Ramblings! (#1)

As a no-name student, I'm going to have to say that, at least in terms of the general public, Salinger's Catcher in the Rye is awfully misunderstood. A lot of kids read it in school because it's deemed one of the the first "teenage" novels, but a lot of people seem to read it and get nothing out of it but that Holden Caulfield is a whiny little brat that overreacts to everything and can never make up his mind. Yes, he whines, and yes, he is something of a brat, but to leave it at that is to ignore many more essential questions. Why is he a brat? How has he become so disillusioned with everything? 

John Green, (of, if you've been living under a rock, The Fault in Our Stars fame) in an online lecture on Catcher, says that for a much of the younger generations, books have become flash entertainment, a transcription of Hollywood movies, in which simple plot and character likability have become the sole determinants of a book's quality. It's worth a watch.

I think the fact that even a book that is literally all about the struggles of growing up is so unpopular with young people speaks to the depth of the aforementioned problem: a culture that only appreciates the readily obvious. 

Thankfully, there are quite a few things that will help. Changing the education system comes to mind. This is an important step, but before gleefully jumping into that machine-gun turret, we should probably remember that simply keeping an open mind is just as effective. It is inevitable that some things will not be for everyone. That's fine. But even when something is not of particular interest to you as a person, it's incredibly important to realize the significance it has. You might just learn something!

CONTRADICTIONS

The lights sail down the river. Slowly and carefully, they flicker down the winding road into the everlasting path of effervescent, luminous darkness. My eyes follow them down their journey until at last their remnants of their light fades from sight. The hesitant candles begin to shimmer, and blur. The stars above, the river below, twinkling upon the broad canvas of gentle death.

 My thoughts run wild. They come, frothing at the mouth as though eager to be unleashed. I oblige them, allowing everything else to take control. I am not myself. This is good. 

A Gatorade bottle sits alone by the crook of the fading sunlight. She stares at it, sugar and water and food coloring sparkling in the incandescent light. Neon signs present their dull glow in that odd time of day that exists between fantasy and reality. Iron bells chime in the background, protectors of the balance.

I notice her. She breathes with uncomfortable loudness. Her eyes belie a lack of proper nourishment and sleep. Her hips bear the weight of children too far gone to look back towards the East. Her skin has begun to wrinkle and sag, peeling away in the places where men have violated her. She is young. She is old. She is wise. She is naïve. Her eyes betray her lust. I love her.

Morning came early one spring six ‘o’clock. I told it to go fuck itself.

She was reminded, most unceremoniously, of the lack of cereal present in the cupboard this morning. She wondered as to why it hadn't been replaced. And then it came back to me. How could she have forgotten, with the vault of the sky upon her shoulders?

And it was so that I came to call myself lord of the in-between places, ruler over the realm of notebook margins and sidewalk cracks and that elusive place in the mind in which time, space, emotion, spirit, and mind are somehow both sharpened and dulled. A place in which everything somehow matters. A place in which the shadow of a young boy riding a decrepit bicycle cast by the light of a dying street lamp seems to hold some special significance. This world is bathed in a musical light, nothing makes real sense. I melt into the wind. 

BUTTERFINGERS

I watch. So does she. Her gaze becomes unbearable, and so I turn my head away. I can still feel her eyes sticking relentlessly on my face. I search for space, for anything that will keep me from having to look at this girl. But every three moments my eyes are inevitably drawn towards her. I notice everything about her again and again, as though I jump back in time whenever I look back to her. The first things I notice are her legs. Pale and damaged since her birth, they lie upon the matted floor, fidgeting as though they were only asleep. Then I see her back, arched above the floor, as though her spinal cord is Tantalus and the floor is cool, unreachable water. Next I see her arms. They flail about, as though she has no control over them. I remind myself she doesn’t. Her head is disproportionately large; it is almost half the size of her torso. She breathes with the desperate relief of someone rescued from drowning. The sound of her ragged breath assaults my ears. I inevitably see the rise and the fall of her chest, and I am convinced that her every breath will be her last. But all of this is fine; I have read news articles containing sickening, disturbing pictures. I have read books brimming with unimaginable horrors.  No, what chills me to the bone are not her deformities. What makes me shudder, what I know will remain carved in the back of my eyelids is not her arched back, her too-large head, her dead limbs. It is something a thousand times worse: her smile. It is unbearable. How many muscles is she capable of moving? She knows no happiness; she knows no hope for a successful future, yet she smiles at me as though I have given her an expensive toy for Christmas. What did that make me? I notice her hands. They look soft, as though they are made of butter. They melt in the midday sun.

IF I WERE A CAPITALIST

If I could be a capitalist,

I would hunt Material at the crack of dawn,

Waiting for the perfect moment

 to breathe.

And slowly, I’d pull the trigger

 Watching success

fall upon the forest floor,

Ripe for the taking.

God, I wish I could be

Cruelly individualistic.

Quick of mind and judgment.

Piercingly observant.

I wish I was able to balance,

To doublethink.

And delude myself

Into thinking of me

as a good man.

Jesus Christ,

If I could be a capitalist.

If I could be a capitalist

I would stare at people

 with coldness.

 For I would not see before me people,

but a mass of animals,

ready for slaughter.

If I could be a capitalist

I would lead. By God I would lead.

I would be a MacArthur, or a Napoleon,

But bloodier,

Less willing to preserve

and treat with kindness

The defeated.

Because I would always hold in my hands the key to

My own Happiness.

 But because I'm not a capitalist,

I look at me

And laugh. Me

The powerless, Me

The hopelessly weak,

Me.

UNTITLED

I finally told you once,

With red dynamite and chocolate paper.

But I could have been dead

Because I fell again

And I felt like I had dreamt up

Everything.

I know nothing

Of the tools of the trade.

And I wish I had something to give

But a candle to light the dark.

I return

With nothing but my hand

And a new candle

 To burn beside yours

As we sail

Down, down down.