collections 5:7

Let this be your run of the mill blog post. This day begins past midnight, as do most of my eventful evenings, where I went to a party- let's paint the scene for you, an abandoned hotel with stolen electricity running through the first floor, one bathroom within the whole complex that actually worked and every wall adorned with graffiti by various tag artists. The party was outside, where you could see the multiple doors and entrances to this decrepit building, three stories and stairs along the outside to allow everyone to get into the rooms. Those stairs weren't safe anymore, most of which covered in chunks off the crumbling building and covered up with heavy, wooden boards that might've once been doors or walls, but each covered in graffiti artwork. The crowd didn't much appreciate the art- it was a group of sex-smitten youth, too many to number have receded into the space to get wasted and meet someone to fuck. And there I was, smoking someone else's cigarette and drinking someone else's drink while I waited for something interesting to happen. At any party, I'm liable to meet eyes with girls or boys but I'm not the kind of guy who's going to run out of his way to confront them, because I'm too often the strong silent type who sits in his corner with his cigarette and his judgements. After watching my associates make some work of their own and we finished the alcohol that we snuck in ourselves, we disappeared into the night to my home.

Conflict waited for us. Our two roommates had taken arms against one of other, quarentining off their own seperate spaces, but not just space in itself... the space of sound, the space of scent, the space of living. The roommate upstairs was caught between romancing his "beloved" and dealing with her drug induced inability to stand upon her feet while the roommate below wept for his own flesh on flesh interaction and a whisper of success on the horizon. The two, with nothing to soothe their nerves, took into a yelling match and drew lines in the sand on this night as the fourth roommate and myself returned. We only made it back in time for the fall out and as one of our friends slipped into the bathroom to expel the contents of his stomach, they disappeared into their own place. The fourth roommate, Ryan, and his romantic companion joined me on the couch as our sickened friend left, taking to the night time streets in the hopes of finding a place to sleep tonight- a place we couldn't offer for the flames that crept from the bottoms of doorways. The three of us left watched a film, "SE7EN" about a murderer with a theme of killing sinners, whom he judges. It was quite a psychological thriller, but not relevant enough into the story. As I left into my own room, Ryan began to question his own validity in his life- as an artist, as a bread-winner, and as a friend. There was pain in his voice as he spoke about the faith that his companions had in him and his lover tried her very best to soothe him.

Here's the killer in all of this- all this time, I've been considering myself the tortured one within these walls. I was the one with the brutal past, layered in the death and defeat, and yet I'm the one who sits up as I can feel the last tinges of alcohol filter into my liver, writing my heart out and doing the only thing I've ever wanted to do. Four strangers moved into this home and four people, with four different worlds and backgrounds... drugs, love, and death- we can't relate on a basic mortal level, none of us trying to care for eachother without being forced to acknowledge their own pain. So why am I free of that? Is it the writing? Why am I the one who tries to sew the wounds that teach of these men cut into eachother.

On my left hand, before midnight, I found eight mosquito bites. All of them located on one hand, in various places at side opposite my palm where my nuckles rest. I assume it was the only placed exposed as the sun rose over the morning and I covered my face in the sheets... my other arm buried beneath the pillows as one held firm to the blankets. The mosquitos had a smorgesborg of this one hand, tearing into it like it was the blood bank they always dreamed of. Or maybe it was just one gluttonous mosquito who couldn't be satisfied.

When I wake up tomorrow, either the wounds will be mended or they won't. Sleep will cure their pain and the bug bites bulging from my skin, or it won't. The lines drawn will be swept into the dirt and forgotten, or they won't. At this moment, I don't so much care. There're more important things to worry about than these inconsequential issues...

The world would be a lot nicer if the tempo was just a little slower.