ro*bot(any)

this is not the garden
for the bible tells me so
rains don't always fall
on the plants that need it most

some roots are showing through the cracked clay
some leaves are pale from excess
i fight my neighbors over runoff
but someday i'll be planted by the stream

when my angers all but won
when my ends all come undone
i don't fall apart- i don't fall apart
'cause i'm wrapped up in the arms that gave the blood

all my days of strength
were a patronizing ruse
all the weights i bore
had been hollowed and reused

now this trunk collects inventions
weighing more than all their parts
born to frighten my supporters
who fold their chairs now, and depart

when my angers all but won
when my ends all come undone
i don't fall apart. no, i don't fall apart
i am wrapped up in the arms that gave the blood

i'm so tired of sifting through these broken pieces
searching for good with bloody hands

tighten our rust belts

what does rust say about humanity?

bubbling up under paint and clear coat; enabled by salt.
drudgingly it is compromising once immortal structures. the metal aches.
the malignance of progress.
the inevitability of corruption.

we are dictated by progress. our prosthetic topography raises with our ambitions.
we project our own destiny on that of our infrastructure.

chemical changes deface our manufactured destinies.
what once was sterile and shiny or vibrantly colored now turns a reddish-brown resembling the clay that it was intended to defy.

what does rust foreshadow for humanity?

"bunch of savages in this town..."

my own mistakes: the door that keeps it in the attic
but diplomacy's the stone that crushed the diplomatic
i try to do it right by leaving out all of my spare
but the wrong ones get there first while holding on to their own share

Truth Vs. Vindication

why do we study? why do we read?
what are we hungry for?
we all claim for TRUTH
but is this accurate?

do we seek sources to enlighten ourselves
or are we more frequently seeking evidence;
proof of the things we already believe to be true

are we edifying ourselves
or adding mortar to our walls

are we looking to solidify our God-given cognitive place among humanity
or are we constantly preparing for the inevitable debate

an open mind is NOT instinctive
yet we are all capable
it is our duty to achieve it
if you have not struggled to obtain it
you simply do not have it.

not a second...

of my life is a waste.

the mistakes and hardships. none of it.

i've always sought understanding and given to merited concession in my adversity.
whether it was self imposed or preordained.

it's a cliche parallel, but my story is a dynamic one BECAUSE of my lust for growth.
every 3-5 years of my life brings a clear page break. a demarcation of a new life. a new experience. a new chapter.

this has been possible because i have ALWAYS submitted myself to the philosophy that i know nothing. at no point is this untrue for anyone.

every mistake: a humbling.
every tragedy: a right of passage.

childhood and adulthood are east and west.
the border between them is blurry and wide.
so wide, that we spend the majority, if not the entirety of our lives
swimming in it.
always believing we are pressing towards the coast of maturity, but inevitably taking miscalculated turns of humanity in human proportions.

the awareness of this venture is the narrow way to progress.

autophobia

i can't REALLY be crazy.
crazy people don't know that they're crazy.
so this insanity must be temporary,
seeing as how i'm fully aware of it.

mark zuckerberg shares a striking resemblance to alfred nobel
making his fortune off of an invention intended to propel society
but being remembered as the merchant of death
as the complications of facebook rival the destruction of dynamite

it's strange though, i feel civilization is safer
with me dragging crates of stabilized nitroglycerin
rather than me typing on a keyboard
connected to a monitor in their homes

my facebook is deactivated
until i know my right mind is restored.

----

why my right mind is down:
many people can't handle the truth about my wife's health.
it has become baseline for me, so i can handle it.
however, if you know you can't handle it, turn away now.
it will ruin your day if you empathize
and nothing is more offensive to us than cliches and platitudes
explaining about clouds with silver linings
and insisting we be grateful because she is alive.

----

i have not been directly offended by anyone,
but cherisse has been egregiously offended by many.
any offense to my wife IS a direct offense to me.

after brain surgery, cherisse went through an arduous recovery
that lasted around 10 months
during which, many family members and supposed close friends ignored her.
not all, but an eyebrow raising amount.

this has been so baffling and infuriating
that, despite our efforts to overcome,
it became a great hindrance to the mental and emotional healing.
anyone who knows anything about the brain
will understand that this indirectly hindered
the physical healing.

we recently got some unexpected bad news:
her seizures are still epileptic
and she will continue to be at risk
for her entire life.

this weekend brought cherisse
11 absent seizure
where she is unable to move.
not even her eyes.
5 hours of inescapable mid day fatigue.
5-6 episodes of uncontrollable
emotional shifts
where she becomes a person
she cannot control.

the seizure focus is in her temporal lobe
which controls emotions
meaning that when she has these episodes
her words and emotions
are completely under the control
of her electrical abnormalities in her brain.

ever have a migraine?
well cherisse literally has migraines for 72 hours at a time
without. any. breaks.

auditory over stimulation
is one of many seizure triggers
which means every time she feels unbalanced
(which is 75%-80% of the time)
she cannot take in decibels
above a television at low volume.

this unfortunately means
we more often than not
are unable to attend church service
which is disheartening to us both

because we both know
our only hope is in Jesus Christ.

An Open Letter to the People Hidden from My Mini-Feed

Dearest Self-Indulgers,

Your passive-aggressive narcissism is a double edged sword that I must fall upon.

For me to cut our ties would instill a rage in you. A rage formed of delusion and catalyzed by entitlement. My sanity in the foreseeable future would be monopolized by an onslaught of politics and drama. These confrontations would come from as many as 3 degrees of separation from the center of your web. Each topic will have been spun out of control by your unforgiving gravitational pull.

For me to voluntarily inhale while standing in close proximity to your sarin plant is spiritual suicide.

Facebook has (unintentionally) softened the word 'friend'. Though its definition has always been subjective, it has generally been used to label people (or dogs) with whom you share a closeness. The range of use went from trust-worthy soul mates, to bumbling knuckleheads who always return your phone calls.

The range of the word 'friend' has now been extended. Through the land of acquaintanceship and into the heart of loathsome banes.

As a genuine person with genuine interests, it is easy for me to identify my antithesis. Comments and posts about yourself pointing out 'subtle' things about yourself that you're afraid we might miss.

I'll stop here out of fear of being accused of hypocrisy. I will leave you with this thought: There is a difference between trying to spark a conversation and trying to spark a conversation about yourself.

Thank you.
~Tim

chip

we regret investments
in synthetic day to days
but now we can smell
silicon a mile away

feet cemented
with gravel and regression
"fight or flight" has atrophy
from generations spent on screens

pure unconscious plagiarism
justified the burning books
all evidence that our synapses
have migrated to the end of mice

Hate for Baseball #1

Don't get me wrong, I respect the sport of baseball, but many people who love it try to proclaim its superiority over hockey. I'm am going to start logging reasons baseball is stupid so I remember them when these ridiculous conversations ensue:

Reason #1: Sammy Sosa, one of baseball's most recognizable names, once had to leave a game due to injury. The injury? Pulled back muscles from sneezing too hard in the dugout.

Reason #2: Babe Ruth, arguably the greatest baseball legend of all time, was an overweight, chain-smoking, drunkard. Possibly the only sports legend to be all of these things WHILE AT THE HEIGHT OF HIS "ATHLETIC" CAREER.

Reason #3: One of the game's greatest pastimes is the seventh inning stretch. So named because President Taft once stood up, stretched, and yawned during this break. This was the most interesting thing going on during the game? A man subconsciously expressing his boredom? I think it's also worth noting that President Taft, at 300 pounds, still holds the record for America's heaviest president.

more to come.

when it's finished

he's a wheel-man and a grifter
but your fingers on the trigger
and you're convinced this whole idea was yours

the heaving pulses in your thumb
he's in every one
and when it's finished you'll be scratching at the door

this feels like love when you're in it
bound to the carbon in your breath
this feels like love until it's finish
'cause sin, when it's finished, brings you death

strangely intriguing parings part I

satires and flat tires
sharp shouts and white-out
pulled stops and tear drops
cold mystique and freon leaks
autonomous and exploiting us
clearly stating and dehydrating

carbon

they're talking about how they would run their cults
and i should subscribe to their philosophy
they borrowed a lot from the first five search results
but the guts i described would still be inside of me

YOUR love is the only thing that's worth my breath.
YOUR love is the only thing left.

they're talking around self sufficiency
dodging the farms that grew their food
collecting the things that keep them empty
rejecting the loss that renews

YOUR blood is the only thing that's worth my breath.
YOUR blood is the only thing left.

Vengeance

It might be the Arnold Palmer Tallboy talking, but I seem to get angrier by the day.
The longer I'm alive, the more opportunity people have to do me wrong.
The longer I'm alive, the more time I have to realize how wrong I've been done.
This equation expands exponentially with the amount of people you care about.
The more friends and family you have and the longer they live, the more they will undoubtedly be snowed over.
Assuming you are a truly compassionate person, your loved ones' betrayals will inevitably become deposits in YOUR outrage bank account.

There is a sick joke in all of that.
The doers of wrong often carry a callused conscious.
They sleep just fine.
Not because they don't have a conscious, but because somewhere down the road, they decided to fight through guilt to get what they want.
Just like fingers on guitar strings.
If they've been committed to fight through the pain, eventually they won't feel it anymore.

So what's the sick joke?
The scoreboard.
Them 2 - You 0
If life were fair they would get what they want, but guilt would consume them.
You would lose what they took, but you would sleep at night.
In the real world, the victim loses AND emotion consumes them.
Actually, I lose three times.
1. I'm done wrong.
2. Anger consumes.
3. I spend unprecedented amounts of time contemplating the unfairness of everything I just talked about.

But wait, what's that, Jesus?
"VENGEANCE IS MINE"
Wow. How about in context?

"If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men. Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord. Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head. Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good."
KJV- Romans 12:18-21

"Vengeance is mine" is not a war cry. God is not challenging his enemies.
He is rebuking ME.
He is scolding me for wasting my mental energy on nonsense that I don't control.
He is scolding me for wasting mental energy on the bad parts of people.
He is reminding me that I have been given no right to JUDGE.
He is reminding me of how much I have been forgiven.
You have to give it to get it.
How many times in a day?
70 x 7

I feel at peace now.
Hallelujah.

tracking numbers

4 packages in the mail.
3 different tracking websites.
UPS
USPS
FEDEX

4 tabs in my browser.
4 arbitrary series of letters and numbers.
4 refresh buttons to hit every 15 minutes.

Arlington, Spokane, Industry, Memphis... Hong Kong?

Every day the departures and arrivals pile up.
Every day I get a bit more jealous of my parcels' travels.

They get passed around their state of origin for a while.
2 or 3 stops.
Cut the package some slack! It's still a greenhorn.
Once it figures out what it's doing, it makes a huge jump to Pittsburgh or Chicago.
Maybe even Cleveland.

Then, that precious moment.
TONAWANDA, NY.
out.
for.
delivery.

Thanks to my diligence, tracking numbers, and NORAD like command center
i have wasted nearly 4 man hours of my life.

awesome?

at least...

Part I
some people have thoughts like a plate of spaghetti
a once brittle, unpalatable box of failed pickup sticks
now boiled to a manageable consistency and interwoven
no way of knowing where one starts and stops
unless extracted with careful diligence

still, others have thoughts like a row of vending machines
strategically categorized and compartmentalized
sterile, logical, and obvious
the extraction is much simpler
but it only moves as fast as the coins

in either case our experience is multi-dimensional
while we twirl our pasta on our fork
we're neglecting the deliciousness of the garlic bread
while we're futilely rocking the machine to free our stuck doritos
we have yet to discover that the diet pepsi is -sold out-

complete perspective is impossible to obtain
there's only one omniscient, omnipresent
but that doesn't excuse us from trying
if not all at once, we should be oscillating
flipping through our security cameras
like a security guard in a parking garage

Part II
i wrote the former to write this
if perspective is a song, i am william hung
i've convinced myself i'm awesome
but really, i'm comically awful

i'm curiously determined to maintain my perspective
whether it's good or bad
i use a technique call "at least"
of which there are two varieties

if my self image is good and i'm ignoring opportunities for improvement
i use "at least i..."
you think a "C" average is bad?
at least i am not failing.
you think i have too many speeding tickets?
at least i am not in prison.
you think i call off of work too much?
at least i have a job.

if my self image is bad and i'm ignoring things that would make me feel better
i use "at least they..."
i should be grateful for my job?
at least they make (insert salary $10K more than my own).
i should be happy with my relationships?
at least they have (insert 100 more facebook/myspace friends than i have).
i should be proud of my life??
at least they (insert inconsequential asset someone has that i don't).

the expression goes that the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence
but i'm thinking it just looks nicer because they're taking the time to mow it.

i have a pretty big lawn.
i should probably be priming my john deer.
the same goes for you.