Poetry... avoids me.
I had decided to spend four hours, after class, to start working on these, seeing as I have no poetry of the past that I am either fond of, or have ever even considered re-visiting. I sat down, opened my laptop and a beer and stared at my computer for fifteen seconds before my barricade collapsed and the muse sufficently alerted me that I, indeed, had no interest in writing/typing poetry.
The shame of having designated four hours to writing and not being able to write was a bit much and, despite having recieved a text-message to play football, I felt that it was of such dishonor to do something of such "fun" that I simply left, bringing with me nothing more than a mini-composition book with a pen between it's pages, a pack of nearly full cigarettes and my wallet.
Somehow, I ended up on a train. After paying $26 for a round-trip ticket to New York (which left me with seven-dollars and a broken button), I found a mostly vacant upper-deck, sat against the window, and watched the many backyards and graffiti-slathered walls pass by. In my head, the thought arose that I was on my way to a literary success, that this voyage would promise me a life spent writing.
They say the second most-common reason why some writers don't write is because they think they will be published. This is true for me and, as the train and I rolled further along the rust-infused tracks beneath the gray and frosty sky, I held off for the entire trip of touching my notebook, sitting bored, my sleeves and neck tucked into my buttoned-coat. I know very well the effects of such dream-like thoughts polluting my writing. It is not that I write success-stories when my head is as so, for I don't. I continue to write my terrible stories that always are in some form a badly-written tragedy, except that thought of the happy-future sits paused, grinning, between my mental-living of the story.
Having trouble explaining this. Basically, the stories suck, even more so when that thought pervades me.
We switched trains in Newark, where, while waiting for the next train to come while standing alongside certain gangsters and various homeless people, I lit a cigarette. Turns out that Newark is an "indoor" station, though the tracks run directly outside and, despite the oval glass roof, I'd say my assumption of it being outside was reasonable.
In my eyes, yes. In the cop's eyes, no. The bastard swatted my hand and the cigarette exploded in my palm. I didn't see that it was a cop, though, for he was behind me, and assumed instead that it was some junkie. With the cherry still burning through the skin of my palm, I lunged my entire hand on the cop's face (Again, unaware that it was, indeed, a cop) and, with my all my right hand's fingers digging into his face, slammed his head against the wall.
Night-stick in the stomach.
Night-stick on the back of the head.
Two hours later, after reviewing the security tape, I was let go without any ticket or written-arrest. I suppose they decided that the way the cop addressed the situation was wrong, or perhaps that a harrassed white college student would be bad for the police reputation or some other racist thing like that. I contemplated making a terrific deal out of the situation except the reality was that I was smoking in a "no-smoking" area (If there aren't children around, then No-Smoking can fuck itself) and figured if I nagged I'd probably just sabotage myself.
I'd missed two trains to New York during my temporary imprisonment and it was another half-hour before the next train came.
I got on, looked at my marble notebook, and spent the next fifteen minutes writing the same poem over and over, in different formats.
It involved a matador, and his cape freshly wet with blood. I'd write it on here, except I don't know which of the twelve forms I'd write and, seeing as I don't plan to ever use this poem, I feel rude in choosing only one.
The moment I walked out of Penn Station and onto 32nd, I immediantly regretted coming. I felt nothing, and dashed back through the station and to the platform.
I watched as the train departed into the darkness. I thought it was the perfect moment to stretch my arm and whisper "come back," but I didn't. Seemed like a very cinematic moment, though.
I walked back to the streets with the thickly polluted air and neon-angels that contemplate suicide from above and lit a cigarette.
I have a pretty solid personal understanding of New York. When I was 16, in the summer of '06, I'd gone there with 100 dollars in my wallet, my skateboard strapped onto my packback that was filled with water bottles and gummy snacks, and a smile. At 16, I had just got sponsored and thought that I'd go to NYC and skate outrageously and become a pro.
I spent two weeks living without a roof, riding my skateboard all over and trying to have fun.
I didn't, and yet I still stuck it out for two weeks. It was actually because of that terrible, terrible two weeks that I really started writing. I'd written before that (First story written when I was four; Jack the Evil Rabbit), but had only been thinking about taking it seriously, not really doing so. One of the few things I'd bought was a notebook and pen during that two weeks, and, via journel, I really developed my true feelings towards New York City.
I hate it.
For some reason, I decided to try my best and find something poetic, or something interesting at least. I walked the two blocks down to the water front, next to the port-authority, and looked down the long, long stretch that I have riden many times before on a skateboard. If you stick around that seemingly endless, Chelsea Pier sponsored walkway, it can take you all the way to Brooklyn.
It would take us an hour on our skateboards.
It took two on my feet.
It was dark when I made it to Battery Park, and I couldn't make out whether the torch of the statue of liberty was lit or if fatigue was blurring my vision. My legs itched all over, and I believe that I endured fifty miniature strokes when I collapsed onto a bench.
It was freezing, and I knew it. My body was sweating tremendously from the walk, and my pea-coat felt like a torture device. Still, I kept it on for fear of obtaining some sort of sickness and breathed my own stale, stinking air for over a half hour.
I continued to feel nothing as I watched the dark waters rotate like a compass needle around Lady Liberty.
The courage of promiscuous people astound me. I'm guessing that as I sat on that bench thinking that I was about to die from over-use of my body, a man (Well, legally a man, though I'd say he was probably around 20 or 23, which is still a kid in my eyes) watched me from some corner and found that I was interesting or something. He came up to me with two of his friends, another male and a girl.
It took an entire .2 seconds for me to figure out that they were gay, and about another .2 to realize that the one was into me.
I partook in some mandatory greetings;
"Hey, what are you doing all alone?" They asked me.
"I'm not really sure what I'm doing," I said.
"Oh, that's cool."
The one oggled me severely, which I found pretty flattering. I'm not gay, so when a man thinks I'm attractive I think that's a pretty big compliment. No man wants to admit another man is attractive. Not because of some closeted-conspiracy, but that by doing so you are, theoretically, saying that man is better than you.
If you're not a male, you might not understand that. It doesn't make sense, but the alpha-male thing truly does exist. Everything is a one-sided competition, and an election.
Somehow, the one summoned his friends away and continued to talk to me while I tried, in vain, to supply my restless heart with nicotine.
Suddenly, he got real close to me, his mouth by my ear.
"You wanna hook up?" He whispered.
I answered quickly; "Sorry if I'm throwing the wrong signals, but I'm not gay."
He paused for a moment, his eyes survelliancing my body.
"I'll go down on you," he said, grinning. "No payback required."
Oral sex is sort of a distorted rarity for me. I don't like getting it via theory and, despite whenever the occasion arises, I generally just try and either have sex with the person, or tell them to stop and I go be lonely somewhere. I always feel like a bastard with girls because, despite the apparent "delicate flower" that is each girl, girls are just as interested in having a good time as guys. I don't believe that giving a guy oral sex offers anything other than awkward mouth gestures, and it really makes me feel terrible.
So here was this guy, a very thin, pansy man, offering me oral sex. I had just walked what seemed ten million miles, was tired and rather sour, and still unable to write.
I made a mistake.
"If you really don't expect anything back, sure," I said.
"Follow me."
I walked with this near-skipping man across the park. He didn't try and take my hand and I was pretty happy about that.
We walked into one of the men's rooms strewn throughout the park. It was empty, and we went into a stall.
I leaned against the back wall, and felt his one hand move to my belt, his other one onto my genitals.
My head came back into focus. A word exploded across all of my senses.
MISTAKE!
I stepped aside him, and yanked my belt from his hand.
"I made a mistake," I said, looking at my feet. "Sorry, man."
As I pushed the stall opened, I accidently glanced up and saw him, this young, glittery guy on his knees atop the bathroom tiles of a public restroom. He just stayed there, kneeling, a look of outrageous confusion across his face.
Not only do I now know that I feel just as crude trying to get oral sex from a guy as I do a girl, I felt even worse in the idea of knowing that this sort of sexual-behaviour happens all over. I know that some people are into it, and it's a lot of fun for some, but to think that there is even one person whom will later regret giving oral-sex while in a bathroom makes me absolutely miserable.
I dashed across the park, and across the street, and across many, many blocks until I was catching my breath in china-town, the many yellow signs with the caligraphy I don't understand hanging all around me.
I lit a cigarette and hailed a cab, which I was then told to put the cigarette out.
I took it to Penn Station and, when we arrived, I opened the door and threw my seven dollars through the cabbie window (The ride had costed 14) then proceeded to run like a madman down the escalator and into Penn Station.
A train to Point Pleasent was arriving in fifteen minutes. I found the platform and hid behind a pillar until it arrived.
I left, and sat silent and still on the ride home.
.....
Still can't write this poem.
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