ChillSpot Online: Our Art is Life

Awkward glances.
That energy between us.
That feeling, like you can see my thoughts.
Trying to fill the dead air with chatter to avoid that moment …
that second of silence in which the unsaid begins to echo,
ricochet around, and then present itself as a real thing.
That cold, wet dread of nakedness,
Vulnerability exposed to all.
Wondering if it’s just me,
Or can you see,
The feelings evolving inside.
I got into the elevator,
and before the doors closed,
I saw you beckon for me to hold it.
I started perspiring before you’d even made it inside,
knowing that this would be a long ride.
You smiled at me, and asked me how I’d been.
I told you how I’d missed you,
how seeing you, and being around you
made everything more bearable.
How I wished your boyfriend would cede his post to me,
because he simply knew that we were meant to be,
and how you’d not even put up a fight,
because you’d been looking for me your entire life.
I told you how much I imagined
Being married to you to feel,
How beautiful our children would be
With your pretty skin, and pretty hair
And your beautiful disposition,
And my last name.
But I never said any of that to you,
I simply said fine.
For some reason, Tevin Campbell
Came to mind.
But my soliloquy did not end as the door opened,
And you got off.
The ride never ended,
As you allowed me to take you on a boat ride,
To a secluded island just off the coast.
The chardonnay chills as we admire the sunset,
Holding each other close
To shield from a cool breeze from the north.
You wore a white flower print wrap skirt,
A pair of white flats, and a sleeveless white shirt.
Your hair blew gently in the wind,
and you weren’t wearing your glasses.
Your beautiful brown skin glowed in the sun,
And your smile made my heart weep sweet joyful sighs.
Surprised me when you pulled me close,
And told me how you never believed love could be like this,
And we kissed, and held hands, and nothing mattered
But that we were together.
We laid on the beach, and watched the sky
Light up with stars, and talked about
Everything.
About your dreams of being a dancer,
And of opening your own studio,
Where you could teach little girls ballet.
And that was okay.
I told you about my first crush,
And how she dumped me with a card,
I took it rather hard, but it don’t bother me so much now.

She makes me rise.
Her scent leaves me breathless,
longing for her to simply pass my desk once more.
To say I love her would offend the way I feel about her;
the emotions are just that deep.
I’ve watched her with other men,
Men who abused her,
Men she abused.
Men who did it for money,
Did it for power,
Did it for fame,
I’d do it for you,
And you alone.
I’ve seen you give yourself to women,
Claim you loved them like how I love you.
It might be true,
But if you do,
You couldn’t have ever had a clue,
That the one who’d care most
And share most,
And scramble eggs and toast for you
Is the same man who’d accept you,
For all your foibles and flaws,
Errant morals and broken laws,
I’d adore you, uplift you
And never leave you in need,

Indeed, I’d do all the things you could figure,
But Jenna, my darling, just won’t sleep with a “nigger.”

This piece sprung from a conversation I was having with someone about interracial dating, and how it seems certain ethic groups tend to lean toward others, like how Asians, when dating outside of their race, tend to date whites in this country.

Then, I read an article about Jenna Jameson on wikipedia that said she’s never done an interracial sex scene, and it seemed to validate the point I was pondering. Of course, the whole conversation requires some serious generalizing, but I believe there is some truth to the notion.

Now, I don’t own a Jenna Jameson video, and can barely tell her from the hundreds of other big-breasted blonds who have sex for money on camera, but it still bothers me if, with the obvious moral questions raised by being a porn star, she’d still have room in her life for racism.

Two nights ago I got into a serious zone. Wasn’t looking for a scrap, but then my M16 got real warm on my side, time to go to work, it seemed to say to me. So I ran out into the battle. Things were Vacant, when I dropped 12 kills, zero deaths, two deadly airstrikes on em. It was like a hot night at Vegas, and it carried over into the Pipeline, 8 kills, 2 assists 1 death, and over into the Strike, 11 kills 2 assists, 3 deaths. So I dropped 31 kills, 4 assists against only 4 deaths, and my k/d climbed up to .93, if you keeping score, that is…

Think I’m cool,
maybe the coolest,
walking this earth like Lazarus,
No need to cuss, I’ve already been cursed worst -
I’ve seen death eternal, life feels trivial,
Answer me this, if you know, why show
You care when there is no heaven?
No place to go after here,
I know, I’ve seen,
There is no golden gate,
But there is hell,
There is pain,
There is nothing to gain
By caring
By living a life of virtue.
But an unending silence,
Where nothing happens
No blessing gets heard,
Only a sleep you’ll never
Know you’re in,
No dreams, just blackness.
I’ve killed, and robbed,
Maimed and cheated,
And no lightning has struck me
No angel of vengeance has smote me.
This is my burden,
The reason I believe in God,
Though he has forsaken me.
I have forgotten what it was like to love,
To care for someone else,
All of the pain I’ve seen has
Slanted my perspective -
If we are made in His image
Then we were born from foulness.

I wish the choir would sing at my funeral.
The angels would come
to carry me to my next destination,
I envision the calmness
of resting on a grassy hilltop,
The sun cascading
through a partly cloudy sky
Down from the east.
A slight breeze
warmly embracing my body,
As they lower me into the ground.
I wish for this day often,
But I do so halfheartedly.
For there is no one to hear me.
I used to shed tears at this thought.
That it may never end.
But my soul is hardened to such things.
It no longer weeps for the pain
Mankind inflicts upon itself.
Children die needlessly,
Or kill one another, every day.
Countries go to war
over petty squabbles
Of land or belief.
But they’re all wrong.
God will not look glowingly on the victor.
Only punish the losers.
All of us. Whenever he returns from
Wherever it is he left us to go.

Consider this my eulogy,
My last labor of love
For a world which has none.
Don’t pity me,
I have done amazing things,
Not all of them good,
Not all of them understood;
I have seen so much badness
That there is no amount of virtue
Can overcome it.
I speak these words as a man
Who had a surplus of warmth
Only to collapse under the weight
Of vileness, of indifference.
I have only my meeting with the Creator
To look forward to,
But looking in that place
Singes my core.
Anything is better than nothing.
Nothing is better than here.
Here is all we have.
All we have is suffering.

I weep for you. I feel nothing for myself.
The torment in which you live
Stings me here.
I would take away your pain,
Your grief,
But the amount I carry for you
Overwhelms me
And I can shoulder only so much.
It’s like the whole world
Sobs inside my heart,
And the sheer volume of it
Leaves me immobilized,
Frozen in place inside the blunt trauma
Of gunshots, car accidents,
Rapes, serial murders, suicides,
Psychological abuse,
And myriad atrocities
You allow to visit upon yourself.
I have written much about you,
And your kind,
But it does nothing to soothe me.
It only reminds me of just how
Lonely you are,
When God has so clearly
Blessed you with gifts
Beyond understanding.

I’m lying on the table,
A scalpel in my left hand,
A Valentine’s Day card in the other.
If I wanted to find out how to best love myself,
Which one of these items should I use?
How can I possibly know how to love myself,
When I barely know myself?
My heart beats,
I feel it,
I can even hear it,
But I can’t control for whom it beats
With that special thump:
The love movement.
I’ve never even loved anyone else,
At least not in any way that
People describe in such
Vivid details in books
Or letters.
I can write love,
But I can also write homicide,
And I ain’t never killed no one.
I can paint you a love portrait
So beautiful that your eyes will water.
But I know not why love birds … you know.
I don’t even know if I love myself.
I looked at me and thought:
“You used to keep yourself up!
Remember when you would touch me
In that special way,
When you would take me out
And wine me
And dine me
And promise to treat me good?
Remember when you would spend
Quality time with me
And do those little things
Like make me dinner that didn’t
Require a microwave?
What happened to you?”
I put that train of thought aside,
Cause it made the scalpel seem real interesting.
But what of the card?
I’ve written love poems,
Told tales of sensuality and ecstasy –
Only words though.
Lately I haven’t even had to flee from love;
The women have fled first,
Fled worst,
Left me longing for a love
I didn’t know how to achieve;
A love I knew not to believe.
I read the card,
It’s cute, like how love is,
I think.
But it ain’t that sub love.
That bottom of the ocean love.
So I use the scalpel instead.
And all the confusion within me
Springs out. All the past “loves”
Revisit me, wearing placards
Around their necks.
Love translated.
Britney’s there, and her tag says “Maybe never”
As in, maybe we could have had something, but not really.
Amie’s there and her tag says “You first.”
As in, “Her first, her always,
Her only. Fuck you and yours.”
Leslie pops in, and on her tag it says,
“In your dreams.”
As in, I concocted the love I had for her
From the ideal of who she was,
Not the real, screwed up chick
Who walked on this earth.
And on and on, they parade from my chest
And each one’s tag points someplace other than Love.
All this tells me I’m at a crossroads.
There is no map. No directions.
Just me. Going back leads to the same crap I left.
Any other direction? Who knows.
But maybe there’s a place I can treat myself
To an ice cream sundae, with two spoons.
Or a box of candies, all for me.
I think I’ll start with this.
I love me.
I love you too.

Went Prestige the other day. Wasn’t sure how it was going to feel, giving up what I’d worked so hard for. After having to say yes bout 4 times, I finally flipped from 55 to 1. Fortunately I rediscovered an old friend: the M16. After struggling with lesser weapons, M and I went on some serious killin sprees.

The lack of recoil made for some accurate shots, and with my keen eye, no one was truly safe but them damn snipers. Some Noobs hung too close together; they all three felt the melancholic pain of my M, before watching their deaths on the KillCam. A couple even foolishly returned to their previous locations, to get killed again. This only led to more airstrikes and helicopters.

I’m a selective shooter, so my numbers weren’t as high as I’d like, but my deaths (and my k/d ratio) are consistently the lowest, so whatever. Thinkin about starting a clan. Right now, I’m a clan of One, which only goes so far. Maybe I will start a clan…

Who freakin’ knows?
I’ve been trying to figure this out since the Iowa caucuses. How the hell do we determine who’s going to run for president?

Seriously, you go and vote, and then delegates (who are?) really decide who to pick? And if things are too close (like they are on the democratic side), then SUPERDELEGATES have to choose? That’s like a curveball to someone who’s never seen a baseball game before.

An AP story recently referred to delegates as “a variety of people” including governors and congress. So, again I ask: who the hell are delegates? If the venerable AP doesn’t know, then who does? Do the delegates themselves know? Am I a delegate? Are you? Check out wikipedia, and see if you can wrap your mind around it. In case you didn’t click the link, here’s a snippet from their entry on superdelegates:

Superdelegates to the 2008 Democratic National Convention include all Democratic members of the United States Congress, Democratic governors, various additional elected officials, members of the Democratic National Committee, as well as “all former Democratic Presidents, all former Democratic Vice Presidents, all former Democratic Leaders of the U.S. Senate, all former Democratic Speakers of the U.S. House of Representatives and Democratic Minority Leaders, as applicable, and all former Chairs of the Democratic National Committee.”

See, “various additional elected officials”? WTF? And it doesn’t even go into who regular old delegates are or how many exist!

It, to me, sounds like a convoluted system presented under the impression of being for and about the people, but really being about a select, elite group of “representatives” who really make the decisions. But you could also call it a Democracy.

“I promised I wouldn’t cry”
Brett Favre retired. Hadn’t you heard? The Green Bay Packer QB decided (without help of superdelegates, I believe) to hang up the cleats after 17 years. ESPN basically turned into TBN, with Trey Wingo serving as Creflo Dollar. For the past few days we’ve all been disciples of the Apostle Brett, being fed his life story, and even his baby pics. Funny how we rarely heard about his all-time interception record? All this, and I didn’t catch John Madden or Chris Berman wax poetic about it, but I’m not concerned. We have all season for them to catch up on it. And they likely will too… Ugh.

Random Thought
Couldn’t think of a good one … hmmm …. lemme dig … ummm …. Klingons eat blood pie, which looks a lot like sweet potato pie with Hershey’s Kisses on it. But it’s called blood pie, so I’d be careful before eating one.

My tagname is {OsU}Shane03, and I kill people for a livin’.

I kill with my MP44, with frag grenades, my P90, RPD, M5, and, when things get tight, my blade. I’ve bled in the Bog, crawled through pipes before the Ambush, lay prone with my Dragonov in Overgrown grass, ran like a madman through the Pipeline, and called in my share of airstrikes through a Downpour. Mine is the Call of Duty, the call to arms that I enjoy.

But it wasn’t always fun, and it isn’t always fun. I’ve been blown to bits more times than I can count (but I put it up around 3000, give or take). I’ve been shot in the head, fallen down missile shafts, had my throat slit, taken shots from my teammates and blown up those same teammates with a single grenade. It’s not a pretty job, but someone has to do it. Some people don’t necessarily approve of me being in this line of work, or even that so many have to do it, but I gain a certain joy from knowing that not everyone is cut out for this.

To my peers, holla if you see me someplace in the field. To my enemies, I got you in the crosshairs, and don’t worry, you’ll go down as KIA, unless I hit you with a grenade. Then, my friend, MIA it is…