And The Earth Did Not Devour Him

[coreyevanwood]

A Disappearance

I knew a girl who swore the earth had swallowed her only to spit her up three days later No reports were filed no parties skimmed through miles of wheat fields, delicately searching for a body I don’t know what to believe. Inside the world was cold cold that slips through sweaters and seeps into your skin, so she tells me And when the world spits you out, swathed in saliva and soil, your hair smells of nostalgia you are left, longing to return

[coreyevanwood]

First poem in a long time.  No title.

“Can we truly grasp the complexities of nothingness?” She asked, while puffing a cigarette down.  The ash on the end had become a long column, waiting to dissolve into the first gust of wind that slipped through the cracks of a brittle picket fence.  “Everything we’ve know is existence, neurons firing erratically, the vivid photographs of vision, the electricity of touch.”  She flicked her cigarette over the fence, and for a moment I forgot we were high and drunk in her backyard. “Consciousness may be an illusion,” I added. “Everything exists only because we allow it to.”   We sat silently, finally grasping everything within existence. “I need to throw up,” She said and walked inside. I lit another cigarette and fell asleep before it was finished.

[coreyevanwood]

Studies

We often eat in silence.  I’ve memorized how she cuts

Her chicken, letting the metal scrape across porcelain.

She chews with the right side of her mouth and smiles

After every bite.  I have been studying the intricacies

 Of her, the way she lingers in the door way when entering

A room, how she does her hair in the morning

before leaving for work. When she says I love you

it always sounds like a question, the last vowels lingering

 in the air, waiting to see if they are ready to fly

or be destroyed.  When I say I love you, I whisper

wondering if the distance will swallow them.

[coreyevanwood]

Journal

Every day during lunch I drive down an old farm road to pick up barbecue.  Lunch is 30 minutes and it only takes me 12 to get there and eat.  On the way back I always drive the long way.  This is mainly to smoke, but it's also to clear my mind.  

There's something about a farm road surrounded by stripped cotton fields that makes me feel something; emptiness, hope, I don't know what it is.  Everyday on my drive back I look at the yellow fields and think how easy it would be to keep driving, to take this road until it becomes dust.  

I wouldn't be able to teach at that school anymore.  I might not be able to teach anywhere.  But the thought, the option, is so soothing to me.  Would I just keep driving, start over, scrap and fight to make my way?  Would I find something eventually?

I would hope so, but I don't know if there are any answers.  If there are they probably aren't miles out on a dirt road.  I'm going off topic but i need to vent.  

My whole life I've felt like I've been one answer away from happiness.  Other people have it and I've definitely experienced it.  I don't know how to explain it really.  I guess I'm depressed.  it's genetic I think.  But I've always felt like there's an answer somewhere and if I could just find it I would be alright.  I don't even know what the question is.  

Okay.  I'm done being writing angsty depressing things now.  I've been cooped inside most of the day.

[coreyevanwood]

Midnight Drive

It wasn't much; a smile, sleep 

heavy on her eyes, moonlight

floating in through the windshield

as a song I've since forgotten

hummed through a busted speaker

[coreyevanwood]

In Case You Miss Me

This title could be specifically targeting several people, but I mean it as a catch all for anyone who may follow me on Tumblr.  

I don’t write much anymore.  It’s a sad truth that has been the result of a busy schedule and new interests.  The last year of my life I have started doing stand up comedy and most of my writing is dedicated to jokes, essays, and journal entries to keep myself sane.  I understand that almost everyone who follows this blog started following it for my poetry and short stories.  I occasionally still write a bit of both, but my insecurities have taken over and I refuse to post them.  

I have changed so much this last year and a half.  My father tells me I seem more angry than I ever have been before.  I don’t disagree with him.  I don’t know if I like who I’ve become but I do know it is what I’m working with now.  

This is all scatter brained.  Forgive me.  I think I need to vent or something.  Since I’ve been gone I’ve had a relationship and lost a relationship.  I’m single now and trying to deal with a lot of personal flaws I’ve been avoiding such as codependency and an overwhelming insecureness about myself.  

I just wanted anyone who might miss me to know I’m alive and still care about Tumblr.  I’m also teaching eighth grader’s now on top of another job, so I don’t see myself posting to this regularly anytime soon.  I hope to make it back one day.  

Be well, 

Corey

[coreyevanwood]

I'm writing a paper about the word faggot.  The etymology, the history of the word, why it is offensive, and so on.  Does anyone have any good sources for this?  It's a research paper but I'm expected to use popular sources instead of academic sources.  So far I have the scene from Louie, which is a great one, but does anyone have any articles or youtube videos that might be helpful?

[coreyevanwood]

Removal (In Memory of Mark Strand)

*The words in italics are directly from Mark Strand's poem "Keeping Things Whole"

I am in my house.

I strip away the gray paint.

I tear apart sheet rock, the doorways,

The windowsills, until the wind finds

Its way into the house.  I admire

The frame, touch the copper pipes,

Trace the electric veins like an archeologist

Exploring the bones of a man

I never knew.

Remove the frame, the slender, steaming pipes,

The tangled electricity.

  I am in my neighborhood.

I strip away the other houses.

I tear apart the cement, the sidewalks,

The mailboxes, until tree roots devour

The suburbs.  I admire the cut grass,

Trimmed bushes, follow the black

Maze of asphalt like a topographer

Mapping the dips and rivets,

Sketching the streets of my childhood.

Remove the grass, the trimmed bushes,

The empty streets. 

  I am in a field. 

In a field

I am the absence

Of field

Was it something about consciousness, the separation of everything that exists?

  I strip off my clothes, leaving dry skin.

I tear at the skin, the fingernails

The eyes, until darkness consumes

The field.  I feel the dense muscles,

Understand the skeleton, trace

The veins with fingertips.  I am a mother

Clinging to the body of her son, unable

To understand the loss of existence. 

Remove the muscle, the brittle bones,

The tangled highway of the heart.

  In a field

I am the absence

Of field. 

[coreyevanwood]

What do you find to be attractive in women?

Intelligence. My favorite thing to do with other people is sit down and talk. Nothing is more attractive than being able to fully hold my attention for a few hours. Usually a side note to this is humor. I like a girl who can make me laugh and also enjoys my twisted sense of humor. Looks are a huge factor as well, but I don't have a certain type as far as looks go. I'm physically attracted to people but can't specify why.

[coreyevanwood]

It's probably a good thing there aren't words capable of describing true love.  Think about how many people you would have wasted them on.  

[coreyevanwood]

Love right now is static, Bad reception, walking into the night Asking if you can hear me, the dark Blue of distance humming on the receiver As we share a cigarette a thousand miles Away, inhaling and exhaling As if we share the same lungs

[coreyevanwood]

queerdreamerpoetics said: You should argue, to the extent that your conversation precipitates exchange of opinion and both sides willingly listen. Admittedly, it would be more useful for you to have a dialogue wherein each side/person doesn’t formulate what to say next.I agree to an extent.  I think debate is good and builds intelligence, but unfortunately most people are unable to debate.  I think for something to be productive both sides have to be willing to listen.  Even if they don't change their mind about the topic they should be able to see and understand the other persons argument.  

Unfortunately a lot of people have stock comebacks to political debates.  They've heard someone say something and it is now how they respond to debate.  My favorite is, "oh so gay people can marry now.  What if I want to marry a horse."  Everything is preplanned in their heads.  

Also this is a hard topic to debate people over.  I don't like admitting it but most the people on my Facebook posting Obama is the antichrist videos are my cousins, uncles, aunts, etc…  When I try to bring it up it becomes a debate over whether or not Obama is a good president, but that's not what I'm arguing.  I'm arguing against the ignorance of using religion to push a political agenda and how that actually makes the religion as a whole look ignorant.

[coreyevanwood]

Claim Obama is the antichrist just once and lose a follower. What is this world coming to?

[coreyevanwood]

Obama is the Antichrist

Why doesn’t it upset Christians more when other Christians post idiotic things about Christianity?  Don’t you realize that someone backing their dislike for someone (in this case Obama) with Christian prophecy makes some people think all Christians are as dumb as that person?

  Recently I have seen several posts on Facebook arguing that Obama is the anti-Christ.  The most popular video is a pretty ridiculous one claiming the bible has warned us before hand who the antichrist is.  The video’s “evidence” is practically finding any word in the Bible, taking it back to Hebrew, and then throwing sounds together until they seem to make the words Bar-rawk O Ba-ma. 

            I suppose this video might hold a little more weight if God is a huge fan of the Hardy Boys.  Secret messages that need to be decoded seem a little far-fetched to me, but who knows.  Maybe God was tired of all this divine intervention.  “Screw it”, says God, “we’ll just put a secret code in there.”  It also seems a little ridiculous to believe that this code, which has been around for roughly 2000 years, couldn’t get figured out until now when Barack Obama is already conveniently in power.  Ah-ha! It all makes sense. 

            Another fun video I watched was 45 minutes long and talking about how the ALS ice bucket challenge was actually a ritual cleansing preparing America for a giant human sacrifice.  This video also believed Barack Obama was the antichrist, their proof, he hadn’t taken the ice bucket challenge.  With this logic I am the antichrist as well as Obama.  We will have a lovely reign together.  The video went on to explain that the human sacrifice will be to Obama, so he has no need to do the ice bucket challenge.  So, I’m sorry to break it to you all, but soon Obama will be eating your souls.  Luckily I have not participated in the ice bucket challenge so I will not be part of the human sacrifice.  My soul is too dirty for Obama to eat. 

            That was kind of getting off on a tangent, but hopefully you see how stupid these posts are.   They make the people posting them seem ridiculous.  I see it as one of two things: one – these people truly believe these posts.  Maybe they just aren’t that bright.  I don’t like Obama and I don’t like the antichrist… ham is to pig as Obama is to antichrist.  Great logic.  The second reason people might be posting these things is because they don’t like Obama but are not intelligent enough to have a good argument.  I liken it to the “you’re mom” comeback of the junior high years. 

Also, don’t misunderstand this post.  I am not attacking the people who do post these things or trying to argue with them.  To be honest I use some words in this post with up to three syllables, so I expect those people to be discouraged by the vocabulary.  You can’t argue with unintelligent people. 

 No I’m trying to make other Christians realize the absurdity of other people posting these things and how it reflects poorly on all Christians.  

  On a side note, most biblical scholars believe the Antichrist is going to come from somewhere in Europe.  http://christianity.about.com/od/endtimestopicalstudy/a/antichrist_2.htm

There’s a fun little link.

[coreyevanwood]

Cane's Chicken and the Grieving Process

My most recent relationship was over a year ago.  We dated for three years and I wanted to marry her.  Not in the high school way, the days when I fell in love with everyone after a week, but in a serious way.  She wasn’t sold on me, even after three and a half years I had the feeling of a third date.  Every day I woke up I had the feeling that today could be the day where I convinced her I was the one and she would give herself completely to me, or the opposite, today could be the day she wakes up and realizes that I was a piece of shit (a fact I had been actively distracting her from for the last 42 months). 

            I on the other hand had no doubts about the relationship.  Even after breaking up with me three times prior I was certain she was the one for me.  If she had told me one day she decided she wanted to marry me I would have bought the ring the same day – really, I had a savings account for a ring and had browsed some engagement rings.  She never told me she wanted to marry me, instead she told me she wanted to break up, “for real this time”, she told me.  “Don’t chase me, don’t waste your life trying to wait for me, my decision has been made.”  I was devastated.  I locked myself away for three months, glued to my couch, watching all 9 seasons of Monk and surviving on Cane’s chicken strips.  It was bad. 

            The only time I left the house was to get Cane’s.  This was before I discovered the magic of alcohol.  Greasy chicken strips were my alcohol during this phase of depression, and I had a problem.  No longer did I understand eating for substance – eating to stay alive, who wants to stay alive.              My routine was set.  Around 4 pm, an hour after waking up, I would drive to Cane’s and order a Caniac combo, add two strips.  I’m using Cane’s jargon and maybe some people don’t understand, so to help you understand how disgusting this process was I have to tell you the Caniac Combo comes with six chicken strips.  Those of you who are good at math have realized that I was ordering 8 strips a day, which is disgusting.  I ate all of them. 

            Part of me was self conscious about being a regular at Cane’s.  What would the employees think?  They would automatically know I was eating these strips on my couch, crying.  I knew this thought was crazy.  Cane’s did a lot of business.  The employees probably didn’t even recognize me, nothing to be ashamed of. 

  One day on my way to Canes I decided to start getting my life together.  Eight chicken strips a day was ridiculous and unhealthy.  It was time to clean up my life; today I would only order seven chicken strips.  I got to the speaker, proudly told the lady taking my order I would like a Caniac combo add ONE chicken strip.  Today is the first day of the rest of my life, I thought.  I pulled up to the window, proud of my progress.  When I got to the window the lady looked at me, looked back at the screen, and looked at me once again with confusion.              “I must have misheard you,” she said, “you did want two extra strips, right?”  I was devastated.  The Cane’s workers did recognize me.  I was a regular at a fast food chicken strip joint.  I was too embarrassed to correct her.  I shamefully took my eight chicken strips and drove home.  I ate all of them. 

  As I sat on my couch, digging through the bottom of the bag for spare fries that had tried to avoid me, I started to reevaluate my life.  I didn’t like that Cane’s workers knew I was ordering eight chicken strips for myself, something had to change. 

            The best thing to do would have been stop going to Cane’s, start working out, get my life together.  Instead I kept going to Cane’s, but now I would order an extra drink with my meal.  This way they would think I was sharing it with someone else. 

            I gained fifteen pounds in four months. 

[coreyevanwood]

I won a stand up competition tonight.  I won two tickets to a Daniel Felsburg show.  Unfortunately I can't get off work.

[coreyevanwood]

The Dock

There is a dock about a quarter of a mile away from my front door.  It looks out over a water runoff and during the day it's an average if not ugly sight.  Somehow at night though it transforms.  The water reaches on forever, still and dark, save the few street lights that reflect on the surface.  

I'm at a weird stage of my life where I am trying to find meaning in everything.  Why did I meet this person when I did, why did that bird die outside my window?  It makes everything so trivial.  

Tonight I walked to the dock and looked out for a few moments and everything felt okay.  For a second I tried to understand the meaning of it all, where the lesson was in all of this.  I think the only lesson I took away is that there is no lesson.  Not everything is a symbol for something.  Sometimes life is just weird and random.  Sometimes its okay to feel happy and calm for no reason.  

It was a nice change.