rememberin' where I been:

it is quarter ‘till four in the morning as I am writing this; I have to be at work no later than eight thirty - about four and a half hours from now. there is no sane reason at all for me to be awake at this hour, much less blogging, but there comes a point in the insomnia experience where you just accept that tomorrow is going to be a very difficult day and it would be best for you to find something to occupy yourself with in the meantime. fortunately for you, gentle readers, that something is a blog for me.

insomnia has been the bane of my existence (or at least in the top five) for almost as long as I can remember. I’ve never been an especially sound sleeper, but sometime around my junior or senior year of high school, things took a decided turn. it became damn near impossible for me to get to sleep before midnight or more likely one a.m. regardless of what time I had to be awake the next morning, which necessitated a lot of sleeping through first period for the remainder of my high school career. since then, I’ve mostly stuck to evening classes and night work out of simple convenience; I can’t sleep until I’m totally exhausted anyway, so I might as well accept the fact that I’m usually going to be up until six in the morning.

but now I have a day job, and some days are infinitely longer than others. I can handle two or three days on a couple hours’ sleep - four at the most - but then I crash, and when I crash, I’m out for twelve or thirteen hours, which means I wake up at noon and can’t sleep that night - rinse, lather, repeat. the only thing that’s ever worked in terms of getting me to go to sleep is running myself absolutely ragged at the gym twice a day and then a handful of Benadryl two hours before I head to bed, and it’s not very often that I actually have time to hit the gym twice a day (once is an achievement lately, but I digress.)

it’s more a mental thing than anything else; my brain insists on thinking about really, really irrelevant things if it gets bored, and I have always been easily bored. and if I actually have something important to think about, like all the apartment stuff I need to do tomorrow (which is now today) and the St. Mary’s paperwork that needs to be done next week and a handful of equally significant Things To Do, well, I end up having nights like this where I get an hour and a half of sleep before midnight and have to make due for the rest of the day. the part I’ve never understood is my brain’s ability to keep me awake in spite of myself. I am exhausted right now; my body is heavy and my eyes hurt and I want sleep like nothing else. but as soon as my head touches the pillow, I am suddenly wide awake. I get up and make a sandwich - back to being exhausted.


and we’re now coming up on four thirty in the morning. I do believe I will make a trip to Wawa and buy the absolute biggest can of Red Bull they have. wish me luck, gentle readers. I expect that I will need it.




(I remember how hard it is out on the block; every time you turn around somebody get shot:)

horizon west, pt. II:

more than eight years later, I am far from surprised to see the embers long residing in the back of my eyes should roar to flames; near a decade from the first I authored and ain’t nothin’ changed. the sentiment remains - I kept it, aged it well and rearranged most of the words you heard a while back; I’ve traveled strange and unfamiliar roads that cost me dear since then, exchanged unlived years of my life to catch sights perceived for seconds, never settling, fashioning each and every word heard into the sharpest of weapons to cut the true from out the false, separate the diamond from the dross, desperate to cheat a creeping death no matter the cost, often I cut across the fault lines I’m always able to find in foundations laid long past in an almost endless line of minds that mostly testified to selfishness and to failure of faith - so much so that I’ve despaired of anything to embrace beyond the blades and the bottle - but now I’m ridin’ with you and I’m reminded that for all my wisdom, I can be such a fool.

this is older than my whiskey, than the knives up my sleeve; a secret long held sacred like “I WANT TO BELIEVE” in a future I can see so clear like Gibson Praise, no matter that the months go by and these pages fade, I remember every word, I’ve not forgot a single glance, a catalogue of solar flares shot out of one fortunate chance - whether a dance you don’t remember or a kiss that doesn’t age, it’s been written for the longest time; believe me when I say that we might “wash off all the dirt’s been done and write off wasted time - for you I and at least deserve each other’s peace of mind” - yeah, that horizon’s farther down and might not still lead west, but that line’s at least eight years old and I’ve not revised it yet. and sky high or stone sober, we’ll still remedy the fall so many still expect to die of when they need not fear at all, for there is more than just the physical we’re bound to live through - and every time I see you dance, I believe that anew.

I believe in you - that’s my truth and I’ll rep that to the death, until the end of the world, until I run out of breath - which I never will do, these lungs pump strong in my chest, ready for whatever comes next, from Iron City to the bent left that don’t recognize no borders, by the beats we’re possessed - everything I ever wrote was supposed to be my best, but I knew a while back my best would be Horizon West, so I’d suggest y’all clear a path - thou shalt not test or disrespect - I put my heart in this one and consider myself blessed to see rewards for all my work but I never would have guessed that the answer would have been one that I already know, that I hit upon in writing more than eight years ago. after all those years I spent teaching myself how to fly, your company’s a kindness as we burn through this eastern sky,


so this I dedicate to you - muse, light, life, and friend; know that I will be here waiting should you come around again.




(wash off all the dirt’s been done and write off wasted time - for you I and at least deserve each other’s peace of mind.)

seeking a friend for the end of the world:

I have been in a pretty foul mood for the last couple of days to the point that today I became convinced that the only real solution to the problems at hand was fast food, bad action movies, and a trip to the liquor store in that order. while I set about my mission, it began to rain - and I mean seriously raining, too. the kind that obscures the road and forces you to turn the music down and somehow only ever happens when you're driving. in my rear view mirror, the sky was almost black, but looking out the windshield, there was a single, fluffy cloud and nothing but clear blue sky, which created the impression that it was somehow raining solely on me.

and while I do not appreciate the universe making sport of my dilemmas, problems, and situations, I did smile a little bit even though I tried not to, because like it not, it was pretty funny.