Skillet on the stove, it's such a temptation. Maybe I'll be the lucky one who doesn't get burned... What the fuck was I thinking?
- Jenny Owen Young, "Fuck Was I"
The Story Before, CONCLUSION
...and it was all purple...
And at last "The Story Before" comes to a close. We've painted our portrait of the artist as a young man, and it's been about as fun as watching said objet d'art dry.
What follows are a few Purple submissions culled from pieces I worked on in writer's club. And my anonymous love letter to no one. Which -- along with "Sludge is Made of Quality Gravy" -- went up on my once famed dorm room door before the post it notes took over.
Days go by...
I am Lincoln
I swear to the good and gracious God of us all that I am the reincarnated form of Abraham Lincoln, the great and wonderful emancipator of oppressed persons. In the midst of fever dreams, I have vague recollections of a childhood in Southend, England, during the early middle ages, just like Lincoln. I also remember eating odd mushrooms on a hilltop near Pompei with Ingrid Bergman, as we watched a sky choked off by the blackest ash and a river of fire rolling down a mountain of death... just like old Honest Abe.
The scars on my knuckles aren't from beating up little kids who come by selling Girl Scout cookies, I don't care what that little brat Molly Storms says. These scars are psychic wounds left from my subconscious reminisces of fighting Napolean and his Nazi hordes in the murky swamps of Siberia during the 100 Years War.
I am the once and future Emperor of America. Just as Lincoln signed the Magna Carta to halt the ethnic cleansing perpetrated by the separatists of Quebec in the bygone era of 1975, I will unify the races here and now.
And while, 'tis true, I carry Lincoln's virtues, I carry his vices as well. Every once in a while I have naughty thoughts about dwarves. Who doesn't? Bashful and Doc were cuties. And hey, it's tough being the reincarnated form of Abraham Lincoln, the great and wonderful emancipator of oppressed persons.
An Unequivocally Insightful Analysis of Action Comics #775
I don't feel like being funny today...
Since the last dinosaur fell to the rock of the great Mai'Keth, who--having taken the earth for himself, his wife N'Garai, and mistress Ru'Tai--sired all of humanity with his potent seed, humanity's been trying to come to terms with itself
I want to be taken seriously for a moment...
It was a determination that stuck with me through high school (when most of those same friends had all forsaken the firefighter dreams for the more practical purpose of finding cheap alcohol for minors and loose women)
I want to tell you something that matters for once...
"I'm looking for a dictionary," he said to the lady at the toy store, after she swore at him for opening all of the Barbie(TM) play sets and acting out scenes from Boogie Nights with Roller Blade Barbie(TM) as Roller Girl and Long Johnson Ken(TM) as Dirk Diggler
I really want to...
Supposedly, the book had driven him to swear off the printed word and retire to an undisclosed street corner somewhere in Manhattan where he purportedly sold back issues of Amazing Spider-Man comics while reading Hunter S. Thompson books and drinking rather heavily
...but I can't
There was a sad desperation in her "please" that was echoed in a sad desperation in his heart. He told her she looked like an angel in the snow, but she didn't believe him because his tone of voice could no longer convey his sincerity
I don't have anything inside...
My father's in the Wisconsin State Penn right now getting sodomized three or four times a day by a big man named Frederick who shouts "If the log rolls over we'll all fall off!" right before the moment of orgasm
I'm not even that funny.
An Anonymous Love Letter to No One in Particular Written Anonymously and Certainly Not by Anybody Who Lives in Room *** McDavid Hall
My Dearest [Insert Name Here, Preferably Female, Even Though I Acknowledge that "It Takes Different Strokes to Move the World"]
As I write this, the very shape of your name, typed out on a screen by my lovesick fingers, leaves a lingering melancholy in my heart. I'm saying it now, aloud, in a darkened room that is illuminated only by the light of that name on a screen (typed out by my lovesick fingers) and it overwhelms me to utter it. After all, who am I but a fool, and who are you but beyond all things? Even as I write this, I realize that what has passed before and what will soon follow is nothing more than a lot of pretty words, and that pretty words can no more capture your heart than a fishing net can catch the stars, but none of that matters. None of that matters because I have to write these things or one day soon, my heart will simply give out, unable to bear the burden of all that's entangled within that which I will soon fill up this tiny little screen (typed out by my lovesick fingers). None of that matters because I could never wish to capture you. Love in it's purest form is never possessive, and with all of my battered and broken, barely sputtering heart, and with all of my other various organs, like my filling and emptying lungs, acid and enzyme-laden stomach, and fairly useless but ever-enthusiastic appendix, I love you.
I love your eyes, and the galaxy of stars that twinkle within them... even those that go supernova, sending an explosion of warmth and light from them, and those that implode into black holes, forever pulling me into the windows of your soul. Gazing into your [Insert Eye Color Here] eyes, I am transported to a wonderful place, standing out amidst a field of the most vividly hazel wheat and grain growing from the soft brown earth, staring out toward a lush green valley beneath the bluest of skies... and all by the color of your eyes. O, how I wish I could drown in the [Insert Eye Color] pools of them, rather than staring vaguely at this foolish screen and all my foolish words (typed out by my lovesick fingers).
I love the [Insert Hair Color Here] tresses of your hair. Those somewhat chestnut curls of golden light that flow down like a raven river of scarlet. The way you run your fingers through those soft, straight tangles, and that fragrance like summertime.
I love your soft skin, and it's shade of alabaster ebony. The way it hugs the straight ways and curves of your perfect form, and the way it glows.
But above all things, I love the being that lingers within. After all, what is the body but a shell for the soul, and your body, as lovely as it is, is not but a brightly decorated shell for the kindest, most gentlest of souls I've ever met. A soul that radiates my life, lights the darkened path of the here and now, and guides me toward a paradise I'd never know without you.
How long has it been? Five [Insert Whichever of the Following is Appropriate: "Days," "Weeks," "Fortnights," "Moths," "Seasons," or "Years"]? How long have I been feeding from the nourishment of you? How long has it been since I found myself only to see how lost I truly was? I have missed you while you were gone, and I have missed you while you were standing right next to me. And even as I note the contradictions glowing on this screen (typed out by my lovesick fingers) I still miss you.
I still remember when you said [Insert Something Sweet, Profound, or "Cool" You May Have Said to the Anonymous Author of this Letter, Who is Definitely Not BOB SMITH] and it moved me to laughter and tears and pulled my heartstrings. That's when I swore that I'd love you until the end of the world, as foolish as I may have been, since you may not love me, and I'll forever languish with the intensity of my affection, whether you do or not. I know that there's that other guy, the one from that faraway place in your past. I know all about [Insert Name of a Past or Present Beau Here, Be it "Jack," "Bill," "Joseph," "Scott," "Alex," "Matt," "Nick," "Dave," "Thomas," "Robert," "Justin," "Charles," "Andrew," "Clark," or the like], and if he loves you, truly loves you, and you love him, truly love him, then go to him now. I'll drive you to him and happiness and wish you "Goodnight and God Bless." But if he doesn't (love you, truly love you) or you don't (love him, truly love him) then I implore you to look, perhaps, to me.
I haven't cried in years... not since the Big Giant bee descended from on high, impaled my beloved father with its mighty stinger, and returned to the celestial oblivion from whence it came, with my father's twitching corpse in tow. I haven't cried since he left me, and yet, as I write these pithy, inarticulate words on my overwhelming love (typed out by my lovesick fingers), tears sting my face (as the Big Giant Bee stung my poor patriarch). As I write this, I'm lost in a deluge of the soul brought forth by the horrible vision of a life without you.
So whatever your answer to the question I'm about to ask you... whether it be "Yes" or "No," I just want to thank you for this gift. I never thought I'd cry again... I thought that I had grown accustomed to all of the sorrows that life had to offer... that I was so depressed that I could fall no farther... but in that terrible single notion... of not sharing a future with you, I've found that there are fates far worse than what I previously expected. I thank you for the gift of Despair, and yet I also thank you for Despair's bright twin: Hope. I thank you for this, but more importantly, I thank you for simply being who you are and finding me in the midst of a cold world.
Also, I ask of you one thing: Will you let me take your hand and love you not until the end of the world, but until all the stars in your eyes and the sky go out?
Love,
Your Anonymous Secret Admirer
And thus concludes "The Story Before".
Our exploits have basically taken us through my high school years and concludes during what I've once referred to as the Lee-Ditko issues of my college experience. Before I became the Little Black Duck. Before it began.
So let's just pause here, and try to take in the moment. The air is thick with humid potential. Our pauses are pregnant. Possibilities lay before us like a kindergarten naptime. It's all going to happen...
NEXT:
Joe Kelly Day 2006
- Jenny Owen Young, "Fuck Was I"
The Story Before, CONCLUSION
...and it was all purple...
And at last "The Story Before" comes to a close. We've painted our portrait of the artist as a young man, and it's been about as fun as watching said objet d'art dry.
What follows are a few Purple submissions culled from pieces I worked on in writer's club. And my anonymous love letter to no one. Which -- along with "Sludge is Made of Quality Gravy" -- went up on my once famed dorm room door before the post it notes took over.
Days go by...
I am Lincoln
I swear to the good and gracious God of us all that I am the reincarnated form of Abraham Lincoln, the great and wonderful emancipator of oppressed persons. In the midst of fever dreams, I have vague recollections of a childhood in Southend, England, during the early middle ages, just like Lincoln. I also remember eating odd mushrooms on a hilltop near Pompei with Ingrid Bergman, as we watched a sky choked off by the blackest ash and a river of fire rolling down a mountain of death... just like old Honest Abe.
The scars on my knuckles aren't from beating up little kids who come by selling Girl Scout cookies, I don't care what that little brat Molly Storms says. These scars are psychic wounds left from my subconscious reminisces of fighting Napolean and his Nazi hordes in the murky swamps of Siberia during the 100 Years War.
I am the once and future Emperor of America. Just as Lincoln signed the Magna Carta to halt the ethnic cleansing perpetrated by the separatists of Quebec in the bygone era of 1975, I will unify the races here and now.
And while, 'tis true, I carry Lincoln's virtues, I carry his vices as well. Every once in a while I have naughty thoughts about dwarves. Who doesn't? Bashful and Doc were cuties. And hey, it's tough being the reincarnated form of Abraham Lincoln, the great and wonderful emancipator of oppressed persons.
An Unequivocally Insightful Analysis of Action Comics #775
I don't feel like being funny today...
Since the last dinosaur fell to the rock of the great Mai'Keth, who--having taken the earth for himself, his wife N'Garai, and mistress Ru'Tai--sired all of humanity with his potent seed, humanity's been trying to come to terms with itself
I want to be taken seriously for a moment...
It was a determination that stuck with me through high school (when most of those same friends had all forsaken the firefighter dreams for the more practical purpose of finding cheap alcohol for minors and loose women)
I want to tell you something that matters for once...
"I'm looking for a dictionary," he said to the lady at the toy store, after she swore at him for opening all of the Barbie(TM) play sets and acting out scenes from Boogie Nights with Roller Blade Barbie(TM) as Roller Girl and Long Johnson Ken(TM) as Dirk Diggler
I really want to...
Supposedly, the book had driven him to swear off the printed word and retire to an undisclosed street corner somewhere in Manhattan where he purportedly sold back issues of Amazing Spider-Man comics while reading Hunter S. Thompson books and drinking rather heavily
...but I can't
There was a sad desperation in her "please" that was echoed in a sad desperation in his heart. He told her she looked like an angel in the snow, but she didn't believe him because his tone of voice could no longer convey his sincerity
I don't have anything inside...
My father's in the Wisconsin State Penn right now getting sodomized three or four times a day by a big man named Frederick who shouts "If the log rolls over we'll all fall off!" right before the moment of orgasm
I'm not even that funny.
An Anonymous Love Letter to No One in Particular Written Anonymously and Certainly Not by Anybody Who Lives in Room *** McDavid Hall
My Dearest [Insert Name Here, Preferably Female, Even Though I Acknowledge that "It Takes Different Strokes to Move the World"]
As I write this, the very shape of your name, typed out on a screen by my lovesick fingers, leaves a lingering melancholy in my heart. I'm saying it now, aloud, in a darkened room that is illuminated only by the light of that name on a screen (typed out by my lovesick fingers) and it overwhelms me to utter it. After all, who am I but a fool, and who are you but beyond all things? Even as I write this, I realize that what has passed before and what will soon follow is nothing more than a lot of pretty words, and that pretty words can no more capture your heart than a fishing net can catch the stars, but none of that matters. None of that matters because I have to write these things or one day soon, my heart will simply give out, unable to bear the burden of all that's entangled within that which I will soon fill up this tiny little screen (typed out by my lovesick fingers). None of that matters because I could never wish to capture you. Love in it's purest form is never possessive, and with all of my battered and broken, barely sputtering heart, and with all of my other various organs, like my filling and emptying lungs, acid and enzyme-laden stomach, and fairly useless but ever-enthusiastic appendix, I love you.
I love your eyes, and the galaxy of stars that twinkle within them... even those that go supernova, sending an explosion of warmth and light from them, and those that implode into black holes, forever pulling me into the windows of your soul. Gazing into your [Insert Eye Color Here] eyes, I am transported to a wonderful place, standing out amidst a field of the most vividly hazel wheat and grain growing from the soft brown earth, staring out toward a lush green valley beneath the bluest of skies... and all by the color of your eyes. O, how I wish I could drown in the [Insert Eye Color] pools of them, rather than staring vaguely at this foolish screen and all my foolish words (typed out by my lovesick fingers).
I love the [Insert Hair Color Here] tresses of your hair. Those somewhat chestnut curls of golden light that flow down like a raven river of scarlet. The way you run your fingers through those soft, straight tangles, and that fragrance like summertime.
I love your soft skin, and it's shade of alabaster ebony. The way it hugs the straight ways and curves of your perfect form, and the way it glows.
But above all things, I love the being that lingers within. After all, what is the body but a shell for the soul, and your body, as lovely as it is, is not but a brightly decorated shell for the kindest, most gentlest of souls I've ever met. A soul that radiates my life, lights the darkened path of the here and now, and guides me toward a paradise I'd never know without you.
How long has it been? Five [Insert Whichever of the Following is Appropriate: "Days," "Weeks," "Fortnights," "Moths," "Seasons," or "Years"]? How long have I been feeding from the nourishment of you? How long has it been since I found myself only to see how lost I truly was? I have missed you while you were gone, and I have missed you while you were standing right next to me. And even as I note the contradictions glowing on this screen (typed out by my lovesick fingers) I still miss you.
I still remember when you said [Insert Something Sweet, Profound, or "Cool" You May Have Said to the Anonymous Author of this Letter, Who is Definitely Not BOB SMITH] and it moved me to laughter and tears and pulled my heartstrings. That's when I swore that I'd love you until the end of the world, as foolish as I may have been, since you may not love me, and I'll forever languish with the intensity of my affection, whether you do or not. I know that there's that other guy, the one from that faraway place in your past. I know all about [Insert Name of a Past or Present Beau Here, Be it "Jack," "Bill," "Joseph," "Scott," "Alex," "Matt," "Nick," "Dave," "Thomas," "Robert," "Justin," "Charles," "Andrew," "Clark," or the like], and if he loves you, truly loves you, and you love him, truly love him, then go to him now. I'll drive you to him and happiness and wish you "Goodnight and God Bless." But if he doesn't (love you, truly love you) or you don't (love him, truly love him) then I implore you to look, perhaps, to me.
I haven't cried in years... not since the Big Giant bee descended from on high, impaled my beloved father with its mighty stinger, and returned to the celestial oblivion from whence it came, with my father's twitching corpse in tow. I haven't cried since he left me, and yet, as I write these pithy, inarticulate words on my overwhelming love (typed out by my lovesick fingers), tears sting my face (as the Big Giant Bee stung my poor patriarch). As I write this, I'm lost in a deluge of the soul brought forth by the horrible vision of a life without you.
So whatever your answer to the question I'm about to ask you... whether it be "Yes" or "No," I just want to thank you for this gift. I never thought I'd cry again... I thought that I had grown accustomed to all of the sorrows that life had to offer... that I was so depressed that I could fall no farther... but in that terrible single notion... of not sharing a future with you, I've found that there are fates far worse than what I previously expected. I thank you for the gift of Despair, and yet I also thank you for Despair's bright twin: Hope. I thank you for this, but more importantly, I thank you for simply being who you are and finding me in the midst of a cold world.
Also, I ask of you one thing: Will you let me take your hand and love you not until the end of the world, but until all the stars in your eyes and the sky go out?
Love,
Your Anonymous Secret Admirer
And thus concludes "The Story Before".
Our exploits have basically taken us through my high school years and concludes during what I've once referred to as the Lee-Ditko issues of my college experience. Before I became the Little Black Duck. Before it began.
So let's just pause here, and try to take in the moment. The air is thick with humid potential. Our pauses are pregnant. Possibilities lay before us like a kindergarten naptime. It's all going to happen...
NEXT:
Joe Kelly Day 2006
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