If I thought you had no value
I’d let you fall apart.
Like trinkets in a storeroom
To once belonged a heart.
In worlds so unforgiving
where love’s a dying art,
it’s natural to be painted
like Van Gogh in the dark.
See candle light can guide you
but only goes so far,
don’t look beyond the shadows
for beatings of the heart.
For if you had no value
I’d let their theories win.
Like trinkets in a storeroom
Whose worth is found within.
Forty-nine and a half days.
Twenty pages a day—
give or take longer stretches
of concentrated time.
While daunting in it’s infancy,
like running a marathon,
the question here is why?
Wallace described it as a healthier alternative.
King describes it as something to do while uninspired.
I’ll combine the two and for now conclude
it has something to do with maturity and choice.
Now consider the marathon,
where focus is key.
Regulated breathing—essential.
Where urgency is relative.
Because in a marathon,
like most voluntary acts—
where signing up is reason alone for celebration—
no one but yourself cares when you finish.
Now how bout that for a strange commitment?
How bout that for a selfish investment?
Cut off from the world at large
in a room of isolation—
their pain’s not mine to heal.
With forty-nine and half days left.
Forty-nine and half days that,
we’ll live and make excuses for
the luxuries we choose.
I don’t know why we come here
and treat it like our home.
With books and tangled wires
keeping, private thoughts our own.
Do we come just to be served?
To feel like we’ve been missed?
We zone-out till our name is called
like spoiled little kids.
I don’t know why we come here
or why we stay so long.
With earbuds in we’re locked
away, to each his silent song.
Do we stay for the attention?
To feel like we’re a part?
Then judge our neighbor blindly
like, mockery’s an art.
I don’t know why we come here.
I feel most alone.
With books and tangled wires.
Was home this far from home?
Sitting alone in the banquet hall, I can’t help but think, I know this smell.
Antibacterial soap.
Citrus.
And old water that I used to wash away the evening laughter, spilled drinks, and half eaten hors d’oeurves.
From the kitchen comes the smell of New York.
The smell of Maine.
It’s the smell of unserved duck and bison left out for the wait staff to take home.
Here, at the LA Proper, it smells exactly like the Wythe Hotel, in it’s unforgettable daytime gloom.
Where as a porter I’d use a damp cloth to clean the sconces. Blue liquid to clean the high-tops. And a pink substance—no one knew the specifics of—to mop the weathered floors.
Where as a porter I learned to bite my tongue, leave my pride at the door, and accept the minimum wage for minimum effort.
Ah, what sights there are to see in Brooklyn, and be there no better way than to see them than for 600 dollars a night!
Ah, what local fare there is to taste off the butchers block in Maine—Rosemont Market— where I too learned that minimum effort guaranteed minimum results—pairing cheese with port. I sold ribeye no Mainer could afford.
Where as a deli clerk I trained under a butcher who dreamed of owning his own knife shop and who secretly loathed his private affairs.
What lies between the swinging of an open/closed door, but a thousand emotions, a thousand dreams, and a thousand questions—we choose not to solve.
Yet here, in the banquet hall, I’m sure I know this smell.
And it serves as a vast reminder—that time is fragile, and outlook is imperative.
To know exactly what I’m doing, and why I’m doing it.
To take the bad with the good, and know nothing is permanent.
He says his name is Brian.
That he’s been addicted to heroine and meth for 30 years
but woke up a year and 8 months ago,
decided to get clean,
and has been ever since.
He wants to know why he can’t get closer to our film set.
So I tell him it’s nothing personal, that it’s protocol.
He says he’s taking courses provided by
The California Department of Rehabilitation.
That he likes to edit video, how his instructor is very supportive
but he only likes to edit the things he shoots—
how some days he wakes up with extreme anxiety,
depression, and can’t get the idea out of his head
that he’s going to die.
He wants to know what PM stands for and why the woman in gray told him he couldn’t hang around the cameras.
I tell him that means Production Manager, and that she’s the production manager.
He maintains balance with his walker, and says he understands.
He says the hardest part wasn’t getting sober, but that after he did he realized that he really had no one.
No friends. No lover. No family.
I try to get a word in edgewise, but know it’s not my place.
He talks a while longer before wrap is called, then asks my name.
I tell him that it’s David.
That he should be proud of himself for the changes he’s made.
We shake hands and say goodbye.
For the next two hours I pick up other people’s garbage, wrap cable, and load a production truck full of equipment.
For the next two hours until now
I think of Brian, my life, and what we have in common.
Is it the night that’s hard to get through?
Or the day that’s just the same?
He says his name is Brian.
I hope he’s doing well.
Words Of An Average White Male 