this is for Jingyi

once there was a turtle and a rock

they lived together in the ocean

the rock would come above water every day for 5 hours

and the turtle would sit on the rock, and enjoy the sun

the turtle would talk and talk to the rock

but the rock never replied

the rock was a great listener though

and always remembered what the turtle said

one day a seagull came and hovered over the water

the rock rose out of the water to see the sun, and wait for the turtle

the seagull saw the rock and tried to sit on it

but the bird felt the rock was cold and wet

and got off immediately

soon the turtle came

and climbed on the rock

and didn't mention the rock being cold

or wet

and the turtle began to talk and talk

the seagull was very upset and flew away

and screamed "you guys belong together! crazy!"

the turtle is very wise and very old

and so is the rock, very wise and ever old

they knew what the seagull meant

because the turtle wanted the warmth of the sun,

he would sit on the rock

because the rock wanted someone to love

he would let the turtle come and talk

the end

Stream of Consciousness 1

Go back to work.

Drink your coffee and amphetamines and work.

I feel bad, the coffee makes me weak.

Like a human being falling short of the mark. You can't work without it can you?

I want my girlfriend, where is she?

She's not coming, you must go to her. Find a job, find the money.

It's not coming that quick, nothing is that easy.

Jilting, jilting, jilting....

The teacher explained that word, and she mentioned the importance of knowing the words that are used.

Will I see my deathbed I wonder?

This room is big here, in this library.

It's been a long time since I used a place like this, to get work done.

It's strange, and quiet. Everyone is quiet.

The last time I went to place with this many books, this many people,

it was in China.

It was not quiet. It was loud, footsteps and echoes of people ignoring the rules.

The building was brick and minimalist...

Where is my girlfriend?

I went outside just now, I needed a cigarette after that story,

after every story.

How can i read so much and not write? Like a basket of fries without ketchup.

There are books lying around, books stacked neatly on shelves, and I'm sure there are books in a bin somewhere, read and discarded again.

"The Face of a Killer," Burcell. It can't be good.

Trash fiction with a plot and perspective.

I bet it's some alter-ego cry for attention. I wonder what Robin Burcell looks like?

I'm nervous, when will I see my baby?

I need another cigarette, but it makes me weak.

I am sick, tired of studying, tired of it all...

The coffee wakes me up, attent and careful with my hands,

as they shake and make it hard to write.

It makes me weak, thirsty and I am sick.

Purple shirt lady, fat and lonely.

Whispering to herself, looking at trash fiction.

She lets out a heavy sigh, looking for a book on a print list of papers in some plastic binder.

Pulling out a book about cat fiction...she lets out a sigh.

Where's Waldo...whisper whisper.

Who is this lady?

Where is my girlfriend, sleeping I'm sure.

I'll see her soon, and for a duration longer than this thought process I hope.

美国

"what do you mean?"

"what do you mean, 'what do you mean?' Look at the wall, its blue and red!" The tall wall in his loft was splattered with blue and red paint, when hours earlier when he left for work it was some sort of white, like cover creamer or eggshell.

"you don't like it?

"man, i liked white! it's simple, white. a base! now i have a twenty foot patriotic wall, of colors i don't like and resembling a country i don't like!"

"you don't like this country?"

"don't change the subject, man. paint my wall back to white!"

"wait, wait, wait. you said you don't like this country...."

"no damnit, i don't like this country." He let out a sigh. "people just take everything for themselves, the government is arguing over media country and slandering the other party, bi-partisanship is some figment of a greater plain, and the ability to same what you want, when you want spawns not creativity, but further hate."

"you don't like being able to speak out?"

"the point is, if you want to write a novel, you don't read other peoples books before doing so. you just lock yourself in a room, or a place that spawns some sort of emotion and do it. our freedom to speak out only dumbs down the nation, no original thought, just some ongoing thought cloud, floating along the skyline, raining down simple words from someone else's mouth." he throws his hands up and point at his wall. "my wall is frigging blue, man! i hate blue, man!"

"so you're saying you'd rather live in a country where you get beat for speaking your mind?"

"not necessarily. how about living in a country where people take organized action through direct appeal, and before you have thirty thousand people marching at our capital with a vague idea of what is going on because they heard it spewed from some guys mouth on tv, you have some man, with enough pent up feelings and creativity to bore a movement through emotion and not fear tactics using words."

"you sound like a mad man, someone with vague ideas..."

"it's because we're allowed to talk freely about anything! i haven't time to process what i say!"

wish i could get something done.

Here in this big white empty room. Blue love seats and waiting room chairs for the diligently working counselors that have no students to assist. It's here i sit and think about how comfortable this actually is. For the past five years, I've been coming in and out of these doors to this student center, with an impeding sense of disdain. I don't appreciate the people who will arrogantly fill this hall during lunch hours, and squawk about beer and intangible drama. I don't like their smell, and I don't condone their narrow-minded attitudes. "Is it really all that necessary to hoot and hollar over Becky's new haircut, or how your overweight brother holds a very discriminant view on gays and lesbians," I often think. But I try to escape such a thought process, it too is impeding on my self-progression.

I've been coming here for half a decade now, five years of the same wooden floor, raised up from the same dirty navy blue carpet, tred on by thousands a foot. And in all those five years, there have been very few things I have learned. Beyond staying away from the area during lunch, I know now that the weather inside these walls is unpredictable. Wear long pants, and tee-shirts in layers. I've noted which outlets are best situated along the walls for plugging in my laptop and getting comfortable - my fleeting attempts at feng shui. Most recently though, I've taken a liking to how, when there is no one here in this hall but myself, how tall these white walls seem, and how the further my eyes climb those walls, the darker they get with years of untouched dust and grime.

This room is a home to my heart is some ways. It reminds me off my bedroom in high school, when I was too fickle to find a decorative motif I really liked. There is tape clinging to the grey white columns. Remnants of the past posters that hung advertising special events or urging student council electorates to pick a new president of the student body. There are fake trees, lining a fireplace that hide our nation's stars and stripes, and our states blue and yellow framers. I find it horribly symbolic. And above that fireplace hangs some crafted metallurgy project of a road runner in mid stride. It's tacky, but I appreciate that, even if this cold copper bird isn't necessarily my school's mascot, it is a symbol that brings the students here together - but in what ways I still don't know.

When I'm in this room here, looking down the tinted window corridors, I can look out the window at the trees, and recall season by season the minute differences in the pines outside. They go from a Christmas tree green and golden sheen in the summer and autumn, to some deep and recluse green in the winter. Spring always has the most noticeable pines, as the pollen lining the needles gives it a blue hue, until some bird crash lands on a branch and a puff of yellow powder erupts off the tree. Plant ejaculate and procreation.

you can translate the chinese.. you can.

你怎么那么无心？

Not trying your hardest to be with me?

You can walk down that road,

alone you go, with my soul.

Nothing in this life is free,

你找到家人，孤独找到了me.

i'll sink back into my hole,

the darkest cavern i will go,

easy rhymes will fill my heart,

and my lines will lack emotion and tear me apart.

with no fire, there is no warmth,

with no veins, there is no course.

four a.m i will see you go,

我们再见面，i still don't know.

i pull my strings from the puppeteer,

skip my classes and taste your tears.

reschedule my tests for you my dear,

but with no luck, it might be years.

the clouds are darkest around my birth,

and grow colder the more they hurt.

i'm sorry i'm callous and so

chilled,

可是 to navigate this river that has killed,

you must lack fear, and you must be skilled.

these poems only come from pain and sorrow,

like some wicked beast, scornful and hallow

还在浪费时间，

wondering where this began and ends.

NAMELESS

Nameless is called Nameless, because he is as such. When Nameless was born, it had been the hottest September in Lowetown’s history. His mother and myself, we had gotten together three years prior, and decided around Christmas one year to try and extend the family.

We hadn’t much need for a child before. We were happy. I would come home after work; my wife would be prepared for my arrival, waiting for me at the door as I had expected her to be. Food would be ready, somethin’ simple like chicken with stuffin’ or chicken with gravy, or chicken livers with roast chicken. The living room would be cozy and my big screen TV with its paper hardwood finish turned to my favorite channel. Life was good then. We rarely mentioned having kids, as both of us found pleasure in our simple lifestyle – the reservation from the idiots roaming around in the world, caught up in some preprogrammed idea that it was better to grow old with kids who went to college, and then their kids running around. It just wasn’t important to me and my sweetheart. And then one winter, when it was cold outside, and snow covered the roads so I wasn’t forced to work, a few days after New Years, before the Christmas tree was taken down and everyone still felt festive, my wife and I had a few drinks and made the rash decision to try and have a child. A mistake that would change everything, forever, on every level.

Nameless came into this world silent and pale pink, blue and green veins around his temples, and with a look of apathy. A quiet burden. He had no teeth, and looked around the hospital room once or twice, then closed his eyes. The doctors poked and prodded at him, and he made sounds, but never cried.

My wife had spent nineteen hours in labor, and we had refused to have that ceasar section – or whatever it was called – for most of the time. But they said she was growing too swollen, or her p-thingy was detached or somethin, but still, natural is better, no need for all this new technology interfering with what people have done for hundred of thousands of years. Anyway, Nameless had caused some complication in my sweetheart, and after an entire day of struggling, we agreed to the doctor’s orders. Nameless came into my world, seven pounds of human, but when he arrived, he took my baby’s life.

She lied there, struggling after they took him from‘er stomach. Sweat was beading up around her hairline, dark sunken circles dragged her eyes deep in to her pretty face that once held so much life. She lied there for a moment more, looked away from that kid of ours, let out a sigh, closed her eyes and she was gone. My sweetie was a beautiful woman, who pushed and pushed for a day, and at the end, this little thing took my baby’s life.

My wife and I didn’t need all these flashy things that the world threw into peoples lives, besides my television of course. We were intelligent, but there isn’t much need for too much knowledge, it just’ll make ya crazy in the end. She was a darling though, and I always remember what she said in May, right before she had the baby. “My lovey, we don’t have to name this thing inside me right? I think if you name somethin’, it just dies. Look at our gold fish and that cat we had.”

Don’t get me wrong, we weren’t bad at keepin’ things alive, I mean, I still got this child around… And so we joked around the idea, but never gave it any more serious thought. When my baby left to go the heavens and meet our maker, I decided to leave the child without a name, but the birth certificate demanded some sort of way to identify him, so I wrote in “nameless.” They capitalized the N by them damn selves.

Nameless has been around for nineteen years now. I can’t say I love him; he took away the thing I cherish the most, what I would consider the only thing I could love, my person. I guess he ain’t that bad. He does some cool things every once in a while, but is truly more of a burden than a blessing. He is a lot like me, always keeping to himself, not associating with the nimrods, the materialistic and the artsy.

But I cannot understand him, like he has some dream beyond this world. He’s always talking about some zen chinky nonsense, somethin’ those japs and gooks like. Nameless stays quiet, sits in his room a lot and reads stuff. Stuff like enlightening the brain or what not, philosophy and magic dragons or something. I wish he’d go play a video game, or sports or something. Watch TV at least. But instead, he sits around, reading those damn books, dreaming about a world where people think instead of work and live. Hippie nonsense. Nameless’s Hippie Nonsense.

the motions

put, stay
Originally uploaded by faultyplans

i am,
i am your eatery,
your Jones's just bought food processor,
with all the nooks and crannies.
For real, face it.
Without me, there is no whole.
There is just this girl running here,
this boy running there.

You all don't seem to look at the larger picture,
and even i am guilty of this...
Without these little nuts and bolts,
there is no working machine.

In my industry,
the hospitality/food one,
people come in to enjoy some regularly established part of their day,
breakfast/lunch/dinner/supper.

But people lose the idea of all of this,
out of sight, out of mind.

But really y'all,
step back and realize there is.
There is some dude that is slaving over a hot grill,
and he might even have a name.

And there that dude sits all night,
his life,
making you a medium well burger that isn't too bloody.

See this and hear me say,
i am the boy that cleans for you.
I am the one that allows you to sit at some table and,
without care or trepidation,
eat a meal that was so thoughtlessly prepared for you.

That burger you sit and eat,
it was prepared hours earlier,
after Ben was Benjamin,
but much before you had a face.
This burger is for you, and we hope it is done well,
but realize please,

you Mam, Sir, Sir, or Bro,
you're just another thing,
living and operating on some other scale,
different than mine.

My level,
delving into dirty dishes and the philosophy of a busboy.
How the bustub is placed, or where a dish goes.

Your level,
where is the family,
is Steve here yet, can he find a parking spot,
where is the restroom?

We are all just sole, please realize,
worrying about those problems surrounding us,
and perhaps those we surround.
And in the greater sceme of things don't be so annoyed.

We are all just human,
and we make those common errors.