Full Circle

So I'm up for parole in a week, I've met an incredible girl, and Thanksgiving is just around the corner (Christmas Songs, Woooo!). It is wierd how suddenly things just ended. It's like all these feelings I was dragging around are suddenly gone, like the colored lenses which I viewed my life, my X, and everything with have been lifted and I can see the world clearly for the first time. I still hate her, but I don't love her. I realize she doesn't, and possibly never did, love me, she cheated on me, and she totally screwed me over and always put herself first. Thats not love.
Who knows what the future hold, but I've found someone different, and who, in every way I try to see it, seems frighteningly perfect. The future is so bright it's scary.

...Life...
by Michael Sherrillo

So, I haven’t really dated in almost a year and a half. So finding myself newly single, I feel a little lost. I used to have this stuff down, what to say, how to act, what to do and be… but right now I’m just so confused. I feel like I’m doing everything wrong. I met someone, and I’m more than a little sprung, which is fine, but she knows it, which is “okay”, but I’ve actually told her that, which isn’t. I just can’t keep my mouth shut, it’s like cool-confident-ladies-man-Mike has been replaced by nervious anxious high school teenager in first relationship. I’m just worried because I like this girl, a lot, which is kind of scary in its own right since I’m just getting over being burned. But I’m trying to ditch the emotional baggage I feel it left me with, and just live in the present and in the moment. But everything in my life is so ridiculously fucked up. I know I would be freaked out if I met someone and they bombarded me with all this stuff (jail, just out of long term relationship, “donating”, broke[stupid X], etc…) so the fact that she hasn’t bolted makes me think that there is something pretty incredible about this chick. I mean, a simple compare/contrast explains it… with over a year of history and support, my X bailed on me in this situation, wheras this girl barley knows me, has to deal with all this, and is totally okay with it.

Tangent, I didn’t even think about it till now, but on Tues. night, I was standing outside having a cigarette, and the moon had just risen and next to it was the first star. So, being the hopeless romantic, I did the little star light, star bright… and wished to just find that person who is out there for me. Well, no car pulled up that minuet and no tall dark female stranger walked by, so I dejectedly walked back inside. But the very next night…

So where am I with all this? I don’t know… I feel bad for my roomate, P. though. P. has been the third wheele with me for so long, I feel like I owe him some quality guy bonding time… so I think that I want to keep things “title free” till Feb. 14^th. I will not have a relationship before Valentines day. This is also out of respect for myself, I want to give me some “me time” to just remember who I am and what it is that makes me happy, and also for whoever I might be seeing at that time (though, confessionally, I hope it’s S., but I don’t want to get my hopes up, things are so new and I really can’t afford to be any more hurt right now… a part of me is just so damn fragile…). And, now I have to go back to jail for the night… maybe a good nights sleep will help me straighten my head out. 36 worst-scenario days to go… who knows, maybe I’ll actually make it (and maybe S. will make it with me?…) Only time will tell, and that’s the one thing I have plenty of.

Fortuna Spins Again
by Michael Sherrillo

Life is good. Nothing is harder than knowing that the person who left you is happier without you than with you. And nothing feels better than knowing that they aren’t, knowing that you were right. I realized today that I am happy, that I am secure and that, even with my faults, I am a good person. I am responsible, I have my shit together, I am paying my bills and moving on with my life. I have made friends, awesome friends, and even when the morning seems a little overcast, like today, each cloud has a silver lining. My life is moving forward, and it’s getting better each day. I rocked my midterms, and I just feel like I’m floating on a cloud of sublime peace and tranquility. On days like this, it seems like nothing bad can happen (knock on wood). The world is my oyster, and promise is waiting around every corner. I have a good job, I have a good life, a great family… the Wheel Fortuna had me on the bottom, but slowly, she begins her rise, and carries me with her. I can’t remember when I last felt this happy. I know who I am, and I know where I’m going. And if I do say so myself, I’m doing a damn good job of getting there, despite all that life has put before me. I feel stronger and wiser from the hurdles I have had to cross, and feel ready for any new ones chance and fate choose to throw my way. Bring it on, world, I’m ready for you! =)

Externalized Soul
by Michael Sherrillo

I don't know how to explain it, but I love San Diego weather, mostly though becasue their isn't any. Hoever, I have found some great satisfaction and solace in that the weather here usually seems to match my mood and spirits. Like with this recent breakup incident. When it all started, before she first left town for a trip to her parents, the weather was pretty overcast and gray, and we wern't doing very well. She leaves, the weather clears up until the day she was supposed to get back. Then it started raining. While she was back, breaking up with me, packing, getting ready to move out and leave, nothing but gray skies and cold days. Then, the day after she leaves, there have been nothing but gorgeous perfect blue skies, warms days, and cool breezes.
I'm not against supposing that I only really notice the weather when it matches my mood, but the hopeless romantic in me feels like this city has some special relationship with my soul and the the two are inextricably linked and mirror each other in some cosmic natural harmony. Another beautiful sunrise this morning, going from purple to pink to orange in the chilly morning, then the skies cleared and a wonderful day, full of all the promise and potential of a July summer, began. Except it's November. I love San Diego.
Sometimes, life is just beautiful.

Stockholm Syndrome Blues

by Michael Sherrillo

Did you ever hear one of those stories from someone that just seems to suddenly put everything your going through into perspective? I did. However, let me give you a little history first…

So, my girlfriend who I had been living with for about a year and a half broke up with me a little bit ago and moved out. Now she will not even talk to me. I am not sure what I did wrong, but our entire relationship was plagued with suspicions of cheating. This is ironic because she is pretty much the first girlfriend I have been with who I actually never cheated on. While in retrospect, I can understand her suspicions and worries, I am very bitter about her not talking to me because I think it is because she thinks that I did cheat on her. This makes me wish that I had, because at least there would be a reason for all this. But, through numerous stories of love and loss which I have been privileged to hear in the past few weeks, I realize that she is probably just using that idea as an excuse to do what she did to me and my roommate, which is totally burn us and leave us high and dry financially after lying about how she wouldn’t screw us on rent and bills and whatnot, and because being angry at me, even if its for no fucking reason, makes her leaving that much easier on her. Nevertheless, I am digressing… what truly put her and everything into perspective was a story my apartment manager told Pat and I while commiserating on how betrayed we felt and how we never though she could do this to us. The story went something like this…

Mark’s brother had been dating this girl seriously off and on for about 8 years. She had some kids and baggage, but he loved the kids and the girl and really wanted to be with them forever. However, his parents had married each other twice, and each time had had a very horrible relationship, which made all their kids nervous about the whole marriage thing. Understandable. But this girl kept pressuring Mark’s brother to marry her so after a lot of soul searching and thinking, he decided he did love her and decided to take “the leap”. He bought the ring; they were engaged and set a date. Suddenly, he realizes that in the 8 years they have been seeing each other, they have never lived together. Sure, they spent a lot of time together, but they have never actually shared a closet and a bedroom and house, so he brings this up to her. He asks if they can move in together and postpone the wedding, just a few months so they can make sure they are compatible and everything is okay. He still wants to marry her; he just wants to live together for a while first. She flips. She accuses him of trying to back out of the marriage and in disgust breaks off the engagement and tells him it is over. She becomes totally cold and indifferent to him. He is heartbroken, he becomes suicidal, depressed, but after a few months and some therapy, he begin coming to terms with everything, and though he regrets his decision because he realizes she was the love of his life, but he tries to move on.

Well, a few months later, as he is beginning to get his shit together again, they “bump” into each other one night somewhere. They end up having sex, after which she confesses that she has been missing him and thinking about him this whole time. He tells her he regrets what he said, that he still loves her and wants to marry her. This is on a Sunday; they decided to meet at the Justice of the Peace's office on Thursday to get married. He asks Mark to be his witness. He is beyond excited and overjoyed, Thursday rolls around and he and Mark arrive at the Peace’s office. And they wait. And they wait. And they wait.

Two hours go by, and she still does not show up. At this point, the man is frantically worried something must have happened to her. Then she arrives. With her is a coworker of his, Kenny. She walks up and there is an awkward moment as everyone says hello. Well, all Mark’s brother can do is stare at her ring finger and the ring on it, Mark finally asks if that was the same ring he had given her. She triumphantly holds it out to them, and tells them her and Kenny are married, and have been fucking for months and married for several weeks.

This is the single handedly most evil real person I have ever heard of. The entire thing, the accidental meeting, the sex, the planned wedding later that week, was all just to rub everything in Mark’s brother’s face and hurt him. Neither Mark nor his brother ever though this sweet girl would be capable of ever doing something so beyond wrong or mean, something so truly evil, especially since they had know her for 8 years! All Mark could say to his brother was that “at least you now know her true colors, you know what she is really like, and aren’t you glad that you didn’t marry her now that you know who she really is. You made the right decision.” Mark then told Pat and me the same thing. And you know what, I think he is right.

I know who she really is now, and as much as I still love her, and even though every song on the radio reminds me of her and I can’t stop hurting inside or missing her or wondering how she is and what she is doing, I know that she wasn’t the person I was with. Who she is now, the person who did this to us, for no reason other than the one she made up in her head, is the real Mary. Now or three years from now, she would have done this to me eventually. And though I love her and it hurts, I’m glad to know the truth, and I am glad that she is gone and I am free.

I only worry now about how I can ever trust another person again. I thought that in a year and a half, with all the memories, all the love and sacrificing and working together, I could trust her. And apparently even 8 years isn't enough time. Mark told us that there are no garantees in life, that love really is a leap of faith. But after this, I'm not sure I will ever be able to take that leap again... she wasn't on the lease, she wasn't on the bills, my parents did make her sign a contract for the car... we all trusted her... what kind of horrible person betrays all that? And then justifies it all with some stupid comment my roomate makes trying to cheer me up! I mean seriously! It's called a fucking joke, he said shit like that all the time!

I will never make the same mistake of trusting again.

In the immortal words of comic book guy: "Worst life lesson, ever".

Time Keeps on Tickin'...

So much has happened in the last few weeks, and it’s been so overwhelming, I don't even know where to begin... Mary left me, I'm in the middle of midterms, and I am but a week or two away from possibly being released on probation... well, the facts come easy enough, it's the emotion that are difficult to explain; fear, anger... ohhh, so much anger, excitement, hope, doubt, stress, sadness, depression, mania... I guess it just boils down to life, in all its bitter-sweetness. I am finding that adopting an existential perspective is helping to cope with all that has been thrown at me lately, just living in the moment, in the present, and not worrying about what will come or what has been. It's hard to let it all go, but each day puts a few more steps and a little more distance between me and my past. Time slowly stitching closed the gaping wounds of love and loss. But the anger... it haunts me and helps me, fueling my drive and passion to move on, to be better... I feel like such a different person now, I want to reflect that in myself, I look in the mirror and the bright happy guy just isn’t me... I feel a little darker, edgier, more bitter and jaded by life and people. Fuck angst, this isn't some whiney little kid who’s had his heart broken, this is a life changing experience, a complete cognitive reconstruction of myself and my life. First off is the tattoo, my compadres, Katie and Tammey, are helping me pick out my first; the theme: fuck love. They are so excited; I have about a million magazines they want me to go through so we can get ideas. Next is the piercing. Pat and I are in cahoots, he wants his labret pierced, and I want a lip piercing. Once I'm free, it's off we go, friends in tow, on phase one of my reinvention. Next is the hair. I like it long, but I'm sick of happy blonde Brad/Zack, I'm getting it chemically straightened and low lighted with dark streaks. I feel like a rock star, time to look the part. I'm sick of the music I listen to also, I want to hear anger, I want to hear real life and music and see shows about experiences al la dirty bars, panties, heroin, fights, love, and cocaine blues... I'm ready to get the hell off the couch and out into the world with some dark badass punk shows that are coming. I've made so many new friends, and met so many awesome people, who are so supportive and inspiring and individual... I feel great. I feel free. I feel invincible. I'm rocking midterms (looks like straight A's so far) I'm kissing off a class that is impossible, I'm working hard, moving to Ocean Beach soon with Pat, and am going to surf and party my brains out. They say the best revenge is a life well lived: hell ya.

“Two Postings Diverge on a Blogger's Page, and Sorry I Could Not Travel Both...”
By Michael Sherrillo

I am torn between two thoughts right now on which to write upon, a brief encounter which has enchanted my imagination to the point of a fixative delirium, and an article I read on sex trends in young adults… decisions decisions. Maybe I have time for both…
I’ll try to stat with the concrete article; maybe it will give me a chance to regain a little of the composure which has left me for the last 24 hours.

So apparently, teens are having more guilt free sex at younger ages, the norm now being around 15. I don’t see a problem with that. The problems with sex are reproduction. Psychologically, I don’t think that kids that age are capable of being good parents really, or of making the best choices for themselves or their potential new offspring. However, the article relates current sexual activity to the availability of birth control, especially for women, and basically says that since women no longer bound to reproduction, they able to experience a sexual freedom which has previously only been granted to men. I whole heartedly support that freedom. If we are to truly have an equal society, then we should be able to shrug off the genetic dispositions which have been preventing it for so long, condoms helped free men from STD’s, while still placing the potential burden of reproduction on women, the birth control pills has now freed women from that, just as Viagra has given the elderly a second chance at discovering a sexual identity. With the potential dangers now mitigated, why shouldn’t people who are at an age to explore their sexualities be allowed? If “mistakes” do occur, then there are medications and treatments for several of the more common STD’s, and abortions are a legal option for those unwilling to have children yet, or ever. I understand a little more clearly the importance religion played, with its emphasis on sexual purity till marriage, and I think that before such contemporary options were available to a majority of the populace, then these activities would have had detrimental impacts on society. But in the same way that the danger of eating pork has been changed by science and progress since biblical times, so now have the dangers of sex.

We now live in an era where men and women, young and old, can discover themselves, their feelings and desires, and embrace their individuality and discover what it is that makes them happy as autonomous human beings. Legislation which supports self discovery and awareness I wholly support, as long as it doesn’t invade on a persons ability to choose the life and happiness they desire. I believe contraceptives should be available to young teens, just as I feel every car should come equipped with a breathalyzer which prevents a person from starting their vehicle if they are drunk. I don’t think teaching abstinence is the solution, just as prohibition wasn’t a solution in the early part of the 20th century. Laws need to start understanding human psychology instead of trying to change them.

People keep arguing about how the “innocence” of youth is being lost at younger and younger ages, but why is that bad? I don’t wish that I was a naïve and unknowledgeable or experienced person, I crave experience, and it is that which helps me grow as a person. This Victorian mentality of innocence was once forced upon women, and if we learned anything from the Women’s Rights movement, it is that this kind of behavior isn’t welcomed by the people is represses, and should be considered socially unacceptable. Yet because we silence children’s voices, legislatively denying them the rights to participate in the political process, their feelings go unheard. Only the parent's wishes matter. If we don’t want our government to be a monarchy, denying it citizens the rights we all crave, why do we subject every one of our member to such a state for the first 18 years of their lives. Young people are much more knowledgeable, responsible, and intelligent than we give them credit for. The maturation process should be one in which we guide them into the world as potential equals, exposing them to reality, both the good and the bad, so that they are able to understand it, experience it, and be ready for it when they are left to face it on their own. We hurt only our future when we try to shelter and hide children from the realities of life. They are individuals, with needs, feelings, and rights, that shouldn’t be that different from our own.

My Girlfriend Doesn't Get Me
by Michael Sherrillo


Passion. Romance. Two terms which are inextricably linked in most any relationship. Except this one. I feel like we are on opposite sides of a wheel. I don't feel especially romantic without a lot of sex; she isn't especially interested in sex without more romance. And so we sit like two kids on a teeter-totter, stuck in equilibrium, unmoving. I can understand her perspective, but the problem is that with the limited resources/time at my disposal considering my custody situation, I can only be so romantic... but I have been trying, sexy love poem here, cute notes there, trying to just be happy and want to cuddle every time I see her... but I just don't feel the same reciprocative push from her end. And I don't think she really understands... in those post coital periods, I want nothing more than to hold her and cover her with kisses and affection, sex is the closest thing I have to a truly deep and spiritual act, and afterwards I feel like I'm basking in the afterglow of communicating with god. I am Moses, descending from the Mount, tablets of ultimate truth in hand, face red and burnt from being so near to such holiness.
I dream of just staying inside her, curled up together, skin against skin, and just talking or kissing and nuzzling before drifting off to sleep together... but that doesn't happen.
Instead, it's a few seconds of breathing, then she wants to dash away and clean up, and then she pulls on cloths and wants to leave or go to bed or something else besides just be together and cuddle. And it really sucks, because that’s almost my favorite part, the post act. It makes me feel like she is disgusted by all the sexy wetness and nakedness which I love so much, like she can't wait to detach herself from me and pretend that it all never happened.
And let me segue to romance for a second. She wants to talk about me not making an effort. Lets not, for a moment, mention her lack of any significant desire to put anything more than an occasional "sesh" into our sex life, while avoiding some of my favorite things, like the previously mentioned post cuddle, or other more explicit acts. Let’s talk about her romantic effort. There really aren’t any. No letter, hell she never even writes back when I send her emails, excepts a few sentences, or if I do send her a poem or a long letter, she doesn't even acknowledge it, I have to ask her if she even got it, and then its just, “did you like it?”, "yeah" and that all she has to say. But she can talk about a song for hours and listen to it for days... but when it comes to us, she seems deaf-mute half the time about her feelings and about showing and expressing any romance/desire/passion. When do I get to be swept off my feet a little, or surprised, or taken care of? When is my turn to be on the receiving end? Where are my letter and poems of love, where are the song lyrics that make her think of me? She talks all this stuff about how I don't communicate... well I could use a little communication from her as well. Not just about problems, but about good stuff. Gush to me about you and me and us a little, because otherwise I don't think you feel it. Then, she dismisses all the effort I do try to put into the relationship when she says things like, "there isn't any romance". Well, she could try putting a little into it as well. I give her most of my money; she hasn't even gotten me some socks, which I asked her to pick up over a month ago (since I am not allowed to go out, the custody thing again). Even that would have been a nice little thing she could have done for me.
I'm getting a little out of hand, and just venting at this point. All I mean to say is that I do understand her feelings, but I don't feel like she understands mine, or like she really takes them into consideration. Nothing means more to me than her happiness... unfortunately, I feel like nothing means more to her than her happiness either, at least not mine. And so we are where we are, stuck. And no matter what I do, I can't help but feel like she is pushing me away, or like she is simply drifting away herself. And I have no idea what to do anymore, except maybe just let her go... I want this to work, but I want her to want it to work also, and to put some effort into “us”, because this indifference I can’t help but feel is breaking my heart.

Post Script 1pm: and now, a few hours after writing this, after having vented my feelings, I feel great, I feel happy and secure, and remember that I am totally in love with this girl and want/hope to spend the rest of my life with her. Sometimes, I just need an outlet to get whatever negative thoughts and feeling are stuck inside me out and away so I can look at my life more clearly. I just get to emotionally close to the trees and can't see the forest. Sure we have problems, and we always will, but I am happy with her, and can't imagine my life without her. She is the partner I want to continue to grow and evolve and change with. And I love her with all my heart.

Withdrawal Dreams
by Michael Sherrillo

I usually don't remember my dreams. That’s not in the usual way most people have of remembering that something was going on and just not being able to recall it. My head hits the pillow and what feels like 30 seconds later, I'm awake and it's morning. No weird sensations, no vivid feelings I just can't quite grasp, nothing. Fade to black, and then it's time to rise and shine.
At least that’s what usually goes on. And then I became poor. I should qualify that, I've always been poor, but usually never broke, and never for this long. So, with only 8 dollars in my account for the past week, I just can't bring myself to buy a pack of cigarettes. Naturally I've been going through the withdrawals for the past few days. Which aren’t as bad as everyone seems to say. I feel desire, I want one, but I'm not shaking-screaming-going-to-die-if-just-just-don't-get-one-
more-sweet-delicious-puff-o-nicotine.
I just miss it, in the same way you miss a friend who is on vacation for a week. But my dreams... woooooaaaaah... they have been something else. Lights, colors, people, places, plotlines dripping with drama and emotion... it's like some weird independent movie which is so obscure and personal that only I truly understand all the symbolic meaning and depth. Sleep has become like an acid trip since I stopped smoking. And I've found myself trying to sleep in a lot more. It's really fun, the second I close my eyes, even if it's only for a 15 or 20 minuet nap, I have the coolest scenes start playing on the movie screen of my eyelids. This makes me kind of happy, because I can enjoy not smoking almost as much as I enjoy smoking. My life may be mundane, but it's the little joys I can find, like tiny gems on a long wide beach, that make it seem so very precious to me.

Thoughts on Prop. 73
by Michael Sherrillo


Until the day I turned 18, I was not a child first and a boy second. I was born a boy, just as I was born with blonde hair and blue eyes and fair skin. That the state considered me a child was simply a temporary category. The same goes for girls, they are born females, that they are children is incidental. The rights that women have should be granted to all women, not just adults. Too much emphasis is put on age in this country. I have studies physiological psychology, I realize the implication of not being completely cerebrally developed by age 18, however, most people do not realize that development continues until they are in their mid-twenties (not just 18 or 21)! Even then, there are cognitive developmental categories that continue throughout adulthood as pruning of neurons and experience continue to make your mental gadgetry more fine-tuned. Not to mention the fact that nutrition, exercise, and your surroundings also have a great impact on delaying or speeding up development.
If we want to make laws that are based on physiology, we cannot ignore the fact that women’s genitals are part of their physiology as well. Their body has developmental stages just as their mind does, and we need laws that understand that a girl can have a baby at 14. So what if she isn't an "adult", your an adult when your 18, yet you can't drink till your 21. So why if the government can delay some rights, can they not rush others?
People keep saying, "Well when/if I had a kid I'd want to know if they were going to have an abortion!” Of course you would, and that is the very reason you shouldn't be informed! Yeah, so there are a few cool parents who would be understanding and supportive and this may open some communication doors, but how many of us remember our parents as being cool like that? Mine certainly weren’t! Voting "NO" on this proposition means you are protecting children from their parents and themselves. I've know a few girls who had backdoor abortions; some took pills and almost died trying to kill their kids, another threw herself down the stairs, and one in middle school actually had a wire hanger abortion and was hospitalized for a month from tearing and internal bleeding! Guess what, all of them came from very conservative homes, with Christian middle class parents (the very ones who are supporting this prop.), and one's father was a minister! All because their parents thought abortions was wrong, and wanted the girls to have the babies and either deal with the burden or give them up to adoption.
If we want to acknowledge that these minors haven't had their decision making equipment fully developed yet, then why would we put them in a position which could force them to suffer for the rest of their lives as single mothers who would be, statistically, living under the poverty line and raising kid or putting him in foster care, which would then make their children more prone to criminal and violent behavior?
The truth is most of these adults are too blindsided by their beliefs and morals to be able to remember their own childhood, and exactly how unreasonable parents are. Minors or not, we are human being capable of rational thought and decision making processes, and kids have to deal with that responsibility for most of their lives, the grades they get as a freshman in high school will influence the college they go to, and their career choices. If minors aren't capable of that kind of responsible though, then colleges and universities should only check your grades from your senior year.
Most minors understand their parents and their views and reactions, and are aware of the costs and consequences of making a decision like that. If they aren’t, then it is up to the abortion clinics and Planned Parenthood to give them accurate and unbiased information regarding the procedure and alternatives so they can make that decision on their own.
We aren’t talking about six year olds. These are human beings in their early and mid teens, let’s give them a little more credit. Their parents obviously are more worried about their beliefs and being controlling than of having rational and empirical discussions, if they weren't, this Prop. wouldn't even be on the ballot.

"Comparitive Literature 561"
a Haiku and a Limerick, by Michael Sherrillo

Her monotone voice
Washing away interest
Time running backwards


I'm sorry I am always late,
and I want to do well in your class,
but I have more important things I could be doing
than listen to you talk out your ass.

“Your Conditions of Love” or “Marijuana”
by Michael Sherrillo


If I had a million dollars,
would I not give you all the world?
Would I dangle carrots before you
and ask you to change all your views?
If you told me you were a believer
I may say, “I think you are wrong”
but I still wouldn’t want you to struggle
I wouldn’t tell you, “You’re on your own”
If we lived in another country
or in times much different from now
where Christianity was no longer legal
and prayer wasn’t allowed,
I’d tell you “It’s okay
to pray and to worship
whenever you visit my house”
Because I love you so much
I couldn’t, wouldn’t even know how
to make my money, my love, my support
contingent on beliefs I chose for myself.
I’d only want you to be happy
to discover life’s truths for yourself
and to pursue and enjoy them with all of your heart
and know I would always support you.

“Coming To Know Jesus”
by Michael Sherrillo

A boy named Johnny walked down the road
on his way home from Sunday school.
When he met a man in a long white robe
whose hair seemed to shine like gold.
The man said, “Have you seen me boy?”
eyes wild with nervous glee.
So Johnny looked at his stubbled beard
and the sandals on his feet,
“Well, mister, I ‘reckon I have.
We just talked ‘bout you in class”.
Then the man looked ready to run away
so Johnny quickly added,
“Your pictures on this book right here,
I read from every night.
And every day my parents pray
to you, Jesus Christ.”
The man glanced down the street both ways,
while he fingered his paper wristband.
Then he reached out a sweaty palm
and Johnny happily grabbed it.
Down the street he led the boy
to a beat up Chevy Buick,
and as he open the boys door for him
he said, “You ready to meet the lord?”

"Mary"
a poem by Michael Sherrillo

a mantra my every breath
a prayer to the holiness of your
lips pressed together waiting
against me against my
tongue touching tasting
deep into your dark
crevice your heat
uttering warm words whispering
forgotten languages lost
forever into the night
over and over the echo of your
moan your sweat your
cries lingering in my mind
twisted sheets twisted
dreams intertwined interlocked
one
your lips still
flushed swollen against
around me while
you my goddess my shrine my
temple remain sacred
your name still waiting
unspoken upon my
lips

Introspecticus
by Michael Sherrillo

Writing becomes an addiction. When you spend all your time reading books and writing, it becomes an escape, a freedom. You just start writing one day and you feel the freedom of it, it’s something you can’t find in conversation, because there are so many things you can’t say when you talk to other people. I can’t say what do you mean you don’t have enough money for rent, I gave you 550$, you only had to save 225$ out of the 400$ you’ve made these last 2 weeks! You wanted responsibility and now the choices you made effect not just you, but me, and pat, and all our lives, because you couldn’t wait till after you had made sure you had enough money for rent to by a plane ticket, or a sack, or go out. That I hope you figure something out because otherwise you have just screwed everyone. And I don’t know why you think that would be different if you moved out, because whoever you lived with would be screwed and responsible for your actions just like me and Pat are right now. The only difference is that you would owe much more and have much less. And they wouldn’t be nearly as forgiving. Not that we really can be if we end up being evicted. I mean, I could say that, but…

But I can’t. There is no freedom there. Not like here, where I can rant and rave and scream and do whatever I want, where I can escape my parents and my prison and my life. It’s better than reading, it’s more existentially real. In reading, I just hide from myself and the world, but in writing I’m channeled, I’m proactive. Even when I just sitting down pounding out pages of crap, like my last posting. It just came to me and I wrote it, and its crap. But it’s something, it’s real because in some way it’s me, me acting and doing and being. Even if the words and sentences strung together mean nothing, it’s the act of doing that gives the emotionally and mentally orgasmic release of everything I’ve been holding inside. I hit keys like a punching bag. And that lifts me and my mind away from the ground and the gravity of depression which I feel like is pulling and choking me so often. No one to silence me with words or feelings, because no one is here to feel this but myself. It is my guilty pleasure.

At some point I started to think like I write, my inner monologue becomes words flashing across my mind and joining together into paragraphs of thought. In that sense I do nothing but write. I feel myself wishing there were some device which could save the text of my thoughts, which seems so much better… better worded, better written, than when I finally get to sit in front of the keyboard and have to try to reconstruct all the text that has been running through me. That’s why this is crap too. If there was some way I could recapture that moment which existed no less than 10 minutes ago, when all these things first came, and as I ran to the computer lab to try to capture the final ephemeral fragments as they drifted away… if only.

It was in the fourth grade, around the ripe old age of ten years old, that I first began my true studies. We were sitting in the Jacuzzi in my back yard, the lid was on so it was only us, cooking in the hot water and it swirled with jets and currents around our bodies. With only a foot between the water and the lid, it felt like we were breathing the same air. The fumes of chlorine filled our lungs as the steam transformed the space between us into a hazy dream, a world all our own. It was with that first kiss with the neighbor girl that I began, what Cynthia Shearer once described as, “the serious lifelong study of the lady female member of the species homo sapiens human beings”.

That’s been stuck in my head for the past two hours. I had to get it out. And now I don’t know what to say. I guess that makes this a good a place to end as any. It doesn’t matter than none of it makes sense to anyone, because there is no one to hear this, it doesn't exist (if a tree falls in the forest...). And so, I am purged. I am clean again, my soul renewed.
I am free.

Strange Bedfellows
by Michael Sherrillo

The easiest way to turn friends into enemies is to ask them abut their politics. Only the rare individual can listen to your views and calmly explain why they disagree and what their own are. I often imagine myself to be one of those few, but in the reality of the moment, sometimes objectivity can get thrown out the window as the argumentative heat rises.

Take last night. There is a kindly old gent who I have taken to chatting with these past few nights, who is an avid reader and seems to genuinely enjoy going out of his way to do nice things for the people around him. He is white, 62, and a very successful realty/mortgage business owner. If your Republican-dar isn't pinging, then get it checked. I should have assumed he was republican. I usually consider myself a savvy enough individual to be able to guess a persons left/right leaning just by spending a few minutes chatting with them. Maybe it was his niceness which made me relax and forget myself for a moment, but as we joked about the job our wonderful "Gubernator" is doing, I let slip some comment about our new chief justice, something along the lines of the supreme court sending American society back to the 1950's "golden age" of repressed patriarchal domination which was only "Golden" in the minds of WASPey old republicans and southern hicks who had never left the inbred small towns they were born into and haven't had a science class beyond the 6th grade. Okay, maybe I could have been a little more sensitive about it, but like I said, my guard was down.

The building tension filling the pause in the air was palatable, I saw his lips move and before his words could reach my ears my republican-dar was pinging like crazy to the tune of "shit shit shit shit shit shit". I was floored. For five minutes I was laid flat by the ranting monologue about how our democratic senator had refused to support Roberts nomination, despite the fact that she though he was brilliant and that she couldn't think of a better man, because she wanted a woman on the court. Or, as my friend was so eloquently putting it, she wouldn't nominate him because he didn't have a cunt.

While I disagree with her reasons for refusing to vote for him, as the flood of words began to slow, I took the opportunity to try to mention a few that his records were being kept hidden for a reason, and the there are several documents which illustrate that he is completely against women in the workplace and all the civil liberties not endorsed by the Bush party. That gave him his second wind. After a few more minutes, I realized that I wasn't going to have the opportunity to get a word in edgewise until her remembered to breathe or completely passed out, so making up an important something I suddenly remembered I had to do, I politely excused myself.

While I walked away, I was imagining myself at the senate interviewing Roberts. The things I would like to say to him. That "liberal judges" are what have saved American society from racism, from sexism, from prohibition. That precedent weights an institution in it's past, but not all pasts are good, that this country was build on a wonderful ideology which ended up expressing itself with slavery, with denying women the right to vote, with trying to prevent workers from unionizing, with policies which hurt immigrants (and everyone but the American Indians are immigrants from one generation or another), which tried to extend the "life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness" to only rich white conservative Christian males. That is the precedent of American judges. We need more than someone who is mired by the past obligations of tradition to help guide America into a new future. One where people have the freedom to choose the lives that they wish to have, to choose their own happiness, instead of those prescribed by some dogmatic documents of Do's and Don'ts erected in front of a southern courthouse. We need activist judges to see that distant goal and dream, that equality which exists in all people and the ability for each of us as individuals to choose a life and happiness which is decided by us alone. Let gay men marry, let pot smokers toke, let women earn comparable wages! The goals of America should be to right the wrongs of our past and break from tradition to create a better future for us all.

That's what I would say to Mr. Roberts. Your precious precedent can kiss my red-blooded, patriotic, individual, free ass. Let liberty ring.

My Catharsis

Heard this song, and lame as I usually think it is, on the freeway alone, cigarette dangling out the open window at night while I drove away, it was awesome to just rock out and vent a little with.
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Drunk and I'm feeling down
And I just wanna be alone
I'm pissed cause you came around
Why don't you just go home
Cause you channel all your pain
And I can't help to fix myself
Your making me insane
All I can say is

I tried to help you once
A kiss will only vise
I saw you going down
But you never realized
That your drowning in the water
So I offered you my hand
Compassions in my nature
Tonight is our last dance

I'm drunk and I'm feeling down
And I just wanna be alone
You shouldn't ever came around
Why don't you just go home?
Cause your drowning in the water
And I tried to grab your hand
And I left my heart open
But you didn't understand
But you didn't understand
You fix yourself

I can't help you fix yourself
But at least I can say I tried
I'm sorry but I gotta move on with my own life
I can't help you fix yourself
But at least I can say I tried
I'm sorry but I gotta move on with my own life

“Moving Out, Moving On”
by Michael Sherrillo

I don’t associate my relationships with a loss of identity. I feel like I have some comfort in who I am, I feel confident in myself and my “identity”. Maybe it’s because I grew up as an only child, and never had tons of friends. Maybe it’s because I’ve always been very independent and been able to do my own thing on my own terms. I lived on my own for two years, and while not being financially independent, I worked and was busy and had a large amount of freedom and time for self discovery. What I have always loathed is not being able to share that life with others, individualism and independence are great, but I was always haunted by a terrible shadow of isolation. Since the GF is planning on moving out in the next few months though (in pursuit of her lost identity and responsibility) I am having a great sense of freedom. The loneliness and isolation had all but disappeared. However, in sharing my life so intimately, I did have to make a lot of compromises in my own personal desires. Not that I feel any bitterness about it, because being able to make someone you love happy often gives a greater sense of joy and personal satisfaction than simply making yourself happy. But since the news, I have been feeling the faint stirrings of whimsy for the things which I do sometimes miss. When I’m alone, I’m don’t have to wait for anybody to want to do what I want, and I don’t have the excuse of codependency, so I’m forced to hold only myself responsible.

Maybe it’s due to my views of relationships, where you enter into an emotional contract as partners to share your lives, and while you expect to make some compromises, you also expect them to make some as well. Example, if you want to exercise, you don’t expect them to go with you every time, this might threaten your feelings of being an individual, but you would like them to want to share something together that makes you happy and thereby grow as a couple, i.e. she goes jogging with you a few times a week, you go to some concerts you don’t want to for her, and so you both grow, as a person experiencing new things, and as a relationship by sharing things with someone else.

But that is a balance I haven’t felt for some time. Actually, I don’t really know if I ever have, aside from deciding which TV stations to watch (I get a little discovery channel, she gets a little Springer and cheaters, and we both are happy and a little more worldly for it). So I’m looking forward to my “new life”, I have enough financial security with my various jobs and have learned enough budgeting responsibility to know exactly the life I want and enjoy. Surfing a few times a week, going to the movies and theatre hopping for a whole day, singing karaoke at the local bar, going hiking, and sitting around debating and drinking with my friends…

I’ve learned what it takes to make me happy. And I look forward to being able to think about just me for a change. Especially since I feel like I’ve compromised and worked and worried and strived for that balance and cooperation in this relationship, and since she isn’t happy, it feels sort of wasted, since that was the whole goal, for us to share ourselves, our lives, to compromise, and through that, grow as individuals, and grow together. But I guess that’s something I’ve known about this for a long time.

Happiness and freedom has its price: responsibility. I hope she figures herself out and learns from all this without us growing to far apart or something happening with her where she in financially screwed and on her own; responsibility is scary and can be devastating. And then maybe someday, a little older and wiser and more sure of herself, we can share our lives again, and start growing together instead of growing apart.

I feel like I'm hearing these songs for the first time. I’ve listened to them a million times before, but in the last few days, they have brought me to tears. Nothing I could ever write could explain my feelings right now better than this. But no one visits this site, so no one will ever know.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Am I loud and clear, or am I breaking up?
Am I still your charm, or am I just bad luck?
Are we getting closer, or are we just getting more lost?

I'll show you mine if you show me yours first
Let's compare scars, I'll tell you whose is worse
Let's unwrite these pages and replace them with our own words

We live on front porches and swing life away,
We get by just fine here on minimum wage
If love is a labor I'll slave till the end,
I won't cross these streets until you hold my hand

I've been here so long, I think that it's time to move
The winter's so cold, summer's over too soon
Let's pack our bags and settle down where palm trees grow

I've got some friends, some that I hardly know
But we've had some times, I wouldn't trade for the world
We chase these days down with talks of the places that we will go

We live on front porches and swing life away,
We get by just fine here on minimum wage
If love is a labor I'll slave till the end,
I won't cross these streets until you hold my hand....until you hold my hand

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Coming out of my cage
And I've been doing just fine
Gotta gotta be down
Because I want it all

It started out with a kiss
How did it end up like this?
It was only a kiss
It was only a kiss

Now I'm falling asleep
And she's calling a cab
While he's having a smoke
And she's taking a drag

Now they're going to bed
And my stomach is sick
And its all in my head
But she's touching his chest now

He takes off her dress now
Let me go
And I just can't look its killing me
And taking control

Jealousy turning saints into the sea
Swimming through sick lullabye
Choking on your alibis
But its just the price I pay
Destiny is calling me
Open up my eager eyes
'Cos I'm Mr Brightside

"The Sublimation of Vices"
by Michael Sherrillo

I should be starting my paper right now. I should also be in class. Unfortunately, I’m doing neither. I left the folder for class in my car, and I haven’t had enough cigarettes yet to begin writing.

This could be called my warm up. My body, alive and humming like a car puttering in idle in the cool morning fog, my tank is filled with caffeine but I’m still waiting for that special nicotine boost to send me off into the roads of my “creative” mind.

I feel something especially literary about my vices, and I cultivate them as much as I do the writing they fuel. The sweet taste of cool beer, the harsh bitter intake of a slow burning Camel, the joy of wake-and-bake… Without their insight, their criticism, their torture and love (and what is love without torture?) I don’t think I could write a coherent post-it note, let alone a paper.

Pushing your body to it’s brink, fueled by stimulants, hunger, and a lack of sleep, the creative process becomes a liquid, art rolling of your fingertips as if they had a mind of their own. The cognitive disconnect between thoughts, feelings, fingers, and words disappears into a haze where one is instantly sublimated into all.

Sublimated is a good word for it. That’s what writing should be. That’s what real writing to me is. That’s the zone. It’s not agonizing over sentence structure or syntax, not caring about grammar or spelling (and aren’t those what computer where invented for, after all?).

I recently read about a woman who wrote only a handful of novels and short stories in her 50 year career, she didn’t even receive recognition of her writing until she was 40! She was known for her very methodical and time consuming construction of her stories and characters. Everything had to be perfect. (Anal retentive much?)

Something tells me she wrote sober. And from the few short stories of hers I read, I think she suffered from it. The talent was there… but there was that disconnect. The passion was a passion she had to create, the characters where constructed and the plot elaborately planned and fabricated. Good writer. Good stories. But no sublimation… Nothing raw or real or spontaneous or authentic. She is famous now… but she is also dead.

I need another cigarette.

Growing

In class, a teacher mentioned that, I believe the paraphrased quote was from T.S. Elliot, a person is allowed to write personal poetry until they are 25. After that, to be a true poet, they should write about society and troubles/concerns of the times which are greater than themselves.
I think there is some degree of truth in that. So I am making an effort to begin trying to channel my feelings into the greater social construct of the world in which I live. After all, history is nothing but the present seen from the future. =) Blog on.

Still Waters Run Deep

I want to disappear. I feel so alone right now, and all I want to do is be alone. I'm surrounded by people, and I feel so much resentment and anger towards them, bitterness for being where I am, for taking my moments away from me. But I want to be social, I want recognition and admiration, but nobody sees the silent boy. I am invisible and I hate them for that as well, or do I hate myself? I'm not sure anymore.
I feel so responsible for maintaining everything, the happiness of Mary, my "social network", like it's always on my shoulders to make the effort, to make them happy, to make them like me. But it all feels forced, and it makes me, the me inside, feel even more alone because I am responsible. I can't bring anyone down, so I bring down myself. I sink farther and farther... I don't know how much farther I can go. I feel so lost, so completely lost in everything. Every day is like a switch between mania and depression, and I never know which is which. The smallest things just cause this swing of severe emotions.
All I want to be is home. To go inside my room alone and curl up alone and just disappear forever. I don't want to kill myself; I just don't want to exist anymore. I want to sink into the shadows and fade away into oblivion surrounded by the place that exists now only in my memory. Hate, rage and anger boil up and spill over onto everyone around me, and it is only through great effort that I keep these things bottled up, because I don't want to hurt people who don't deserve to be hurt. But I just want to break things, I want to destroy and kill and raze the entire world around me. Fantasies of sex and violence, though never together, fill my mind now. It makes me want to cry, because everything I though about myself doesn’t seem to exist anymore. I felt so together and in control, and now I feel like I'm struggling to float over and deep and dark sea and the temptation to sink into it, into the violence and anger and hatred and depression and nothingness that lies beneath them all.
Maybe I'm wrong, I do want to kill myself. But I am responsible for the emotions of my family, my girlfriend... I can make them happy or sad with a few lies or truths... or actions.
I don't know what to do but just try to float, try to rise above it all, or push it all below, it's all the same thing. But I have no outlet, I study and read and then go to class and then work and then study and sleep. That’s all I have now.
I want to run forever. From myself, from the world, from society. I want to lose myself on an endless beach and in the arms and sheets of endless women. In something eternally new, where I am reinvented and reborn and there is nothing behind me but the memories I choose. I don't want a history or a past. Just the ecstasy of the moment multiplied and played out into infinity of imperfect and amazing reflections.
But responsibility, society, pulls and tugs and forces itself onto my mind and my consciousness. My superego is strangling me, and I hate myself for it. I hate myself for hating it, for wanting what I want, for wanting what is... is wrong. I don't want to hurt, myself or others. Hurt involves a past, and memories. But in the constant paradise of my fantasies, in the constant newness, there is nothing but the now.
I am completely miserable, and it is my own doing. And I fear that I will be my undoing as well. Unless I take myself and my life into my own hands, into my own control, and end it on the term I choose, instead of the ones the world, and society, and my past will cause and choose for me.

You are alive to me. And I will make sure you stay that way.