. Today, it’s a girl. A girl that I’m in to. Or that I might be in to. To tell you the truth, I still don’t fucking know.
I spill it to him.
“ In this fucked up, disconnected world, its rare to find someone, particularly a chick, that I can talk to.”
“I know man, I know, how late were you guys out till last night?”
“Four in the morning, four in the fucking morning, you know how hard it is to find someone to find like that.”
This conversation continues. Its one of those strange conversations. In reality, you don’t have much to say - the amount of words, sentences etc. is rather minute. But, you just have these gigantic thoughts, these gargantuan emotions, and the thoughts they are so complex, you can’t articulate them. And the emotions, are so strong, you can’t describe them. Your automatic response to this, at least mine - ramble. I ramble on, and on and on. There are times I wish I could just kiss her. How I feel feelings, but hesitate on action. How its just so rare to find someone that I feel that connected with, someone that I can talk with like that. How it just kind of hit me one night, when we were laying on this hill by my friends house. How I fear that if I act my actions won’t be reciprocated. How my circumstances indicate its probably not the best idea to pursue someone right now, after just getting out of a very long relationship. I tell him about this hill, and how we lay there. I roll over, look at her face, brilliant, warm, locked in an endless gaze with the speckled night sky, and my mind just freezes, there’s no thought. Only a sensation, a feeling. Will to act. Hesitation. What a warm summer night. Man, Bry, I just wanted to kiss her. Ya know? I wanted to hold her. Talk -everything, real talk, like you and me, this chick has a mind, man, a captivating mind. Share souls. The whole fucking shebang. Damn, dude, and that moment, that night. Its never left me since. Its sticks with me. Ramble. I shouldn’t feel this way.
“No man, what your feeling, its natural man. You should fucking talk to her about all this shit. What do you have to lose?”
Nothing. Fear. Rejection. Awkwardness. Powerful motivators. Love in youth, or at least is in my youth, is strange and beautiful. I don’t really want to explain it to you. I think I just showed you, a bit. Confusing, yes.
Feet continue to move. Hours toll out. We leave the park at some point, I imagine.
I----
I’m a man.
Perhaps.
A boy in some respects no doubt.
I have not fathered a child, or a family. I have not found answers. I have not yet been conscripted in to the adult reality. I have not had to deal with real immediate death - a grandfather, mother, brother, friend, child. I have not yet found aged, hole-up-for-eternity love. I have not laid a road for life.
For now, I merely follow it. The life road. I delight in the aloof clouds of youth. I run amuck in the night, breath it in through hungry nostrils, search for things unfound. I covet human connection like the starving do bread. I embrace my friends like a dying man, and search for love like a sad man.
He lies there confused with out answers. Climbing a tree with no top, grabbing for branches he can’t see, feeling for footholds he can’t find. Emotion weighs heavy on his young, scarred, bitter back, and thought weighs twofold. Our friend is lost in this tree.
Life slams into me like a wave. Crash. Recess. Crash. Kneeling in the ocean I can’t stand. I don’t know where I’m going but I know that I am.
My voice has long been mute.
My ears, eyes - sore from the barrage of existence.
My nostrils - hungry as ever.
This is how I live.
This is how I survive.
II
I am real.
Dead fucking real.
My blood is no abstract.
My soul is no fiction.
My scream - you hear it.
What you read is a story.
But what you read is me.
The me is real.
I live in a confusing present [He has a promising future. Intelligent. Sociable. Practical. Aware. Discerning. Good-Hearted]. I think and can’t solve. I feel and am left empty. It’s inexplicable friend. So I’m just gonna grab your hand, steal you from your seat and take you there. In the middle of this shit.
I’m in a car. It was my grandparents. Now its mine. I’m driving to my friends house, because, like I said I’m lost. Tires whirring on hot pavement. Tree roof hangs heavy, exhausted over iron horse. Sun, mercilessly spears through the clouds. It’s a summer day. This road. It was so soft, so smooth when I was a child, fuck yesterday even. [His tire thuds in and out of a pothole]. Fucking A’, where the hell did all these pot holes come from? [His car drifts over to the left side, a jeep barrels towards him. Tires screech. A quick swerve back to the right. He is undamaged, but unnerved]. What the hell? I didn’t even cross over the double yellow. Wait, there is no double yellow. Where did it go? The paint has faded, disappeared, died. This is strange. The road doesn’t even have the same bends and curves that it used to.
Music blares. Pearl Jam “Last exit“ {1}. His fingers strum on the steering wheel. His heart beats with the drums. His mind with gaping, hungry, dying jaws devour the words. Music has a spiritual effect on him.
Rhythm, steady in unsteady life,
Words, loud in silent world,
Heart, fills in disheartening madness.
Shit, amidst a bumpy road, this stuff is a relief. I pass the final malfunctioning traffic light and make a gentle cresting turn into my friends drive way. Tires spitting up gravel.
I get out of my car. His front door, oddly, is open. I debate whether or not to go in. Usually you have to make some sort of ruckus before you enter, whether it be a knock, a door bell, a shout, a violent outburst, a dive into depression, an indulgence in mind alteration, a contemplation of suicide, or something. So yes its strange to me, that I can just walk in. Who really has the heart anymore to just leave their doors open, unconditionally, with out fear. After a few moments - fuck it, I say - an I just go in. What a familiar house, I’ve been here so many times before [A warm constant, he thinks nothing of it]. I find my friend. Make small talk with his brother and sister. He says one minute. I take a seat at the kitchen table. Its blanketed with newspapers, magazines and other papers. Bored, I pick up a newspaper. Terrible. The media is so exploitive. Always delightfully delighting in misfortune. I think a poem. Write it down later. {2}
He comes down. Bryan.
“Where to?” he asks.
“ I don’t care I’m kinda hungry,” I reply.
“Chipotle sound good?”
“Yea, whatever”
I don’t even like Chipotle. But then, again, we aren’t even really going to chipotle. Chipotle, is not the goal here. It is not the Kantian end. To be honest, we are just driving. And we drive, without any real destination. Its beautiful. Its impulsive. Its youth. Simply bask in eternal sun, drive on eternal road, live façade eternal youth. Don’t you see the beauty? Can’t you just drink in the endlessness? Of course we have stops, but we never actually stop, we never actually end. We go to Chipotle, Heinens for some Jones soda, and stop at a local park. Here’s the best part - There’s no fucking purpose! Its awesome. It won’t put money in my bank, or increase some test score, both of which are intended to get me into college, which is intended to let me lead a happy life, which on this day I am already living. What an appallingly useless cycle! [He throws the thought “Why run to live happy when you can stand to live happy” out].
The park is sprawling and huge. The parking lot is surprisingly crowded. I open the door, and crawl out of the tiny Mustang. Looking skyward I inhale, and the let the blue run travel down my lungs, run through my blood. Beautiful Blue. Pupils searing with sun, I unscrew a bottle of Jones Soda - Fufu Berry. Delicious shit, really. We joke, and say its an orgasm in the mouth. I look at the cap - “You will find answers while you are walking”. Lets hope.
Gravel grinds beneath their worn shoe soles.
Thought burns beneath their worn youth souls.
Dust and dirt dispersed as they trek,
The soul -a boiler - whistle’s blowing.
The hands above the heat - their own.
Ears of others - unlistening.
Slowly we make our way into the forest. The sun sends fleeting good-byes through the few windows the forest allows. It then disappears, almost entirely. We remain - wrapped in the canopy’s blanket of darkness. We talk. All kinds of things. We always do. I’ve talked to this kid about everything - God, power, suicide, humanity, sex. Today, it’s a girl. A girl that I’m in to. Or that I might be in to. To tell you the truth, I still don’t fucking know.
I spill it to him.
“ In this fucked up, disconnected world, its rare to find someone, particularly a chick, that I can talk to.”
“I know man, I know, how late were you guys out till last night?”
“Four in the morning, four in the fucking morning, you know how hard it is to find someone to find like that.”
This conversation continues. Its one of those strange conversations. In reality, you don’t have much to say - the amount of words, sentences etc. is rather minute. But, you just have these gigantic thoughts, these gargantuan emotions, and the thoughts they are so complex, you can’t articulate them. And the emotions, are so strong, you can’t describe them. Your automatic response to this, at least mine - ramble. I ramble on, and on and on. There are times I wish I could just kiss her. How I feel feelings, but hesitate on action. How its just so rare to find someone that I feel that connected with, someone that I can talk with like that. How it just kind of hit me one night, when we were laying on this hill by my friends house. How I fear that if I act my actions won’t be reciprocated. How my circumstances indicate its probably not the best idea to pursue someone right now, after just getting out of a very long relationship. I tell him about this hill, and how we lay there. I roll over, look at her face, brilliant, warm, locked in an endless gaze with the speckled night sky, and my mind just freezes, there’s no thought. Only a sensation, a feeling. Will to act. Hesitation. What a warm summer night. Man, Bry, I just wanted to kiss her. Ya know? I wanted to hold her. Talk -everything, real talk, like you and me, this chick has a mind, man, a captivating mind. Share souls. The whole fucking shebang. Damn, dude, and that moment, that night. Its never left me since. Its sticks with me. Ramble. I shouldn’t feel this way.
“No man, what your feeling, its natural man. You should fucking talk to her about all this shit. What do you have to lose?”
Nothing. Fear. Rejection. Awkwardness. Powerful motivators. Love in youth, or at least is in my youth, is strange and beautiful. I don’t really want to explain it to you. I think I just showed you, a bit. Confusing, yes.
Feet continue to move. Hours toll out. We leave the park at some point, I imagine.
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-Paul Verlaine-
"With me poetry has not been a purpose, but a passion."
-Edgar Poe-