Yes, That is what they do.

Don't do much anymore.  There's a beautiful beach and a sad river that they call a slough outside.  But a sad slough is somesort of tidal metaphor where all your friends are somewhere else and people drive big trucks as you walk to work that say "border patrol" and there's so much to fight and your the only one.  Not a fighter anyway.  Friends in other cities are like drugs.  Bumps to get you to the next day.  Wouldn't really know if that makes sense.  Don't they mostly just make the next day unbearable.  Yes.  That is what they do.  And then one day you wake up and airy songs make you happier somehow and your neighbors call their cat "puppy" until it comes in.  Never had a neighbor that didn't stomp.

I don't make noise when I'm not wearing my boots, and I'm always wearing my boots.

My current playlist is "Get out," by the Leave and Never Come Backs.  Their hit album is produced by collusion of time and distance.  And it won't be so bad for the first year David.  It's always tough in your 20's and just stick with it.  No problem.  No other options.

There was a time, I've said, where I was pretty disillusioned by the letter. by this elevated thing that's really done me a sort of no good.  The letter's taken me nowhere I like, so why do I like the letter? Inversion statement.

The problem with being an outsider is that you're outside and it's cold.  When people can't stop talking about your pants, they aren't people anymore.

My favorite neighbor had a glass eye and fed me corn early one night after meeting him.  People tend to meet me and pretty quickly feed me.  

Blanket.

There's talk now, about how a good deal of people experience a brief period of wakefulness midway through the night.  Puberty, for me that was the wakefulness.  Up all night from three until dawn reading Jules Verne.  Terrified.  It wasn't the book, that was to keep my mind quiet.  To shut down the fact that if I didn't sleep with my blanket tight around my neck, that if the window wasn't shut, that vampires would come in an suck my blood.

It was only briefly that I felt this way.  That I knew, almost simultaneous that these things weren't true.  But still, it felt good.  So it was even surprising to me, on an overnight trip for school, that I made the choice to not be afraid of the dark.  I remember at the age of eleven, making that choice.  Saying, no.  I won't be afraid.  It was the same thing the first time I ever took my clothes off in front of someone else.  This will be fine, you know what's under there.  It was the same when I opened up my mind to meeting new people, and the dam broke.  That we can all change, that we can all get better, but we don't need to at first.  It's not immediate.  And that sometimes a nervous, imperfect energy is the comforting.  It's honest. 

Notes.

There's a waterway outside my home called the Coal Bank Slough.  It's called the Coal Bank Slough, because a slough is a tidal waterway home to the whims and scoles of the weather, the moon, and my own emotions probably.  Sometimes it's brimming with coal, the product of burning so hard and so fast that like a candle breathed on heavily by a step aerobics instructor, it has produced coal.  I don't know how coal is formed, but I understand that diamonds could be created by the lack of support which subsequently causes a massive burst of pressure from a nearby dam flooding the ocean.

There's a waterway outside my home called the Coal Bank Slough.  It's named after the deep sadness suddenly realizing that my life is dedicated to sometime I'm pretty good at but have no interest in.

There's a waterway outside the place I live.  It's not my home because, it's just filled with my sparse aesthetic, my transitional sense of self depended on supportive community and collective interest with peers, dashed against a wall and then collected, and swept into the dust bin.  It got broken in the move.  No.  It was dashed against the wall.  I packed well, but there were no selves here labeled.  They had to go.  It's called the Coal Bank Slough.  A slough is a place where birds and seal and sometimes egrets come and sometimes regrets come and the egrets and the regrets have to fight about whether they really want to live by the Coal Bank Slough so that when I finally get that kayak.

The waterway, coal bank, the otters and the regrets.
It's the saddest place I've ever lived,
And I've lived in the central valley,
And I've lived in Tennessee.

There are big trucks here today and I saw one that said border patrol,
And sometimes I feel like I'm too young to be fighting this shit.
It's like, wars are for old white men, and I'm none of those things.

Tie a knot.

You know, there was a point when not only
Did I start to dance,
that I started to realize,
I was good at it.
Not that formal formality of dance,
But that self dance. 
That kind that defines you.
Head down ears out
Come a little baby
Let's jump the broomstick
Come and let's tie a knot.

And when I can't dance,
I can't be me.

I have a lot to say about how much I want different.

When I was hired to my first teaching job, which I waited two years to get, I had to make a decision.  This was two months ago.  Do something I "wanted" to do, and make a wage that would allow me to pay off my student loans, have insurance, afford the things we tend to value, like a place to live, maybe a car.  But I was implicitly asked to do something else.  I had to move away from my friends.  People whom I've grown to love in my time in Oregon.  I'm not from here.  These are people I've met, in a city I valued.  A place I chose to live, explicitly.

Not a lot of people know this, but I moved to Oregon, not just because this place is beautiful, but because I wanted to ride bikes.  That was a major factor.  Eugene was great for a time, but after 5 years, I was ready for a change.  For a bigger town.  Portland was everything I wanted.  My fears of big cities were put aside after a year and a half, I felt like I could meet people, grow as a person, and have knowledge of a place.  I felt like, if I wanted, I could live in a bigger city.  I'm just a country boy, really after all, and these are big things for me.

When I was offered a job, it was a shock.  After years of rejection.  Of blatant unprofessionalism.  Of abuse by Education, a place where we should be nurturing the growth of not just our students, but our peers, and community.  As if that community has no meta-cognition about it's own actions, I was offered a job.  Asked within a week of application to interview, and to accept.  Laughed at when I asked to take a day to make a decision, and pressured to snatch that job up before it was taken away.  I agree, it was the smart move to accept this position.  I'm greatful for it.

But, I can feel two ways about it, at least.  I hate it here.  It feels like taking a step backwards.  It feels like putting me at my most vulnerable, and providing no support.  Having no friends.  Having no family.  Being a first year teacher.  This is something we don't talk about:  What if I don't want to do this?  I'm not even allowed to think that.  Why?  Because what else is there?  What if I'm still here in a year.

Now I'm told that it'll be ok.  That I'll make friends here.  I don't want to make friends here.  It's like when someone used to give me a hard time when I was working the door, and that little demon voice in my head would want to lean over and whisper in their ear, "I don't even want to be here."  But I didn't.  I'm a nice guy.  I put my head down, and do the best job I can do.  But I don't want to be here.  I don't see anyone around me here acknowledging what it must feel like to tear yourself away from everything you value.  They have families, and partners, and children, and big fucking trucks.  I'll tel you something, a cat is not enough.  A cat in not a partner in crime.

I do not want to live in Coos Bay, Oregon and it's not Coos Bay's fault.  It's my fault.  I'm 26 years old.  My biggest fear is that I'll be 31 and in Coos Bay, Oregon.  And I'll be a different person.  I don't want to be a different person.  This is me being an impetuous youth, does that make my feelings any less valid?  I'm aware that this is the time in my life when stuff is hard.  It doesn't make it easier to hear that.  What I want to hear is, "I'm sorry, that sucks."  Don't tell me it will get better.  I was told I'd get a teaching job right away.  It echoes of that.

A student asked me the other day why I became a teacher.  I struggled for an answer.  Because I'm good at it I guess.  There was a time when I thought I liked reading.  I don't really anymore.  When have books made me happy?  What have they done for me that I like.  If I could reevaluate my life, make different choices, I'd think about this quote, which I bring up sometimes.  "So you're a writer, what excuse have you got for not being ashamed of yourself."  John Dos Passos.  I always say that it was structured within an essay about the deep importance of writing.  I don't actually agree with that, I just say it so I can have things two ways:  I can express my disillusionment with my craft, and not.

What it comes down to for me, is that in Portland I had a place where I could be with friends, and meet people and do the things I like, and here I have a job and a cat.  To me, it doesn't matter if you live in a beautiful place if you have no one to share it with.  I don't want to be cheered up.  I don't want your sympathy.  I just don't want to live here anymore.  I miss my friends.  Sunday.

Ceremonies.

I used to think I hated weddings.
I do,
But I used to think it was just weddings.
No, it's funerals too.

Couldn't we just do this at the post-office?
And then it went further.
The Star-spangled banner, no thanks
Heard it once, didn't like it.
4th grade,
I'm remembering this,
It's coming to me.
Crisis of self:
Stopped saying the pledge
Of allegiance.
Hand on heart, no words.
Then just standing.
A hearts just an organ.
Graduations,
Isn't it the work that gets us there?
It's ceremonies,
That's the problem.

Bag

I had one of those fever dreams at this specific point probably in high school,
But it was a fever-dream.  Hyphen fever, (comma) dream.
The distance is palpable even as it happened.
In the dream winter fell and washed the ground with not that light snow.
Not the snow of dreams of clean and Christmas day or silence waking.
The mud the dream of snow brought that sits on edge that plows drag up
Leaving crust and ice and whatwassnow but now is deathfall if a fall (it'd lead to death).
A bag of dead cats underneath the shovel discovery at the lip of a driveway
My driveway the job I did not because I was asked and sometimes was but that I often
And this time did
Self plow that lip that if left will freeze and provide a successful impenetrable speedbump
Speed Zero.
And it never happened.
And I made the mistake of telling someone,
Telling my family, in passing, ha, ha, remember that weird thing that happened?
When it never did.

Literally hundreds

Literally hundreds of non-jokes:

It's true what they say about Santa:  Great Guy!
I've never been to California, but I hear it's terrific!
Three old buddies meet up in a bar, and really catch up!
A man goes to the doctor, and is fine.
Beans are part of healthy diet!
Well, my friend called, and she is a good friend.  Good to catch up!
Did you hear the one about the farmer?  I've heard many things about farmers!
There were too many bats at the baseball game so it was cancelled because there was literally a swarm of bats, but the expectation was about the types of wooden bats used in a baseball game.
I saw a clown that had sad make-up.
A guy tripped and was hurt as he fell, but not that bad, bad enough though.  We all still laughed, and then were worried, but he was fine, but we still felt bad for laughing.
Why do Jazz musicians practice so hard?  Some don't!  Some do!  Internal motivations I suppose.
The President turns to the First Lady and says, "Doesn't it seem as though heteronormative expectations of this position are directly related to the conflation of liberty and religion, as endemic in this country's construction of it's power delegations?"  Except he doesn't say that.
There were four different types of dogs playing poker, in a painting!
A mouse is a type of rodent!
I don't remember whether the Bernoulli Principle is about temperature or flight.
How many bohemians does it take to screw in a light bulb?  1.  It isn't difficult.
Germans!  Can you believe the history there?  Wow, years.
What sort of animals are in hotdogs?  It depends!
A mermaid coaxes a fisherman into the rocks and he dies!

Earth.

It's true what they say about Earthquakes,
I've never been in one that I can remember.
That's what I say at least.
They sound terrible.
The earth quakes.
I tremble,
Already.

Yes and, No.

I know this for sure, that the first time I put all this stuff-
The black, the grey-
(It's mostly grey) together.
It'll be called,
                      "The Year that I broke My Leg."
Which, I've never done-
And it won't be until I can put that year
(Which has been most of my life) behind me.

I used to say, "If I'm ever going to do that,"
"I'll have to be a different me,"  "That this me,"
"Can't be."

Touch

Now loneliness isn't something you can make in a day.
It's not bread.  I know that some bread takes a while.  A couple rises at least.
This isn't bread.  It's loneliness.
It's not about distance, but distance doesn't help.
It has to do with the sudden and repeated realization that there is touch missing
From you life.
And by your life,
I mean, my life.