'How is your living?'

Complicated. Complicating. Complication.

I can't keep the up down and the down up long enough to tell between the two. I can't keep this date stuck, this schedule clear, this pace up long enough to outlast myself. And I'm not outlasting anything else.

Falling, falling, dropping behind. Slipping back and down and under the rug where the dirt from daily life gets swept away. But, keep this up. Keep your head above the water line, keep your feet above the sinking line, keep your arms above the dropping line. It'll hold and this cliff'll settle and we'll see the light and I'll feel the sun -- one of these days.

But for now I'm on the edge, on the ledge, on the end.
And I don't know that I'm going to be there much longer.

No, but root it out, get it up, shout it down. You've got to light it up, put it down, drown it out. It's just the venom from the poison in your arm thats feeding the veins to your heart. But the core artery, the main line, the central rail is still good.

You can salvage this.
You can keep it. You can learn it.
You can save this.

Or, maybe you'll lose like you knew your would. And, this will save you.

So keep up, keep quiet, keep the late bite down.
Swallow it. Hold it in.
Just. One. More. Time.

Fuck. It still won't wash over you, won't come down for you, can't calm down. There's always a hurricane in your head, a tornado in your dreams, a stadium being torn to pieces with the people still inside. Another nightmare just waiting on the edges of your mind.

And you always fall asleep.

No, but don't let it go, don't let it slip, don't let it fall. Hold the pot up on your head, up on the rack, up in the air. The water will flow through and flow down and stain the rest of your head soon. And the air will come and the wind will blow and you'll feel alive again. Just wait. Warm your fingertips and blood'll always come back.

You'll see.

One more time, one more schedule, one more appointment to make with someone that you didn't call. But time is always moving, always going nowhere. Round and round in the circle we go. When we get there, we'll never get there - and we'll never know it.
One more time around and the edges fade a little bit more and the picture slides away a little bit farther, and the line that divides us spreads the chest apart.

Soon, we'll be bleeding and beating and floundering on the ground.
That's when we're alive.
That's when we'll see.
That's when we'll rescue this.

Hold it, hold on, hold out, hold up. I'll catch up. I can catch up.
I can make it, keep it, craft it, win it.

You'll see.

It's been a while

So, I'm reading this book by this author named Goodloe Byron. The book is called 'Revisions Of'. And, it is, thus far, fantastic.

But, before you attempt to go to your local bookstore or your nearest corporate bookstore to find this little gem, tuck it under your arm, pay a nominal fee, and leave to indulge in similar enjoyment - hold your horses.

You will not find this book in a bookstore, currently. I am willing to wager that you never will. I happened upon it in the former Half & Half, an amazing coffeeshop that supported independent and small press publishing. It was there, on their counter strewn with many other zines and self-made comics that this book sat. A tall stack of them, true bound, full color covers. I was certain it was a mistake. Someone must have just come from the bookstore across the street and left their purchases. But no, these are all the same book.

I couldn't help myself. My guilty little fingers were all over it, cracking the spine and reading: 'The following passage he read aloud:'

I read it aloud. You should too.

'No matter how we dress our civilization, in terms of breathing and dying man will always be Natural, a creature. Even in a Total Civilization, the effort to move this status into our realm of understanding would merely be painting the horizon over the immobile stone. We are its subjects and not the other way around. If we intend to subvert something immobile, just when we conceive of this as a possible thing, we have already reorientated ourselves to it. From everything, we look away in horror and hold the pose. It is the muscular strains of this contortion that define the personification of the institutional response, be it science, politics, government, culture or what have you.'

I was hooked, and I read. But then, the pang of guilt returned. Was I reading someone else's book? Clearly, I was. This had been written by Goodloe, not myself. Ah, but was it someone else's property I was holding, coveting, devouring?

I turned to my husband and I found him reading another copy just as guiltily.

As I was about to tsk my tongue at him, my eyes fell on the back cover of the book. I hadn't taken it in much, being the type to always avoid back cover spoilers that publishers and marketers insist on splaying across books. I own at least one book that if one were to read the back cover, one should then set the book down, walk away, and not even consider wasting her time in reading it. That's how bad these back covers can be.

But this one was a strange surprise. I found in the bottom right corner, the following remark: '$0.00 FREE (not for sale)'

I'm sorry? I read it again.
'$0.00 FREE (not for sale)'

Clearly, the three different ways of stating that I owed nothing to Goodloe Byron or Brown Paper Publishing were for my personal edification. It was incredibly hard to comprehend. I reopened the cover. This time, I did not breeze past the first several pages to find the first chapter heading, as most - if not all readers do, and yet I condemn them off, constantly.

To my delight, I found page to speaking directly to me:
'Introduction to the Zero Dollars Tour (For the Confused)'

Fantastic.

The next 6 pages go on with different person's explications of just what Byron was doing leaving a stack of his books in my favorite little downtown coffeeshop.
And, after 6 pages, I came to learn that he was simply giving them away.

Fantastic.

Suddenly, my eyes were opened to a world of possibilities, a world of notions and ideas. A world with me, a full messenger bag slung over my shoulder, traveling the world to coffeeshops and tea houses and cafes and bakeries, planting free art for the taking.

I may never be able to do that, may never have the time or money that Byron must have in order to accomplish such a task, but I love the notion. Art shared, art given, art handed out - for free.

I love it. That is all.