All the Great Men are Dead.

     Story:

Sooooo I had gone to a club upon being invited there by a lady I met, but she left and I was just like fixing a thing on my bike on the side of the road, when a few people from the club (they probably saw me dancing) came over and one nice couple offered me a place to stay! I was planning on sleeping on a table at a park that seemed safe enough so I accepted the offer. The next day, they bring me to a party that's going on, which I have an awesome time at learning how to make pizza and stuff, but at 7pm they leave and I decide to stay. I didn't want to leave yet and even though all my stuff is back at their place and I have no idea where there or here is, whatever it'll be fine

And it was. I crashed there that night, and figured it out the next day. Just a 2 mile walk. I grabbed a loaf of bread and four oranges from their supply and headed out. So I'm walking down this street which happens to be a pretty nice road. It's right next to a river, so there's a couple really tiny wooded areas.

Then, I see a spot that calls to me. Y'see, I discovered on my very first night, that there are still many many magical places left in the world, they're just kind of hidden and you have to find them.

So there's this spot under a highway bridge, the river flowing under it, graffiti on the wall; I was drawn to it and sat down. When I saw a cardinal fly by, I knew I was supposed to be there. I opened my journal and wrote a poem

This isn't a poem I plan to share with a lot of people, so I won't share it here, sorry!

So I finish writing this poem and I'm actually about to go, when some dude comes strollin' down

At first I was a bit on guard 'cause it was like, just this random dude asking if I had any sort of thing to help him smoke his dabs which he'd apparently just found on the ground

But after chatting a bit he was cool so we went down closer to the river and smoked up together, 'cause why the hell not

So yeah his name was Kevin. He's lived in Baltimore for a couple years and he used to organize big EDM nights. He'd try to get lots of students from the local arts college when they arrived so the 18-20 year olds would know where to get alcohol from (him/his compatriots). One day a party got way outta hand and people like, threw some shit out of the window and it hit the power lines and took out the whole block, so that sort of ended his party endeavors

I forget what he said he did these days, but he was under the bridge with me specifically because living in the city, there are few places or chances for solitude in nature

Around the corner of rocks from there, if you follow the path along the river, there's a little cave that Kevin had found and started to clean up.

He plans to make it a place he can go to to think and train and etc.

I read him that poem, because maybe he was supposed to hear it, gave him one of my oranges, and continued on my way.

I was actually, supposedly, in a huge rush, as I had made plans to smoke on Edgar Allan Poe's grave with this cool couple I'd met

(It was my idea btw)

But my phone died and I don't want to rush ever really, so it was like, "Ah whatever I'll get high with Kevin and see what happens"

So I get lost trying to find where I'm going, eat the second of my oranges, leave a third orange next to a sleeping homeless man, and eventually see the signs to where I want to be and get there. As I approach the peoples' house there's a girl hanging around outside with a Hinduism sort of shirt on

I just say, "Nice shirt" to her and move towards the locked door.

She asks me about the code for getting into the building (It's an apartment building of sorts)

I assure her that I probably don't remember 'cause I don't live there either, but I try anyways. Neither of my guesses work, but then some other guy comes by, "Oh maybe this guy remembers!" "Remembers what?" And he scans a card which unlocks the door, and we all walk inside.

I catch up to her on the second floor. She has sat down on the ledge, clearly waiting. I was about to go maybe wait too (depending if anyone answered the door when I knocked) so instead I opt to wait/chill with this lady, if she'd like. "So, neither of us knew the code, so neither of us are supposed to be here. Why are you here?" She has a very cool air about her. Completely calm and peaceful. I like her already. Actually I liked her when I could vaguely make out her shape from a few blocks away as I approached the building in the first place, but anyways, she says, slowly and calmly, "Hmm. I used to live in Baltimore. It's good to be back here."

So this girl is super chill and I want to know more about her. I have one left. "Hey, want this orange or some bread?" "Hmm. I'll split the orange with you."

"...Wanna smoke some marijuana with me?" "Hmm. Sure."

She says her name is Emma. Using the stuff still leftover in the bowl from Kevin, we smoke a little together. She peels the orange and we share that too. We talk of cities and travel. I read her my poem about the cities, and she comes alive as she tells me of the places she's been. I'm drawn in to her energy. Looking into her eyes I can feel what she's feeling and every word, every place, is another unique emotion. I have to hold my heart in place. We talk of death and where we want to be. I read her my poem of death. She thanks me for it, and recalls suddenly that she wishes to go to British-Columbia. I tell her about my goals, and how to control yourself by controlling your wants. When I'm done, someone starts going into the room Emma needs to go into. I bid her adieu. I don't ask for a phone number or facebook or something. Not even the blog. I know that if we both want to see each other again, we will. It's the law of the universe. I can only control my half though, so maybe I won't see Emma again. I don't know and that's okay. Maybe we'll bump into each other in Vancouver.

So I knock on the 3rd floor door and am let in immediately (yessss)

There's a gal asleep on the couch, my stuff is in disarray, and I'm way high

It is now about 3pm, and I was supposedly going to smoke with Justine and Kory at Edgar Allan Poe's grave at 11am. Amid pacing, snacking, and other little high activities, I plug my phone in and catch up with them.

Apparently they had a fight and Kory is not responsive. Justine, however, is still down

I wanted to leave Baltimore the night before, but that "plan" changed when I stayed at a pizza party all night and slept in their warehouse/community center place. Now, the train I aught be taking to escape the city (I already bought the ticket. Long story) would be leaving at 4:10. There's another at 5:30, but that's not the bike train. Maybe they'd still let me on though... So I tell Justine that yeah I could still come but I might need like a place to stay. She says she can put me in her basement after her dad goes to work.

Okay, so that sounds kind of cool on the one hand... I'm going to smoke up with this cool girl at Edgar Allan Poe's grave, then sleep in her basement, or something. But Kory was supposed to be there and he was a cool guy; we really clicked! I really wanted to hang out with him! I guess they got into a fight? And now she wants to just hang out with me?

So I'm considering not going, when the sleeping lady wakes up and groggily asks, "Hey, do you have a light?" "Uhhh yeah. What're you gonna smoke with it?" With a why-are-you-asking sort of tone, "Uhm, weed?" "Oh cool, wanna smoke together?" Confused, she agrees. This is me making my decision. We have a nice conversation as I gather my things. She gives me some bread and I give her some Sun-dried Tomato and basil cheese dip. They go perfect together. I'd of loved to talk and smoke with Ms. Angela some more, but it is time for me to go. I thank everyone there for letting me stay and run out the door. The universe helps, and I make it to the train just in time. I get my bike secure and relax into the seat, but then I realize that I've forgotten something. My left hand has my biking glove on it, but my right hand is bare. Somehow, in my haste, I forgot my own right hand.

I was baffled. I remembered everything else. Every little item, all the little things that have meaning, but I somehow wasn't aware of my own right hand and just left it behind. This is a sign. This is a warning. It's a same weakness I've always had, since 8th grade running down the street to make the bus, forgetting my homework and lunch back home. I'm out in the world, and the stakes are higher now. I need to focus. I need to pay attention. If I'm so spaced out that I can forget my own right hand, that means I can forget absolutely anything. I think I'll ride around without a right glove for a while. It'll help me remember. When I'm certain that I've retained this lesson, I'm sure a glove will come to me.

     Reflection:
     Self-reflection is key. It is what separates us from the beasts; being able to learn. When we learn we can control ourselves. How does that work? We have a reason for everything we do. Everything we've learned through our lives has led to us being who we are now. That's why we're here, to learn. Once, there was a caveman who was sick. Another caveman was hungry and there was only one piece of fruit. The healthy caveman moved to eat the fruit. He wanted it and was hungry and that's that. But then, thought. My sick brother, when healthy, is the greatest hunter. He helps me get more food. I don't want him to die. I will give him this fruit to help him. In this way, and similarly likely stories, we as humans were able to claw our way up from living in the dirt and evolve our logical brain functions. This is a pretty simple example, but if we can research our past we can come to understand our own motivations, and thus have more control over them.
     Most importantly though, it's all about understanding our wants. What we want determines what we do. When you stop and think you are able to make a conscious decision, but how many times in a day do you do that? How often are you just on auto-pilot? Being on auto-pilot isn't bad thing per say, as it is just an easier state of being to be in. "Auto-pilot" sounds bad, but it's really just when we're thinking less and just acting however we feel. Having your mind be awake all the time is very energy consuming. However, the decisions we make while we are on auto-pilot are what dictate the quality of our lives. The way that I've found that we can control ourselves in this state of mind is by focusing our wants.
     For example, let us say that Charlotte is a smoker. She wants to stop, so she just doesn't buy any more cigs. Choice: Throw away the last of her cigs or keep them to ween herself off them? Truly there is no "weening," only doing, so whether Charlotte takes every step she can to move forward in this, or leaves some avenues for retreat, is an indicator of how much she really wants to quit.
     Next, Charlotte is at a party. She hit it off with a dude and wants to talk to him more. She sees him hanging around outside, so she goes out to talk to him, but everybody there is smoking. The smell, seeing others do it, being in that environment, the physical addiction inside, it all adds together and it's just too much. Charlotte bums a cig from someone.
     Now let's rewind. Let's say Charlotte did some self-reflection before the party, and when she sees the dude is outside, she also knows that if she goes outside she will smoke. She knows because she is in touch with herself and her limits. She doesn't necessarily accept that she will give in to temptation, but she knows that as she is now, she will succumb if she goes outside (and that's something to work on). Now there's a choice. Go outside, smoke, talk to dude or stay inside, don't smoke, and maybe talk to dude later but not now. What Charlotte picks is going to depend on one thing: What she wants more. Does she really want to quit smoking? Does she want to quit it enough? Does she want to quit more than she wants to talk with this dude? In that moment, she has to choose.
     Charlotte probably doesn't consciously think about it like this though. She's having fun at a party! She's completely on auto-pilot! And that's okay, "auto-pilot" is just acting on how we feel in the moment, and that's a good way to be too, sometimes. So it'll come down to whether Charlotte wants to quit enough. If she wants to quit with all of her will no matter what, then she will make every decision to not smoke and avoid temptation, and there is absolutely nothing in the world that can stop her from her goal. If she wants to quit but at the same time, enjoys smoking and just kind of wishes she didn't have to, she'll make a decision somewhere to accept temptation, If she wasn't actually serious about quitting—in other words, she doesn't really want to quit—then she'll smoke again the first chance that she can let herself get away with it. Maybe an excuse, "I had a rough day" or a rationalization, "just one won't make a difference" or a reward to keep themselves motivated, "I'm doing a good job, I earned one!" In any case, she's making the decision to not quit smoking.
     That's all life is, a series of decisions. These decisions are usually made to bring us closer to what we want or need. You see the McDonalds ad on the billboard and instantly your brain does a check, "Do you want McDonalds?" Depending on how you answer that, after weighing all the factors, which happens more or less sub-consciously in your mind, will determine whether you stop at the next McDonalds you see or not.
     However, if you can control your wants, you can control these decisions. "McDonalds is gross and under no circumstance do I want McDonalds." If you believe that then viola, the aggressive marketing campaign aimed at your stomach will have little to no effect on you. It works for anything, "Cigarettes are gross, I deserve better, I want to be healthy now and when I am older and I do not want a cigarette." If a smoker trying to quit just believed these words then it'd be really easy to just stop cold-turkey.
     Everybody's mind is different. How you come to adopt new beliefs is up to you and the labyrinth you have up there. I don't know how to get any particular smoker to believe that sentence right there. That's up to them and their mind. However, I know that if they do believe that, they will stop smoking. I also know that any smoker will not stop smoking if they believe anything around the realm of the inverse of the original statement: "Ah, I looooove cigarettes. The burn feels great. Being healthy is good but I want to smoke now. I'm worried about when I'm older but whatever the cost is I'm willing to pay it because right now, I want a cigarette."


Poetry:
     So in the 3.5 weeks since I have left, I have written twenty poems of varying quality.
     So on average that's about 6 poems a week.
     Some of them are pretty personal though, so they're just for me, or whoever I think needs to hear them.
     Others kind of suck! And by that I mean, yes they are my poems and they're mine and self-expression no such thing as a bad poem blahblah... And certainly when I read any of my poems I go right back to that moment I wrote it, but a good poem will bring the reader there too, no matter who they are.
     So yeah, working on that. I wasn't going to share this first one 'cause I don't think it will convey the actual horror I was feeling when I wrote it, but Poe would want me to, so for him here it is. But read it slow, and try to let the words sink in. Dedicated to anything that was once alive but is now being eaten by maggots.

     "Safe is a State of Mind"

     You could die at any second.
     It is literally possible that you could die, right now.
     Maybe someone reading this will die when they read it.
     You probably aren't aware of it, but death is right over there. Right now.
     When you die, you probably won't be aware of that either.
     Flesh eating bacteria, lightning bolt, slip into traffic, fork in toaster, freak trampoline accident.
     What mistake did you make to get there?
     How could you have avoided it?
     How could you have known?
     Where did you go wrong?
     Y'know, as you read this, someone somewhere died.
     You don't know them and they don't know you
     probably
     but in a way
     you read it for them.

     So in example when I wrote this I was absolutely horrified. However, I think that most people reading it will find it more humorous than anything, perhaps even trite. Perhaps I focused too much on the ideas and not the emotions of the moment? Yeah, that makes sense. I didn't paint any imagery or describe any of the sensory inputs I was receiving from the world at all. The rotting bird, the screeching of the train, the smell of death, that indescribable yet undeniable feeling that you are in a bad place... I didn't even try to capture those things, instead focusing on just the idea of it all.
     Sorry I let ya down Edger Allan Poe! I guess I'm just not that macabre.
     This one is more my style. It's dark but it's not that dark. I'd say it's dark like a city avenue at night under the yellow hue of street lights. Which makes sense 'cause that's where it was written.

     "We Made It"

     In the city, life is fast and people are plentiful.
     They may be jam packed into spaces too small for them
     In places they don't want to live in
     But they get out     In the city, there's always someone else to meet.
     Some cool new friend you can't believe you never met before
     Some pretty person you just might have a chance with
     Some total nut job that rips through your world like a tornado you've only ever heard about
     In the city, nature is just a weed or a flower bed.
     This is the human biome
     An environment we created
     With just as many wonders, and dangers, as the primordial wilderness
     In the city, you have to play by the cities rules.
     There are places you should go for fun, business, shopping, moving, sleeping, tanning, you name it.
     There are places you should only go with the right people, at the right time, having the right knowledge.
     There are places you should never, ever go.
     In the city, energy is everywhere.
     Peoples' actions reverberate like vibrations traveling through the molecules of air
     Every cause creates ten effects, each in turn becoming its own cause, for then one hundred effects, and so on
     People live and die from others they have never even seen having a bad day or not
     In the city, life is the color of the lights on your street and people have price tags.
     In the city, life is etched into the sidewalk and people are buried underneath.
     In the city, life is clockwork and people just turn the crank.    


Pictures:

 I spent a day with Edgar Allan Poe, writing some poetry.
I met some cool people too, just hanging around here haha.
Poe's monument rests peacefully, with the bustle of the city just past the gate.

The tiny walled off cemetery is a tranquil bastion amid downtown Baltimore.

Didn't have a place to stay.

But I didn't worry, just trust in the universe.

And so I happen upon a tent with three tables and table cloths, portopotty, and garbage bins.

All on a beautiful waterfront.

I put two of the table cloths underneath the third table for a little shelter. It was perfect!

I really hope I win.

We are aspiring to greatness.

Getting there is the challenge

that still lays before us.