Artful Lies

I’ve been sad lately. That’s a new one for me.

Now I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking “Luke, my god! Have you read your stories or listened to yourself over the last couple years?”. There’s a good possibility you’re also thinking “Oh, the person who pretends to be sad for the sake of being that guy is still supposedly sad?”. Now, if you’re the first then that’s fairly understandable but what you should know is there’s a difference between depressive episodes and sadness. The former is like being in a dark cave and wondering why you’re being swallowed by hateful things, while the second is just your garden-variety human emotion. I get lost in bad places all the time, but I’m rarely sad. Sadness is a lingering ache, it stays, and it clings to your heart with a grip born of caring and love.

Side Note: If you’re person two, the one who thinks I’m a product of my own creation, drop dead. I’m serious. I hope you get run over by a fat child on a powerwheel and dragged along a gravel road for 140 miles.

Anyway. Where was I? Right. Sadness.

This is new. I’m angry at times, irritated almost always, sometimes happy, and often depressed for weeks on end (thankfully never months), but I’m not sad. Or I’m not ‘usually’ sad, anyway. But 2019 has been full of new things so I suppose it makes sense that some of those new things wouldn’t be good. See, I’m going through a lot. I can’t tell you what those things are because, even though I’m an open man and this place is a world for me to scream from the top of a very small mountain, some things can’t be said. Sometimes the things you want to talk about can’t be talked about in front of the people those things are about and so, if you’re like me, you wind up having to be obtuse and calculating when you’d rather just blurt the whole thing out in an avalanche of painful and terrible emotions that have been clogging up your arteries like a fucking hotdog of sadness.

See? Like that.

So I’ve been sad and the one thing they always say in the “Comprehensive Artist’s Manual” is that art is therapy. You know what, though? It’s not. That’s a lie. Now is it a lie for all you creative types? Of course not. Maybe you got a different edition of the manual with more helpful tips on the topic of how to clean out your emotional drains like you’re pumping Drano through an IV. All I know is, my manual sucks because writing about those sad things never helps me feel better. The funny thing is, it doesn’t even come close. By the end of the creative process, I’m left looking at this new sweet child of mine and wondering why, for all the honesty it represents, I find no answers in the words or the spaces between them.

There’s just a poem or a story spread out before me that wasn’t there a few hours ago. And the person who wrote it? Well. It turns out the ache doesn’t go away and sometimes writing it all down just makes it worse.

I’ve thought a lot about this. Over the last couple months I’ve sat back and wondered if maybe I shouldn’t write about these sad things I’m going through. What is the point, after all? If it doesn’t change the situation and it doesn’t change the struggle, then what the hell am I doing? Maybe it would be better to pour every bit of resentment and crippling loss into a funny story where all new terrible things happen to terrible people. Maybe I should finish the book I’ve been writing for months. And yet here we are, hanging out in the midst of a creative resurgence that has wobbled over on the back of an unstable giraffe with arthritis and a drinking problem. I’m writing about the things that are making me sad and to be honest, I still don’t know why.

Forgive the rambling nature of this blog post. If you somehow haven’t figured it out already, this is how I try to make sense of things and it seems more real and valid as a coping mechanism if it’s somewhere open and free. My mind is a lot of things, but it’s not that.

See, every time I write something that is about or inspired by that which is slowly eating me alive like a very small cannibal, I understand it a little bit better. The pain doesn’t go away. The sadness doesn’t fade. But I understand it more. Now from an objective angle, that’s pretty nice. At least I’m not lying about on a fainting couch wondering about the finer points of what’s suffocating me beneath a particularly ugly pillow. Each time I write a story or a poem, I see a little more clearly the truth of the world around me. I don’t know why my expectation had always been that such clarity would help. It doesn’t. Just as it doesn’t make you feel better if you see clearly the face of the man who’s beating you to death with a hammer, nor does it bolster you to understand the worst parts of your life and why they hurt so much.

Instead, you’re left to just sit there and think: “Huh. It really is that shitty, isn’t it?”

The manual I was given (on audio book when cassettes were a thing and my imagination was better) said that art would set me free. I could write about the sad things and the sad things would go away. Well I’m here to tell you that they don’t and whoever wrote that book is an idiot. They’re still there and they probably always will be, because the drive to create cathartic art driven by the sad things is a reflection of where you’re at in that moment. It’s a snapshot. You don’t get to magically change. You don’t pass Go and collect $200. You’re still in the same place, in the same time, and the man you were is the man you are: Just as sad but with some spiffy art to show for it.

The lie is that art will fix things. It won’t. At least not for me. Everything I do is a piece of who I am and I’m just not at all used to seeing sadness in the worlds I write. Anger? Sure. Existential dread? Absolutely. Quirk and whimsy and fear? Of course. But not sadness. Sadness is new and it’s a side of myself I don’t often see. It hurts, I think. It hurts a little more every day.

And so I write. I thought about burning (literally) every poem and story that is coming out of this pain. I thought about not writing it at all. But I suppose in reading this blog post, you can see that I decided against all things of that nature. Because you see, there is no upside in this. There is no winning hand. I won’t come out on the other side of it as a better person or a stronger one and I won’t have some filter of clarity that I never had before. I’ll still be me and the things that are weighing so heavy I think my back might break? Well. They’ll still be there. I can no more outrun them than I can outrun my own shadow or the darkness of the night.

So at the very least, I might as well leave a little piece of them behind. An artful lie in a breadcrumb left to be eaten by a bird or ignored altogether. At least it will be there. At least, after all this, there will be something to show for things I’ve felt. That matters, right? Probably not. But after all this, it helps to think that it might.

Book Burner

There was once a broken scripted story in the glue stuck scraps of life

The eternal voice of silent fears that housed that hollow home of mine in darkness tinted light .

I tried to tell you all those things in the void of written words that seared

With all the tragic truths untold that for all the love I’ve felt in life, I’ve never quite belonged here.

Still you tore the pages from my books and ripped apart their spines

And spoke not with words but lighter fluid and sparked all that once was mine.

Your hands were burnt bleak ashen black and your face was full of flame

And you stood tall before the forest’s fall until I no longer knew our names.

They fell like leaves in finite breeze and swept away each life I’d seen

That were once the greatest friends I’d had, and lives I’d loved, and who I’d meant to be.

But you pulled down each and every false hope world I’d built with broken hands

In the hope that you’d still live with me in a foolish dream where I’d complete the unwritten man.

But all good things are going now and with your flint, print tinder burned

Into the nothing life we never built for the last lost lessons we learned.

Because you saw those bitter truths I hid in the smoking dust of flame burnt page

That man I was has never been and the fading fleeting finite space was the place you couldn’t stay.

Ghost Story

How was I ever supposed to say the things I thought you knew,

In those times when it was so hard to whisper impossible shades of sunset blue?

What was I ever supposed to do when those truths were mine to say?

Those fateful things I meant to mean so much, only to watch them fade away.

I told myself the honest lies that I could be a timeless friend,

I’d stand in the tide that rose so high for the sake of that loveless end.

The man I want to be could be the flickering flame you knew,

And I thought I might be strong enough to burn a smoking wick for you.

But I don’t think I am.

I wish I was the man I was in all the dreams I’ve had,

That ended when I woke so lost in the world I didn’t choose, instead.

But that’s not how the heartbreak works that fills a life with smoke,

It snuffs all things with factory smog and hangs high a noose on which to choke.

Maybe that’s too bitter and honestly? I’m probably just a fool,

I know the simple sounding complex things I say and how they’ll sound to you.

Because you’ll never fully grasp the weight these desperate words could hold,

And I’m trying to cross a dead end bridge with empty hands to pay the toll.

It’s a tragic thing to know the truth, that I know how this story ends,

I’ve read the pages all my life and never cheated in reading ahead.

But maybe then it would’ve been different, maybe I could change what’s etched in stone,

But that is just a child’s hope, a fool’s false gold, that lives where I cannot go.

There’s a poster in the theater now, but it’s not for us to share,

The seat I’ll save remains empty for the ghost I wish was there.

But she’s doomed to be a memory and even I know that must be true,

A memory of all that never was, was never mine, and the ghost that wasn’t you.

Author Q&A

Over the weekend, I reached out to the folks who’ve been reading my work as I’ve grown as an author over the last decade of my life. While that passage of time is troubling (and I mean deeply, deeply, troubling), I thought it might be a good time to welcome in newer readers with a nice little questions and answers get together. Last month we hit an all-time high in terms of website visits, after all. So I reached out and every one of those people who’ve been so good about supporting my stupid dream came through in a big way and so, without further rambling (there’ll be more than enough of that in the words that follow), I bring you: The Q&A!

Have you always been such a pessimist?

Starting out with a banger, I see! In all honesty no. Granted, I don’t think I’m a pessimist now (more like a melancholic realist, and if that wasn’t a thing then it certainly is now), but over the years I’ve definitely settled into a nice groove of melancholy that probably looks like pessimism to the untrained eye. Now one might ask how you train such an eye to recognize such wistfully sad character traits and the truth is that you just have to be wistfully sad all of the time. For this reason among many others, it’s yet to be taught as an elective at most major universities. I suppose the easiest way to sum up my answer in as brief a way as possible (which I’ve already undercut by talking for this long) is to say that I spend a great deal of my time in worlds that aren’t my own. And when you leave for so long, the world you have to come back to isn’t always as good, or as kind, or as hopeful, as the one that you left. As such, that sometimes heavy weight that rests somewhere between the head and the heart is often quite easy to see.

While you have an identifiable style and tendency towards certain topics, you run the gamut from romantic ghost stories to off beat “I’m a terrible person” humor. What is your favorite type to actually write?

This is actually a harder thing to answer than you might think. There’s no denying that my genre tendencies and the tones they rest in do tend to swing about as wildly as a tree wielded by an exceptionally strong baby, of course, but picking a favorite is truly difficult. There’s no denying that I adore my terrible comedy stories, from the one about parents trying to euthanize their child to the latest about an aging Air Bud trying to cope with CTE in the aftermath of all the balls to the face, but those are tales of random mood swings. I have to be in the right headspace to write them, otherwise I’ll be staring at a mostly blank screen after hours of typing and deleting and you can imagine how stressful that would be. So I think in the end, I’ll say that my favorite to write are my wistful stories. Those are the ones that are most commonly me, that exist deep inside places I routinely go, so I feel at home there. And at the end of the day, I think we all like going home.

If you had to live the rest of your life out as an Average Joe in a work of Fiction/Fictional World, where would you be living?

You wouldn’t believe how long I’ve been thinking about this question. I thought about a lot of stories and their unlikely homes but one by one, I seemed to strike them down. The Shire? Gorgeous, but kind of boring. Like Idaho but with short people (also known as: Idaho). Any epic fantasy ever? Too much tyranny and pretty shitty healthcare. Mein Kampf? What a downer. So in the end I think I’d choose something simple: I’d pick Christopher Moore’s version of San Franciso. Not only is it a hotbed for the paranormal (from monsters to vampire cats to wacky goth girls), it’s also someplace I’ve always wanted to visit. It’s a place of heightened absurdity where the world is almost normal but not quite. And in that ‘not quite’, you can meet an unending list of people both undead and totally alive that would bring you the type of joy the old “day to day” might be missing.

Do characters ever linger in my mind after their story is over?

Short answer: Absolutely. Long answer: It varies in terms of how long their story was, as that dictates how deep the imprint will tend to be, but there’s always a sadness that they’re gone. When I finished my trilogy, I actually wrote a blog post that ended with these words: “I miss my friends.” I think, no matter how many stories I write and how many characters come and go, that will always be the case.

Have you ever been surprised by where a story has ended?

Yes, but it’s a slow and creeping surprise. It’s something that reaches out and grabs you even though you kind of knew something was going to happen, like a telegraphed jumpscare in a horror movie, so it’s not pure surprise but there are definitely those elements to it. The best way to explain it is that, if I’m in a good creative groove, I’m experiencing the story almost as much as the reader soon will. I outline only vaguely, so I’m often swept along and writing characters as they say their words, as if I’m in the room and scribbling like a madman as I watch them go. As such, I often get lost there and I’m not embarrassed to admit that I've shed a tear from time to time as things happen to the people I’ve grown to care so much about. Surprised through and through? Maybe not. But caught off guard because I was so caught up in the goings-on of a world that isn’t real? Absolutely.

Does it ever take time to get out of a certain story or let go of certain characters?

This is actually something that I experienced for the very first time earlier this summer. For the past 6 years, I’ve been writing and perfecting my trilogy and the characters who live there and this year I embarked on my first novel that didn’t include those people who’d become such staples in my every day life and all my waking moments. To be honest, it was terrifying. Having to sit down at a computer and write about someone who wasn’t your reliably unreliable narrator and the chaotic friends who surrounded him left me feeling cold and empty and afraid. I wondered for long stretches of time whether or not I’d ever capture a new voice or if all I’d ever be was one story that lasted three books. That sounds dour, but don’t worry- There’s a happy ending. I just finished Chapter 14 of my new novel (the first draft should wrap up somewhere in November) and I’m moving right along. That’s not to say it was easy as I stopped and started over and over again until the voice sounded right and different and new, but it was doable. As with all things worth doing, it just took effort.

Do you ever feel remorseful for what happens to some of your characters?

Generally, no. But there are one or two exceptions. Without giving anything away (though those of you who were the test readers will know who I’m talking about), there was a character in my trilogy that I basically put through the gauntlet of all gauntlets. To say that it was a heavy and tragic arc is really downplaying the rage and vengeance that underscored everything about the character in question. Every now and then I find myself thinking about him and I really do hope he was happy in the end. I hope he found a way to be more than a collection of terrible things and a life gone horribly wrong. But I’m not sure. In the end, I don’t think he was either.

Do you have a preference (when it comes to writing) of digital or paper? And if you answer paper, do you realize that you are directly contributing to the death of the Earth?

I feel how probably every White House Press Secretary has felt in the history of ever: Blindsided by weighted questions! That being said, I like to do vague outlining with pen and paper (usually just dialogue, so all of my outlines tend to look like little more than scripts) and everything else is typed on my ancient Netbook that was worth about $200 when it was purchased and is probably in the -120’s now. As for the boobytrap followup, believe it or not that is something I’ve thought about from time to time and somewhere in my apartment there is a notebook that has the following thought scribbled within its pages: “I truly don’t think there will ever be anything written on any page that justifies the destruction of the world around us.”

That was just a thought, of course. But as with all thoughts, it endures.

What is it about writing that has made you stick with it? Most people throw away their hopes and dreams by the time they get their first steady job.

This is actually the easiest question I’ve had so far. Basically, I can’t give it up because it’s the only thing I’ve ever loved to do. And I don’t mean that flippantly or leaden with self-important gravitas, either. In all my life, I’ve looked for things that bring me lasting happiness or some semblance of belonging in a place I’m not sure I’m meant to stay. Writing has brought me as close to that goal as I’ve ever managed and far closer than any other person, pursuit, or pastime. It’s my one true love and that’s the kind of thing that you’re not meant to let go of, no matter what.

How does music factor into your writing?

Music has become vital to my creative process. It used to be that I needed silence both complete and suffocating, but over the last book and a half I’ve come to lean heavily on very specific tunes that for some reason put me in the right mindset. It’s not as easy as “sad songs for sad scenes” either. For whatever reason, I’ll find an album that listening to will send me right into the story I’ve been telling. It doesn’t matter if its cheerful composition is in direct conflict with the melancholy (or vice versa), it just fits. Something in my head and the story that’s there knows what I’m supposed to listen to and how it will make the music flow. For example, over the last two novels I’ve written (the finale of the trilogy and this latest work) I’ve listened almost exclusively to two albums. Every time I’d write so much as a word of the final book, I’d plug in the tunes of Icelandic hard rock. Now? With this newest tale, I drink cold brew coffee and bob my head to the punchy pop of Alice Merton. And when the album ends, I hit play and start the whole thing over again.

I think that might sound crazy to some people, but it works. For me, it’s the soundtrack to the movie that’s playing in my head.

What piece of fiction has had the largest positive influence on you and your writing style?

I’m going to cheat on this one and pick three, if that’s alright with you. Oh, what? I’m typing all this out myself so you can’t object at all? Even better! The first work to ever get me to sit down and write was “Eragon” by Christopher Paolini. A strange choice, given my tonal proclivities, but as I was a teenager at the time it was easy to look at a fellow teenager and think “By god! If he can do it, so can I! It’ll be easy!” Spoiler alert: It wasn’t and I was an idiot to think it would be, and while my fondness and appreciation for that book has waned, the kick in the butt it gave me has not. The second book? “A Dirty Job” by the aforementioned Christopher Moore. That was the first thing I ever read that had me laughing out loud like a crazy person and the one that inspired me to try my hand at funny things. And lastly, the third book would be “Neverwhere” by Neil Gaiman, my favorite author. That was the book I read that first made me think that it was alright to tell strange stories about impossible things because the oddities matter too. And as an oddity, that made me smile.

What is the most dangerous thing -the greatest threat- to you, as a writer?

Giving in to that quiet and insistent voice that says my words don’t matter. The one that says people don’t care about the stories I tell. The one that says I’m writing silly things that will soon vanish in the endless space of time. The one that says “Put the pen down. It will all be so much easier if you do.” I struggle with that voice a lot and I’ve struggled even more now that my five year plan is seven years past due. And while I live under an eternal cloud of worry that one day I’ll stop when the voice grows too loud, I haven’t yet and I hope I never will.

What drives you as a writer?

The desire to find the place I truly belong.

Do you use people you know as characters in your stories?

Nope. I never have and I don’t think I ever will. While certain aspects of people I’ve known will sometimes creep in, I don’t think I’ve ever disliked anyone enough to put them through the stories I have to tell.

How do you find the right tone for your stories?

To be honest, I don’t really know. I’ve been writing long enough by now that it’s just kind of there. My writing life now consists of little more than sitting down at a table, opening my little jitterbug of a computer, and hoping that tone and that positive voice is still there. Usually it is, sometimes it isn’t, but it always comes back.

What do you think makes someone a writer as opposed to a hobbyist?

Intent, motivation, and drive. Nothing bothers me and spurs the flash of annoyance more than hearing someone sum up what I do as a “hobby”. That’s not to say there’s anything wrong with hobbies or writing as a hobby, of course, because both those things can be tremendously positive, but what true writers do is something altogether different. They aren’t writing in the downtime because its a fun little diversion to grab hold of. They’re creating because they need to create, because they want to finish a story and know how it ends, and because they want to tell a story they don’t think anyone else can. You can write as a hobby and I encourage everyone to do so as it can be incredibly good for your mental health, but I don’t believe you can be a writer if you treat it as one. Pursuits take dedication. Writing, as with all things worth doing, is hard work and often means striking keys when you just want to go to sleep. A hobbyist will go to bed and write again next week sometime. A writer will keep going because the story will always matter more.

What’s your advice for aspiring authors?

Keep writing. I’m serious. And no matter what, learn to finish what you start. In the early days you’ll find that it’s easy to get caught up in other projects and the promises they pitch, but there’s nothing more important than crossing your first finish line. It’ll set you up for a future where you don’t worry about being able to finish the tale, because you know you’ve already done it before. Train your mind to finish the first draft and accept that writing isn’t easy, not every word is going to be perfect, but that’s okay and if you wait for either of those facts to change, you’ll never finish a thing.

How might you describe your style of storytelling?

I think, if I had to put words to it, I’d say “Wistfully heavy”. My mother has joked in the past that I should try writing happy things and it’s a joke that I love because it makes us smile, but happy stories aren’t really for me. I’m a wistful person and to be honest, I’m often quite sad. Those things bleed into my stories in the form of characters and worlds and impossible things that are all a little bit wistful, too.

Do you shave your head so your bright ideas can shine through?

I hadn’t ever thought of this before, but I like it and I’m stealing it! Who would’ve thought that male-pattern baldness could come in so handy?

Some authors have a specific drink they are known for. What might yours be?

Honestly, I don’t drink nearly as much as I used to and haven’t had a drop of alcohol since June. But for the sake of this question and the fact that I’ll inevitably drink again, I’ll never pass up a tumbler of scotch or fine tequila. For the time being, though? A simple cup of cold brew coffee is just about perfect for me and in certain circles (that exist solely in my head), it’s known as “The Luke Ganje”.

Which of your stories do you like the most and why?

About a year and a half ago, I wrote a story called “Everything is Glass” that tells of a young man and his impossible conversation with a tiger in a zoo. To date, I believe it might be one of the most personal things I’ve ever written (to the point that it was at times difficult for me to edit due to emotional responses). There’s a great deal of me there and I don’t mean in the characters, as that’s not how I work. I’m in the words and the periods and commas, and the situation too, and I know I’m somewhere trapped in that empty hall. And no matter what day it is or how happy or sad I happen to be, I think about that story and I really have no idea which side of the pane of glass I’m on.

That would be my favorite. I think it always will be.

You have a website?

I do! It’s called Keyword Novelist, although I think you all probably know that by now. And while there is a certain masturbatory aspect to the whole affair considering I’ve never had a lick of anything published, I like to think that it’s not half bad. At the very least, you can pop by and see a social experiment of failure broadcast for the whole world to see. At best? You can poke around and maybe read a story that speaks to you in ways that other things can’t. I like to think it’ll be the latter, but then again you’ll never know until you try.

Thanks for all the questions and taking the time to read this Q&A! If you think you might know someone who’ll like the stories I tell, by all means share this site with them and feel free to share my website across your various social media platforms. It’ll do a world of good and nothing kicks the creative process into high gear more effectively than knowing that there are people out there who care that you’re doing what you’re doing.

It helps. I may not say it all the time, but it really does.

All the best,

Keyword Novelist

You Would Think

I found out today that, in all likelihood, our Ganje family dog doesn’t have much time left.

It bears mentioning that he’s 14 now and that’s quite the old age for a pitbull. It also bears mentioning that he’s had quite the wonderful life. My parents brought him home when we kids were mostly on the way out and he’s been the family staple ever since, barking at intruders that weren’t there and sometimes those that were. With a face now white with age and ears that don’t really work anymore, Zeke is every bit the old man and you’d think I would’ve realized by now that good things don’t last forever but I haven’t. There was a part of me that always thought he’d be there. Whenever I went home, I’d see that old face and wagging tail and everything would be as it was when I was 20 and dropping by the house to say hello.

You would think, after all this time writing about the mortal nature of things and watching mayflies fly in the summer sunlight, I’d be able to prepare myself for that slow creep of eternity that comes eventually for us all. That it wouldn’t pain me to see a best friend go. That I’d nod in appreciation and remembrance of a life well lived. That I wouldn’t cry at the thought of a playful ball of fur no longer being around. You would think, and so would I, but you’d be wrong and I would too. No matter how long I live and how long this whole journey goes on, a part of me hopes I’m always wrong because I don’t want to watch my best friends go and feel anything other than the wistful sadness that they stay for a little while longer.

I don’t ever want to see a story end and be glad to watch it go.

A handful of days ago was the ninth anniversary of my childhood dog passing away. I wouldn’t have remembered that on my own but Facebook sure made certain that I wouldn’t forget it. He was a chubby little Australian Terrier and probably the best friend I will ever have. He never barked at me. He never bit me. He slept with me when I was sick and sat on my lap while I wrote the first hundred pages of the first book I’d ever attempt to write. No matter how bad things got in the worst parts of my head, he was always there and I made a promise to him that I’d be with him until the end. And I was. When we had to take him to the vet to say goodbye, I sat with him through the entire process so that he wouldn’t have to go out of this world alone. It seemed fitting, really. On my worst days, he would never have dreamt of leaving me to fend for myself.

So I sat there with my best friend and I said I was sorry as I watched him go.

I wish I didn’t remember that day so clearly. I wish it was relegated to that portion of my memory that is always so fleeting and fading. But I do and it isn’t. I remember how he wagged his tail when we got there and I remember what it was like when he didn’t anymore. That’s fair, isn’t it? That’s the burden of being the one that lingers. What a pitiful world I’d live in if I didn’t have the heart to miss the friend that isn’t here. That pain is supposed to be felt and remembered until you don’t remember anything anymore. It’s how you say farewell and go on about your life while the tiniest sliver is left behind in that moment. You’ll never get it back and you’re not supposed to. That sliver is for him. It’s for the animal that sat on your lap during the best and worst of times and never asked for anything in return.

It’s for the friend who used to be and what more fitting price could there be?

Nine years later, we are at the same bend in the road. I’m still here and the mortal things fade. In a matter of days the mayflies will die and I’ll be left on my own as I wait an entire year to see them again. I’ll have to say goodbye to another loyal friend who probably doesn’t have it in him to carry on much longer. And here I’ll be with my friends and family, the few but wonderful that I have, and I’ll think the terribly sad things that will always underscore exactly who I am. I’ll always forget the emotions of the good times, the good things always fading fast into the same eternity, and I’ll always remain with the strongest emotions that built what I am today. These stories aren’t crafted on the back of someone who laughs at the darkness in life and carries on boldly forward, they’re the tales of someone trying to figure out what to do while he watches his best friends go on without him.

You would think I’d be used to all this.

You would think it wouldn’t always hit as hard.

You would think I wouldn’t experience the loss of a pet like that of the dearest companion, but you’d be wrong.

Because when they leave, I’m left to wonder how I’ll possibly keep going when the others leave me too.

Grow and Edit

This isn’t going to be about the kind of stuff you think it will. Or maybe it will. In that case, congratulations. You know me better than I know myself and you win a pair of socks.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about life, death, and all the things that make life so wondrous but also so terribly hard. Now it could be somewhat accurately said that this isn’t anything new and I tend to do this quite a lot, I wouldn’t be the one to attempt to deny that as I think you’re supposed to use lawyers for that kind of thing, but that’s about where we stand on the general day-to-day. To put it lightly, it’s not always particularly easy living in my head. I hope there’s no one else up there because I tell you what, it’d be like buying a new home and then realizing there’s a giant hole in the roof and suddenly it’s hailing. It’d be like buying a car and realizing on the way home there there’s no frame, that you’re rolling home sideways in what is essentially a giant aluminum ball.

It would be sitting alone almost every night of the week and wondering if you missed an exit sign so clearly marked that everyone saw it but you.

I don’t pretend to be ordinary and I really don’t try to be out of said ordinary. This isn’t high school and I’m not attempting to join a club occupied only by me. According to the Squarespace stats, almost no one reads these things so it’s gone on to take the form of a rather therapeutic friend that I can just talk at and he’ll never think poorly of me. Is he responsive? No. This friend appears to be in a bit of a vegetative state. But I’m sure he was loved by his family before getting plugged into the wall for the rest of his life. Rest easy, big guy. Go to sleep and listen to all the problems the whispers in my head swear exist. Judging by the amount of time I get lost in places I don’t recognize, there seem to be plenty.

Over the past couple years I’ve had to come to terms with the fact that I don’t process things the same way everyone else does. A lot of times I do and sometimes I’m able to sit back and smile and breathe a little easier because thank god. I’m not insane. But other times, times when I’ve stood in the middle of my apartment at two in the morning for almost thirty minutes because I thought I heard something breathing, times when I was almost late for work because I was staring so long at my reflection and was certain it wasn’t the same person staring back, times when I broke apart my bed with a baseball bat and slept on a recliner for almost six months because that wasn’t my bed anymore. .. It’s hard to look at yourself the same way after that. And what’s funny is, in the moment, in each and every one of those instances that seemed to last forever, it never once occurred to me that what I was doing wasn’t normal. I never once thought “Geez, Luke. Know what sounds nice? Not doing this really weird thing.”

It just didn’t occur to me until about a year ago when I looked back and wondered what exactly I was on about. To be honest, I still don’t know. I have no idea why the sound of the night scared me so bad that I was hyperventilating, or why I didn’t recognize myself in the mirror. I didn’t know why I heard someone knocking on my window in the middle of the night even though I live on the second floor of a fairly sizable complex. I just knew that those things were happening and I didn’t know why. Now, freshly turned 30 and still just as lonely as all years prior to this one, I wonder if I just wanted company. Even if it was the delusions that ran rampant in the quiet of my head, maybe I just wanted something going on up there so I wasn’t watching days pass by to the sound of white noise. Or maybe I’m a neurotic weirdo who’s spent so long wishing he was in worlds that don’t exist that I’m having a hard time processing the one that I actually live in.

Maybe it’s better to be afraid of the things that could be rather than believe with all your heart that there’s nothing there.

This probably all sounds a bit dire but I don’t mean it to. I’m probably just a bit odd and that’s okay. If the worst that can be said of me is “Wow. That guy is pretty weird. Let’s not be around him.”, then all told- it could be worse. Plus, there’s an upside: I’m decent at editing my own work. I’ve gotten to a point where I can look back at stories I’ve written in the past and realize they’re terrible or flawed and take mental notes so I don’t make those errors again. While that may be a writing thing, I’m happy to say that I’ve also grown as a person enough to look back at who I’ve been and think “No, Luke. That’s weird.” Oddly enough, that makes me feel better. Even though I still hear things that aren’t there and feel like someone’s walking right behind me when they aren’t, it’s nice to be able to look back at the life I’ve lived and realize that I can tinker with the more irritably weird parts until they’re more “appropriately strange”. That’s what I strive for anyway. I’m not too good at being normal. There are too many strange things in the world for me to ever want to be something like that.

Then again, I’d like to be exceptionally odd if I have to not be normal of the sort that exists everywhere around me in this little city I call home-for-now. I want to be the weirdo with a time machine or an airship. Or maybe someone who can open holes in reality and step through to somewhere…more. I want to meet people so incredible that they can’t possibly be real in coffee shops that don’t exist. I want to fall in love even though I don’t know what love really looks like. I want to travel to distant lands so very far away that they might just be another space, another time, or another world.

I want to be more than a weird guy in a hat who’s often alone and sometimes afraid of the dark. But maybe that’s all I am. Maybe that’s all I’ll ever be.

Then again, give me a year and I’ll be able to edit that too.

The Story's End

This is just a story and 

I swear it isn’t true

Because what am I but a lying man

Between the old things

And the new

Possessions that flood the floodgates

And spill out into the seas

Where the currents still go bump in the night

But they’re dreams I cannot see. 

They spark like dying christmas lights

And they flare like shipwrecked men

On the beaches of the life you chose 

To live among the lions 

But they have been domesticated

And they’re drowning in the waste

Of everything you thought you were

The painter with no paintbrush and

A model’s shattered face.

For what are we but poachers of elephants 

And the killers of all sacred things.

We are those who are lost on the search for a path

For the sake of the sirens we sing

And we weigh anchor in towns that mean nothing

The nothing that hides in the soul

In those silent black spots that speak happiness thoughts

Until the calendars are canyon-built rows. 

Yet still our captains count 

Those dying dead stars

They’ll always point into the night

They swear that the sky can’t lie to them 

And tell stories of when it went right.

They tell of the lovers they left on the shore even as waves crash overhead

And they tell us their stories

They tell us their lies

Of how they will see them again. 

Because this route is just a tunnel

Down 

The long dark hall without doors

And there’s a lone dead thing who walks

With me to the sound of a distant bell

And its face is the nothing that spreads

Like a cloud 

Through the hells of all I can’t say

For the sake of the life that still couldn’t be

Until the Devil will cry on his life-charred rock

That it’s a soul even he cannot sell. 

And so this memory will linger until

Long after the muscles have died

And the corpse of the dead thing living

Will laugh through where its empty eyes

Would once have shined bright with the everything,

The space between every last word

The home of the heartbroken sycophant

And the false coin the poor man has earned.

That counts for something though

Doesn’t it?

The sliver of life that was led

On the backs of a dream of the finite fad things

So full of the false promises that spread 

Brand new life across the black screen

A static false flare of a pulse until

The world left us alone once again. 

And even then that would’ve been fine 

I’d swear it on my life

But that’s not where all those ships must sink

Among the chilling tide waters that separate out

The lovers from the hearts that beat weak. 

For while they say they aren’t made for the harbors

They say they’re meant for the seas

The fell ocean floor is full of the parts

Of the men who’d all once believed

That their paths were always charted

No course could not be set

For the lives they’d find and the something so vast,

All that those lives might have meant. 

But there was always a dock that sat empty

At the end of an infinite walk

Where lone shadows staggered forever until

The night and the darkness caught up. 

And they watched the sun set forever alone 

Against the golds, the reds, the silence misread,

And the lives they never could lead

For the sake of the nothing that still might’ve meant 

That there was a point to the quiet 

        And the ending

              And the sea. 

Perhaps then their ship might have sailed

And even then it might’ve been built, 

To bridge that empty space that stretched 

Over cold water that never would spill

To fill the mouth of a drowning man waiting

For a calm to this wearying storm

Who wanted only an end to the thirst in his heart

That looked like the dying North Star. 

Even so, all ships are built to sink 

In time

And even then I guess so are we. 

Perhaps that shouldn’t make me feel better but then

I guess if it didn’t, I wouldn’t be me. 

So I walked out alone to the end of the pier

For the sake of the altar and that dead weight of fear

That hung rough like a towering noose

To be thrown round the bend of the sail in time 

To soar with the gulls 

And be one with the clouds

As a black flag with nothing to lose. 

It would’ve been a fitting end to the endless

And my shadow would have flown with the sea. 

But then, this is just a story 

I promise

And I swear it isn’t me.

What An Impossible Thing

Terry Pratchett famously wrote a series of books in which his world was a flat planet that balanced on the backs of four elephants. If that weren’t quite odd enough, those four elephants then stood on the back of a giant turtle as it moved through space. That always seemed rather fitting to me and something that Atlas himself could get behind, because even when all my time was spent wandering the streets and infrequent alleys of Bismarck, North Dakota, it’s impossible not to be swept away by the sheer impossibility of the world. Have you ever laid back in the grass on a blue-skyed day when perfect clouds float so very still as if you’re in a painting and just don’t know it yet? You know the types of clouds I mean. You might not right now but one day you’ll be driving or walking or laying in that bed of grass and you’ll look up and think “Oh. I see it now.”

There’s not a single place I’ve ever been where I haven’t marveled at a beauty so impossible that it’s hard not to laugh at the sheer absurdity. It’s the sort of laugh that comes after seeing Secretariat win the Triple Crown. Or when man first stepped foot on the moon. Or when Gatti and Ward went toe-to-toe without backing down. Or when you see Stonehenge. Or The Colosseum. Or The Acropolis. It’s that little sliver of your brain that realizes exactly what it’s seeing but has no complete way of processing just how incredible that sight happens to be. So you laugh. Or you cry. And then you file it away for a rainy day when you can sit back and wonder if you were really that lucky. Maybe, if the day has been exceptionally long and hard, you might wonder if you ever were.

In those moments, lay down and stare up at the clouds. Imagine that you’re sailing through space on the backs of elephants and a turtle. Tell yourself you live in a snow globe designed by an incredibly bored creator. Maybe you weren’t supposed to be here at all and the whole affair is made so much more hilarious and beautiful because of it. Just sit back and try to tell me that clouds or an open sky aren’t the sort of sights that gods would kill to have.

Do you know the strangest part? So much of the world looks like everywhere else. Now I don’t mean that as a statement of boredom, not at all, and nor am I saying that The Alps looks just like the parking lot that sits in front of a grocery store somewhere in Topeka, Kansas. But what I am saying is that a similar wonder is always there if you know how to look. I just got back from travels abroad, you see. For the first time ever, this agoraphobic American left his home country to see something other than what he’d always seen before, whether it was the culture or the way houses are made. I had to do it. Mostly because I was turning 30 and had to run away from some problems but also because I was terrified that one day I’d look back and say “Ah. How I wish I would’ve gone.”

I don’t want to be the tiger in my story. I don’t want to be the man who sweeps the floors.

So on the sixth of May, I hopped a plan and flew fast and far to worlds I’d only read about. I saw Germany and Belgium, Greece and Italy, England and The Netherlands and Austria and even part of France. I saw Stonehenge, a sight that would’ve caused 11 year old me (who was busy writing a horror novel about monsters that came through the doors) to die of jealousy. I saw birds I’d never seen before and met people I may never see again. And every second of every day was spent wondering how I made it this far and if I’d ever come back to the places that made me happy.

As you can imagine, that doesn’t make me the cheeriest of travel companions and is the reason I usually travel alone. I didn’t this time though. This time I spent what has always been my alone time with a friend who took time out of her life to share her parts of the world with me. That’s ridiculous, right? That’s the sort of thing that marks up a debt that can never be paid off. Even now, the thought that there was someone out there who cared so much about my experience on this impossible little planet that she wandered with me and put up with my oftentimes irritable and morose headspace… that’s hard for me to understand. It’s a blue sky with perfect clouds. It’s Secretariat winning by 31 lengths.

You don’t meet people like that very often and when you do and the time is over, you’re left wondering if you were as good to them as they were to you. You hope so. You hope you weren’t a ship passing in the night and yet you wonder. And you lay back in the grass, you stare up into the sky at those perfect shapes, and you can’t help but wonder, after all the impossible things you’ve seen, if perhaps there’s a chance that the dragons you see in the clouds are real too.

Shoals

I saw the thing go wandering down along the infinite shoals

It looked just like the wife I’d lost on the day I’d watched her go.

She’d said that she would miss me and she’d hoped to say goodbye

To the nothing life we’d never built on the backs of honest lies.

She had the hair I saw last week in the aisle of an empty store

And even then I’d waved it down to see if it was her.

But she didn’t have the face I knew or that fated finite smile

She was just a memory for another man, another woman, another child.

The thing that walked on water wore the dress I’d always seen

In all the wedding pictures shot of the lives we were about to lead.

She looked so very beautiful, that thing that wasn’t mine

She was everything she’d almost been when we’d topped our Everest climb.

The swelling waters rose until they met a perfect neck that couldn’t be

On the thing that knew my wife so well it paled my own memory.

For things are no longer as I see them and the past lives at my side

And I see my dead things living as if they had never said goodbye.

I want so much to join them in their world and that place I cannot go

I want her hair to touch my face and her eyes to miss me so.

The thing I never married is just a fragment of what is left

But that is still enough of her to bring me back the life I’d kept.

I held our lives in fear draped arms that weighed like Atlas stones

The pictures and the time that meant we were the best we’d ever known.

I saw her in the depths dust-deep and I hoped it was her soul

So deeply hidden in molded boxes that belonged along the shoals.

I sent all our lives out sailing in a boat meant just to sink

I would’ve started fires but this was the life we would’ve seen.

We would’ve sailed oceans vast and swam waves that rivaled mountains

We would’ve seen the dreams of timeless things that hid us from the end.

The boxes sank in crashing blue and it’s then that I saw her rise

The thing that looked just like the one to whom I’d pledged my life.

She was so close to my snapshot world that shone empty in my hands

That I stepped into her rising grasp to chase love beyond this living land.

The thing that was so much like her smiled as my waters rose

And she stood atop the chaos waves just to watch me go.

Because she was still my everything and that could never change

And all we’d had I’d always be even as all dead sirens sang.

The gagging world beneath was clear and I watched our boxes sink

They fell in black and green that moved away from the life I couldn’t lead.

I didn’t know if the thing was her or if I’d been led so far astray

All I knew was what I’d lost and what had gone away.

His World

I am the apocryphal wisdom

And I am the space between words.

The lunatic fringe of the invisible men

And the wind beneath all flightless birds.

I am the nothing worth knowing.

And I am the lies on the page.

The bleeding red ink that is Crayon drawn pink

And the jester with the mask of a sage.

I am the home without fireplace warmth.

And I am the chair without legs.

The earthquake of nonsense in a shattering globe

And the broken last carton of eggs.

And I am the dreams of the dreamless.

I am the fool’s gold of worth.

The unending scrawl of the emptying pen

And the finale this story deserves.

What a Year.

Yes, I know it’s only March.

Hello, my friends.

Now, I say “friends” despite the fact that I just checked the numbers of visits on this page. Quite frankly, I think this thing almost serves as a journal and a monument to “I know nobody’s asking, but I haven’t given up yet”, but that’s neither here nor there. Just in case some new visitor to this website sees fit to stumble in off the streets of the Wild West (aka Twitter and….well, we’ll not talk about the other thing), I’m going to do my best to act chipper and seem clever enough to keep them around.

Do I think this will work? No. Then again nothing really ever does, so it’s nothing I can’t handle.

This year started off poorly with some rather miserable results in my personal life. I won’t go into them (hence the ‘personal’ part), but suffice it to say that I’m still trying to get my bearings. As always, I decided to react in a psychologically healthy manner- by literally running away from my problems- and signing up for a marathon in September, because as a 6’3” and 210 pound writer, that seemed like a spectacular idea. Will I successfully run away from sadness? Unlikely, since I’ve been running on a treadmill and the marathon map seems to indicate that it is a literal circle, but it might work. Maybe I’ll learn to fly so I seem a little less like a hamster on a wheel.

The upside to sadness is that I’ve been more creative of late. I’ve punched out a couple poems and two of my better short stories in the last 2 months while also slogging through the editing of my trilogy. Let me tell you, when it comes to editing, 1300 pages of fixing feels exactly as long as it sounds. The truth is that I tend to work better in negative headspace which, as I’m typing it out, really sounds pretty terrible and not at all good for the psyche, but I digress. If I’m ever going to make my living as a writer (Note: Increasingly unlikely by the day), then I should probably hang onto that darkness for just a little while longer. It might yet serve me well even if my characters seem to be in quite a bit of peril these days.

Speaking of, I’ve been struggling with the ‘writer’ thing lately. This is of utmost concern to me as my creative drive has been what’s kept me going through the bad times, but I’m beginning to realize that I couldn’t have stacked the deck against myself more effectively if I’d tried. Writing is hard. Making a living on it seems damn near impossible sometimes. So I’m stuck sitting around, dreaming up lives for characters while I try to find a direction for my own. What is the purpose in creating if no one’s able to see it, after all? Hell, I’ve even thought about self-publishing my trilogy. (which in the past I’ve thought of as being the ultimate white flag). At least that way someone would read it, right?

So then I ask myself, would it be better to suffer along the road of endless edits and searches for agents and publishers or just toss it out there on my own? In terms of immediate emotional gratification, the latter definitely leads the race but then what has it all been for? I could maybe make a couple grand off book sales that way, but then I’d be no closer to writing for a living. Hell, I’d be much farther away given that I just sold my trilogy for some magic beans. But then at least people would read them. People would read them even if it meant I’d have to start all over again as a 30 year old man on a completely new story.

I don’t know. Writing is hard and deciding what to do with it is even harder. I want my stories to matter and be seen and I know I need some heft to make that happen. Not to mention, with having to work a full time job it takes two to three years to write a book that takes me eight months when I’m just writing. So do I self-publish and feel like I took the easy way out? Or do I continue the struggle and hope there’s a light at the end of the tunnel? I haven’t decided yet. Hell, I might not ever decide and hope instead that I luck into something special. Crazier things have happened and “Lucky” is my nickname.

Who knows. I don’t know what to do. But I know what I am- I’m a writer. And I need to keep going because that’s the only thing I’ve ever wanted to be.

EDIT: As I finished this blog post, I got another rejection letter. How lovely.

Top 10. Bottom 5. Movies of 2018

TOP 10

10. Annihilation: An imperfect movie that almost hung itself in the final act, it earns this spot with sheer artistic brilliance and one of the most harrowing scenes ever put to film.

9. Halloween: Michael Meyers is back. He’s not lame. His mask is cool. And Jamie Lee Curtis lends weight to this joy for genre fans.

8. Deadpool 2: I didn’t much care for the first film. At this point, if I have to see another origin film, I’m going to decapitate myself with a broken VHS tape. This one, however, was a joy. Pure humor. Pure absurdity. And Josh Brolin being cool as hell.

7. Game Night: Comedy that’s actually funny. What a novel concept. From clever sight gags to fun little set pieces, this was the first comedy flick I’ve truly enjoyed in quite some time. That alone merits inclusion. Sit back, turn your mind off, and enjoy a stupid good time.

6. Bad Times at the El Royale: Discount Tarantino is still partially Tarantino, and the king of ripping off filmmakers can’t possibly hold that against this gem. Hemsworth is an alarming presence with a Manson vibe and Jeff Bridges easily carries a thoroughly entertaining and well-written thriller.

5. A Quiet Place: In time, this might fall further down the list. A masterclass in tension and small cast acting, that tension doesn’t quite last for at-home viewings but I’ve never taken fewer breaths in a theater than when I kicked back for this one. Oddly enough, Jim Halpert knows what he’s doing. Who would’ve thought?

4. Mission Impossible: Fallout: It has Tom Cruise and some of the best action set pieces you’ll see...anywhere. They unfold one by one and each time you’ll sit back and marvel, thinking “Wow. That’s a great sequence on which to anchor a film.” And then they’ll hit you with the next one. And the next one. And the one after that. No one is doing action better than the MI franchise.

3. Hereditary: I’ve been watching horror steadily for almost 20 years now. In all that time, I’ve never once thought to myself “This is amazing. This is so well-crafted. I think I should leave.” An unbearable exercise in tension that never lets up, it doesn’t make complete sense but it doesn’t have to. Rest assured, you’ll never look at attic doors the same way again.

2. Thoroughbreds: No one is talking about this film. No one. And that is a f**king crime. Clever dialogue and pitch black comedy line the pages of this story about a sociopath and her trust fund acquaintance as they try to find a way to kill the latter’s stepfather. It’s weird, it’s off-putting, and it’s an absolute gem.

1. Paddington 2: An absolute triumph in tone, there isn’t a wasted joke or visual in this entire film. Sly British humor and brilliantly wacky performances, led by a fiendishly stupid Hugh Grant, make this film not just a family classic but a film that will be viewed more times than is healthy whenever I’m sad. It’s that perfect.

BOTTOM 5

5. The Predator: How do you take the greatest action movie monster in cinematic history and turn him into a joke? Let Shane Black make a movie in 2018. A film version of a blood clot reaching the brain, stare in grim awe and shock as people mistake “talking really fast” as “clever writing and hilarity”. Jokes fall flat. Emotions are wasted. And can we stop trying to make that annoying Tremblay kid a star? (Here playing, wait for it, an autistic child where autism is a gift and the next step in human evolution. Someone alert the Anti-vax crowd).

4. The Meg: The only reason this isn’t lower is because it had the audacity to take itself seriously. That counts for something in a sick way. I think it’s high time Jason Statham either revisits his career goals or admits that it’s time to go back to square one. Maybe open a pastry shop, something like that. It’s better than sticking his face and name on movie posters for this rotten hunk of floating tuna.

3. The Mule: A tonal disaster. Poor writing. Odd racial humor that isn’t remotely funny. Clint Eastwood, a living bag of bones, involved in not one -but two!- threesomes. One of the worst death scenes ever included in a serious movie. A walking cliche, the only original things about this Hallmark movie is that it has cocaine and is suffering under the delusion that it’s a well-made, well-written, and well-acted collection of celluloid.

2. Skyscraper: For the love of God, someone stop letting the Rock choose his own films. I’ll do anything. Just make it stop. On the other hand, if you ever thought: “I wish Die Hard was terrible and John McClane only had one leg”, then you’re going to love this thing. Just make sure to set up your lobotomy with your preferred surgeon before the viewing.

1. Strangers: Prey at Night: In an empty theater, laughter was all there was. How much did I dislike this movie? I wrote a 3,000 word review for it. That’s longer than most of my short stories. A travesty on every level, this tripe belongs in a morgue where only the dead need to share space with its obnoxious attempt at quality.

Remnants Fade

Have you ever seen the ichor fall from within stone angel eyes?

Or roses wilt with a dying grace that frame descending stairs?

They line the cracked stone cathedrals, they set fire to funeral pyres,

With the unending allure of the quick dying earth and its guards who are no longer there.

Build flames with a matchbox and tinder, within the deep greens of the forests,

Watch Pompeii statues of ashen full form spread across the prairies unknown.

See the monuments built with meticulous glee in blind ode to the imminent threat,

Until Audubon's feathers are museum art fodder and we’re left on this earth alone.

Funeral dirt fills the mouths of our children while the shovels blister our hands,

There’s something like dragons alive in the skies that line skylines with mountainous dread.

There’s the unending glare of the solar life flare that tells how the last chapter will end,

And the silence that paints all the last Northern lights where great beauty will now never spread.

There’s a tiger that dies in a sea full of eyes and his teeth will become curative dust,

There’s an ocean of bone with a dull scale throne that turns water the slickest of blacks.

And there’s the obstructions that rise above mountains and pierce clouds on its Babel-built frame.

Until the stillborn conductor on a train built of glass,

            Sees the sun now descending shine on metal unbending,

                            At the end of the infinite track.

December Snow

There was a time in ignorance

Or just once on a Tuesday, I guess

When I believed this wasn’t so empty and that it all made sense.

When all the echoes of heaven

And all life’s sad searing glare

Could never strike down the stiff spine kite that fluttered through the air.

Where rainfall was always beautiful

Though it ruined flight paper art

With the promise that all was forgiven by the most pointless northern star.

I walked outside through the darkness

And found direction by the crunch of dead grass

That passed in the presence of eternity where, our heartbeats weren’t born in distress.

It sounds like a perplexing falsehood

The sort of nothing that matters forever until

The things that we squint at in darkness of night become all that our lives never will.

They’re hailstones on the stained glass windows

A farm frost that kills life in the earth

The failure of all that they still should have been, just as camels can die in the desert.

If you close your blind eyes, you will still mostly see

The map that lies vacant and a paintbrush stained red

With the marks that tick boxes to who we thought we would be-

                                                          Until we fell from the cliff face instead.

It’s the eternal truth, that inevitable case

The lying, the sadness that spreads

With the infinite promise of lives never left-

                                             That you were always just a voice in my head.

The bonds grow like Antarctica’s snowcaps

They float like a solid gold anchor

Beyond the passage of time as reality was, where even shadows can find more to savor.

I once chased ghosts there through veins of kingdom stone

Down the atrophied chasms of life never known

And so great my need to feel I cared, for these cold dead things that were not there.

Then at last the silence has fallen

The tune that was always foretold

Left here to sit as the temperature drops in a home to be sold and resold.

And there I will wonder through avalanche thoughts

About all this pointless sadness and life’s inevitable ash

Until each and every memory falls and shatters just like glass.

Because all of them are fleeing now

And their ship is at the pier

And all of them are dancing to a song I cannot hear.

And even though I’m listening

And even though I’m deaf

I hear my own words whispering in the emptiness they’ve left:

“Whatever happened to the friends I used to have

The people I used to know?

All these things are dying now in this cold December snow.”

These Are Nonsense Words

Life has been a weird thing lately. I’ve also been managing to somehow maintain this website at an even more irresponsible clip than I did the Ganje sites of old, so that’s something I’m not terribly happy about. I’d glare at myself if I could, but I haven’t quite got the ocular athleticism that would make such things possible. Instead I’ll just glare at this screen and hope you, the dear reader, don’t take it too personally.

The editing of the second book in my trilogy just wrapped up (for now and even though I’ll revisit it an unfathomable amount of times while I edit book three in the coming months) and it makes me happy that I’ve managed that. It wasn’t as titanic a feat as conquering book one which, while it was 50,000 words shorter, was also quite uneven, but it was still as frustrating as those things tend to be. If you’ve never edited a creative work of any good length, I’d describe it as such: “This thing this person said on page 170 might not make complete sense given his character development”, only to look back into the annals of book one to find out that it does. And then, after you’ve cleared that up, you decide that none of it works for you anyways so you have to change everything anyway.

Now just imagine doing that over and over again for months at a time because you’re a writer with a bad memory and fractious attention spans. It’s a troubling thing and I can’t wait to finish the edit of book three just so I can start over at book one and do it all again. Am I joking? I really wish I was. But if I want someone to pay me scads of money for this stuff, I figure the least I can do is make it look like I have slightly professional aspirations.

One thing is for sure, as I read these things again I find myself feeling incredibly bad for the six test readers who have been subjected to the rough first drafts of the story. While reviews have been strong and the emotional heft has seemed to resonate, I can’t get past the horror of having to read the word “niece” misspelled an astonishing number of times (72 to be exact). They’re the real heroes and I’m pretty positive it will one day come to light that they’ve just been humoring me this entire time.

That’s what being an author really is: Wondering if you’re just a crazy person that people don’t want to upset.

That’s not me, of course. I’m not crazy. Then again, every time I say that I’m brought back to an old Far Side cartoon where two cows are standing out in a pasture. One cow turns to the other and says “Have you heard about that Mad Cow Disease going around?”. The other cow looks up and says confidently “Yeah! Thank god we’re penguins.”

I wonder if I’m a penguin. If I am, then the next time someone implores me to take a leap of faith, rest assured I’ll be treating that suggestion with the scorn it deserves.

Dead Oaks

Some days I wish it was over,

Some days I wish I could see,

The light at the end of the tunnel that speeds,

So slowly away from me.

For I am the wick of the candle,

I am the stillborn oak tree,

I am the fragmented hopes on the wind,

Life’s seed pods of dying disease.

I am the dirt in the cradle,

I am the stone set in earth,

I am the foghorn that blares to the seas,

The loneliness drowned in the memories.

I am the dust on the altar,

I am the collar and leash,

I am grass that is rolled beneath pavement,

The morning dew that will now never be.

I am the hole within darkness,

I am the stars that bleed light,

I am the endless in finite fade things,

And a white witch’s Turkish Delight.

I am the fell sway in the flower,

I am the bend in its stem,

I am the pollen in ashen blown breeze,

And I am the world without bees.

Then I am the remnant of spectral life,

And I am the shadows that see,

That I am the pillar in hurricane squall,

And then I am nothing at all.

The Shimmer

There’s a shadow in the window and it looks so much like you

A remnant of the failing life

And all we thought we knew

It comes and fades with all the glory

Of the world that should’ve been

Yet here we are and there you’ve gone

Beyond worldly contradiction.

That should matter, right? The endless time that never lasts

When you said it would be alright?

All memories are filled with promises

And the things you had to say

For the sake of fading childhood dreams

That prayed the shadows away.

You have always been the world and the spinning and the globe

And though the clock kept turning

There was always silence and then snow

Seasons were only seasons and time was just a lie

Until it wasn’t and you weren’t

And we had no courage for goodbyes.

I’ll never last forever though that’s often how it feels

The time that flew so quickly by are pictures now

They’ve fallen from the reel

The lense will never focus on the emptiness of you

All you are is the space I lost

Between the echo and the new.

We should’ve known the way of things and everything you were

The twilight and the caverns vast

A lifetime in a blur.

We should’ve seen that you would leave

And I’d have to watch you go

To all that I’m afraid to see and all I’ll never know.

There’ll be no stone in grass alone or spades of broken dirt

The leaves will turn and seasons die

To leave me on this earth.

And you will be the memory of the life that used to be

The breathing and the life that was

Forever growing green.

I saw the silver in your eyes even when it tarnished gold

The shimmer and the glimmer though

I’ve never believed in souls

We saw you walk away from me in clouds of ashen wind

To all you never were and where I’ve never been.

One day soon I’ll see the sign of a world no longer mine

The usher that I’ve never seen who points in finite lines

To autumn leaves and what may be

Even if it’s a dreamless sea

My eyes will close in open stare and no matter what,

No matter where,

In that vacant space past passing life, I hope I’ll see you there.

A Man

There's a man standing at the summit of an endless mountain atop an infinite plane and there's so much death in his shoulders and the slow bend of his body that he could have been the shadow or the sunset. He wasn't anything special and he never had been, though once upon a time when he'd been a different man in a different life in a different existence he'd thought he perhaps might be. There's a cold wind etching a burning ice into his skin and the scattering of invisible frost painted a picture of all that would never be. It didn't matter, of course. It never did. Because all that would never be was all he could ever have been.

God spoke to him in the hysterical winds of life spread out across the land and it spoke of purpose tucked away in the folds of life and death that were everything and had always been nothing at all. This God told him of not just 'a' purpose, but 'his', and had he heard or listened or known, perhaps it would've meant something more than the howl of all he couldn't see. Perhaps, but probably not. Because what is the purpose of the mountain or the plane if the path is paved and dictated? What glory holds the endless life?

The man stands still and ice carves deeper into his muscle and through that mortal bone. More than anything, he wanted to know the feeling of going home and being beyond the emptiness of everything. He wanted to feel the God's whisper whistle through his ear and echo in his head like a trumpet held by golden angels beyond his ephemeral eyes. And yet there was wind, that endless chill, and the world scattered fast and far and its meaning fell like human dust into the crevices that spanned the everything and the in between. 

The man heard no whisper if there was one to hear. The man felt no purpose. He froze fast into the face of ice and stone and perhaps he would become coal. Perhaps in a millennia he'd hold a diamond's shine. But that wasn't purpose, it wasn't anything at all, it was just the end and the pressure of the eternally shifting dirt. There was no belonging and there was no home, there was only the world that had never been his and the flat earth end that had never once slowed.

There's a man standing at the summit of an endless mountain atop an infinite plane and he's made of a mirror sheen ice. 

There's nothing in that mirror and it looks so much like me.

Strangers: Prey at Night- Movie Review

Ten years ago when I was a wild and wayward child, I convinced my father to go to a slasher movie with me. I was 18, he was tremendously bored, and so we wound up watching a story about Liv Tyler running away from a man with a bag on his head for almost two hours. I like to think it was a post-op Steven Tyler under that burlap, I'd certainly run from that plastic cast of a face any day of the week, but in reality it was probably someone else. Yet I dared to dream and it brought fresh enjoyment even as my father spent the entire car ride home eviscerating the victims in the movie for their stupidity (they didn't do too well in a panic) and their wanton inability to exercise even basic gun safety etiquette (at one point they accidentally shoot their friend in the face), and I was forced to come to terms with the fact that he was right. As fun as the movie was, these were not intelligent people. 

Thank god I didn't drag him to the sequel. I've flirted with being disowned one too many times already.

I've been to a lot of movies and so very many have been of the horror variety as I do love a good fear-based adrenaline rush, so I know well enough the tropes and traits that make such movies tick along. Eight times out of ten, people aren't even people so much as they are 'cannon fodder' and they'll usually make the sorts of decisions that drop them right in the laps of a variety of who's-who masked murderer aficionados. That's just how it is. Generally, all a horror movie victim must do to do their job right is run, scream, look scared and shout random one-liners, and at least make it look like they're not intentionally running to their deaths. Alas, no one told the cast and crew of Strangers 2 this valuable factoid and so I'm driven to my computer in retaliation.

I have never in my life seen people who deserved to die more than this family of four. From the father who whimpered at literally everything to his son who (playing a seventeen year old) looked to be about thirty-five, to the mother and her overacting and over-emoting daughter, we're treated to hijinks the likes of which I've never really seen before. The teens find the mauled and massacred remains of their aunt and uncle, two old fogies who are so beaten that their jaws are hanging off every which way and I'm pretty sure they don't have eyes anymore, and they race back through the empty trailer park (the conceit of the picture) and tell their parents "They're bleeding and cut. I don't know if they're alive." Naturally, father and son split up and leave their much loved lady family alone, because splitting up is always the right decision when a mass of masked murderers might be running around with facial wear that somehow never obstructs their peripheral vision.

Note: Guys. If you see two people tied together and so horrifically brutalized that they no longer have faces, you can just say they're dead. No one's going to blame you. Uncle Boffo isn't going to haunt you for not fishing through the remnants of his dangling jaw for a pulse. 

Then the hilarity ensues. People die and cry a lot, there are so many tears someone must've had a water bottle on site for either spritzing or replenishing lost fluids, people arm themselves only to randomly lose guns at the drop of multiple hats, I can't stress enough how stupid that part is, and then in one of my favorite scenes, Father is plugging along with his 470 year old vampire son in a van as they hunt for Probably Dead Daughter only to have one of their pursuers throw a rock at their windshield. At this point, the panicked duo that is armed with a handgun and driving a motor vehicle (with brakes) decides that their only recourse is to drive off the road by about a thousand feet and crash into a trailer house, the lone obstruction in an otherwise empty lot.

More tears follow this bit of crash test dummy panache, including a truly hilarious death, and we're off and running again. And so it goes. Over. And over. And over again. In truth, it began to seem timeless. I think, in those moments, I was so busy throwing my arms up in the air and throwing my head back in irritation that I became one with the universe. That's the only explanation I can think of, anyway. It's the only way it makes sense that somehow I sat through a 75 minute movie so poorly written and conceived that it felt like a lost lifetime in some dreadful pocket universe where a girl fleeing for her life is flummoxed by a six foot tall chain-link fence.

Sure, the knife-wielding lunatic is right behind you but don't let that rush those survival instincts of yours. Your brother, who's probably secretly your dad's brother, is undoubtedly running around trying to find golf clubs after inexplicably losing a gun in a life or death situation, so in terms of 'embarrassing' you're actually right on track to keep pace with that brilliant family of yours.

As the movie wound down, all I could hear was Darwin's voice calling down from the heavens: "Hark! Perhaps they deserve to die!"  he said.

In another world that was populated by better screenwriters, perhaps he would've been wrong and a theatrical visit wouldn't have been wasted. Sadly that's just the delusion of ten wasted dollars talking, the very same delusion that whispered "Hey! This might be a good movie." in my ear on a cold Wednesday evening. Instead, I was confronted outside the theater by the more real world voice of the only friend I'd found who was willing to see this magic of cinematic quality and his words stuck with me far longer than the perils of a family that, for the good of the gene pool, should probably pick up a box of Tide Pods on their way home. 

"Maybe they made it that bad on purpose," he said.

I don't think so, Mike. Far more terrifying than any event in that slog of a movie is this simple fact: They probably thought they'd made something to be proud of, proving once and for all that yes, some dreams are stupid.

"Strangers: Prey at Night" is one of those dreams.

Tomb Raider- A Movie Review

I was a teenager when my brother told me something that has stuck with me for all these years. Late one night, from bunk bed to bunk bed, he looked at me over the zombie slaughter that was Resident Evil: Apocalypse and said "There's nothing hotter than a girl who can kick your ass." It was a strange thing to hear as I was probably fourteen at the time (he, fifteen), and the closest I'd ever gotten to eternal love, or something of that sexualized ilk, had been smiling at a cashier at Barnes Noble. I know I'd only been twelve at the time, but I'm pretty sure she thought I was cute. 

I had a stronger hairline back then.

Now it's 2018 and we have a new Tomb Raider movie. Angelina Jolie (one of my brother's first Hollywood wives) has been supplanted by Alicia Vikander and special effects of decades gone by have been replaced by some that are often quite a bit better but also a little bit worse. It's the Uncanny Valley, after all, or at least it is as it relates to my own perception. I would never have caught a flagrant failure of tech as a child but now, as a person who sees movies weekly, a green screen not sufficiently greened or screened is painfully noticeable. Growing old is like that. Things are always better when we're younger and there are indeed a few scenes where you find yourself thinking "Well now. That doesn't look like she's really jumping across a rusting plane on top of a waterfall." What can I say- they don't make stunt people like they used to.

That quirk aside, there's a significant amount of credit that's due to a movie that can only be described as "A thoroughly good time." There's action aplenty, familiar plot points, and exotic danger, all for those who've loved the tales of one person against a corporation, one person trying to save their dad, or one person trying to stop a dreadful curse from falling over humanity like a black cloud of terror, but that's not to say they're tired tropes. I'm pretty sure that last part, that terror, could be found in the Olaf short film, but I can't really be sure. When it comes to action films like this, there's a disbelief that simply must be embraced by the time you sit down in a theater with a bucket of popcorn and a soft drink or two to tide you over, and that's never a bad thing. There's nothing wrong with drawing a line between a popcorn movie and a highly italicized FILM. 

Please read that last word in a foppish accent. It really sells my movie reviewing panache.

The simple fact of the matter is this: people don't go to Tomb Raider films to see Oscar bait. They just don't. So there are expectations that need to be checked at the door and if you manage that, then you'll find yourself having a relatively good time. Yes, you'll see some sub-par actors surrounded by good ones; yes, you'll see green screen that doesn't blend at all with the reality of the world; and yes, you'll sometimes roll your eyes at dialogue that, while perfectly fitting for its genre, doesn't jive with your cinefiliac love of Paul Thomas Anderson. Fortunately for me, that doesn't mean the movie is bad. It's actually quite fun and I sat in the darkness sucking down a Sobe with a trusty hot dog by my side (not a euphemism) with a childish joy that might as well have been a brother a year senior professing his love of ass-kicking heroines, because yes: Alicia Vikander is that good.

Look. For all the love of Angelina Jolie (and much of it is well earned), at some point I think we all have to have that uncomfortable conversation among ourselves that she might be one of those Hollywood types that is better behind the camera than in front of it, a la Ben "The Duck" Affleck. Vikander, however, is not. Radiating personality, charm, and more than enough grit and determination to spare, she's the Lara Croft we deserve. Where Jolie often seemed to be relying on the special effects around her, Vikander throws herself headfirst into the physicality of a role that could easily have been sleepwalked through, at times forcing us to believe that she's in a much better movie than she is. Her commitment to the role is noticeable (apparently she put on fifteen pounds of muscle in an effort to embrace the globetrotting heroism of the title character, something I once did in my everyday life and people just said "Wow, Luke. You're fat.") and she never once phones in a scene, simultaneously making us fear for and care about a woman who was once little more than a pixelated heroine of Playstations gone by. 

She's just...fun. She's reminiscent of Brendan Frasier in The Mummy in that she's an actor who fully embraces the world around her and the intermittent schlock that comes with it, all for the sake of the viewer. Never once do we question who she is or why she's doing what she's doing. Even as the story trucks along at an enjoyable clip, we are along for the ride at the behest of an actress so talented that we believe every moment that she is exactly who she says she is. The villains might not be the best, this is true, but Walton Goggins does what he can with what he has and sells motivations with very little script and the story, though outlandish in an Indiana Jones kind of way, never once spirals out of control and stays more in the "Last Crusade" territory than it does any sort of Crystal Skullified nonsense. In short, it's a good time.

That's what movies like this should be, right? If I'm not sitting in a theater watching globetrotters race around the world in an effort to stop a corporation from unleashing hell on earth for fun, then why exactly am I there? Tomb Raider takes care of that. It takes me back to the days when I could check out and enjoy a simple story about fantastical things and the hero that belongs in all of it, and it does it well enough that I never once felt like I was anywhere other than that distant island with a capable hero racing through the brush to right some tremendous wrongs. 

Angelina Jolie once portrayed Lara Croft and she even had the turn-of-the-century special effects to help her meander through collapsing tunnels with just enough slow motion to trick a child. But Alicia Vikander is a step above and where Jolie portrayed this modern day Indiana Jones, Vikander just is. She is Kroft, she could undoubtedly kick my ass, and we're all a fair bit luckier for it.