I used to want things. I used to wear my desire on my sleeve, my most beautiful and desperate burden. I used to die of my own emptiness a thousand times a day, always just on the edge of self-immolation. That was back when I still clung to idealistic fantasies, the only raft left in the seemly perpetual dark seas of disappointment. That was years ( Read more... )

It goes zero to sixty in 4.3 seconds. It’s coming straight at you and it’s the only ride in town. But it’s not going to bother slowing down-no, you’d better grab a hold of the side as you twist your body out of its path. Moving like this shouldn’t be possible, but it must be, because you’re doing it, and in the back of your mind you register the ( Read more... )

I’m keeping it all inside these days. I haven’t much to share; my paltry sums are counted only for me. I’m coasting along in a space undefined, all rote lines of poetry and scripted procedures, no philosophy desired, no outstanding bills, no restless challenges to throw out against the sky. And I haven’t made up my mind whether this is happiness or ( Read more... )

I’m bursting with the tight-focused energy of caffeine, of ephedrine, of modafinil. My legs are doing their furious stimulant bounce, my face is slack, and my eyes are burning tunnel-holes in the screen. I’m pounding away on the keys, trying to push myself through this last, lingering summer task, and I’m perfused with quiet numbness. Last night, I ( Read more... )

I am moving, but my body is fettered with chains. I am walking slowly, as if through water, limbs weighed down with chemical lust. I’m pushing down the dark stretch of Central Ave, past the empty, barred windows of liquor stores and black alleys reeking of urine and decay. Echoes of sirens wail in the distance, like someone screaming out for help, ( Read more... )

In 1954, James Olds and Peter Milner conducted an experiment to determine whether electrical stimulation of certain parts of the brain could influence a rat’s choice of direction. An accidental misplacement of an electrode, however, produced a curious reaction. When the rat was stimulated, it was noted to sit up quickly and look around, sniffing ( Read more... )

I am sliding, paper thin, into all of the crevices of the Earth. I am flowing, I am sparkling to life, I am brimming with warmth and a trusted silence. I am light and airy and without desire. I need nothing but to live. I am floating in the clouds, looking down from a solemn and time-worn vantage, the trade winds at my back and the world spread out ( Read more... )

There’s no sense in apologizing for your most beautiful parts. Beauty is meant to be spread, to be shouted at the top the lungs, to be flung into the sky with reckless abandon. Others see what they wish to see-to confirm their own suspicions, to fit in like puzzle pieces to their favorite preconceptions. They’ll twist your words and distort your ( Read more... )

The return to normality always happens when you’re not looking. Out of necessity, you soak yourself neck-deep in your work. You live and breathe in a choking haze of scientific exposition, you drink in the endless sea of models and data and nomenclature, trying frantically to assimilate as much as possible before it slips out of view. And while you ( Read more... )

Falling forward and catching yourself, over and over again, just on the edge of imbalance, has the superficial appearance of running.

Boy, do we love to run.