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The Eclectic Pen - pepper flats

By: ericjasongastelum   + 52 more  
Date Submitted: 10/14/2007
Genre: Uncategorized
Words: 914
Rating:

the sky was gone after the stars checked-out their normal meeting for a different change. i walked the earth smelling for pure salts in a land only where pepper was the jutting limb of life from every stone & heart. my eyes were sweltering with burn and tears. i could think of one face. only, i could think about one time. it was summer, again, in the past. in this little memory of mine. my fingers protruding like tusks from my hand. though i still arguee to myself if fingers are more efficient then tusks. all that lays by the side of the point. it was a movie unfolding in front of my eyes. i could hear a voice only described by the way i can attempt to in a few sentences. the sun was making my skin so warm all the small openings of glands on it's surface started pouring strands of salty water out. water that was good to the taste sometimes, but never good for the surface of the eyes. and if you could, please try, if you can, please do, imagine this voice speaking to me. sounding like crackling rice cereal with milk poured over it, mixed with the snaping of a leater belt and a twisting smell of orange zest right in front of you, and fresh cut grass. it was a good voice. back when i remember hearing voices i remember also having a sensitivity to feeling pretenses. it was about the time that i heard the voice echoing in my head that i snap back out of it, and remember that i am looking still for only salt. for something to change this surrounding. if only i could find a grain. change this place; upside down. i started thinking about how i could use that grain of salt as a vector to carry a disease of change. change this place. it was at this time in the dream that i took razors and bleed my skin, running the blood in my eyes to preserve them. to keep my eyes safe, and moist. saving myself with myself, but knowing i need this salt to change everything around me back to normal. to a normal salt flat. it takes some time, and that voice still echos in behind my eyes and between my ears on my head. Half paranoid and partially given to insanity i started running. not afraid of falling. not afraid at all. just running, like a child from the bad man. i told myself i was insane, but analyzed my thoughts. i came to the conclusion that my ideas did not constitute a psychotic symptom unless i held those thoughts with a delusional intensity. the intensity was the pain, and that was far from delusion. it was the physical trauma i was feeling, that made me feel hopeless and gone in my head. after all, as i have stated, i knew how to deal with this pain. the salt was all i needed. still bleeding and still not awake, i made a bargain with myself. that i would run until i found the sea. a safe place. a place not like here. and as i started to run my mind thought and thought about all the different things i could tell my children. of when i conquered this day. when i over came the pepper flats. something i could tell a future mate. as i ran i thought of speed & distance. i thought of inches, and yards. then meters, miles, and how those sometimes turn into hours, minutes, seconds, days, years, & a lifetime. i thought about velocity being a vector; velocity telling you how fast something is traveling. about how life is a conduit of time and maybe sometimes affection, if you were ever lucky enough. every temptation i had ever been through now in this story has helped me realize something. but in this dream i only wished to wake-up. to not learn anything. to continue on in the little grooved and furrowed life i have paved. to not be taken control of, or even be the tied down beast you see at coney island, or any side-show circus for that matter. i kept running like i needed air worse then ever. from my larynx to my bronchi, every little tube branching off i could feel throbing and shrinking. i hear in my head another voice. this time it is fake sounding. it sounds outside my head. my eyes start to feel sour as they open to light and bird songs. i hear the voice more and more and i come to this blured real life. this, "a pinch is a pinch" fake feeling dream. the mystery, the hurt, the exploration. all the contrtempts of feeling naked in the full concert hall of people are gone. my eyes roll in their keep, look in a blur. i see a foot then a leg. growing out of the leg is a body then the neck glued to a face. that face has a name. i call the name, and moan the morning grumble, the murmur. i, the grouch, hate mornings. i continue with the, "go to hell" salute. the toast of verbal shrugs. the moments you'd rather fast forward then be a part of at the time being. i wake up and never find the sea. i cannot wait to dream tonight is what i tell myself rubbing the sour wake-up sauce out of my eyes. another day, to live. to be alive. alive without the pepper flats, and if i think this long enough i have yet again fought more ignorance with ignorance. eric jason gastelum -2007

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