Tag / Prose

by Ryan Boos

Blockbuster Persona

There, waiting for a break in deep stasis William wondered to himself,  “will this ever let go of me?” He had many conversations that angled and stabbed his insecurity. Growing tired of certain energies in his surrounding, William pictured one day he would lose it and smash everything around him, especially the mechanisms that he defined himself by. There wasn’t an escape from present cultural evolution – William had to let go in it, which was the very thing that scared the shit out of him. His ability to feel a sense of inner voice, in those he met, made the quietest occurrences so loud he couldn’t breathe – and he wanted out of this awareness. Often he fantasized about being an ignoramus, how freeing he thought to just take a shit and watch Nascar while the women cooked the delicacies of a spam burger. These things gave him extreme guilt but they were his thoughts, and he would own them with an odd hope each crevice of his aging face would reveal a vulnerable layer, he already felt raw enough to croke. William wanted to experience the calling all the way, even if it shortened his life, or made him seem too far-gone for the normal types. He developed too much pride around weirdness vs. normalcy. The very things that made him different enough to stand out haunted him. Yet, he couldn’t let go of them, it was too late so there he was, out to sea in a boat he believed would take him to shore – an island all his own wrapped in the self induced lonerisms he perfected. 

To be a lone wolf in a period frought with over indulgence was confusing for him. Was he not participating because he’s afraid of failure, afraid that his deficiencies would be exposed for what they are – a narcissistic pretension so bold and beautiful it would kill him? The irony, and one that he knew too well, was no matter how much work he did, the silence would creep over the wondrous possibility of human experience. Maybe he’s just a fool, or an asshole? Those that knew him didn’t see what he saw, and he fed off their encouraging tone like a savage.

Williams cell rang, he assumed it was either his Mom, or some automated call telling him there was a job he was qualified for, he had applied to so many jobs he could barely remember when they called to chat. William rarely answered his phone but knew if he did he could get his steps in for the day. William paced a lot, he clocked 10 miles one day talking with his Aunt while on the verge of a panic attack.

It was Sam….

“Whaatahhp”

“How’d you sleep last night duder?”

“Ah, once I got there it all seemed solid, but the lead up was heavy”

“Jesus man, do you ever have a good night?”

“What does that mean???”

“You seem to be tortured enough at this point, you’re so hard on yourself bro”

“I’m just being honest man, I mean, if you ask me I’m gonna tell you, shit, this whole optimist movement is enough to kill anyone. When did things get this way, its fucked”

“So it’s a bad thing that people are happy, come on man, let them enjoy it”

“People are full of shit, and pretending to be these joyous travelers who eat life like Anthony Bourdain. I’m happy, but its not gonna keep me from understanding moments when I’m not. Faking that shit isn’t an answer. I want to be strong enough to know the reasons, so I can heal them, hard to do that if I’m posting a picture and bragging about my Sunday morning walk as if it was life changing. I’ve walked a million miles, its nice, but come on, gimmie a fucking break already.”

“You’re a dick”

“I know, believe me”

“Whatcha doing tonight?”

“Oh, you wanna hang out still, haha, I thought I left an impression? “

“You did hermano, always do, but nothing I can’t handle”

“Prolly going to write about things, or record a bit, not sure, might try and link up with a gal or two”

“There you go, that’s the spirit, sounds like fun to me”

“Of course its fun, I didn’t say I hate to have fun, I get plenty of highs most of the time, can’t help my addiction to pussy and cheap wine”

“That could be a movie, “Pussy and Cheap Wine”

“We’re all little movies Sam, putting out a blockbuster persona”

“Right, need to fake it, what else can you do?”

“I don’t know, how about while you’re ordering a coffee turn to the person next to you and say, “are you alive, how the fuck is this happening, oh and lets make it out”

“You should”

“Alright man, gonna hop on this roof and patch some shit, I’ll text ya in a bit”

“cool cool”

William got off the phone, his head began to flow ideas and thoughts so fast he had to sit down. This often happened to him, plenty to do, plenty he wanted to do, but the amount of pressure was big enough to create a plain of nothing. Even if he made a to do list, looked at it constantly, his worry drove him to a place where he couldn’t get shit done. Even worse was his awareness around the reaction – It felt like a foggy beach during sunrise, all the beauty he knew was there, he just couldn’t see it. This is the place his addiction to expensive cigarettes found a feeding ground after the divorce. The day he knew his family would split up, he drove to the gas station on his way to stare at trees at a near by hiking spot, in that moment he declared, “I’m going to start smoking for real”. Three years later so much life had happened, but little had changed, he still stared at trees and still smoked expensive cigarettes while not having a solid paycheck. William tried hard not to see his life as some new incarnation of the Twilight Zone, but oddly he found himself listening to the old episodes on Netflix. The current tenor of modern television didn’t appeal to him much. Somehow vulgarity in T.V. or music triggered him. Knowing too well, acceptance was where he needed to put his mind, he just hadn’t yet. His sensitivity to all things was reaching a boiling point.

Originally written Feb 20, 2020.

by Ryan Boos

I-N-D-I VIDUAL

So there it is, up in the air, movements for the currency. I’m just a dude with mad problems or no problem at all, the why and the how – a fixated thing commingling with strength – a new face with armor for amour and what not. You see, I’m just a dude raised by that which makes me individual. I – N – D – I – vidual.

“Did you think too much today?”

“Yeah man, I did, shed a few tears as my car rolled through to see ya”

“What’s it mean?”

“Don’t know… I asked God in my note app for help, felt things pouring off me”

“You believe in God?!”

“I want to, I cry for God, I yearn to feel its universe take me over and set me free”

You see, we just people, without much true definable balances. We just people, fractions and experiences giving us the bumps and gold that we are ourselves asking for.

‘What do you want?”

“Want? Hmmm,..to feel this weight in something other than anger, to accept everything I cannot change, to punch a city block with my fist and watch it explode…to hug my cat outside for the first time. To stand up in a crowded space and yell “what are you really thinking?” I want a lot of things, but I already have so much of what I wanted the last time we spoke”

“Yeah its been a minute. What’s next if you don’t really want anything? You should def stand up and yell that sometime”

“I might…No clue really, maybe just some clearing for my head, for a day, maybe,… I need some new shoes fella, maybe a rich older women who will let me be a house cat”

You see, no matter what the differing languages or narratives that are fiction…Its all just a game. Others around us feed off our contemplation, life being life, an excitable risk but a hurtful immediacy for the ones living it. Although the very art of living it, means you are experiencing the major gift afforded to a human being – to know you’re alive means to feel being alive. To know you feel means you are being yourself…the rest is the rest, and the low frequencies of communications don’t stick, hell, they don’t even register a wave of any kind. So forget’m

“Are you down?”

“Yeah man, I’m down, exposed, and raw, ready to be vulnerable and tough, so I guess I’m not all the way as you said, down”

“Whatcha gonna do about it?”

“I’m going to put one foot in front of the other, and keep walking through doors dude, one day at a time”

“Ha, that sounds like a self help mantra”

“Right…I mean, everything out here is some form of “Self Help”, even the shit we do that doesn’t help, it all goes back to that place,  either way you swing it.”

“Good point”

You see, I’m a man who is still, but inside me is a current that gives, and loves, and works. Its the ocean, its the animal vibrations, the camp fire rumination, and the words I stutter when they make me nervous. And I get nervous, and I’m still here. Thats effort, that who is me, and me who is him – a complicated pulsing body of energy just waiting for the next story, in this book that has absolutely no dust on it, because its used, a favorite, A “I can’t put it down” top ten, favorite – existence, full bodied expression, a sun a moon, and the damn dirt to burry the bullshit. Don’t forget your shovel.

“You believe in Flow?”

“Like what…if it flows, then it goes?… yeah man, thats how I’m out here now, flow, or bye in all directions, but nervous, def nervous, or i was taught to be”

“How do you know though?”

“You don’t, its about listening to the awareness you’ve worked for up until now, and testing it, learning, failing, creating a remedy to improve”

“That seems like it could get too passive, or hell, even lonely”

“Well, as applied to being with girls or friends in gerneral, yeah man, it can be tricky, but you just feel it, you know, a sense of it, if its too hard, or nerve racking, then its just not happening…ha, I say that but its complicated, I’m open to all suggestions, I have no clue what you do once you step out of the philistine cage”

You see, the faces are planted in time I cannot reach anymore, no reasons, no rhymes, just bankrupt old news that fuels the epiphany curriculums for these new pathways. Give me an edge and I’ll  put it on a sword, place it into a stone, then watch it shoot out colors of imagination. Your storms are not negotiable. I am I-N-D-I VIDUAL, all the  thrills, highly original. Turn the page please.

“You ever regret things, surely you regret something, right?”

“Regret?, yeah man, I regret talking to you right now, no but for real…yeah, I regret things. I mean, I’m alive and thats gonna come with a lot of regret, a lot of contemplations, so much wonder about the “what if,” and the “should not”, but its too late for any of that. The regrets aren’t real, they don’t exist. I can be anyone I want to be, at any moment. Now that doesn’t mean I don’t feel for those situations I could regret. When we regret it means a part of ourselves is out in the world and that narrative we fear belongs to the mind of someone else, we fear those versions of ourselves that no longer belong to us, and will never be us again.”

“I think I know what you mean, like…opinion, or reputation?”

“Sure, or anything really, that moments you regret is frozen, and frankly they are gifts to others who need them to feel better about their regrets, we have to be the villain as much as we have to be the victim, or the hero, we owe debts for each”

“Now I’m lost”

“Good, because you’re too young not to be lost”

You see, its all moving and changing and circling back to a different you in this point in time. Nothing matters anymore but the next step forward, the ego is dead, so redundant in its exposure, its lack of care, its general sense of black hole dispositions, just dead. The prancing taps of your feet can pull you up from the grown swirl, then you can shoulder that shit, let it dip, push it with the hip, then brush it off with your newest versions, tighten up your fancy for the next episode in what is sure to be a regret or a win, or the story you feed yourself for your future. We just change, nothing more. We just are now, nothing more. Next phase please.

“Good seeing you man”

Yeah, it was, thanks for letting me express things, I needed it today buddy”

“Don’t thank me, Its fun to see you passionate about something” 

“I love ya”

“Love you too”

“No matter what”

by Ryan Boos

Holiday Music

Ah, so I forgot about holiday music while shopping. The one thing you can’t predict when needing a few things for Thanksgiving – the damn music piping through the house system. This holiday season I am single, lighter, the good kind of edgy, but still a tough swallow.  My kids live in another state, and my family has had some real health scares,  so when I have to quickly hop into the pots and pans section because the tears are about to come – I get kind of pissed about it, but let it be, then experience it. I owe myself that moment. With that said, I would love to shop somewhere that played nothing, or something upbeat without words, easy on the minor waves…maybe some free jazz that’s so free its quiet?  Jazz is the shelter from getting all tangled up in too much of my own raw emotion. My oldest son was with me as I took a moment in the kitchen goods section, I saw a pale green sauce pan out of the corner of my eye that looked cool. We stopped in the middle of the isle – I forced myself to listen to the void like feeling these old classics were putting out. The tears began their dance right behind my eyes, like a small fleet ready to nose dive over the falls  – a cascade of memory, confusion, and relief. But they never came. My body felt the way you do when you cry, but no tears. Such an odd reaction, almost if my head is not in sync with my heart. I’ve mentioned on here before how I think the two of them need couples counseling. Leaving the store I started laughing…

“You know its sad holiday music when you’re on the verge of a break down in the pots and pans section”

I’m going to try and live every moment fully, every damn feeling that comes I’m jumping headfirst, not really every feeling but I won’t be running to booze, or some mask like response…bring it and bring it so hard I cry in a store. And I ask for it knowing I’ll get up from it, becoming the next chapter of my existence. Plus, isn’t that the point of living? Emotion, feeling, and expression is LIFE?  And lets not forget my favorite parts – recording new material, painting a new canvas, dancing, and of course putting it all down in words. Emotion + Risk + Truth = Creativity

“Emotional waves are small gifts and we should honor each one of them”

Today is day two of my sons weeklong visit. Having them home is wonderful, it makes me feel whole – a reminder that I have a family and I will always be Dad to them. Its not easy, much of the time you spend in your own day-to-day life is trying not to remember how much time you had with them just a couple years ago. Not to say I want to forget that time, I just need to accept its over, and move on in this new phase of life.  Have I got use to not waking up with them every morning? No. But you deal with it – not because you feel great, but you can’t do much about it, other than make it work no matter how complicated or difficult. So you go to the park with them on a sunny day in November, run around like a child, go down the slides, hide behind plastic walls, be a kid, be with them, be a pirate and make weird noises, feel the crisp air, feel the love, be present as if you’ll never be again. That’s the area I’ve been working on since my divorce was final last August – to just be happy with what you have rather than sad about what you don’t. Yeah, that’s more or less the point of life I think – the mode we’re all trying to reach.

I do think we can wish and pray for a greater experience. We can work out the kinks, sending good things in the world with our behavior. I try to…even in the darkest of moments – the voice in my head is a constant reminder when I’m being mean or ungrateful, or just impatient (I hate that one) even if it’s only in my mind. It’s annoying when you just want to be one of those people that seem to have no feelings. I know deep down they feel things (some don’t at all) but acting in your life is a solid tool to hide from pain. I think I can act, just never learned how not to say what I feel, even if makes me look foolish, or weak. Somewhere along the way I figured the only strength I was interested in was expression in the form of “self” honesty, whatever it is, holding it in feels too damn awful. It’ll get you into some thick chats about things that are uncomfortable. The question you have to ask yourself is, who gets to decide what’s ok to say or not to say…society in its current form?

Nope.

 

 

 

by Ryan Boos

Tuxedo Cat

The tuxedo cat living on my porch is still playing hard to get. I’m still not sure what to call him/her. Each day I place a cup of food in the porcelain bowel, fill up a small water dish, say good morning or good night, and close the door behind me. I’ve tried for months to cut down the distance between us. It’s half of what it was over the summer. He/she even walked by me the other day, quickly, but still, its progress. A few moments ago I was sitting on my porch and chatting with the Tuxedo cat. He/she is beautiful, mysterious, dark, like the ideal image of the Woman I’ve yet to meet, but dream about. I can’t help but see the symbolism between this wandering feral and my life with others – close enough to feel, far enough away to evade. The cat stares at me with these curious eyes, it’s waiting for me to present myself differently. It’s drowning in its own history, mentally PTSD to death by past trauma. It wants so badly to engage, to speak to me, to come in my fold and get the healing it needs. But it isn’t the right time yet. It doesn’t flow all the way yet. In many ways I gauge my own progress with the distance between the porch cat and me. He/she is a measure of where I am in patience with myself, like a daily exercise of mediation, and willingness to wait. Symbolism, so much of it right in my face, hovering, stirring, revealing, and protecting my major zone of safety, home. It’s empowering to see the connection between a homeless animal and my own existence. The types of lines and connections that can be drawn suggest awareness growing, a progress moving, stirring, and power within this space. It’s giving me wisdom to see, and hear, to be turned down enough to explore whats behind things.  Or maybe it’s just a cat that wants food, and nothing more? Who knows, but if you can learn something, even from the short moments with a stranger cat, why not see the connections? I see you.

I read online a few helpful tips to cope with stressful thoughts. One of the more entertaining ones was to place yourself in a circle, then place those you love and those that make you feel good in that circle. Then make another circle, place the next row of people in your life, those that are close but not inside yet. After you make these circles, draw another one, and inside that circle put the things giving you a hard time. Picture this circle far away from you, way out; so far away the visions cannot see. My experience with this has helped. I see myself inside a circle, my kids, mom, my closest friends, Grandma, others in my life. We are in the Valley. In the distance is a mountain in a storm. When I see the negative circle, its hovering near the mountain, watching me, waiting, stalking my experience. In my vision I realize it isn’t far enough away from me. I have to physically burry this circle; go on a trek to destroy it. I am carrying it toward the mountain. There’s a heavy storm, clouds rolling by, lightning, dark, so dark. I walk to the left in the foothills, past the point of where I can look back and see the circle that protects me. We enter the woods, its wet, the ground soggy, just before the final winter. I find a place under a dead tree, digging a hole about 6 ft deep, and placing the circle inside – Covering it up with dirt, the silhouettes inside stay still, not moving, not fighting for life, just staring through the glass, frozen in its own misery, a corpse of shallow films. I place my foot on the ground where it’s buried; taking in the space between what is still living, and the death of the past. Then I run, and run, and run back to my people, taking my place in the 1stcircle.

I’m laughing right now reading over this before posting it. Writing is such a gift to enjoy; it can take you anywhere if you give it time to breathe inside of you. Not for anyone or anything, just good honest expression, free from challenges, free from any limitations if you allow it to be the mechanism to learn the most about whom you are, a flowing choreography of being, living your life. Nothing else is happening. That’s comforting.

I think there’s a reason I haven’t named this cat.

 

 

by Ryan Boos

Glass

“Put your heart in the drawer and starve the bitch”

“Take the heart out and love everything, even the bugs”

Her smile walked in and he thought of another smile from twenty years before when he knew who she was, the one that got away when he was young, maybe 21. Sipping his coffee he realized it all was a ghostly reminder of non-existence. He saw the liquid movement of the next smile and remembered the day in the park when the birds yelled so loud purple appeared, like watching birth again. Uplifted by recent months, he ordered a chocolate chip cookie and watched heavy men load shipping material in the back of semi-trucks outside the window of the coffee shop, where he was listening to professional writers interview each other for a poetry podcast. There was a local artist he had seen around town for years sitting a few chairs over, but it never felt right to say hello… then he thought, “that’s just how it is here in the old city”. As he sat by the window the rain poured down for hours, his hands typing away, his thoughts free from corrosive narratives and useless characters he’d long forgotten. It was by all interpretation the moment when he was gone and freed.

The awakening of self brings a wealth of momentary glass that shatters around the head, then falls to the ground. You will look at these pieces sticking to you.

“Don’t look at the pieces”

“Look at them and conquer them”

“Eat an egg and shut the frick up about it”

You will ask the questions and hide your inner self behind the public persona to evade what ever it is haunting you. It will hold on like an invasive species…So go for a walk to shake it off? Or lets have a conversation with a new face, once again going out into the world as an individual touching another while trauma boils in the veins.

“Sex isn’t serious, right?”

“Lets go dance and find out”

“I should have gotten in the car with those two chicks man”

“You didn’t?”

“That was stupid”

“I want to be bigger than just one sex act”

“Dude, you think too much”

“Yeah, do you think it’ll kill me?”

“Oh, for sure”

“Its not about this or that, it’s the whole you see?”

“Ah, I see, I get it now”

“No you don’t”

‘Thank you for saying that”

“Your welcome G”

“Oh, and I was lying before… I did get in the car”

“Good Job!”

If we are to live then we should invest in crazy to test the boundaries of this box, in every direction. Some of us are actually “crazy” and for that I get to hear weeping voices breathing heavy in the dark when the phone rings.

“Triggered, a boat in an ocean that’s empty”

“You can’t save anyone”

“Well, I can give them a map?”

“They are directionally challenged”

“Oh”

A simple search online will give you a vast amount of information on how to deal with yourself in the tough spots. How do you do it?

“Join in on the new hashtag movements”

“Go get drunk with friends”

“Don’t get drunk at all”

“Learn a new skill”

“Carpentry 101 has a vacancy this month”

“Plant a tree”

“Don’t plant anything right now its cold outside”

“I thought we could plant things in cold things?”

“Have you heard the new gang starr album?”

“Whose that?”

“What!?”

Go here, go there, eat and don’t eat. Get active or don’t. You’re going to feel it all no matter what you do. Feel it, soak it in, breath words into new words you’ve never said before.

“You happy?”

“Well, I was until you asked me, now I’m thinking ‘am I happy?’ so no longer can I be happy because I’m thinking about it, thanks”

“Can I ask you for year how you are feeling every morning?”

“Sure, that sounds like the gem of all plans there buddy”

The tools that break down the remnants (ghosts) are found in creativity. This isn’t for material ways though, its how you walk, how you turn up the core of yourself everywhere you are and you get so comfortable that you forget to think about anything else. Pick up the broken wings and glue them to your rib cage…they are emotional children and they need you. Honor them, they are teaching you, arming you so you’re ready for the next thing. That sounds pretty good actually.

“You don’t have to think about it”

“They don’t deserve anything from you”

“Ok, lets go to the movies”

“I’m too alive for movies”

We all hold power and we give it away sometimes. What we learn is even the strongest powers cannot be used if the place it’s channeled is not the canvas to which it was intended – jobs, people, art, any of it. You know when it doesn’t fit, the point in our ability to grow is how well we listen to ourselves. To accept ourselves we become closer to a higher state of existence or consciousness. The reveals in any painful experience are  required in order to reach all the heights of Joy. You cannot escape either reality.

“If you yell into a canyon and there is no echo, then this is no canyon.”

“Forward it goes into the great still surrounded by the endless avenues of possibility.”

In the dark the dance faded beyond any reachable memory. The pages turned from a book he purchased yesterday at his favorite used book store, the nightly intake was clean, naturally pure without stimulants, well… he’d smoke another cigarette. Resting in the motionless space he fell asleep as the door behind him closed and the voices haunting him no longer could penetrate his new forming shields of power. Silent he was alone to himself – silent the world was new. Flicker little light, flicker…flicker….and the roaring traffic outside the sliding glass door carried sound miles away. The highways of privilege and fitting ends for new beginnings.

“I will write until my eyes are no longer”

“Then you will hear everything”