10/02/05

“Ephraim, I love you.” Why do I dread these words? Why do I try to change the subject or explain them away? Why do I fear them? After dating for three months I have been carefully dodging them, but they came out last night. The first time I was able to simply dismiss them as a by-product of the heat of the moment. Sometimes we say stupid things while kissing. One time I said “Yowsa,” in the voice of Axel Rose. At least that was quizzical, comical, and could even pass as cute. But as even with its elusive ambiguity, “love” is serious stuff. Call my mom a whore, and I’ll laugh. Call me a homo, and I’ll joke about it for weeks. At my old job they used to make fun of me for not being sexually active. They said that since I’d never used my penis, it was still in the box with the shrink-wrap on it. I though it was hilarious. As men, the more you cut someone down, the more you can build up a friendship. Of course, there are tonal changes that indicate a shift from affection to offense, but generally to offend is to befriend. The only taboo is direct, somber compliments. Love, as a solemn declaration, is unsettling. I don’t know what “love” is. If God is a mystery, (D&C 19:10) and God is love, (1 John 4:16) then it follows that love is a mystery (“behold, the mystery of godliness, how great is it!”). I have wrestled with this for years, yet I have only learned a few things. Trust is more important than love. You can love someone and not trust them, but it’s hard to trust someone and not love them. Other than that, I really can’t say more.

rain, rain

Walking in rain can be fun. Lovers do it in the movies all the time. White, fit, middle class Americans hopped up on endorphins and the elegance of freedom gleefully charge out into the rain on an empty street and spin, prance, and laugh--all in opposition to nature and her will. Nothing but the heat of their bodies keep them warm as their clothes become transparent and time sort of stops while the rain washes them of all care--leaving them innocent.

However, he wasn't them and walking in the rain was not fun tonight. Except for the shadows cast by the random flickering lamp posts, he was alone. He breathed quick jagged breathes that bellowed from his mouth only to be immediately crystallized. He had not known it was going to rain tonight. It came on suddenly, scattering everyone on the street. He was already completely soaked, his shirt clinging his skinny body. The worst part was that he was wearing flip flops. His feet were numb and every time he took a step, his feet would flip and then flop, shooting water up the back of his leg. He decided to concentrate on something else in order to get his mind off this ill fated journey. He chose statistics. Just then his tractionless flip flops shot out from under him and he landed on his back in a pool of rain water. Damn z scores. He just lay there for a minute, analyzing the situation. A man approached him. The stranger stopped, took a breathe, and said “Man it sucks you have flip flops.”

10/17/05

Latter-day Saints are funny because they ask you questions but don’t want your answers. They just find some sort of pride in posing questions. Why are you here? Where did you come from? Where are you going? In this particular instance, my Bishop asked me how I was doing. I figured he really cared and wanted to get to know me, so I unloaded. Big mistake. I confessed that I had a lot of theological questions: the materialistic determinism in section 131, the fallibility of the prophets, contradicting statements about the nature of God by different apostles, just to name some of the simple ones. He then told me that I was possessed by a devil. I was shocked. I didn’t know whether to laugh or curl up in a ball and cry, so I just stared at him. He said that if I haven’t had the Spirit with my as my constant companion, then the devil must be in me because one or the other must be in me at all times. Of course, I proceeded to prove him wrong using scripture, Joseph Smith quotes and good old logic, but that was just further evidence to him that I was possessed. I felt trapped in a Salem paradox. If I tried to defend myself, I only appeared more guilty. It has really messed me up, and made me question a lot of my beliefs.

my buddy and me

My possessor is named “Silly-Puddy-I’m-not-your-Buddy.” At least, that’s what I tell people. When he’s around, I hunch over, cross my eyes, and lurk down the halls of the church limping around like a drunken Frankenstein. Sometimes I drag my butt across the hall like a dog with tape worms. One time I stood up in the middle of sacrament meeting and started singing a Spice Girls song while rubbing my butt into the face of the Sister Ferguson.

Silly-Puddy-I’m-not-your-Buddy has been with me for quite awhile. The first time I remember meeting him was when I was a six year old in Sunday school. We were all crammed into a small, cold, brick room with no chairs. Our old cranky teacher would make us stand on one foot with our arms extended until we could answer her questions correctly. She would pace while we stood, waiting and praying for our lesson to be over. She stopped and put her wrinkly nose against mine. moth balls and perfume mixed with the grits on her breathe to created an irreverent toxin that nearly knocked me down.

“Marvin!”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Tell me, Marvin Jenkins, how much money did Judas get for betraying Jesus?” she queried, stoking the hair on her chin.

I knew this one. She made me write it on the board fifty times last week.

“Thirty talents of silver!” I shouted.

"And what could be bought for thirty pieces of silver?"

"A slave!" I had anticipated that one.

“Well, class, it seems Marvin has finally learned something. Let’s try another question.”

I was wobbling back and forth when she shot out her next round of questions.

“Why did Judas betray Jesus?”

“Uh…because he wanted money?”

The class giggled. She just stood there and shook her head.

My arms were burning and my leg was getting wobbly.

“NO! John 13:27! John 13:27!” she ranted. “He betrayed Jesus because the devil entered him!” she ranted.

I knew the punishment for a wrong answer—two additional minutes in that horrible position. I think that’s when it all happened.

“Maybe he just needed some money…maybe he needed some food.”

The all the giggles stopped and the room went silent.

“Wha…what did you say, young man?”

I finally fell to the floor, and just stared up at her, waiting for her to react.

“Young man! Are you daring to say that St. John was wrong? Do you dare say that the Bible is lying?” her voice was escalating with every syllable and she was trembling. “That murderous, hell-bound, traitor was filled with the devil that bloody day, God’s own word tells us so!”

I was the only calm thing in the room. Even the walls seemed to be shaking with fury. I had never felt more absolute power and control in all my life.

It was then i felt discernibly different. I was somehow watching me from across the room.

“If Judas was possessed by the devil when he betrayed Jesus, then how can Judas go to Hell? He didn’t do it—the devil did. How can he go to hell for something he didn’t do?”

She yanked me by the arm and dragged me to the pastor. I told him the devil made me do it. That’s how it started, and it’s been the same ever since. My Buddy and me.

Day 1

All knowing, perfect, kind, and just

These are absolutes, all are a must

To have faith, believe and pray

God must all these three obey

But how can man, with such finite thinking

Unravel this contradiction without even blinking

For if God knew all, and could see his life

And determined to change it tonight

Could he do so? Does he have the power?

If so, he misread his future, if not, over whom does he tower?

For if a God cannot his own future change

Then why do mortals beg for brighter days?

These two things cannot be together

Seeing all, knowing, and changing the weather

the guy at the bus stop once said this to me:

basically, i'm worthless piece of shit smeared on the face of everyone i know
shit with corn in it, warm peanut butter with chunks in all the wrong places
the shit doesn't stop there, not by a long shot
oh no, i'm the archetype of waste. i look like a giant, wadded up cheeseburger wrapper filled with diarrhea and covered with dookie sauce
you may think, "well at least he's achieved something, i mean, not everyone can say they are an archetype."
trust me, archetype life is grossly misunderstood and tragically overrated
you see, it is technically impossible to be "nothing," no matter how tempting
the next step down from nonexistence is where i'm at. welcome to archetype-ville
i get to be diffused and spread and wrapped around all those who are affected by me
basically, i'm the reason shit like me exists, i'm where the buck stops in the blame game
most people don't know about archetypes, but those who do leave the nastiest messages on my voice mail
"thanks for the shit, shitbag. it's not bad enough that you yourself exist, but you deem it necessary to act as the prototype of you shitty-ness, allowing others to carry out your will?"
funny thing is, its not my will
as far as i know, nobody dreams that they will be a worthless pile of shit-o-rama when they grow up
even the crack addict giving blow jobs to homeless people for a nickel doesn't really want to be a pile of shit-o-rama
that's why he's addicted to crack. he wants to feel like a million dollar pile of shit, even if its just of an hour
like i said, i never remember choosing this. it's just how it is and i am helpless to stop it
if an archetype tells you he can change, this is how you know he is lying. ask to shake his hand and he'll try to high-five you. we don't know why, but we can't shake hands. trust me though, we can high-five the hell out of shit
now, be warned, personifications do have will, do freely choose their roles, and can shake hands
basically, personifications are weak sauce impersonators. beware of such
for me, will is a four-letter word i'm not allowed to utter
it's the only rule for archetypes, as if i could choose to disobey

i was pulled from the river, and i can't explain this

i say, YHWH was the first acronym.
she says something like hallelujah and i say, yeah, they did that to teach us that not even
God's name is worth saying if its inconvenient.
it was at this point that i convinced myself that i had completely blown it with my seraph
my eyes roll to the back of my head and she's back with Little Big Vocabulary and the Ogre with the Lump in His Pants
the cracks in the ceiling start spelling things
" " falls from the ceiling into my retinas and bounces out of my mouth
for some reason, they are all aghast with this.
the little girl says "Truly he is a great and noble one, born of the spirit of blazing tongues" she says this with
about three exclamation points behind it ( i know this because i can see them over her head).
the giant says "i heard it in my own tongue"
my seraph smiles and an entire phrase falls from the ceiling, but i say it as an acronym
"MIAMAWYMAMAIIATBYR"
the crowd goes wild for this one
i laugh as words fall like the blouse of Potiphor's wife
time only exists when you count it, and right then i was only counting teeth. my seraphs teeth.

i'm not joking

one time, i new this guy who cheated on his girlfriend with one of her best friends. it was all sort of cliche except for he kept talking about how "bizarre her snizz smelled." he never said it was a particularly horrid smell--just very atypical. definitely not the scent of any woman he had ever encountered before. we all told him it was probably just the red tide haulin' in some nasty sea carcass, but he was adamant that she wasn't mensing. so then another one of my friends got with her, just to smell the snizz of mystery. big mistake. he tried to sleep with his girlfriend later that night and right when she was going down on him she jumped back and said "you fucked mary! you fucked mary ******, you fucking bastard!" turns out his girlfriend had a turn at old mary too, back in college. this totally confirmed to us, beyond all reasonable doubt, that mary ****** most certainly had a funky smelling snizz.

then she dumped him and his dick smelled weird for a few days, even after he washed it.

this actually happened.

timmy? timmy!

“I ask you brothers and sisters, who here is named Timmy?”

Silence.

“Has anyone here ever met anyone named Timmy?”

A few whispers, but most would still call it silence.

“Are you to tell me then, that no one, not one in the fifty-seven people gathered here today has ever met anyone named Timmy?”

Some six year-old coughed in the front row.

“Well, if none of us are Timmy, and no of us know Timmy, the who is Timmy and why do all the stories they tell us involved this little Timmy?”

she sat at a typewriter, clicking away

while i was looking at an illustrated history of men's magazines. we were both avoiding the concert going on in the basement, mostly because it was wall-to-wall hipsters that just rotated in and out of the bathroom, wiping their noses.

she wrote:

did you go there that day? i thought you wanted me to say hello but
i guess you proved me wrong.
so yeah, you're full of shit.
but you know what? we all are, and so i'll be full of shit with you
and just try not to let it spill out of my mouth.
never ming that i did go to your house that day, and i didn't think you'd be there.
but you were nice enough to show me the doorbell and the signal
what you call love is mostly shit i've never heard of
(metaphoric shit, i mean)
do you think that rats will come if we leave the bible?
fffuck
do you think that rats will come if we read the bible?
will you bring me my beer?
no, this is mine, bitch
that's what keroc said before he smashed his head in the gutter where he died.
that's a big lot of cheeseballs
bigger than the words you tried to feed me in place of food.
just so you could take your stupid photographs.
well, let me tell you, you can't eat paper, especially when it has developer and other
nasty photographic chemicals
i guess, though, if that's what floats your boat = a-ok with me
when you came over to my house, i opened the diary i wrote in once
and showed you. i don't remember exactly what i showed you. was it me?
when i'm looking in the mirror and you can see me.
please don't put the tape over the mirror
i'm vain and a sophist, (except, not towards my navel) and if you
put tape over the mirror, you'd probably never see me again.
but now you've broken it
call me a scab, asshole, i'm going home.

a few clicks later:

you told me you weren't happy, even when you were little.
i mean little.
i don't think i believe you on that account. usually you can't remember your
most happy times because brains are like that.
for some reason they build houses out of the most rotten, corrupt materials they can find
they dance party won't be for a long time, so we're gonna go
i'm tired and the can is the in the bag
the cat is in the barn
we're just douching around

what she doesn't know is the i took the paper out of the typewriter and keep them in my pocket, even to this day.

no one to tell us no, or where to go, or say we're only dreaming...

so, it turns out, leaving a nineteenth century religious movement is harder than anticipated. though gone are the days of Zion, the United Order, and the Pure in Heart, it seems that they still want to hang on (even if its only for hanging on's sake) to me no matter what the cost to my self-worth or feelings.

they say, how could this have happened? i wish i had an adequate explanation. i wish i could graph it on some sort of axis, but parabolas never did serve self-expression very well.

an attempt to sum up my feelings:

politics have replaced prophecy and tradition seems to have trumped a search for truth.

(assuming prophecy and truth ever had a place in our tradition at all)

or:

so great was my hunger and thirst for truth that i started checking church history for nutritional content, only to find it full of fructose corn syrup, empty calories, and, even though the label said otherwise, transfats.

or:

if truth is indeed reason, then all i see in this chapel is wholesale treason

II.

in these few months i've been called everything from a liar to son of perdition. brothers and sisters, doing what they see as right, are attempting to heap on the guilt and the cognitive dissonance in an effort to bring me back. then ends always justify the means.

just like when church historians are excommunicated for writing about events that actually occurred, instead of omitting them for not being what the brethren would call "faith-promoting." ruin a few lives in order to keep the majority from knowing anything but propaganda. ends and means, ends and means.

paul said faith is belief in things not seen that are true. what then, is faith in things not seen because of blind allegiance and not true because of the patriarchy's attempts to retain power?

when we finally looked into the double-helix, we've found that Israel is indeed lost. no apologies or explanations, only one edit that no one noticed in a version of scripture that no member will ever read.

we've tread on the legacy of our forebearers who wasted and wore out their lives fighting to keep the federal government out of the most private parts of worship and humanity. after the sting of being trampled by unsympathetic and close-minded majority has worn off, we combine forces with the Great and Abominable (though we don't call them that to their faces) to do the same to another minority that struggles for its rights to express their love.

it's simple math:

ends over means always equals hypocrisy.

III.

as john says, there is no room for room temperature testimonies, and mine had been that way for too long. so now here i am, chewed and spewed and dying for some sort of solidarity.

the void is great and the replacement world views are few. in fact i've found that i can't be convinced of anything. the only thing i've tried to do that seems right is narrow the distance between what i think and what i do or say. some face validity for once. that's what got me here, maybe that'll be what gets me out.

there is no creation myth that can reveal what i am to do with no creation myth. it's all unraveled and all unknown.

MYSTERIUM TREMENDUM

after much travail...

hear ye, hear ye! a new word has been brought forth from the waters of creation! behold "bedungled!" she is much like her sister "befuddled," only with the added misfortune of dung! When next surrounded with the confounding riddles of nature and sinking in a mire of feces, call upon her and she will bless you with semantic bliss!

you can't dry my eye

my roommate made a mu mu out of two towels. yes, a mu mu made out of two towels sown together. that is all.

like i'm some sort of futon

if i don't move, it's because you have your feet on me. i never really thought it would be quite like this, but now that i'm here it makes some sort of dark, poetic sense. sort of.

when we hate and fear and loathe something long enough, it is inevitable that we become that thing. too much psychic energy to do much else.

this rug goes with nothing in the room, and no one else seems to notice. maybe the King would notice, but say nothing, and that's pretty much the same as not noticing.

you can play with me inside my pants, but i can't promise anything will develop. in fact, i just want you to solve your problems and leave me out of the equation.

i'd run away from spray bottles too, if they removed grape jelly stains.

i got mike on my head, but don't call me a mike-head

mike's pandas were potty trained, but he refused
that's how he rolls
with only a cowboy shirt and his caffinated serum, he arm wrestled his destiny
submission is where he hangs his hat
pink wallet, just like in the movies
pink personality, just like in all his shattered expectations
don't you know that backpacks can't carry mercy?
it just seeps right out
out like a trout

jelly time, every time

don't believe what they all say
peanut butter never hurt anyone
well yeah it's sticky, but what the hell do you expect from being crunched so many times?
heed not their lies of cancer, bacteria, and peanut sweatshops
it won't get stuck in your teeth and turn them into a cesspool of cavities
okay then, be a puss and eat the creamy
you'll never live this down
ever

ain't my beeyatch

this weekend's dose of drama takes me back a decade, back to when me and my first gf were watching "gremlins 2" in the living room at my parent's house. gradually, somewhere around the time Gizmo was saying "uh-oh" for the seventh time, the intensity of the murderous muppets overtook us and together we fell from our edge-of-the-seat sitting posture to that of a more i'm-losing-consciousness-in-the-way-that-can-only-be-induced-by-the-plotholes-of-an-overproduced-hollywood-sequel
variety (namely, spooning). as if summoned by some sort of mormon-mother morality sixth-sense, within two minutes, my mom waltzed into the room. i was a little concerned about her
reaction, considering i had never tested the waters of horizontal PDA before.

oddly, my mom responded by remarking about how cute we were, and even went so far as to take a picture of us "looking so cute."

then she got typical.

later that night, after my gf had gone home, my mother sat me down and told me how disappointed in me she was for being so brazenly disrespectful by doing such an immoral, unchaste thing in her home. after a half-hour lecture, she ended with tears in her eyes and venom in her voice as she told me that i cared so little about the sanctity of her home and opinions that i was so thoughtless of God, my family, and our beliefs that i'd probably "have sex with her right on that couch, defile my house, and not think twice about it."

they say opposites attract. i am inclined, however, to disagree.

* the inter-relationship?

you wouldn't want a still life of my nightstand. really.

rope, stained and unstained tissue, two pairs of smudged eye glasses, a cougar-shaped lamp, a vibrator with hair stuck all over it because it fell on the floor, a couple Abraham Lincoln's both face down, copper tails in the air, a reese's peanut butter cup wrapper, and the smell of Astroglide.

stick to fruit bowels, Rembrandt.

garbage, inc

eating pieces of scab. turkey baster enemas. snorting maker's mark.

this and the fact that i can't do anything relevant while i sit here for 8 hours, waiting to do nothing of significance once i get home.

i really should be a tranny. only, i have a face that's not really cut out to be a girl only slightly more than it's not cut out to be a man's.

but seriously, maybe silicon will fill my void. it's hard not to have meaning with boobs AND a penis.