"Talk bad about the...[D-town]...and I'll bust you in the fucking mouth"

There is no way to really return. There are carefully designed arrangements that provoke many of the same emotions of those long-ago nights in which we destroyed and rebuilt ourselves. There are intoxicants and a shared sense of music. There are genuine laughs that originate somewhere intangible and echo out amongst the ancient brick and rusting cars.

There is no collective of human beings I feel more comfortable with then my tribe in Detroit. No band of misfits I could possibly be prouder to fit in with. But of course things change, that was the nature of the beast to begin with: a dozen hard-headed kids in eternal flux. From our numbers we have produced beauty and truth, and we have embraced ugliness and pain. We have suffered violence and addiction and heart-break and watched sunrises with the dread that we may have to one day plan for things. And now we are all sort of on some brink . . .some of us allowing ourselves to get too old to resist, others diving in with the ambition to change everything by will alone. Some of us etching our turmoil and joy on the universe with abandon. All of us understanding, profoundly, that we have only this instant in which to connect with ourselves as we wish we were.

I don't bear any gifts on re-entry. The best thing that I can bring back to this junta is that I have somehow grown, and that I am willing to share the nature of my metamorphosis and enjoy the change in Them as if it were my own.

I love this city. If you've never really been there, there is no way you can agree. It is filthy, and dangerous, and at times ugly, and cold, and sparse and difficult. Weakness here, and not physical weakness but weakness of character, is stomped into the pavement. You live by bravado and cynicism, and the contradiction of compassion and callousness. People in Detroit don't give a shit about their 401(k) or their blood pressure or their credit card debt; because they've all seen the end in black and white and crack cocaine and crumbling brick and the panic inherent in gunfire and old black women pleading to you, some stranger, for their life. Where I live now is like an amusement park compared to my spiritual home. Here in Boise we pretend that everyone has a decent job and that God Blesses America and that our fellow-man will always play by the rules. The D is the jungle; and we're all warriors in our own way, and we know that every single second is lived on borrowed time, and we know that if something is worth obtaining in life, it is worth dying for.

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I have had so much genuine emotion in the last year that turned out to be based on some miscommunication or misunderstanding on my part. As though the Sanskrit you all speak carries hidden words and fluctuates in temperament. As though the flare guns you are all firing off are celebration instead of panic and stranded nights in ravines. Fuck words at this point. Either Create or Destroy or Express the inexpressible with your bare hands. All I want to do is write, or fight or fuck; because even misconstrued these things stand on their own.

I don't even recognize mistakes anymore. I over-correct for long-forgiven stumbling over words. I cherry-pick whatever detail titillates or devastates me. I assume the world to be either catastrophe or an idyllic morning after. And when we pour ourselves out we risk dispersion and evaporation, but most importantly we may be drank and absorbed.

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"I enjoy anything that undermines universality"

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Risk

Nothing is set in stone, nor moving unilaterally toward whatever mangled interrelationship I might be capable of. But I feel both comfortable and challenged . . .there was this sensation for just a moment last night . . .

My boss and close friend out here in the mountains has gradually come to the revelation that this thing we call American society is on the brink; and without a radical revision to the way we conduct virtually every aspect of our lives we will soon either adapt or die in a new world we've been ill-prepared for. And to watch him come to this conclusion, one that has lived in my ribcage for years now, is to watch the assumptions of a lifetime dissolve. What about my mortgage and my new house? What about this job that I have slaved away at for decades? What about these objects that I own, that enhance my life? What about democracy? What about the faith in mankind that I've held close to my heart since childhood? It is not that these things are completely cast to the ether, but the understanding that they are little more than illusory has sunk in.


I've held massive contradictions in my life, and still do. I don't mean overt hypocrisies or mis-matches between word and deed. But I've followed uncooperative trajectories, divergent career paths that make my spine creak; currently striving to be both warrior and poet; been the most reliable and capable and yet simultaneously the most drug-addled and rebellious; been the rowdiest introvert and the most reserved party-host; been richer than anyone I know while sleeping on the floor and letting wolf spiders crawl over me; been absolutely broke drinking champagne as though the entire city were my kingdom; retrieved my car from impound in the nick of time to ace university exams . . . the rewards of all of this that I now have an epic to look back upon, and the evidence required to believe that anything is possible.

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"Ask passion for mercy and ...[it'll]...throw you a rope"

I finally feel like the things I came out here to do are happening. I haven't found some throbbing soul beneath the fresh drywall and flourescent crucifix of Boise, but I have an invincible summer within me, you might say. I have time here. Virtually everything I've ever been good at is now at its apex. Constantly self-imposed challenges as though someone were watching over my shoulder. I whined a bit about my lack of comradarie, and found out it was only because I wasn't trying.

I've talked about this before, but I really think that there is one important binary opposition in life. Virtually every other duality that occurs in the daily procession of our life stems from this: FEAR or LOVE . See (acknowledging that I'm not perfect, and moving on) the scurrying mammal in us is conditioned to be afraid. To run from looming shadows as they eclipse us, to retreat to our holes and wait for the panic in the street that must be brimming with danger to die down and go home. We've all assembled our lives, because our history is based on this impulse, to assimilate. To monger in groups is to shed the probability that anguish or pain will touch us. So we buy into things; bunk movies, exploitive fashions, shit politics, ridiculous automobiles, recklessly hacking the real estate system as a lifestyle. Whatever token of participation we can purchase and then immediately retreat to put as much of it between us and everyone else as possible.

But love. An amorous appreciation that we are all really doing this, or really could. That we're all after the same thing and there's simply varying degrees of confusion. And then your folly seems so reasonable, and the collective dream so simple. So hard to believe that we've miturated upon it by systemically deeming whole swaths of people as less valuable than us. Or that we're willing to mechanize our greed into tactical airstrikes to insure that all the above stays put; or better yet continues to swell cancerous.

And the finer detail is that, personally, the attitude of love adds color and optimism and pleasure to virtually everything. As though approaching every choice with the question of which option is from love, and which from fear, automates the most difficult decisions.

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"You may be interested in MFA programs, ours included"

My workshop today went very well. If you have ever had workshop for any creative field, you will know that the process focuses on what aspects need work and thus most comments are focused on 'negatives'. That said, this workshop was interesting because no one unanimously agreed on something that didn't work. Some major gripes by one student were pointed out as strong (if unconventional) writing by another.

The professor, de facto the most important opinion in the class, had a lot of positive comments. After class we talked and he essentially told me that this is what I should be doing if I have the desire and that he would have likely accepted me into their MFA program had he received this story in an application. He also commented that I have a strong chance of getting into good programs around the country.


In his letter (these come with all of his responses, like a grade you might say): "Lastly, I want you to know how much I admired this story."

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"When did mediocrity and banality become a good image for your children?"

There is no home, only places where you've found love. There is no anxiety aside from the paralyzing suspicion that every action is lost in the sheer mathematics of our situation here. There is no end and beginning, time is an illusion crafted by a narrow experience. There are no rules, only primal reactions to uncertainty and fear. There are no exits or capitulation, there is only survival and decision.

My brother and I went out into the mountains this weekend to see if we could bang our bodies against rocks enough to chip off weakness. Twenty miles plus a mile vertical over ankle-breaking rocks, unforgiving rivers, and the previous night's insomnia in just under six hours. No record by any means, but I've got a scar and perhaps a lifelong ache from it.


Thanks for feedback on the story I posted so far; criticism of every sort is helpful. This last month or two has been very productive overall, and I feel like I'm building enough raw material to do something with. I'm getting it workshopped today and will put a little note here as to how it went.

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