On Sleep

And I will wait as long as I must.
Because you're worth it.
And always will be.

If I try and stave you off with coffee
and the just-one-more-cigarette facade,
trust me.

It's not you. It's me.
And I will lie here until you come.
And I will smoke in the streetlight's shadows.

Until you come.

And when I wake up, and you're gone
I will go out into the windy, cold and busy world.
But you're on my mind.

And when I wake up and I'm gone,
all night in my cab, it's you I'm thinking of.
And my greatest pleasure at work

is the moments I spend with you
between calls to crack heads and insomniacs.
My nightly lover I can't know until you're gone.

It is you.
It is you.
It is you.

Because I feel like it

This is your humanity.
The gas station glows, a city on a hill.
I left that place to forget.

This is what you are.
The customers flock here waiting to be found.
But I know the spider web's wisdom.

Did you really think we were all Kierkegaard's?
The clerk's apathetic benevolence: five minutes or seventy cents.
Why do I see them at sunrise?

The Brass Rail

Abandon all personality, you who enter this place.
The skirts come in wearing the same skirts.
Whats a Kubrick fan to do?

This is your humanity

This is your humanity. This is what you are. Did you really think we were all Kierkegaard's and Augustine's? No. No. No. My friends. They were far from that and so are you and I.

This is your humanity. These people wandering alleys at three a.m.

This is your humanity. These people drinking high rev coffee at sunset.

This is your humanity. These people pissing in cabs.

This is your humanity. Fifty-nine cents and the make-shift-abortion's stairwell bruises.

This is your humanity.

Get out of my dreams. Get out of my dreams. I left that place to forget you. I now see the wisdom in the spider's web. You don't know where you're going until it's too late. Why do I see you when I close my eyes. How can I have insomnia at noon? How can I toss and turn when it's light out. Why do I see the center line before passing off. Why do I dream about being awake?

This is your humanity.

How can a town so small contain so much?

The gas station is lit up like a funereal pyre. How can you, how can we go there. Instinctively. And file in. Talk to the clerk. He does not care, but he will pretend for seventy cents or five minutes. Whichever you prefer.

Speak your opinions.
If they mattered you wouldn't be here.

Speak your mind.
If you had one you wouldn't be here.

Speak the truth.
There are no lies at five in the morning.

And the sun used to drain me. It used to empty me. It took my soul. And I was glad. I didn't like my mindset anyway.

!!!

I'm glad I keep this blog.

I am definitely cooler today than three years ago.

Keep up the good work, me.

Proposal

"My father was an alcoholic and the family was dysfunctional. Mom was always gone and we were left with my dad most of the time.

I learned a lot about God growing up but as a child I didn’t understand it. At age eleven, my parents divorced and my sisters and I moved to Ashland with my mom. After six months I moved back to be with my dad. We the moved to Grand Island and remarried. God was not really a thought in my mind but when I did think of Him I was scared. I lived in fear of God.

I started drinking when I was fourteen and was doing methamphetamines at nineteen. I had been in several treatments from ages sixteen to twenty-three. But it was never enough. The focus was never on God. I relapsed so many times. I did everything from selling and stealing to get high. I gave birth to a beautiful baby girl during this time. Her father, an abusive man, was with me for three years. He was the only man I had been with that ever abused me. You never think that it can happen to you but as I have learned in life, not having a relationship with God will leave you open to so many things. In December of 2003 my daughter was taken away and my mom had me lawfully removed from her house.

I spent 42 days in jail. That was really bad. When I was released I came to the People’s City Mission. I started getting into God’s Word and later joined the New Life Program.

I made a decision to relinquish my rights to my daughter to my mother. I really felt that it was the best thing for her. It wasn’t really fair that she should have to keep waiting for me. Signing those papers was terrible. I pray that no parent would ever have to feel so helpless. If I didn’t have God in my life I wouldn’t be here today.

Being here was the most wonderful learning experience of my life. I really understand more of myself now and why God loves me. He did a wonderful thing by sending Jesus to save us all. If only I could learn to love as He has loved me."

This bland and probably fake advertisement from the city mission motivates me to finally put into writing a plan I've had for sometime.

Part I: Introduction
There's an army out there. Surrounding us on every street corner from Arnold Heights to Gaslight Village. People filled with the void. Easily manipulated and coerced into actions against their wills. The Milgram Experiments proved to us the extremes to which the average citizen can be driven by an authority figure and it is high time this valuable scientific knowledge be brought into the twenty-first century.

Part II: The Plan
Phase One: Infiltration
In order to harness this valuable resource's true potential, contact must be made on a localized basis. I propose a street team be assembled. This team's job will be to befriend the various wretched masses teaming around the downtown area. The ultimate goal of this phase to be on a first name basis with a minimum of twelve hobos.

Phase Two: Introduction
Upon the assertion of goodwill, the plan becomes less friendly. Using the report established in phase one, member of the street team subtly reference a messiah figure. No overt demands are made. The street teams merely drops hints that the Messiah has returned and resides here in Nebraska.

Phase Three: Establishment
Here te various poor are given a chance to meet the Messiah. Promises of an unbridled period of gorging in the immediate future are interspersed with quotes from the Bible taken severely out of context. Once the homeless women can be convinced of this reality the men will quickly follow.

Phase Four Encampment
Establish a residence for the homeless on par with the mission but allow for greater retention of basic human dignity. Five dollar cover for a cot, a meal and alcohol abuse privileges. Occasionally join in to show solidarity but do not sink to their depths. In time staying at the Messiah's house will become a status symbol.
Drive homeless into a frenzy using pessimistic stories as the basis for claims of end time. Relate these stories to Book of Revelations as often as possible. Reduce the price of admission to the homeless house by half in exchange for fifteen minutes of audible prayer for the safety ad fortitude of the Messiah figure.

Phase Five: Enslavement
Use frenzy to make homeless panhandle for more and more funds. Begin administering Steel Reserve free to the homeless elite enough to enter the home. Arbitrarily set a date for the End in the coming weeks and demand tithing for salvation. Increase tithe as time draws near.

Phase Six: Escape
Messiah figure, in panic, pleads with homeless to give as much as possible, siting personal salvation as reason. As the homeless inevitably funnel funds increase panicked pitch. Send them all away day before, comparing coming event to the Agony in the Garden. While homeless wander the streets frightened and inebriated leave town.