Manny's Journal

8:03pm: something i dont remember writing last night
I'm going to have to climb down and turn off the bedroom light. And there are needs being met and its all over or just starting or just starting to find it's groove. And I still need to turn off the light, then take off my shirt and cover up. I think of the bottle. I think of the men at the bottom, I think of my friend bellow me sleeping and the light again. I think of my friends in jail at 3 p.m., or on their way to disneyland just to watch the fireworks up close - the same fireworks I can see from my house twenty miles away and I wonder how much different they look directly underneath. Its little kids, kids in 1st. grade with their teeth showing and they're running right at you when they just met you fifteen minutes ago. You give them stickers and tell them they've done a good job and now, with your face lying on your pillow, you think how it was the best thing you did today. And today nothing comes and nothing takes shape... everything seems like a missed connection or disconnection or some choice that you made to call it as you saw it. Its long poems half heard being repeated by someone you know to someone they don't, or a melody, or a bridge, or a real fear captured in some medium outside a gasp or a phone call. You keep the light on, and in the morning it blends in so beautifully with your room you wake up early just to look around quietly. Its your handwriting that gets worse as you get older just like your grandma's did on your birthday cards growing up. And you work for two months straight just to pay one month's worth of bills, and two weeks worth of drinking, and the nine days of no good sleep that come with it. And you feel the same every morning and you expect nothing and accept nothing. And no one gets in or through to you. Some switch is flipped and the day begins the same outside as it does in. Everyday, yes, and tomorrow who knows... well I can't wait.

-m

10:59pm: sighs in the key of life
when i die and go to hell i'm gonna tell satan i'm just passing through

-m

2:10am: yippy
today i came home then ran to the bar to take a shot while my mom bought tylenol for disneyland then went to disneyland for my dad's 55th birthday then went to the beach to watch the fires die and say hi to friends then got high while the parents were out of town and looked at their pictures and thought about some of mine then drank water and watched white tissue float upward from the tops of a neighbor's tree then liked something then made a bed on my floor and wanted to make room for more but i fell asleep to some song i wish i wrote and thought of everyone that will wake up to work ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

2:05am: i try to figure out some number when i see her walk in and i throw my head back and look toward her friend and the thunder is almost as loud as the jukebox and shes wearing red and i look at her face as many times as i can between sways and i picture it right in front of mine and i laugh and feel stupid for the girls ive depicted my love to and i want her to be apart of me and i hardly know her first name and today has been a good day so far and she stands across the bar and i think she kind of looks at me and again i picture her face and this time its panting and im alone and somewhere shes lying in a bed with some man or washing her face or flying back home on some plane to london and she sleeps and im up and it could just as easy be the two of us

7:52pm: im in the back seat of a car and it drives through the desert and i remember this dream i had two nights ago where i was talking to a friend but in the middle of our conversation i realize he has all these holes going in and out of his face and they keep forming and with one big hole comes another but were still talking and im trying to play it cool and i move my sunglasses down and orange and brown are moving all around me while the car keeps driving or maybe outside its just moving and i wish i could fall asleep again and i lick my lips and they still taste like vodka and its a little after twelve and we miss our exit and have to turn around
finally at the house now and i put my sunglasses on my head to watch the tree across the street blow back and forth in a way that makes me wonder what living out here must be like and a couple little birds fly after this huge crow all of them making noise and moving in the air
i watch the sun set and the sky change colors from a drive-in movie theater parking lot and the place is pretty packed with people and were outside the car with chairs and cups of ice and vodka with shasta cola and my mouth and eyes are sore from the wind and i keep my sunglasses on to try and keep the dust out while car and truck stereos are on probably full blast and we dont even need to keep ours on but we do anyways and i see three shooting stars during the movie and there are more lights in the sky than there are on the horizon and im getting tired so i move my chair to hopefully jump start a second wind and more wind blows and cups knock over and empty bags of chips float past the giant screen and spaceships are moving through space and everyones pretty quiet and when people walk by on their way to the bathroom my eyes cant adjust fast enough to see them so they just look like shadows and i want to leave but i forget how far away i am and the movie ends and i fall asleep for most of the ride home and i fall asleep to try and dream something a little more appropriate

10:27pm: im writing this fast as my fingers can because my computer is really into turning off unexpectedly and ive been cleaning my room for two days now and it took me a total of eight hours i think but its done and the christmas lights are up all around and my new guitar is right behind me and now i think ill have enough money and room to finish buying my drumset and set it up here so on tuesdays my dad wont have to move the old car out of the garage for bill and i to practice and earlier today it got a little weird when i found out about the people that are taking my place in teenagers but what can i say... that ship has left and its a little easier knowing that most things are happening without me really knowing like when one of the kids hands me a thank you card or gets me out in dodgeball or if i dont feel like going somewhere and the car stalls out instead and hearing the new bill callahan album with all its arrangements that are so beautiful i dont know if i can completely understand them and this morning i kind of cried while i watched the part of the red river tour movie when real danger really kicks in and all i think about is purring and cat communication because i wanna know what kika stares at outside all the time.

1:48am: on a skateboard he bought the pennysaver and chocolate today is the day i buy my dog or find that drumset ive been looking for im looking forward to somewhere in space where teenagers grow and some ships pass his house on their way home now all time is lasting as long as the beat hes blasting while the dogs tail wags it all glows around me youre first to fall asleep heavens not mine its mine to hope that well wear rings of tugboat rope like when you lived in that room there and mom would fix your hair pack you candy while you would sing about that bird you were hiding we gotta die or do something move through perfume and into some sun and its burning soft as the sound of sand on a beach

12:17pm: got a free ticket to see murder city devils last night. got a little pumped because i used to really like this band when i was a bit younger. but god, i hate shows now. the crowd, the $10 drinks, the crew jackets, and the floor afterwards. not to say that ive been around forever, but punk isnt punk and fun isnt bankruptcy drunk. look for me somewhere else.

6:17pm: caaaaaaaaant right
wake up at all these different places all the time and make my way into the streets and through parking lots and sit in backseats because were all already on our way back but before i do ill tell a couple girls how ive loved them since day one and for once i get a hangover but it doesnt seem to stop the way i feel it goes in and out like something kinda weird or through the door brushing her teeth in the morning and i wanna get them all dirty again with the food we can put on our table & be able to watch you write or hear the likeness in your sisters voice and how you two kinda share the same sexiness but the thought of all you young and kissing and sharing clothes or a drivers license to get in makes me wanna fold in half backwards so ill wake up on all these different couches or floors or sometimes make it to a bed hoping i see you in a bit again

2:44am: you have a bad night or bad week and year or its good and your cat kinda claws behind you at your chair. there's a hundred and fifty dollars in your back pocket and maybe she knows it. you know its four thirty in the morning somewhere. you know a couple people know this because you've told them and theres that small chance that finally sinks in. everything flows, you can't help but listen. that old drum beat keeps going and going and going. you wait for your friends outside at night, and anyone you love is already in the car or on their way. you cant wait and neither can i.

8:27pm: there's love in my life

1:24am: feeling weird after a long day of trying to not come off so weird all the time

woke up to rain, now its time for that warm shower spray

thankful,
-m

12:55am: Not through
Wonder if Rusty ever developed that Easter day roll of film that had the pictures of us standing in Nana's backyard. If he did I think maybe I may be able to finally take a look. If not - well by now they've gone bad, mostly just yellows and reds, you all smiles and me all worried that you were gonna ask for the pictures later on or, even worse, that you wouldn't ask for those pictures later on. There was a pretty big chunk of my life where you were a pretty big chunk of my life.. and it kinda makes me want to make an internet smiley face. But, it wasn't always like that, because I can remember falling asleep that last night you were here and how I opened my blinds to a sky that pointed away from you. And I guess I sort of knew then by the way it sounded. The same how like right now I hear all this wind in my house. It could be my grandpa walking around doing his after dark afterlife rounds or, maybe, it is just some wind. Some collective riff of the place where I sit. I hope it leads to some great sea

12:16pm: moving forward for what seems like awhile now
feeling good
have so many ideas for Weekends, cant wait to hear them outside with all those families floating
wanna make a daughter?

1:33am: twenty two - nineteen
back inside its still seven and the morning goodbye on morning grass lie like it never happened a bit agoraphobic with that dream of drinking juice from a tree and other things that lack sleep to sleep with things that are always changing maybe breaking my foot from jumping and i cant even walk to your work or right into hidden meaning of your uniform shirt now thinking how id like one for me and at one we can meet at the beach stay up again until seven knowing you have to be home by three

4:52am: late
there will never be any love or guidance or weekends to pretend that we're married and draw pictures of meeting eachother then meeting again when one of us comes in to say it doesn't have to be this way but it will and i will never make something out of me that you will be willing to take with everyone watching like when i hear how much i'm worth but there are things that you'd trade for me la de da da darkness and a complete hole through my wholeness half on your floor becoming part of it nothing is grace
-m

11:27pm: lemme knowww
There glowing where the sky meets with the trees
Air softly crowing, singing fears to sleep

Will you ever know how much i love you

4:38am: the changes i've endured, i know that its all shit.

12:47am: dumb enough
i don't have a grandma or a girlfriend or anything good anymore
i still have dreams that tell me things and drinks to keep me company
may be a superhero flying around my head

11:07am: my nana died around 1:00 am, i feel like there is a hole going through the front of my face and out the back of my head.

7:45pm: something about loving a lot of you a whole lot and wanting to provide for you
something about how if i have then thats that
dancing a little in my chair, laughing at the thought of an infinite quiet

11:48pm: a man
a year ago there was the dream I had about feathered costumes and that end of the world closet in my room
today I just wanna make it
not in a guilty way like wanting to be saved I just want to have it to take with me
just one more thing, one more young thing to be beside me and me beside it
now my dreams are about being far from both things
and now I feel a little sick when I sing
there’s time
but chuck was wrong when he said if there’s not that’s ok too
It’ll drive me to either end for either of them

2:28am: exist
I think of what I’ll say, and how I like that better. How I’d like to shave my head and travel through my time, knowing how bad I’m gonna feel it tomorrow. And when it gets good I’ll leave it and let it be reveled in. I’d touch my face more. Fall asleep at the wheel and wake up to a promise of calling when she gets home or when her plane lands or when she’s outside. I’d turn the music up, wake up again and wake you up. Wait for it to get light outside. And when it didn’t, I’d pretend it never was going to, look at you, and

-m

12:19am: i get hard when i hear her say "i miss you"

1:45am: far away
old years again, all alone while house sitting feelings towards two thousand miles east. i say "come down for my birthday, then stay till i'm eighty" and you agree. i want to as;ldjkjh you, and tell all my friends i had it all wrong when it came to love. i want to touch that scar on your ear for all twenty nine hours on the road. lets make it