When you are tired.

The few of you who check this blog may have noticed that I haven't posted anything in a while. My silence is, tangentially, related to time, but more at the heart of it is that I don't have anything to say. No deep thoughts, nothing "worth writing"–only silly little traces that I half-write and end up leaving for a day when I feel more inspired.

I have not felt more inspired.

When I moved back to Kansas City, I had a strong compass for where I was going, and at least what I thought I ought to be doing, etc.etc.etc. These last few weeks that has simply gone away, and has left me to run and tunnel deeper and deeper into absence. The absence of my heart, and my mind in my life, because it simply aches just a little too much.

My wells have run dry, and hard as I try I cannot get any more from them. So disengagement has been my passive plan. And disengaged I am.

I cannot say whether it will change...maybe the way of life is just that at some point you give up your hold on it, and it runs over you with loud clak-clak at every rail-tie year. Happy Birthday-Happy Birthday.

And I must wonder then, whether I am meant to be so disengaged. Whether this is the proper course of things, where my heavy sleep is only followed by the overcast that enveloped my slumber.

If so, my gentlemen, then this is the end of a mind. And the undead have walked from the screen, and are shuffling down the hall to the bathroom that sits cold, just outside your door.

When you are weary.

When you are weary,
like one gone far into the unknown,
the unsung–the un-gloried pitches of
black and mauve, that stick like
burrs, in the back of your arms...
Which worked so well but yesterday
before you stopped, and came home.
Sit heavy on the steps that so recently,
years ago held steady
for your bandaged feet to push and
kick, and find wandering.
So you can laugh today asking
Who of us deserves the bandages now?
but know down deep that now
you need them more than ever.
When weariness meets fleet feet
years-hardened from finding trouble-sought
everything but you seems so...
soft.
When your heart is weary,
there is no switch to turn it off.

When you are a "Gansta".

I suppose this dovetails nicely with my last post, though that's really only coincidence talking. Driving down Broadway in North KC yesterday, I went by a car vacuum/air filling station with a big plastic-type sign that read: "WE HAVE GANSTA AIR". This is, of course, really great to know. If I'm ever feeling the need to drop my '94 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme S a few inches and sit it on "Dubs", I'll be promptly draining my tires and pushing that pile back to this place. Can't have the wrong air in there.

Shortly thereafter, at a stoplight, I watched a young man wandering back and forth in the crosswalk waving his right arm for some reason, left hand firmly clenched on the waist of his black potato-sack-wide pants. He had nice sunglasses. Kind of looked like T-Pain. But it occurred to me that for the aforementioned "GANGSTA'S", it must be very hard to get up and around, and to commit crimes and violence in that type of attire. It's a shame that gang members seem to always be getting shot, but I had to wonder if they were making it a little bit too easy. Nobody can run with their pants like that. I've watched people try.

This leaves two options. Option 1: take off the pants. Pants-less gangs. That's kind of more terrifying in a way, but with pants so loose it also wouldn't be much of a struggle to just slip them off in case of emergency. If there is one gang member who gets away in a gunfight because he dropped trou, I'm convinced this is going to catch on in a real big way.

Option 2: someone needs to design "GANGSTAPANTZ". Maybe there's some kind of internal support system. Maybe they come with suspenders. Maybe they're a sophisticated blend of hyper-breathable synthetics with spandex woven in, and a detachable velcro pocket so you can always make sure your "blue flag" is hanging correctly on the "left side".

Imagine the impact this could have on the murder rate. People, I think we have a breakthrough.

_

Now, of course, I write this all in jest. Living here, from my window I hear gunshots almost every night. It's a strange feeling to be lying in bed and hear that "pop-pop-pop-pop-pop" that you wish were something else, but deep down know it wasn't. My mom asked me the other day if the cops always come when that happens and I said, "No. They never come." And sadly, it is the truth. It really makes me wonder how high and wide the disregard has run for this part of the city. It really does.