#customire

[t-bk]

my friend nailed this one

i think this is one of his best

[customire]

A Custom Mess (Customire)

A Custom Mess

            There are two ways I see the world around me.  I look for the “me in you,” and the “you in me.”  While this may sound like philosophical mumbo-jumbo, I believe this dual-interpretation defines both who I am and who I want to be.  It is the heart of my probing curiosity.

            However it came about, I can somehow consciously decide which of these two methods of “seeing” serves me best.  Most people find their own natural imbalance, which they may refer to as their spot on the Right Brain vs. Left Brain spectrum.  It would be foolish to think I am alone, though.  There must be others out there who, while writing a piece of short fiction or whatever else, fantasize about how a math assignment could help them clear their heads.  This is how I feel almost every time I am hunched over my guitar; I relentlessly claw at whatever it is that could inspire the next chord or inversion in one of my songs.  In my most creative moments, I almost always look for the most absurd reference and then attempt to bring it back down to earth. 

But in truth, there are times when I can’t remember how to clear my head—or to fill it, for that matter.  As I said before, I often search for my traits in others.  It would be easier to hide in this limited outlook (an outlook which I could just as easily call emotion), but as anyone detached from this realm would say, it is a useless dream world.  These lovers, dreamers, (and sometimes me) all choose to see a winged unicorn in every horse.  Looking alone through these rose-colored lenses, I would fold up into myself time and time again all the while being convinced I’d grown like the “others.”

            So swing!  I have said that I see the “you in me” and I have also discovered its ineffectiveness.  If I simply go from one view to another, like closing one eye and opening the other, what good does it do?  Nothing! Sure, maybe now instead of seeing a winged unicorn I see the horse that is actually in front of me, but I am still not dreaming up an effective way to fly.  In this view I define myself by what does and does not characterize others, all the while ignoring who I actually may be.

              Hitherto, I have explained what makes me feel stuck, what I do when I feel stuck, and that there is never a simple way out of being stuck.  Despite my minor change in vernacular, it is all in fact the same.  Natural imbalance is to teeter-tottering free will just as being stuck is to liberation.  This state of “stuckness” in any of my outlooks is one of the most torturous curses I have ever come to bear in my lifetime, and from this mental imprisonment I have been motivated to push through.  I have jumped onto this teeter-totter’s hinge, choosing whichever way to lean whenever I want.  I often make the wrong choices, but perfection has never been my goal.  

[t-bk]

hi who wants to go on a nighttime adventure in an hour and explore some random neighborhood

[customire]

Like a word I can't explain...

Step out from below,

The light just hurts my eyes.

An ice age ceases growth,

Made clear's the near disguise.

From "No One Around"

[t-bk]

You're delicious. Good night.

Tom

[customire]

Alice

Alice tried to remember where she left the key.  She always had problems with losing important objects or missing important events.  For her entire life, people were trying to “help” her and improve her, saying every last thing she ever did was a habitual wrongdoing.  Her mom had never left her alone, staying with her throughout Alice’s life, commenting on her every move as if she was still a young child.  Such thoughts were common for Alice.  She was an imperfect human being.

            Alice had a long-term relationship with a man she had always said she was deeply in love with.  He was charismatic and innocent, and like few other people Alice ever was social with, he was kind but victimized for what he represented.  This made him feel that someone was always going out of their way to prey upon him.  His sanctimonious nature made him feel as if it was his responsibility, his burden to go out of his way to help and shape Alice in every way humanly possible.  He was also an imperfect human being. 

            Alice shook her head as she continued looking for the key.  She had recently moved to Chicago and a friend from high school lent her a car that he didn’t need.  This was so Alice could get to know the city.  She was going to meet him for dinner but she only had five minutes to find her keys and drive halfway across the city on a Friday night.  She decided to run.

            Alice had never wanted more than to be different from the people that raised her.  She wanted separation from what they had made her.  Her entire life she had been late or lost or simply overworked and disorganized. She wanted a change.

            She stood outside the door while trying to catch her breath.  With her last bit of remaining energy, she tugged on the handle of the door.  Before she had adjusted her eyes to the dim lighting of the restaurant the hostess said, “You aren’t Alice by any chance, are you?”

            “Yes?” Replied Alice.

            “Oh, well a man left you a note!” clamored the hostess with a large, plasticy smile.

            The lady reached into one of her pockets and pulled out a ratty small piece of paper and handed it to Alice.  It read “I should have known better, I guess.  I’m doing this for you.”  The ruined young girl turned and walked out into the cold rain.  She didn’t feel like running.

[t-bk]

That makes me so feel weird...

Tom (customire.tumblr.com)

[customire]

BENT LIGHT

My whole life I have lived by the Highway 41.  I remember wondering as a kid just how many of these cars I heard were actually going to Florida, where the highway somehow ended.  Sometimes, now that I’m older and my comrades like to experiment with negativity, I would be asked, “how could you ever get used to that noise?” or “Don’t those lights bother you?” My parents must’ve had friends like this too; they put up a berm to hide from the sounds and glow just before I started high school.

              While our back property line lays tangent to a bend in the highway, our front yard wraps around our street. I will always call Onwentsia “our street,” despite my longing to tell friends in my youth that my family and I lived on 41¾after all, it was a much larger roadway.

              Just past my house Onwentsia becomes Awahnee. Even though that defining road sign was only a foot outside our lot, our block parties never included anyone across that line.  It seemed normal only because I was scared to ask why we did such a strange thing. It’s obvious that like questions would only inspire even more confusing ones.

              It was one night, though, that changed most of this. Since I got my current room to myself I didn’t have to pretend to sleep while I waited for the cars with their brights to drive down our streets. The drooping Ash and Maple trees in our front yard would filter out patterns of leaves’ shadows against the back wall in my room and I would watch the various patterns slowly move and disappear on the wall.  It was always so sharp-looking.  I never realized it would take just one night during which I was particularly energetic to stay up for something very new.  It was foggy.  Up to and above my second-floor window.  It was thick enough to discourage the usual “me” but like I mentioned, not much could have stopped me this night.  I swung open my window’s blinds and was immediately showered with the warmest yellow light one could imagine.  At my elevation I assumed the only vehicle that’s brights could get so high would be a semi, but there was no painful source to this light. It was just constant.

              Then I remembered the color. It was the same synthetic warmth that made even snow look comforting on a January night.  It was from the highway.  It wasn’t a particularly difficult conclusion to come to of course, but that is like seeing all beauty.  It is pleasantly obvious. There is no doubt that there is intrinsic beauty in travel and the tool that allowed the passing cars to go home or away was limited to no one. That light, as it had shown, would bend and bounce forever, and do so with ease, to show something not yet seen.