Underwear and Strife

Less than five minutes ago a trip to the bathroom to urinate revealed something to me that went un-noticed the previous 4 times I went to urinate today; that my underwear is on backwards. Life is a constant voyage of discovery. Sometimes you discover that your girlfriend hates your guts, and that destroys your being faster than a Humvee outside the Green Zone. Sometimes it's the underwear thing. Who knows what I'll learn next time I pee, or boil an egg, or step off a subway platform. I can take comfort in knowing that what I learn will be either really boring, to the point that I want to die, or really painful, to the point that I really want to die. There is, I suppose, a possibility that I may learn something new tomorrow that will inspire me and make me happy. Here are three possibilities:

1. As it turns out, all my mirrors are distorted in the same way and I am not fat, lumpy and kind of odd-looking. No, I look exactly like Brad Pitt.
2. I find out that there is a gene responsible for my lameness, and it can be yanked out and replaced with a coolness gene.
3. My therapist reveals to me her growing sexual appetite for all things me. She insists that she take me to Paris for a month to "explore what we both may have to offer each other sexually."

My voyage of discovery, however, is more likely to reveal that I got a drop of bleach on my black jeans, or that those kids in the corner of the "T" station are making fun of my ass.

When life isn't painful, it's boring and/or humiliating. That's the most you can hope for...boredom, and that humiliation doesn't fuck up the only good thing, sex.

I'm going to subject everyone to a poem in a moment or two. It's called, "Bloodsport: Miles a' Guts." Actually, I'm kidding. It's called, "Strife," and it's about how life whittles away at our higher aspirations and possible comradeship and replaces it with an inclination to hide away from truly awful existence. It's in two, short parts, and I hope you enjoy.

Strife

1.

No more, the dead resisting
Base want replaces Hope
Armies gone, that were persisting
Romantic misanthropes

How easily bold dreams subside
Outwardly, so strong
Within, a rotting frame, un-eyed
A hoax? A lie? A wrong?

Perpetrated not by me
but one I used to know
Wonders dreamed, not to be,
Like rocks the seeds I sow

Like rocks in that they sit in soil
Natural, constant, and pure
But these rocks will never boil
With green vine, strong and sure

These stones, however, were heavier made
with need and expectation
Nothing this crop would do but fade
against all propagation

2.

The Future, ahead, sits never reached
An unconquered state, bright and rich
Whose borders siege has never breached
and flag diminished, not a stitch

Soldiers marching, never reaching
Always searching, never ceasing
Chaplains mercilessly preaching
"It's our destiny!"

But let it go! Please, let it go!
That holy city cannot be found
Within it, our hearts will never grow
That city is not border bound

Eyes go peeking, then feet sneaking
It's walls I sometimes see
With experience, however, I am reeking
Alarmed, it shuts it's gate to me

Again, perhaps, I'll turn once more
to rocks, and from them bricks provide
And make four wall walls with earthen floor
In the Present I'll reside

In doing so, I will create
A new destination, here today
A home to live in, not as great
As Future's unreached bright, new day.

Stones, thought seeds, now bricks, preserve
A place to stop and live a life
No longer needed soldiers' nerve
Now untouched by fear of strife

fini

Isn't that just a peach?