Wandering Allowed/Wondering Aloud @brendanekstrom - Tumblr Blog

Ah tumblr

You certainly filled a void I needed filled. Thanks for that. Byeeeeee

I never thought I’d watch her dress again But there in the dim of the hobbit hole she stood, a beige towel wrapped and tucked under slender arms I watched both of her as she was shadowed by the full-length mirror. Her hair was brown with subtle highlights. It hung about an inch or two above her shoulders. Her thin arms looked muscular as they pressed against the towel adding a small swell to her usually understated biceps. The line of a perfect clavicle protruded in a healthy way, begging to be bitten or kissed for the moon or sun. With thoughtful charming motion she pulled the clothes from her dresser drawer, no notice of my eyes on her. I could smell her shamppoo from across the room making muddled memories of our latest nights, somehow curling my toes and making my head light as my blood remembered the lust of an hour ago. The freckles on her back beckoned me as the towel fell to the ground. Four large ones in a diamond shape and two smaller ones to either side of the bottom. Her sigil. My beacon. The symbol Of my heart. My love. My desire and my loss. My laughter, And my love. All there in astrological pinpricks on the skin of my lady. She dressed as I watched, covering all those limbs I loved and longed for. and I felt myself rising to go to her. wrapping around her from behind as I looked at our mural in the mirror. a picture of what we’d always wanted to be. together. i kissed her neck. Felt the soft silence amplify her breathing. and carried her to bed.

Steam

“I feel very lucid, happy too.” That’s new, I said. It feels new, she said. And I wanted to feel it too. “We’ll do a therapy session when you get back” And I wondered for who And I wondered what type of therapy she meant, And if it involved changing the sheets like it used to, Or if she expected me to lie on my couch And reveal things I already knew. I hoped not. I Hoped she could just take my hands and chant, til memories trailed away, Like old dreams, Until anything still left was clean. But my eyes wore the dull grey of summer storms and nothing was clean anymore. I wondered if she was still fucking my friend, So I asked, and she was, so I said “enjoy yourself.” And I meant it. But I also meant kill yourself. And we both silently said “I’m sorry and fuck you”, And we couldn’t have meant both more as we wandered off into different lighting. She with her lucidity, And me with my unrelenting urge To paint the skies with her, Until the grey went black

Winter 2014 ish

I live In every city in the world. But it doesn’t matter to me when I come back home to Cumberland. The roads and years all fade away and I’m small. Even when my phone still travels my memories keep me tied within miles, perhaps as far as Garret county where I’d drive to visit Holly, such an adventure back then bundled and smoking in my Oldsmobile achieva, singing all violent femmes along the way. That voice just dry and full enough of whine to give hope to my own sour song. Almost an hour there to her old apartment then falling through the door in the middle of the night. The lights never came on. Just kicked some clothes off and found my way toward the bed. No words for each other either. Just her shoulders cold against my cheek as our feet searched for warmth. That’s as far as I’d go back then. Drive an hour for some ghost of compassion. Wake up lonely again and drive home. But now I live in every city in the world. The beds are different when I come home. The women not so much though they’d kill me for hinting at comparison. At the bar they know me as someone who lives in every city in the world and at least one beauty shyly smiles that she’d like to know. But I’m small again and her smile makes me forget what I now am. I Think maybe she sees me small, the way I see myself. I see all my winters in her eyes and wonder if she’s warm enough if I could let them all go. But she sees other cities and other lives in mine. And though her shoulders are warmer as I fall asleep, I still have to wake up and leave.

My sister today on the steps hiding from the rain. Five minutes. Five minutes for the whole year, and she was truly lucid for maybe the first time in twenty. At least since her kids were born. I found her clarity heartbreaking and maybe more disturbing than the more tremulous figure I've come to know. She told me how she had been strong when she was young. Left home at 13 got a job and an apartment claiming 18, was never afraid. Not til she came here to Cumberland. And then, she said, she learned fear and terror. Felt them grasp her and leach like some alien in a movie. I watched her rub her arms while she talked, saw the spots on her skin. The ones that were part of my fear. But I let my fear slide away and hugged her. I asked her why she had changed her name long ago and she told me. Three dreams in three nights. A different person each night had asked her, “what is your name?” She wrote it down on paper and handed it to them. “Holell”. After the last dream she woke up and decided that must be her name. She had been searching for a name at the time. I understood. “Well”, I said, “I want you to know that my daughters' middle name is Elizabeth after you. I mean I know that's not your name anymore.” “It is”, she said. “I never changed it. You did that for me?” I studied her for a second. Her hair was frayed and greying. Her teeth had made a mortal enemy of all color and faded to look like old bone. Life had shown her hell. Life had shown her death enough times to leave her there. But in the moment her brown eyes seemed incredibly young and alive.

I remember the wildness of your hair I couldn't help thinking it reminded me of another one who'd come and gone. I think maybe I'd loved her too but I'd done it wrong

I could feel her warmth from a foot away burning through the night sometimes I would stay just there, feeling the edges of her heat as if flirting with an aura Sometimes I couldn’t break the spell and I would sleep there bathing in her glow. I felt no less love from there. But most nights I would pull myself within reach of her breath so I could taste it and wrap my arm around to cup her breast. I’d listen to her chest rise and fall Until eventually her rhythm slowed, sometimes stopping completely and I would count 1, 2, 3… Waiting for her to finally exhale that breath that said “I’m still here” Sometimes I'd reach a number I didn’t like and I would shake her slightly to bring her home. Sometimes when I finally fell away to dreams she would wake me With a strained murmur or even a scream and I would touch her face feeling the sweat and breath mingle on my skin. I would wonder what wild dreams she fought to conquer, and I would pull her close to me rocking her body gently in my arms, feeling her heartbeat and breath slowly calm as I held her, knowing how safe she felt in my embrace. To me, it felt like more than making love.

My memory is shit. It plays games. It swims and dodges. It's detrimental and frustrating and makes me want to kick shit. And that's I want to tell you this. Because I remember with impeccable clarity sitting in a black Ford Festiva with my friend Mike Smith. We had driven from Cumberland MD. to Ocean City to participate in a bowling tournament. We were fourteen years old. I was anyway. He was a bit younger, though still in my class. We were transitioning from goofy weirdos to raging hormonal sex creatures, or we were supposed to be but really I just wanted to ride my bike and hit the diving board all day. We were wise beyond our years and had no intention of growing up. At the moment I was excited. The two of us had gone out to his fathers car because Mike had a dubbed cassette that he wanted to play for me. We had discovered some pretty amazing music together. In fact I was sitting on his couch when the video for "I'm too sexy" by Right Said Fred first aired, thus sending us into a tragic spiral of pre-sexual self analyzation, or more pointedly a fascination with catwalking and mesh shirts. So here it is a cassette tape, one of the clear but pink tinted ones that looks just enough like the skin of those little tetra fish. The ones that die no matter how well you take care of them just so you can learn about death. He pulls the tape out like it's a joint, or like its the book from never ending story. And I sit back in the passengers seat as he pops it into the deck. we're watching the clouds roll in over the huge parking lot as that beach rain starts to hit the windshield. Big fucking drops. And then the sky is grey as I hear this gruff voice begin singing "I am smelling like a rose..." And my eyes drift down to the stereo and those big black knobs that for some reason protrude way to far from the din. And I'm feeling legitimately transfixed in a way I couldn't explain then and certainly can't now. And we sit there not saying a word to each other, (no small feat for us mind you), and we stare out the window just listening until it's quiet. And we stare for a second hearing the silence until I say "play it again." And we listen more times than I can count that day not like you would listen to most albums because for some reasons I had to hear "dead and bloated" over and over before we moved onto the next song and then I had to hear that song over and over. And so we listened all day and on the ride home. and for days to come. Now I'm thirty-seven years old and I don't have a ton of moments that I remember with such clarity. In fact, I'm not sure why this moment has always been so vivid or why it remains at all. But it's there and it just may be there because of the music. I may just be writing this to say thanks to Scott and the rest of the guys in STP for creating the amber of that day. So I can always remember what it was like to be lingering between kid and teen and how much fun Mike and I always had when we were best friends, how it felt to be young, how a song can freeze you in your tracks and make a windshield feel like a movie screen. The fuck do I know. I never know why I'm writing. Thanks for the music Scott. Sorry to think you didn't have someone that would never give up on you.

People will look at you and say “you’re such a good dad”, because you made your baby smile or stop crying or maybe simply because you’re Present but then you take your baby to the doctor and they want to pump her FULL of pharmaceuticals that may or may not save her life some day and you have to decide whether everything you’ve read or been told by friends from both sides with HEAVY voices and knowing eyes is factual or the byproduct of propaganda in a financially and politically driven world. you have to make your decision and you have to look yourself in the mirror when you go home alone questioning if you’ve made the right choice. because you didn’t choose to be a doctor or a scientist you’re just a guy. You think of the friends and strangers who commend you for burping your baby correctly, (but secretly judge you for using a pacifier), and want to tell them, next time they comment on your parenting, that you’re actually pretty much fucking winging it and that watching life tear its way into the world doesn’t magically give you all the instinctive parenting answers everyone seems to think it might, not in a world so rich with complexities and options. It sure didn’t make you a doctor anyway. And that just hearing someone say “you’re a good dad” is all it takes sometimes to make you feel like a fake or an impostor because you still feel the oppressive weight of uncertainty in your chest. And you KNOW it’s just the beginning of uncertain answers. And you KNOW what’s at stake. But you don’t feel certain about much else except that ironically, the most clear thing men are taught is that they must never show weakness or uncertainty, and certainly not in a matter like this. so you go to that old page on the Internet and write about it in second person where no one (10 people) will read it, hoping as you write that you’ll (not feel so alone) come up with a positive spin by the end.

We had our memories we did. We had autumn eves with frozen toes in white sand Winter mornings trapped in doors lights flashing on the tree hair falling 'round me on the couch The cat searching for a place in the scribble That our bodies left on the canvas of the day we had telepathy that brought us together that first day when she smiled and I said of course "I'll find you later" without saying a word. And we had milkshakes when I finally found her. Choked them down with the sweet smell of Seattle. We had paint in our fingers and hair as we made the house home. All yellow, for her. Everything happily for her as we rolled it out like hope and love onto the walls. We had thanksgiving with everyone present. Mine anyway. Always mine. Hers were too far. But we were thankful for them at least. And for her mothers recipes. And for the way our hands met under the table at the feast. We had a thousand evening naps where she fell into me like a great bird into a lake and I splashed up all around to wrap her in me and leave her sparkling in that last light before dusk. We had nights where I watched her for hours feeling her warmth and breathing her breath And nights where I sat in the guest room too long while she waited, lonely. We had days where I gave her all I could give and wondered why it wasn't enough And days where she did the same. we had love that could only be made by fools so purely lost. We had mistakes that I couldn't cross off. We had everything and nothing as it goes. Least that's what it seemed to me as I said goodbye to yellow Closed the door And fell apart Alone. We had it all.

psych-quotes

I no longer believed in the idea of soul mates, or love at first sight. But I was beginning to believe that a very few times in your life, if you were lucky, you might meet someone who was exactly right for you. Not because he was perfect, or because you were, but because your combined flaws were arranged in a way that allowed two separate beings to hinge together.

Lisa Kleypas (via hattiewatson)

Whispering I miss you into the air above my blankets. Words seem to hang there for a moment like warm breath on a cold day before they slowly slip away. Too much ground to cover between my lips and your ears. But It's nice to feel it anyway. It's nice to have something to say to the morning.

Cumberland md. I used to love falling asleep listening to trains every night. No wonder I can't sleep with silence.

Inflation.

But oh yes. I'd forgotten how we'd met. She Was just standing there arms set like a goddess. And she laughed. But oh yes. I'd forgotten how we'd met. She Was just standing there, {i'm swept}, like a goddess. And she laughed. But oh yes. I'd forgotten how we met. She laughed. And I knew. And I followed her through the night and the years until she said you can't come along anymore. There's something wrong. And I knew she was right. I'd been listening, waiting for her to say those words. I knew she was right. she was gone. But I remember how we met.

infinitesilence-

these are the men I look up to xD ahahah

circasurvive-blog

We’re touring this summer on the Rockstar Uproar Festival with Alice In Chains, Jane’s Addiction, and Coheed and Cambria!! Tickets go on sale this Thursday at noon http://www.rockstaruproar.com.

AUG 9 - Scranton, PA - Toyota Pavilion at Montage Mountain

AUG 10 - Hartford, CT - The Comcast Theatre

AUG 11 - Darien Center, NY - Darien Lake Performing Arts Center

AUG 13 - Saratoga Springs, NY - Saratoga Performing Arts Center

AUG 14 - Mansfield, MA - Comcast Center

AUG 16 - Bristow, VA - Jiffy Lube Live

AUG 17 - Holmdel, NJ - PNC Bank Arts Center

AUG 18 - Wantagh, NY - Nikon at Jones Beach Theater

AUG 20 - Toronto, ON - Molson Canadian Amphitheatre

AUG 22 - Tinley Park, IL - First Midwest Bank Amphitheatre

AUG 23 - Noblesville, IN - Klipsch Music Center

AUG 24 - Clarkston, MI - DTE Energy Music Theater

AUG 27 - Oklahoma City, OK - Zoo Amphitheater

AUG 28 - Dallas, TX - Gexa Energy Pavilion

AUG 29 - The Woodlands, TX - Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion

AUG 31 - Albuquerque, NM - Isleta Amphitheatre

SEPT 1 - Denver, CO - Fiddler’s Green Amphitheatre

SEPT 2 - Salt Lake City, UT - USANA Amphitheatre

SEPT 5 - Nampa, ID - Idaho Center Amphitheatre

SEPT 11 - San Francisco, CA - Shoreline Amphitheatre

SEPT 13 - Phoenix, AZ - Desert Sky Pavilion

SEPT 14 - Chula Vista, CA - Sleep Train Amphitheatre

SEPT 15 - Irvine, CA - Verizon Wireless Amphitheater

Bands playing the Ernie Ball Festival Stage: Walking Papers, Danko Jones, Middle Class Rut, New Politics, Chuck Shaffer Picture Show + one local battle of the bands winner will open each date of the tour!

fuckyeahcircasurvive-blog

OH FUCK WHAT’S UP HARTFORD

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