We Built a Bonfire (A Poem I Wrote)

We built a bonfire
From scrapbooks and old polaroids
From cassettes and video tapes
From Halloween costumes and Christmas trees
We built a bonfire
From summers full of cheap beers and wine coolers
Summers of sitting on the hoods of old Toyotas
Smoking weed
Not cool enough to know better
Not smart enough to care
Watching the sun set
Watching the sun rise, joggers passing the diners in the early morning
We built a bonfire
And the smoke curled up to a sky slit open by clouds
A sky that opened up its guts and poured
on soccer games and school plays
on a first kiss and a broken heart
on a first time, stifling noises, clumsy and afraid
we built a bonfire
and it roared and hissed and kissed at our hands and feet
and we flew kites, and warmed cold hands with our breath,
and coughed from the smoke that filled our lungs
we built a bonfire
watched it burn
until it was gone
and the embers swirled through the evening air to land on the earth
and were extinguished

So I'm back.

Kind of. I guess the fact that nobody reads this is both a blessing and something else that is less of a blessing. Things have changed since I last posted. Quit Boss, started a new job selling gym memberships, started working out again, finished Champions, and wrote a first draft of a query letter. I want to finish the letter this week and get it sent out. You know, get me an agent.

In other news, I'm just so sad. I can't put my finger on why. It just really feels like something is busted down deep in my guts, and what works in most people just shuts down in me. I've got this weight on my shoulders, and it's pushing me down a little bit further every day.

Like I told my mama: I'm feelin blue. I don't know why I'm feelin blue, but I am.

Little Children was pretty great.

Read it at Borders, waiting for KC. Added some new stuff to the novel. Ready to be done with it. Going through the whole thing tomorrow with one goal: make every character 3-dimensional and likeable.

My masculinity has deserted me

in the blur of swiftly folded shirts and condescending customers. I've fooled myself into thinking this was good enough for a while now, and just recently broke out of the spell with the aid of beer and cigarettes. Tomorrow, I ready myself for change. Tomorrow, I break free and explode into a future of uncertainty and promise.

Or I get drunk and write some. Either way.

Loving Daisy. Came around on it. Sick of Boss sucking the testosterone from my nutsack, but I'll get used to that too. Or not. Peace bitches.

Daisy

Wow, this album is heavy. Not exactly what I expected, but I'll give it a few more listens before deciding anything.

Those guys need to cheer up.

If Dan finishes up in the next couple days

or even if he doesn't, I'm starting in on the final draft. I'm still not sure if the whole thing works as a dramatic whole, rather than a collection of affecting short stories, but I'm at the point where I'm ready to be done with it, regardless. It's been tough, at times, to see the forest for the trees, but I'm not ashamed of the (almost) finished product.

So I'm not winning a Pulitzer or getting on Oprah. I very well might get published, and then what? I've got a second book planned, either way. It's going to touch on many of Champions' themes, but I'd like to empty out all the cynicism and negativity and just write something really honest, beautiful, and sad.

Swinging for the fences, as always. Either hit a home run or strike out.

Champions

Waiting on final input, then finishing up. Attempting to contact agents starting tonight. Looking into independent publishers.

It will happen for me. It has to, right?


(probably not)