It is the creation of humor and the need for those to spread it that truly enlightens us all. I believe that when we can laugh at anything and everything we can not only come together unexpectedly but also dispel the very worst and darkest parts of our greatest ideas and desires to make the world what we think it should be. -JK
Related: http://massivelatte.com/?p=50
From where you are
By J. Keys
He caught her eyes peering at him above the gloss black rim of her computer screen as he was deep in his own world of thoughts and questions. It was a stare somewhere between recognition, surprise and want. If it were possible to escape that look it wouldn’t matter… who would want to?
He had seen her here many times before. They had spoken and even knew each others names. But for some reason this instance was oddly shaped, connected somehow and more powerful than before. She had this face that was… it was difficult to pin the particular word, but you couldn’t miss it –ever. In a sea of a thousand people you wouldn’t just be able to find her… you simply wouldn’t see anyone else but her. The thought alone was enough to make him smile.
Her situation always seemed like that feeling you get when you sigh in that way and moment when you become resigned to the cliché’ “it is what it is”. She wasn’t trapped but she wasn’t free, either. He guessed that circumstances can make for some high walls in this life, it would seem. Not that anything was impossible or given up… just more like the harsh wisdom of observing someone else’s fight, knowing that it is certainly and indeed, righteously, not yours. Nevertheless that didn’t take away the potential or the possibilities that almost oozed out of her every move, desire and word… and it never took away from those eyes or that stare.
The hardship of our past, the fine wine of our lives…
By J. Keys
Today: The hardship of our past always seems so long ago when it was really just around the last bend; just as the challenges in our future and our hopes to make it another year, stronger, are indeed around the next. -JK
Originally Posted on March 15, 2008: “You know I really enjoy going back over so many of these words I’ve written; particularly my creative writing. Yeah, I know, it sounds like I’m tooting my own horn but I’m not. I read these things… these poems, stories and thoughts and they bring me back; not to the past but to who I really am and get so lost from (seemingly more and more). I think this kind of thing defines the fine wine of our lives. Those memories and reminders that always last and continue to call us, making and keeping us… for the better (As “Slide by the Goo Goo Dolls finishes in the background and “Dig” by Incubus begins) -JK
Her Gravity
By J. Keys
There she is, laying on the ground, tragically drowning in half an inch of water filled with false hopes, anger and despair as she forces her lips against the surface as hard as she can trying to consume every last drop. Pity… if she would just turn over she could breath and see the sky.
She reaches out and tries to hold on to so many things that don’t do the same back. She wants and tries and then falls down and doesn’t understand why; doesn’t understand that saying goodbye is as much a part of the deal as getting back up and trying harder or simply trying again. She wants to know why and claims that life is just unfair, quoting words and philosophy that are either incredibly cliché or incredibly wrong. The irony is that she gets it… she doesn’t want to pay the price to have it all.
Her potential was once grand and perhaps it still could be if she would realize that her freedom from gravity has nothing to do with the weight on her shoulders or a perceived need to escape it… but that is has everything to do with pushing back on those who stop her and pushing up on that which keeps her down, away from the sky, tragically drowning in only half an inch of water.
Once
By J. Keys
(written to and inspired by the song “From Where You Are” by Lifehouse)
You can never tell where it will come from, that one thought or memory that suddenly appears beside you in the passenger seat. He rounded the corner, fast, on his way as the cool and warm air rushed through the half-open, front windows. The sky was clear and the sun was high. He wondered what was missing as he furrowed his brow beneath the daylight and panned a view from left to right. The tint on his gun-metal gray wrap-arounds slowly darkened as his head then turned toward the solution.
The sky welcomed itself in as the sliding glass roof moved back. The warmth and glow made him smile and breath in deeply, but also sigh in exhale. He downshifted into another turn while on his way. The engine revved high and the turbo spun and spooled a soothing whisper as it pulled the car forward while throwing him back into his seat like so many hopes and regrets often do. Where he was going began to matter less against where he never had a chance to go.
And there’s the rub. He once thought that it was his way of seeing things, how far he saw them ahead, that separated him from so many; opportunities, possibilities, people. But it wasn’t that at all, really. The truth representing that gap was simply how far behind everything was in his wake as he looked over his shoulder, waiting and wishing that it all could have meant and been so much more. With that last thought and sigh he cleared the final turn away from the boulevard, engaging the ramp and straight away at full throttle… and a yet again empty passenger seat.
Letting go
By J. Keys
There was something different about her this time. She was… freer, in some way. It was almost as if the frustration she was having to face unlocked a door she didn’t know was closed. Maybe sometimes the defenses we put up end up on autopilot and we just need to run dry to realize that they were keeping out things worth our while. Interesting how such a depletion can aid us in letting go, to go farther, he thought.
That night was so much better than the one before. How quickly and surreptitiously such things and circumstances can switch like… a breeze, a crossing or a collection of all elements that make things right. He laughed, thinking that when he arrived he thought he saw her but then dismissed it… how incorrect he was and how satisfying it felt, for once.
She was over there and he was away but only a stones throw or by a clever line of text. He glued the gap of many people and chairs in this microcosmic span of lords and flies. Not a charge he volunteered for but so often is the charge of all dark things and all dark knights. Still he managed to get her attention and, more importantly, to get her to look up.
We forget; for ourselves, for others… for the sun and the sky. Sometimes we just need a chance and a reminder that in spreading our wings we sacrifice them to the fate of the power of the winds as much as we do to the hope to gives us lift and travel… to be, in some way, freer.
One of these days
By J. Keys
Amazing. He thought about her and her words all day, on and off. It was one of those rare and awesome experiences for him. Words and their order so important, but always one way, going out. It was somewhat of an epiphany to see them come back from another source in an almost quantum-cryptographic way –certainly so from the girl with the smile and that little black dress.
Not that it was a surprise, just that it was… what’s the word? Profound. The other day he was out driving and the sun was high and the sky was clear. There was a perfect mixture of warmth and cool air dancing in the dead of this slow winter as a soft and sweet smelling breeze rolled through his half-opened windows and drew a contented smile upon his face; his mind, immediately, drawn to the memory of hers.
So much of these days he was waiting for what was next. Such a thing can get you in a rush if you’re not careful, trying to go too far too fast and finish everything at once. That was less of his problem as each day passed which provides for a patient peace… but, still, he wanted to be inspired to say and think more, more about her and wondered when that would be or, perhaps, if it would be. He had no idea the next evolution would be a volley back on his side of the court.
It’s not that he felt he owned it… just that no one else really played in most of his experience. How happy he was to be wrong. The gravity and realization of it didn’t quite sink until he heard that song. So many times it had played since he discovered it. So much meaning it owned for so long to a time and other that had long past. But this time he didn’t just hear it again, he heard it for the first time, again. There’s a difference there. And then, all of a sudden, he knew what to say.
Songs, like emotions, can get stuck, trapped or even thrown away. We are uplifted by them both as much as we can be brought back or down by them. But their purpose and design is truly to make greater things of both our words and our dreams. This is what he saw in all such things about her and, mostly, her potential –amazing.
Angel,
It’s good to have you back “around” though in your absence, so to speak, I’ve had the opportunity to realize and change a lot… for the better. Indeed, my philosophy regarding “distance and timing” continues to teach me as much as it haunts me –wisdom’s double edge, yet again. My *thinks* resistance to the bullets of this life has increased exponentially. The other kind I simply continue to dodge. The cause for this has many roots that are simultaneously fundamental to this said evolution and inconsequential as I live and breathe now. That is to say it feels much better than good… “righteous” would be more accurate. I find a lot less bothersome and the things that I do, well, they just don’t last in that state very long. It’s nice. To those that see and know me it tends to show in the ways that they’re used to. But, either way, the momentum is there whether it is seen or unseen –such is me 
You really made me think when you asked that question. It wasn’t perfectly poetic but it all did kind of roll together. I suppose as such a memory remains, and I grow, it’s a weight worth carrying despite any remaining stigma… or hope. And that has to be a part of it, for better or for worse, otherwise I don’t think I’d care this much or be affected the way I am to create what I did about you (or all things in such a vain)… much less share it out loud. It would appear that, too, my words “we are strange creatures” still holds.
In any event my strength, resolve and heart have grown. Blessings continue to pour into my life. I haven’t felt the ability to say or share that kind of realization in a very long time (despite the fact I have always had God beside me and so many great things given to me by Him). Nor have I necessarily shared such a comment with you. We have exchanged a lot and are deeply connected at the soul level. But I do believe, often, the best has been shown and the worst has been hidden… *looks at her, squinting his eyes with an ever so slight smile* as I can clearly see so that is also with you. *sighs* And I have always known that about you, maybe even above everything else, but I did not prosecute it like I should have… or at least not when I should have.
It would seem that life’s lessons, like history, indeed repeat themselves and that the difference between knowing a path and walking it… is still an inescapable mastership of distance and timing.
Sincerely,
Caleb
Crashed
By J. Keys
(written to “Crashed (acoustic)” by Daughtry)
She had that inflection and sound in each word that launched, struck and crashed across the air and distance from her spoken chord to his ears. To describe such a thing or define it as her voice was unjust and far too simple. It carried a way and purpose like a collision governed beyond the laws of physics, superseding all laws by the way of fate and a welcomed, unstoppable momentum. Unlike so many things we repeat and even dread… he welcomed this mantle and imagined, this time, the wings actually upon his back and not just written in ink.
His sense of the possibility of something more was triggered at first glance but, then again, almost dismissed. However this veil was not a cover to disguise but a name to reveal something new; someone possible. He wasn’t sure if she thought so, but he was sure that it was worth, without question, the sound in each word that launched, stuck and crashed upon him.
Belief is all important. It is a sense and system employed outside of circumstance and beyond the finite nature of what we think we know and only see in front of us. It allows us to go places and accomplish tasks that our feet and hands cannot. It is a fundamental precept that gives birth to two of the greatest elements of our humanity; faith and hope. Without belief our lives may be filled with many things but those sames lives will never be truly full. -J. Keys
Unstoppable: The End
By J. Keys
Angel walked out of the rusted and derelict gas station with a map clutched in one hand and a bottle of water in the other. She looked around, slowly, from left to right as she collapsed her sunglasses from the top of her head over her eyes. She breathed in heavy and deep as she sighed in exhale, wiping her forehead of the sweat that seemed to instantly form from the hot, unforgiving sun. It combined with endless, desolate and flat horizon of sand that surrounded her. It appeared so dry, tired and lifeless… like it wouldn’t end and there was no way out, just a road that went one way or the other… disappearing into the rippling heat.
She was exhausted. But more than that she was out; of energy, of heart, of desire. Caleb was gone. She was alone. All of this way, traveled. Bullets fired, blood shed and an evil vanquished. It almost sounded perfect, she thought to herself, as she huffed a sarcastic laugh. But it wasn’t. He was one, not out of a hundred, a thousand or even a million… he was the one. Evil, on the other hand, has copies of itself, everywhere, waiting to step in where the last version left off. Byron was just another copy… and now there was no one left to stem the tide or, selfishly, there was no one left for her.
She walked up to the driver’s side door of her car and frustratingly threw the bottle of water into the passenger seat as she leaned, sitting, against the door. She just couldn’t let it go. His face was burned into her mind… not as a memory but right in front of her. Every blink and change of scene was preceded by every, rare, smile he revealed and each good thing he did to save her from the consequences of his choices. His words rang in her head like the bell from a church tower, “A hero isn’t something that exists; a hero is something that a person becomes when they accept to carry out the will and overcome the circumstances that anyone else won’t or can’t. This time that’s me.” But why? Why did he have to go? He was the good guy. She wasn’t sure if she hated him or God or… and then her eyes began to well up as she stated to cry. She let out a short whimper before buttoning her lip and folding her arms, refusing to become a victim of things she could no longer make different or undo. She opened the door and sat down, cranking the ignition of the classic, but unkept, convertible Mustang. As the car sat, idling, she leaned upon her left hand before regaining a majority of her composure. She glanced, briefly, at the map still in her hand and then laughed, abruptly, before tossing it to the floor. She shifted the car into gear and accelerated out to the right, onto the very same road that Caleb rescued her from before.
**Begin Track; “Gotta Be Somebody” by Nickelback**
The wind wasn’t cool but it was a welcomed sensation as it passed through her hair. She had no idea where she was going but, for the first time, she didn’t care. Being kidnapped, shot at and almost blown up can have that affect on you. As she drove she remembered one other thing Caleb told her, “Despair is a prophecy that always fulfils itself, hope is not a method and faith is the only real thing we can ever have in this life that can’t be taken away.” It made her smile to remember that even if she wasn’t sure if she had any more faith left. As she looked in the rearview mirror she noticed something coming up behind her. She raised up, slightly, looking closer at the reflection before turning and looking over her shoulder. It was a semi-truck. She turned back around but not before, for a just a moment, remembering and believing. She watched it in the rearview as it approached. It signaled to change lanes, in order to pass her and as it did so did a black, low profile car appeared from its bowels… it was Caleb’s car… (on beat, time +1:01) it was Caleb.
Her heart soared as her stomach knotted. She tried to breathe and scream at the same time but it didn’t work. He tailed her car as the semi-truck accelerated on, blowing its horn in a congratulatory resonance. He dove the car into the lane adjacent to her and pulled up beside her, rolling down his window halfway, giving her a tilted look over the rim of his sunglasses with that crooked smile and future-telling wink. She quickly pulled the car to the side of the road as Caleb pulled over just in front of her. She tore out of her car and ran toward him as he slid out between the scissor door of his.
She tackled him with a hug, impaling her face upon his chest as he enclosed his hands and fingers around her head and hair. She then, instantly, pushed him back and punched his arms with her fists as he laughed and complained simultaneously, “Owww…. it’s nice to see you too.”
“You knew, didn’t you?!” she accused him. He half-laughed and shrugged his shoulders, searching half-heartedly for an explanation. “I thought you were DEAD!” She exclaimed. Caleb tilted his head to the side and squinted his eyes in that now-so-classic fashion. She rolled her eyes in a slight guilt, “Well… I did…”
With her arms folded and looking down he cradled her face in his right hand, “I know…”, he sighed. “But there was something more important than me or stopping Byron…” He paused “…that I had to make sure was taken care of.”
She looked up as he touched her face and asked, “Yeah? What…”
He moved his hand down and over her heart as her eyes widened, “I didn’t go back for Byron just to kill him. I went back for you.” She stepped back, jaw slightly dropped. Caleb put his right hand on the upright, gloss-black door of his car and continued, “He would have come after you, they… ” He paused and looked away in thought, “…they would have come after you. Someone… ” He looked back at her and sighed as yet another rare, genuine smile grew upon his face at her, “And… when you save someone’s life you merely do them a favor… when you ensure someone’s livelihood you give up a part of yourself to protect that life.” Her throat and lips began to motion so as to ask ‘But why me?’ to which he answered before she asked, “Because, when you have great power doing a good thing is easy. Answering the question ‘why?’ or to do something great…” He paused, taking a step toward her, lowering his chin to look at her directly beneath his brow “…takes a reason bigger than both.”
She cracked a smile, realizing that he was talking about her, stepped back and walked around to the passenger side of his car and opened the door to get in. She stopped just before sitting down and asked him across the roof of the car, in a sarcastically conceited tone, “So, when did this all become about me?”
Caleb laughed and shook his head and sat down behind the wheel. She followed and waited for his answer, intently looking in his direction. He peered at her without moving his head and replied as he shut the door and pushed the car into gear, “It always was…” The car revved and raged forward as she smiled and sat back in her seat, placing her hand over his.
The (Happy) End
My Friend,
Yes, all good things in time –I know. I’m not running off or away… but just changing the nature of many things that have needed change for a while. All things happen for a reason; all events that occur do not occur out of time and therefore they affect each moment and person that they touch. To ignore that or not examine it is to deny the need to grow in every thing we do and that affects us.
This experience, though nauseating, is bringing me ideas, thoughts and questions that I either didn’t ask or chose not to address. This is a good thing because I think I’ve shied away from a number of things I need to be better at, stronger at and that will get me to the point in my heart and soul that I can not only be great as an individual but also be great for others I share my life with.
None of this is me complaining or whining. No “boo-hoo, perfect harmony eludes me” I have many times said that conflict is a milestone of civilization despite the various grotesqueries it can entail; and so it is true as well for our souls and spiritual growth.
Externally this has brought about a much more acute vision, for me, in a manner of high specificity for those people that are indeed “good”. Even though the mass moves, mostly, amenably to one another there are only a handful that have “the right stuff” You are, without question, one of those few. This is just as important as any other realization because as my life moves on (as all of our lives move on) we’ll be able to go beyond any one place –perhaps even together and in parallel.
That, to me, is the diamond in the rough of life. Because change will come and it will not be stopped. No person or place is safe from it –not one. The trick in making it through is in going with it and not trying to escape it. The bulk of my life has been built on a blessed foundation of such a thing. Living with that concept is what taught me to adapt, fight and soar where others wouldn’t for fear of the ground not being there when they returned… and the difference that always separated me from them, in the end, wasn’t that I knew they were wrong or pointlessly full of fear… but that I simply never planned on coming back down to the ground again, myself.
This is not a legend to become but a legacy in its infancy…
Sincerely,
Caleb
I know, I know… to write something title of this nature and feel, as it were, “blessed”? Clarity is a peculiar thing; so often wanted but equally often uninvited… and then so welcomed when it arrives. We are strange creatures.
For anyone reading I would say either don’t worry and/or don’t take too much credit. This isn’t just about shitty people that are obvious scumbags. They are easy to dispatch and keep at bay. No, when I herald the phrase, “people are trash”, I speak of those very special ones that make fools of us… those that bring out our hopes, dreams and trust and then… well… obviously.
I didn’t come up with the phrase or the inherent truth that it exposes. It was another; one of my two best friends in this world. Ironically this is not the only truth he helped me discover as I found my true reason for believing in God because of him as well though this particular truth I write about? I didn’t quite get it until getting kicked in the teeth three times (almost in a row) by three people that pretty much got the best of me and took a big, steaming dump all over my heart and soul so that they could, more or less, save themselves… of, I don’t know, the trouble, the angst or maybe just the fact that fighting for anything that matters that much was just too damn hard for them.
But perhaps I digress slightly as my plight is my own whereas this larger mechanism is far more dangerous than anything insidious because it really isn’t about bad people doing bad things… it’s about good people doing bad things. This failure secedes negotiation, forethought and the atlas hold required to bear the weight of heavy things like love, anger and passion… this very failure is the reason why people become this way, act this way and come to honestly believe that what they are doing is “for the best” when it is really, simply “in their best interest”.
The struggle, survival and our power to choose is not the test of life itself; it is the gift. It is not the hope in each other or our ability in faith that fails; it is we who fail because we choose poorly… or worse we simply choose selfishly.
I imagine this is not over and though what I say is not untrue… it is also not definite. Nevertheless I’m certain this is not the last time we’ll meet but I do hope and hope that I will be blessed to know better the difference, glance and smile perhaps, and let you (all of you) be on your way…
That is all.
Where are you going?
By J. Keys
I thought I should tell you
That one day
I will know
One day I will know
And it will make me smile
It will make my tears cry
Instead of me
Because I will be happy
And all the other nonsense
All the other failures
Will be lost
And they
They alone
Will cry for themselves
Because they couldn’t see
They couldn’t see beyond their sense
And I won’t be sad
For them
For anything
And I won’t hate them either
I’ll just be glad
I’m not where they are
Anyhow
I just thought I should tell you
That one day
You might wish you knew too
You might wish you knew then
And if you do
It’s too late, so don’t ask…
So wherever you’re going
Wherever you are
I know
And I thought I should tell you
This Faith
By J. Keys
In the city of sin
I met an angel
I shook her hand
And she asked me why I believe
So I told her this…
Of everything I’ve learned
Of everything I know and have
Only the patience I’ve built
Within my tears of faith
Could bring me unwittingly
A thousand miles…
To her
Here
Now
On this night….
A blind rendezvous I could never design
But only pray for
And that is what make me believe