Trial and Error

Yes, this is yet another late lonely night. I am awake thinking about the meaning of life, true love, and how to put it into words some new profound way but nothing is coming to me. I am having, what some would call, writers block. 

It's very frustrating. I feel like I have all this pent-up emotion but don't know how to express it. Usually when I'm in this situation I just go straight to honesty. I dig deep inside myself and pull out how I really feel. 

Today, I feel like that dead dog has been beaten to a fine pulp. I'm exhausted at dissecting love and life. I'm drained from typing something a thousand ways and still hover over the delete key because I don't like the way it sounds.

I think the most useful information I got from school was "trial and error". No matter how many books you read, people you talk to, movies or shows you watch, you will never fully understand life or love until you walk out the front door and realize there are a lot of trials and errors.

There's no shame in learning what not to do, so long as you learn. Learning doesn't happen from failure itself but rather from analyzing the failure, making a change, and then trying again.

The Sheriff

The horses feet were restless, stamping dust into the golden air as the deputy pulled back his reins. His leather saddle rubbed against his worn clothes. With every stomp, came the sound of his silver spurs jingling anxiously. The lanky deputy wiped the sweat from his thin brow with his red faded plaid shirt. He slapped his hands down onto the saddle horn, looked down the tracks, then swung his head back at the sheriff.

The badge burned bright with the glare of the setting sun. The sheriff sat tall on his horse. It stood steadfast, fearsome, and still. Its lungs would flood with air and through its muzzle, came the sound of power. His hat sat low as he peered under the brim. His six shooters, on either hip, waited to whistle deaths song.

Like a mirage, waving in the heat, the train appeared in the distance. Its engine chugged on like an Indian war cry. As it approached, the deputies horse became more impatient. The deputy yanked the reins left, pulling the horse into organized turmoil. The deputy glanced at the sheriff for a response but the sheriffs mien was unwavering. The sheriff knew the trouble would come to him and before long, it had.

The train hist and kicked as it came to a halt almost directly in front of the two lawmen. A gust of wind caught up to the train and blew up a small sand storm. The sheriff dipped his hat to shield his eyes. As the sand settled, so did, it seemed, everything around them. The sheriff bellowed out a deep command toward the, now exhausted, beast of wood and steel. A cargo door slid open two carts back, splitting the silence in half like a knife.

The makeshift gang stood there in the doorway, guns drawn and young blood ready to spill. The leader grinned as his lawless eyes went dark. The sheriff raised his head as slowly as the sun crowned the hillside, matching the outlaws eyes. The face of the sheriff was bold, his eyes glazed with the absent fear of death, or life, for that matter. The wrinkles on his face depicted a long life, lived honorably. His clothes, covered in remnants of the west, made him both transparent and outstanding.

He then heard the cold crisp unmistakable sound of a revolver hammer being cocked next to his ear. Had this of been any other time, the sheriff just as soon shot the second he heard that sound. But he didn't. He kept his head still, raised his left brow and peered from the side.

The deputy was holding his single-action revolver right at the sheriffs temple. The sheriff kept his poker face but might as well of been dead from the shock on the inside. When his heart caught up to him, the deputy was side-stepping his horse closer to the train, the gun still aimed at the sheriff's head.

The sheriff sighed remorsefully. He took one last look at the sunset and the hill where his house sat. Then, with the fluidity of water and the speed of lighting, he pulled his right gun out, danced on the hammer with his left hand, and kept his trigger moving. Thunder roared through the plain.

His gun was empty as fast as he drew it. Each of the outlaws wore a hole between their eyes. He saw smoke waving from the tips of their guns but didn't hear the noise. He tasted metal. Dark red saliva dripped out of his mouth as he looked down to confirm what he already knew. He wore a chest plate of blood. He felt the dead load of the bullets inside like fish weight at the bottom of his stomach. The sun had set and the cold desert air invaded him.

He looked back up at the deputy, whose face was filled with torment. The deputy stumbled onto the train cart, never taking his eyes of the sheriff. He watched as the sheriffs eyes faded and his body fell back onto the rear of this horse; his arms flung wide like angel's wings and a surrendering of his soul.

Possibilities

You walk into the room and my blood rushes, my face flush, but I try to hold composure. Fireworks set off in my chest. I hold excitement just below my vocals. When I speak, it's subtle in my pitch. It's like trying to settle an orchestra before a performance when all I want to do is let it play. When you hears it, you'd realize how perfect our melodies mesh.

But you don't even know, and if you did, you wouldn't care. I can't make you happy. My music isn't the money making kind. It's the pure and untouched, the legendary Mozart, the romantic Mahler, impervious to time and cynicism.

You sit by me. I die. Taking every breath as my last, I make sure not to move too quickly. As if I were sitting next to a timid dove, I patently and carefully choose my moves. Every finger twitch, elbow rub, and couch budge are scrutinized to the last detail. I'm now more still than a garden statue. You adjust and move a hair closer to me. Panic pounds my heart faster when I realize we'll soon be touching after one more casual adjustment. And without warning, we touch. We are sitting on the couch, touching, your body to mine, with nothing between us but the clothes we have on.

My heart can't take anymore when I realize I haven't been breathing. Once oxygen reaches my brain, I see how childish I'v become in just minutes. I try to shake of these feelings by trying to remember how I couldn't make you happy, how I'm inept and inferior to so many better suitors. I'm doing such a good job of reminding myself that I don't notice your hand touching mine. I want it so badly to be intentional but my heart won't let me believe. Every heart has a safety net that will only let you long for something so hard until you let it go. That feeling, of letting go, it's like your body becomes liquid and your limbs don't belong to you anymore. The black hole in your stomach just seems to grow and the room starts to spin.

And when your finger slid over mine as subtle as I was trying to be, I was terrified and overwhelmed with joy. After your pinky came your ring finger and like a cascade, your hand was on mine. You knew and I knew. Without words. I could feel your heart racing through your fingers. You were as terrified as I was. The only thing that made us sane was that we were terrified together. In that moment, anything is possible. It's like finding out you have the ability to fly when all your life you've been afraid of heights. 

Gone But Not For Rot

How gracefully are we suppose to step back into sanity? How hard do we fall when a relationship is broken? Do I boil and burn or sulk in sadness? Do I sit and stare and dwell into madness?

My heart aches and my focus breaks but I know that I must move on. If I sit too still my memory catches up with me but I can't run forever and I try not to remember all those moments of happiness.

I recite to myself that everything changes, life comes at us in stages. Whether we're ready or we're not, whether we've found what we've sought.

Third Grade

The church I grew up in had an annual cook-off where all the families would come together and camp on one large piece of forested private property. They had trail rides, tree swings, zip lines, outdoor movie theatres, and lots of chillie. The last one I can remember going to was in the third grade when I had a terrible crush on this little angle, Jillian Biglane.

This is the same girl who went to private school with me. After school, she and I would go across to street to where the sixth and seventh graders would practice track and cross-country. I remember one day trying to impress her by keeping up with her while running backwards. To put it bluntly, we don't run like that for a reason. I fell flat onto my back and hit my head on the hard caliche road.

That year at the cook-off, we snuck away from all our friends and the parents. We met, what felt like the background of the events, at the tree swing in the evening just as the stars started to sparkle. We were quiet, comfortable in the moment, and thrilled with delight. I pushed her and every returning swing, I smelt her shampoo scent. I wanted that moment to last forever. It was the first time I had chareshed time with a girl. It was the first time my hands got sweaty and I felt the unsettling pleasure of butterflies in my stomach. Inoccent, pure, and honest.

Cry Baby's Got Nothin' On Me

I don't cry as much now as much as I did when I was younger. I say "younger" instead of "child" because I was a sensitive teenager. I felt a lot of things I'd say most kids my age may not have even thought about. I didn't realize how taboo crying was until I really got to college.


Sometimes I'd lay in bed in my dorm and have an overwhelming feeling of sadness. It felt like all my tears for that night would come out as one big tear. It'd start from the corner of my eye by my nose and roll... down... my cheek. When if finally reached my lips, it would follow the crease in like a valley. And just when I thought that was going to be it, a second and third tear follow the same salty path the first one took.


Other nights I'd absolve my crying into a shower. The water would mute my tears but I was left with quiet pain at night. I'd lay there for hours wondering if I would ever fall asleep.


There would be days when I'm driving home from school and begin with a grimace. The expression seemed to get stronger as the magnetic emotion came over me. My eyes would bat and my vision would blur from the forming tears. I'd have to wipe my eyes like windshield wipers to see the road.


On some occasions, for no good reason, I would feel like crying. Not just crying, I would feel like bawling. 


I cried for the first time in a long time the other day. But it wasn't any more than two or three tears. I feel like my body's built a dam as I've grown up. As if the dam is so full, tears have begun to spill over. I just hope no one's around to see the dam collapse. I don't think they'd understand.

Self-contempt

I've been a beaten battered ship along the lonely coast. I've been a weak defense against the things I want most. I've been a hot and heated pot boiling within myself. I've been years of dust collecting on the shelf.  I've been words spread thin, dried out in the sun. I've been broken in and forced to run. I've been played like the family piano and trusted just the same. I've been known for nothing and labeled with that name. I've been sick of what I am and how long I've fought. I've been sitting here wondering how long I'll take to rot.