A Day In The Life of A Teen Nightlight.

The End Of This Blog.

2012-02-16T02:41:00.002-05:00

I'm shutting "A Day In The Life of A Teen Nightlight" down on March 20th, the 5-year anniversary of my first post here.

It's run its course: as a blog, as a site for my poetry, as everything else that I may have used it for.
It's served me well.
It's time for something else.

There's quite a bit of history running in the annals of this blog...
My first legitimate recording session.
The end of my piano lessons.
My first trip to NYC and how heavy that was.
Seeing Jeff Mangum live. Holy shit, seeing Jeff Mangum live.
Writing down every single song idea I had coursing through my veins in those first days where I figured I would try songwriting...
Talent shows.
How I never won a single talent show.
And how I still kind of resent that.
A lot of poetry.
And so many other assorted thoughts and pieces all rearranged into an organized space.

And I'm just going to throw it away.

I am what some people might call "temporally obsessed." I don't like looking back on things that I've done from a few years ago, because the past always feels like yesterday to me. As a result, I become aware of my present mortality and a mini-existential crisis ensues. It seems silly, because it is. But time genuinely bothers me. I think I've made that clear in many of the posts I've made here over the years... This blog is just always going to be here if I don't do something about it. I'm having similar feelings towards my YouTube channel right now. These things that I've created will sit and serve as pleasant nostalgia, but more prominently as a sign that I'm only getting older.

I just want to exist outside the context of the Internet. I really do. I want to start going places, networking with people, finding shows to play at, being creative with friends. To not have the fleeting thought of maintaining a *PRESENCE* linger over my head every time I visit a website.

Writing on here's done a lot for me. It's helped me document and track my progress into becoming a person who can write, record, produce, and release music, who can musically collaborate with others, who can jot his mind onto a piece of paper whenever he wants to. Who can, once in a while, dream big.

So it's time that I wrap things up and put it to sleep. I'll be blogging in a notebook from now on.

Thanks to everyone who's been following over the years, if there are any of you left at this point. I love you a lot.

~-~

Notes..---

2012-02-14T02:56:00.000-05:00

Beats hour:

Burial - Loner

Young Magic – JamKaret

Lapalux – Moments

Fresh Arcade - ٩(•●)۶

Goth-Trad– Anti-Grid

DreamConsequence – B Free

PorticoQuartet - Ruins

Ambient hour:

Grouper – Demona (Dead Moon cover)

Lotus Plaza – These Years

Lapalux – Face Down, Eyes Shut

Julianna Barwick – Never Change

Force Tranquille - Aelab

0318 – Fennesz +Sakamoto

/////All Life/////

2012-02-09T00:16:00.002-05:00

I wish that I had more to say.
All life passes in this way.

The Reality That Matters

2012-02-05T03:59:00.004-05:00

She called me today to tell me she won big.
That's the only time she ever calls anymore.
To tell me she won big.
She says, "I hit the jackpot tonight, I won some coupons
at Bingo. Aren't you happy?
I won some coupons and $10. Isn't that great?
Aren't you happy for me?"

I tell her no, you've blown over $250 of
my cash this week. God knows she won't spend her own.
She says "Well, sure, but I won big tonight.
Things are gonna change. Y'never know.
I could hit the big jackpot one day.
Just be happy for me.
Be happy I won a little bit.
Please."

I say to her that she needs to stop going out every night,
Out to her casino,
Out to her Bingo nights with Catherine
Out to play her lottery numbers, her state-run crackhouse;

And I ask her if she even knows what year it is.
Sometimes she seems so engulfed in her addiction
That she loses grip on the reality that matters.
But if nothing else, she's always right about the year.
She adds, "I won't be home 'til real late" and then she hangs up.
Always right about the year.
But I'm waiting for the day when she won't be right anymore
And I know it's coming.
I want her to be happy, but I want her to be happy
in the reality that matters.

For now, I always tell myself, for now.
I'll only give her money for now.
Then one day she'll remember that amethyst charm on her wrist,
That amethyst charm I gave her on our first anniversary.
She'll see it, and all at once, the universe will collapse into her skull
And she will realize what it means to be free.

The Drop (Parts One and Two)

2012-01-13T00:23:00.000-05:00

There’s a hole in the middle

Of an abandoned, ghostly town

Where water sits and cement blocks

Bring half-dead people down.

At the hole, there’s a killer

A-waiting for the man

Who will come up to meet him

And shake his covered hand

And he’ll drag out the body

To the nearest blood-red light

And he will let a naked woman

Strip his soul all night

And he will have a family

And he will feel regret

And he will drown himself that night

And not surface again.

I’ve just the same lost to temptation

I have given up at last

And I’ve let the rings around my eyes

Grow dark and grey too fast

And I am next in line and waiting

To fall down through that hole

Because this song won’t fix my head or

All my endless dead-end goals

I know that no one’s listening

It’s just as well I give it up and drop.

The Cyst

2012-01-06T17:30:00.001-05:00

I’ve gone days without eating.

Hear my daughter’s tortured sleeping.

As she struggles with

And chokes to death on the cyst.

I feel the oxygen depleting.

Machinery won’t keep her breathing

As she struggles with

And chokes to death on the cyst.

Will she make it 'til the morning?

Her skin is cold, the noises warn me.

And if she won't wake

Then I will drowse just the same.

I’ve gone days without moving.

Heard my daughter's tired screaming

As she struggled with

And choked to death on the cyst.

(To Melt)

2011-12-20T04:00:00.004-05:00

God, I am melting.
Sinking, melting, ensnared, churning.
I am turning into a neon glaze onstage,
in front of blue velvet curtains,
diffusing across the floorboards.
The flamenco dancers raise their heavy arms,
and they push down.
The stage fades, the facade collapses,
and now I know
how it feels to melt.

You're not listening.

I'm dreaming of lower fidelity dreams.
So that I can't hear myself melting
in all of the white noise,
an ambient hiss that floats around
these polyphonic negative dreams
(make it stop. make it stop-)
It was quiet at first.
Here comes the roar.
God, stop me from melting.
My skin is sloughing off.
Someone. Anyone.

(Swell, tumult, burst eardrums, silence.)

The first-story jump out of an open winter window.

Bystander(s)

2011-12-12T16:56:00.002-05:00

You wonder how a mass of people don't try to save the man who is next in line. Sure, they know it's wrong, but they don't want to be next. So they'll look on and... enjoy the show.

The clouds break over the gas station. You're called over, and without further ado, the officer begins to bash your head in with a crowbar. A cheer after every blow. With every passing crunch, more blood lets from your nostrils and eyes. A hard swing, a cheer, and another. And it hurts. But it won't stop. You know it won't stop until you're dead.

Everywhere, the process of no process is
fractal,
fractured,
fracturing.

You wonder. You wonder as you sip your peppermint tea, curl up near a warm fire, and vacantly look out the winter window.

GIVINGTHANKS

2011-11-24T01:51:00.001-05:00

Overstuffed grey coat.
Worn-out meshed hat.

Cranberry birds fly down
Feathers fall around me.

The railroad ends up ahead
Of the curve, they once told me.
There is dirt everywhere.

Nowhere;
Nothing to do but sleep
Under beautiful light pollution,
Under scared starless skies.

I would eat,
But I don't want their charity.
I would say it to someone,
But there's no one to thank.
And nothing to be thankful for.

Insomniac Manifesto IV

2011-11-19T04:40:00.001-05:00

i am
such a
tired
ghost

Saccades (Insomniac Manifesto III)

2011-11-16T15:16:00.001-05:00

Did I fall asleep?
I'm falling asleep with my eyes open.
I am falling - I am asleep - I am my eyes that are open.
I am at least the velvet, well-intentioned underpinnings
of a fevered brain death.
No. I am just wasted ink.

Every third
of a
second, your
retinas skip.
The information
received from
retinal skipping
is new
visual input
for the
brain's cortex
to process.
The output
feels like
a consistent
visual flow.

But then
1. you check yourself against reality
2. realize that your vision
is so far out of sync
and (realizing why)
3. you fall asleep.

Insomniac Manifesto II

2011-11-10T19:55:00.001-05:00

1. (Box.)

This is the most desperate
I've felt in a while.

2. (Boxed.)

I'm pressing rewind.
And I'm listening again.

3. ("Boxing")

Nothing good...
Nothing good.

4. (Boxes.)

Some rest might solve this.
Someone else might solve this.

5. (Boxer.)

Deep conflict, pestilent resolve

Optic Flow

2011-11-09T16:35:00.001-05:00

I am drowning in red tape.

There lies a dark grey box,
with many tinier boxes inside.

Sometimes, they let me go home.
The wallpaper is peeling.
The children are crying.

Rarely, I go to the attic.
I put on a record from the 1930s.
Light ballroom music.
A trumpet croons softly
over the sway of a sleepy big band.
The aged stylus mingles
with the dust
and the warped sounds crackle warmly.
Sometimes it rains from the adhesive sky.
That gentleness quietly falls into the mix.
This is when I sit down and
flow cascades verdoyant.
And I write.
And I sing.
And I dream.
And I rest.

The Pink Dinosaur of Meritocracy:

2011-11-03T16:30:00.001-05:00

1. I was up for 24 hours straight.
2. Working, or maybe floating.
3. It's hard to tell that late.
4. I'm here because some people don't work.
5. I am awake because of them, for them.
6. Writing, writing, writing.
7. Validity might be around the corner.
8. But it probably isn't.
---
9. I finally fell asleep.
10. I might've been awake.
11. Maybe I fell somewhere between the two.
12. Or perhaps an infinite amount of souls were floating through me.
13. Either way, you carried me.
14. Several miles, in fact.
15. I only faintly remember
16. Being cast into a tall fire.

2011-11-02T09:50:00.003-05:00

1. The idea.
2. The drums.
3. The rhythm.
4. Then came civilization on the x^thday.
5. Speaking of... the crane.
6. I saw it heading south before winter.
7. It was doing nothing important, but
8. It felt the need to roar nonetheless.
9. We wanted to stop it.
10. In some final act of defiance.
11. But then people would be left to wonder
12. "Well, who was playing the drums?"

13. Terror, boundless, persists.
14. Fabric, calico and ripped.

2011-10-31T19:00:00.002-05:00

1. It was absolutely beautiful.
2. The way the black and white splashed on our faces.
3. We watched the system fall to pieces.
4. A new one came to life from the ashes, on some other planet.
5. It was absolutely beautiful.
6. The scene unfolded before us.
7. Some sweet song of the decade played in slow-motion.
8. I touched your hand and became instantly complete.
9. I didn't care when I woke up.

2011-10-31T09:47:00.000-05:00

1. Poetry was an evolutionary mistake.
2. It has been phased out accordingly as it
3. Contributes to neither the
4. Continuation nor the
5. Proliferation of our species.

Elevators

2011-10-30T23:33:00.001-05:00

1. Up and down. Day in and day out.
2. No end to the cycle, really.
3. An elevator must get tired of its work.
4. In fact, I know it does.
5. Once this elevator has had enough, it will collapse from
6. Exhaustion.
7. And so everyone inside is done for.

Four poems.

2011-10-29T02:57:00.003-05:00

One.

1. I am a disembodied voice. It follows that,

2. I will never have substance.

3. I will never have answers.

4. Least of all the ones you want.

5. I will never have an appearance.

6. Least of all one you’d find acceptable.

7. I will never belong to anyone.

8. Least of all you.

Two.

1. I’m taking a walk in some park tomorrow.

2. I will not count the trees.

3. I will count the numbers on some boardwalk.

4. I will count the numbers I see in some skyline.

5. Until the sky begins to bleed its rain.

6. It won't be fun anymore after that.

Three.

1. I need to know who I am.

2. The soul of an ex-person knocked on my door.

3. He says “Let me in, I can tell you who you are.

4. Who you will be. Where you will end up.”

5. I say “I can’t be so sure of that.”

6. He says “Why not.”

7. “I figuredyou out a long time ago.”

Four.

1. I left the house dripping in sweat.

2. Usually it’s because of fire.

3. I had to escape a monster this time.

4. It was stuck under my bed, you see.

5. It would bite at my thumbs at night.

6. It was gnawing at my existence.

7. It had to go.

8. But I didn’t know how to get rid of it.

9. So I left the house, one night.

10. Idon’t know where I went.

11. Butit went away when I came back?

12. Asksthe doctor.

Sports

2011-10-21T15:21:00.000-05:00

Bleeding from the nostrils
Red from scars left by the ceiling
Dying fast without a song
Without someone singing near me
"Come here it's alright."

I don't think you're the one
I don't think you're that song
But I'd really like to think you are
I really wish you were.

When you listened, you'd just listen far too hard
A construction-ridden park
All your trees are felled in part
Because of me.
Oh it's always 'cause of me.

So I will dig the tunnel
You'll stay up above
And shovel all the dirt back in
When I'm just about done.
Oh the worst fading light.

I'll see the sun for one last time
As it fades to one thin ray
And I'll think it just as no surprise
And continue on my way
Oh the worst fading light.

I will live here underground
Red from ceiling scars
I'll build a city in this space
And rub the finished work in your face
But maybe I'll just die.

Without a song, without a flashlight in the dark
A construction-ridden park
All your trees are felled in part
Because of me.
Oh it's always 'cause of me.

Tethering (Insomniac Manifesto I)

2011-10-09T12:04:00.005-05:00

The world has collapsed from exhaustion

And gone to sleep.

The only thing tethering everything together

Is a far-off reverberation.

A grumbling howl in the middle of this once

Breathing night.

It's a little bit more distant now.

And I'm writing lines

In the bathroom at 4:1 5

Hoping that this will mean something someday.

At least you're listening.
At least, I think you're listening.

Maybe no one's listening now.

No one can listen:

The world collapsed from exhaustion.

Everything lost its hearing

From the once shrieking echo,

The movement of a Friday night in the city.

And maybe if I wait long enough,

I will see the sun.

~-~

2011-09-07T18:37:00.003-05:00

I should’ve worn a sweatshirt. It’s been raining all day.

After 75 minutes of meandering philosophy, (trying to one-up your peers doesn’t get you anywhere closer to the truth) (am I in love because you are perfect or are you perfect because I am in love) I walked home, if I can call it that. My clothes became wet in slow-motion, staining my t-shirt the color of blood. It looked and it felt like I was bleeding, that the entirety of my flawed existence was publicly visible,

seeping through wet clothing.

But then the bleeding stopped, I was inside my halfway house, and I stood still. I reflected on everyone I saw with hoods, jackets, umbrellas. There’s so much desire for everyone here, to be something. What something…

I trudged up the stairs, opened your door, and, dripping with water-blood, I confessed.

“I have come to grips with the fact that I will never be a perfect human being.”