Digital Ink

 The light was dying,
spilling vivid redness
onto the canvas,
onto the trees and fields.
The horizons were painted
with its blood, a brilliant
array of scarlet tints,
though everything was silent.
Not a murmur, whimper,
no cries of agony.
The day would go quietly,
like a cat that hides under
the gazebo, dying alone,
eviscerated. The sky was
eviscerated, giving way
to darkness. To midnight
maladies that plague
lonely hearts, analytical
minds. The sun went down,
let us down, drowning,
only to arise once more,
a phoenix, from the ashes,
breaking light, soaking back
lost blood and touching
golden leaves, golden hair,
illuminating veins of fallen leaves.
I'm wide awake, it's morning.

I had sex with a prostitute last night
because I felt alone and rueful,
but through our grunts and sweat
I felt wholly unsatisfied. Except for
three seconds. I would pay her
another hundred dollars to
have those three seconds back,
three seconds where I don't feel
like deep-throating a shotgun
or stroking a razorblade.

Instead, I deep-throat a bottle
and stroke her hair, and think
about my sins, and her sins,
and everyone's sins and
how they're everyone's sins and
we should all feel guilty and ashamed
of ourselves. My new friend leaves
because we have nothing else
to offer each other: she took my
rent money and I took her soul.

I feel it's a fair trade and take another shot,
and stare at the ceiling and the light
show the cars outside are casting on
my plaster sky. Philosophical,
metaphysical, existential, immoral,
unrepenting, wasted, I make a wish
on a satellite and close my eyes.
What a beautiful three seconds those were,
I imagine an eternity like that. Disillusioned,
I kiss the barrel.

Generally speaking, it is a convention of modern society that we, as individuals, and the things around us with which we interact, exist.  We base this idea on our senses, on our ability to perceive both ourselves and our surroundings. Rene Descartes said, “I think, therefore I am.” By this he meant that if someone is wondering whether or not he exists, that is, in itself, proof of his existence. This theory has gone on to become fundamental in Western philosophy and culture, and few people question or doubt this proclamation. Some have taken this idea further, such as Mark Twain, who states in his novella “The Mysterious Stranger,” “Nothing exists but you. And you are but a thought - a vagrant thought, a useless thought, a homeless thought, wandering forlorn among the empty eternities!" In the West, then, we see that there are two primary schools of thought when it comes to existence of the self: (a) I exist, and what I perceive exists, and (b) only I exist, and my perceptions are only illusions. In the East, Buddha would agree with half of the latter school. Perceptions are, indeed, illusions, or mara, but, furthermore, so is the “I”.

Buddha teaches this idea of an illusory self and surroundings many times, and it is even listed as one of his Three Marks of Existence. “The Buddha listed impermanence (anicca) as the first of his Three Marks of Existence – characteristics that apply to everything in the natural order – the other two being suffering (dukkha) and the absence of permanent identity or a soul (anatta)” (Smith, 117). Anatta, or anatman, denies the reality of an “I” or “self”. We come to label ourselves as “I” in the same way that we label objects: “Even as the word of ‘chariot’ means / That members join to frame a whole; / So when the Groups appear to view, / We use the phrase, ‘A living being’” (Warren, 133). It is through the conglomeration of the five senses, as well as our physical “sack of assorted meats” that we come to think of ourselves as individuals, in the same way that Descartes pronounced self-awareness as indicative of existence. These senses, the Groups, our bodies, the forms, volition, perceptions, and consciousness are all transitory, however, and liable to change. Things which are transitory and liable to change are classified as maligned, or dukkha, in Buddhist teachings, and of those things which are transitory and liable to change it is not possible to say, “This is mine; this am I, this is my Ego.” Thus, we cannot say we possess an Ego because this Ego is based on sensations and the cognitive processing of these sensations, and since sensation is transitory, subject to change, and maligned (dukkha), it cannot be said that sensation is my Ego. “In the higher realm of true Suchness / There is neither ‘self’ nor ‘other’…” (Conze, 174).

That believing in the existence of the self and of others brings dukkha is an issue which must be addressed, since it is conventional to think otherwise. That is to say, in modern Western society, being an individual and cherishing the differences of other individuals is often seen, not as dislocation or suffering, but as joyful and desirous. However, to live in the belief of a “self” and of an “other” is to live in the realm of dualities: you cannot have “good days” without implying that there are also “bad days”; you cannot say you are “happy” without implying that there are times when you are “unhappy”. One of Buddha’s teachings consists of a laundry list describing Dependent Origination, the cycle by which all things come into being:

“On ignorance depends karma;
On karma depends consciousness;
On consciousness depend name and form; …
… On desire depends attachment;
On attachment depends existence;
On existence depends birth;
On birth depend old age and death, sorrow, lamentation, misery, grief, and despair. Thus does this entire aggregation of misery arise.” (Warren, 166)[Italics mine]

It is impossible to separate existence from misery due to the definition of Dependent Origination: every existing thing has a cause, remove the cause and the thing ceases to exist. All of these things (ignorance, karma, consciousness, name and form, etc.) are completely interdependent, not solely begetting what follows in the chain, but begetting the entire chain itself. "And he seeks after form, attaches himself to it, and makes the affirmation that it is his Ego. And he seeks after sensation . . . perception . . . the predispositions . . . consciousness, attaches himself to it, and makes the affirmation that it is his Ego. And these five attachment-groups, sought after and become attached, long inure to his detriment and misery” (Conze, 144). Ergo, understanding the true “I”, that there is no individual “I” or “self”, that it is all merely a construct of the maya around us being interpreted by our senses and perceptions, and renouncing attachment to these sensations, perceptions, predispositions, and consciousness can we free ourselves from dukkha. Remove a link from the chain of Dependent Origination, and you are no longer bound to the cycle of misery.

I have no authority to decree whether these teachings are true or false, right or wrong, nor do I know enough about other religions or philosophies to compare these teachings to, nor do I declare that I really understand these teachings, but I can say, through experience, that I agree with the theory that an attachment to an individual self brings dukkha. Not only because the idea of ourselves is based on perceptions and sensations, which are impermanent and liable to change, but because of how people build their lives entirely around the idea that they, as individuals, exist. They foster pride, selfishness, give in to wants and needs which are seen as necessary to the care of an individual self, and create goals, aspirations, hopes, and dreams. They perceive “others”, people and things separate from them, and form opinions on them based on how they see themselves, as well as the experiences they have perceived over time. All of these things will eventually lead to disappointment and misery. Family members die, friends betray friends, enemies are made, hopes are dashed, and goals are discarded: it’s all an inevitable part of life, of existence, of attaching yourself to emotions and sensations. You can’t only focus on the goodness of an “I” because it’s impossible to separate good from bad, hot from cold or happy from sad because in defining one term you immediately define its opposite. This is the result of living in a world of dualities, of making a distinction between “I” and “they”. I won’t say that living in that kind of duality is a delusion, just as I won’t say that living in Suchness isn’t a delusion. They could both be delusions, they could neither one be delusions, and I’m certain that parties in both camps will accuse the other of being deluded. I think the matter is what people want to get out of life. For Buddhists, it is the cessation of dukkha; for Christians it’s following the path of Christ and holiness; for me, I will admit that I am attached to tragedy, to beauty, to misery, and to happiness. To quote a favorite artist of mine, Conor Oberst, “I know debris it covers everything / but still I am in love with this life.”

 

                Whether or not the Bhagavad Gita teaches concern for or indifference to embodied life can be argued a number of different ways, as can any point made in the Bhagavad Gita, or any historical document for that matter, including the Bible and our own Constitution. I am certain that there are devoted followers of the Bhagavad Gita who believe in both sides of the argument, citing assorted verses to take up their case and stubbornly refusing to look at them another way. Having been a student of the Bhagavad Gita for only a few weeks, I cannot claim to be an expert. I can only say that, based on what I have read of the teachings, and on my personal interpretations of these teachings, I believe that the Bhagavad Gita, while not teaching concern over embodied beings, does not encourage indifference, either. From what I have read, it seems to say that, while you shouldn’t attach yourself to the wellbeing of others, you should be aware of it, and treat everybody and everything with the respect due to Brahman.

                “He who has no ill will to any being, who is friendly and compassionate, free from egoism and self-sense, even-minded in pain and pleasure, and patient, / The yogi who is ever content, self-controlled, unshakable in determination, with mind and understanding given up to Me—he, My devotee, is dear to Me” (Radhikrishnan and Moore p.144, chapter 12, verses 13-14). This passage is an example of what is expected of the yogin, an example which appears to encourage kindness and charitable dispositions. It does not sound like one who is indifferent to others, but rather who is conscious of the emotions of others, an unusual statement considering that the Bhagavad Gita also preaches against harboring emotions. I don’t believe these to be contradictory statements, however. While a yogin himself is not bound to human emotions, he must still understand that they exist, and of the role they play in the lives of the “deluded” masses. I say that he must still understand this because the state of a yogin is not immediately reached, he must have, at some moment, been “deluded” himself, and memories of that could not have escaped him. To acknowledge this in others is not against the teachings of the Bhagavad Gita, so long as the yogin retains a distance from the fruits of his action, and does not do good for others because he appreciates their reactions.

                I understand that is possible for the reader of the Bhagavad Gita to reach an impasse when verses seem to contradict each other. For example, the lines, “By restraining all the senses, being even-minded in all conditions, rejoicing in the welfare of all creatures—they come to Me indeed [just like the others]” (Radhikrishnan and Moore p.143, chapter 12, verses 4), suggest that a yogin exults in the welfare of others, while a later verse, “He who neither rejoices nor hates, neither grieves nor desires, and who has renounced good and evil—he who is thus devoted is dear to me” (Radhikrishnan and Moore p.144, chapter 12, verses 17) states that to rejoice is against doctrine. This word is brought up again, in a similarly disdainful light: “He who is without affection on any side, who does not rejoice or loathe as he obtains good or evil – his intelligence is firmly set [in wisdom]” (Radhikrishnan and Moore p.111, chapter 2, verses 57). So why rejoice in the welfare of others, when rejoicing is indicative of a deluded individual? Perhaps in the first passage, “rejoice” is used in reference to others, where in the other two it is used in regard to personal gain or circumstances, so that a yogin may rejoice, in the sense that it is more desirable, in the happiness of others, where he may not rejoice in his own fortune. In this sense, it is not contradictory to use the word “rejoice” in either passage, since the circumstances are different. We can see rejoicing in the wellbeing of others expressed earlier in the Bhagavad Gita: “The holy men whose sins are destroyed, whose doubts [dualities] are cut asunder, whose minds are disciplined, and who rejoice in doing good to all creatures attain the beatitude of God” (Radhikrishnan and Moore p.122, chapter 5, verse 25).

                The characteristics of a yogin are described as, “Humility [absence of pride], integrity [absence of deceit], non-violence, patience, uprightness, service of the teacher, purity of body and mind, steadfastness, and self-control…” (Radhikrishnan and Moore p.146, chapter 13, verse 7). These characteristics further the idea that a yogin hold proper and equal treatment of others in high regard. The passage, “The gateway of this hell leading to the ruin of the soul is threefold, lust, anger, and greed” (Radhikrishnan and Moore p.154, chapter 16, verse 21), expresses what yogins considered to be sin. However, all three sins, lust, anger, and greed, involve doing ill toward a second person.  To lust after somebody is degrading to that person, and to be angry at someone is to wish them ill or want to wrong them somehow, and greed is to want what they have. Expressing sin in this way shows that a yogin has only the bettering of others in mind, not necessarily as a goal, but as a job to do while embodied. A person with these characteristics, “…who is free from enmity to all creatures…” (Radhikrishnan and Moore p.143, chapter 11, verse 55) cannot be seen as apathetic, inhuman, and rude in the eyes of a Westerner, or of any other, for that matter, while it is true that the yogin remains unattached from the product or fruit of his labors.

                It is difficult to think of accepting both detachment and compassion, unfeeling and kindness, and yet the Bhagavad Gita teaches both, that both are necessary to end the cycle of rebirths. And while at first it may seem contradictory, as several teachings do, it is necessary to change the way we are used to thinking, as members of a western capitalist society, and realize that is possible to be completely unattached and uncaring towards everything we do and receive and give away, while still being able to do, receive, and give away. Furthermore, it is possible to be unfeeling, and still know what feeling is like. To treat embodied life compassionately, blind to caste, class, race, religion, species, or past, to believe in unconditional equality and work in and towards goodness are undeniable teachings of the Bhagavad Gita.

     Marcelle left her apartment at 4:30 in the morning, and walked quickly along the sidewalk. The hood of her red sweatshirt was up, shielding the sky from view of her apathetic eyes. Her rain boots tromped along the dry pavement, causing Marcelle to often stumble because these boots were much too large for her. Her knee-length skirt was wrinkled and speckled with acrylic paint, a detail Marcelle put there to give herself the appearance of an "intellectual artsy type." The street lamps illuminated her path with an orange hue, which was reflected in the city's cloudy sky.

    Marcelle is an emaciated 23 year old with an addiction to sleeping pills, caffeine, and pretentiousness. She steals her absent-minded neighbor's Adderall and stays up all night watching infomercials, drinking coffee with doxylamine and diphenhydramine pills, grinding her teeth, and giving herself magic-marker tattoos which smear when she sweats because she can't afford to run the air conditioner. She doesn't have any close friends so she uses her phone primarily for making lewd calls to strangers when she gets bored, which is usually around 2 in the morning. This is a lie; she is always bored.

    Marcelle kicked a stranger's car on the way to the diner because she wanted the alarm to go off but it didn't. No, she actually kicked it because she disagreed with its bumper sticker. Disappointed, she quickly forgot her failure and continued on. She turned into the diner with extremely bright, fluorescent lights.  This is Marcelle's favorite diner, because of how bright the lights are, and how the walls and floors are white, and how it all looks so sterile like a hospital. Upon entering, her mannerism changed so that she acted daintier, taking care not to stomp and setting her purse gently on the chair beside her. She did all of this while carefully watching the hostess.

    Marcelle stayed in the diner, drinking six cups of coffee and staring at the seventh until 7:45 in the morning when she smiled and thanked the server and exited, leaving a twenty dollar bill on the table.

    In the street, Marcelle met an acquaintance of hers, Alexei, who lived on the same floor of the apartment building they shared as she did.

    Alexei greeted Marcelle, walking quickly to meet her.

    "I'm jealous you have time to go out for breakfast," he said, smiling amicably. The truth was that Alexei found Marcelle attractive, if a little bit conceited, and wanted to spend some minutes talking with her before completing his journey to wherever. "I heard they have nice pastries there."

    "I wouldn't know about that, Andrei, I only went for caffè e rilassamento,” replied Marcelle, with a good dose of vexation. Her blunt annoyance caught her off guard, and she tried to recover coolly. “Where are you going?"

    Alexei paused for a moment, considered correcting Marcelle on his proper name, but could tell by her sunken, lack-luster eyes and spiteful response that she was perhaps not feeling well. "Marcelle, are you okay? Did you get any sleep last night? You look sick."

    Marcelle looked thoughtfully at Alexei, touched by the sincerity in his voice, but caught herself. She suddenly began to laugh, as if his remarks were completely unexpected and extremely amusing.

    "Andrei. You're so sweet." She paused, smiling sincerely at the confused boy. "I'm fine. I hope you have a nice day." She gave him a friendly pat on the shoulder and began to walk away. Alexei, still taken aback and unsure of what had just happened, smiled uneasily and said goodbye, but did not move for some time, his hopeful expression deteriorating quickly.

    Marcelle walked quickly away, and then began to skip, but the skipping made her tired and her muscles ache, though it's true there was not much muscle to her. So she stopped her skipping and sat for some time on a bus stop bench next to a wrinkled old man with a dirty suit and dry skin. She pulled 1200mg worth of encapsulated caffeine and put it in her mouth. She swallowed them with some Tussionex, justifying this action with Alexei's remark on her potential sickness.

    "Isn't it too early for a headache?" asked the old man, beaming at Marcelle with his cataract eyes and toothless smile.

    "It's never too early for a headache," Marcelle stated quite bluntly.

    The old man laughed. "I'm going to visit my grandson."

    Marcelle didn't care, and decided the old man had a foul odor. "Arrivederci, old man," she said, and stood up to go. The elder said nothing, because he didn't understand, but continued to smile, watching Marcelle walk away with his milky eyes.

    Marcelle stomped along with her rain boots some more, and arrived at her apartment building at 8:15 in the morning. She began the five story ascent to her apartment, but was worn out by the third floor. She sat on the stairs and took 600mg more of caffeine dry to help her finish the journey, before pulling out a cigarette and blowing smoke rings at the No Smoking sign.

    "Stronzata," she said, and thought of Andrei, though she vaguely felt that perhaps Andrei wasn't his name. Abram, Alexander, Abe....?

    She stood up slowly once again, pulling her rain boots off because they were hard to climb stairs in. As she passed the fourth landing, she thought about the man who died there a few days ago. A suicide, they had said: intentional overdose and self-mutilation. She stopped for a moment and opened the door to look down the hall at his apartment. The police tape was gone, but it was still vacant. He had apparently been dead several days before anybody found him.

    Marcelle shut the door and continued, thinking, "This building smells reeks, anyway. It's no wonder nobody noticed." She let herself into her apartment and threw the boots into a corner, dropping her hood and heading into the kitchen. It smelled like sour milk and perfume. She made a mental note to only buy non-perishables. She looked into her empty refrigerator, rubbed her nose once, and then shut it. She pulled at her hair for some time, staring at the linoleum and unconsciously grinding her teeth.

    At 9:30 in the morning, Marcelle, feeling hungry, snorted 25mg of her neighbor’s Adderall and then went to a desk and grabbed a notebook and pen because she wanted to write a letter to her sister, Ana. She stared blankly at the sheet of paper for a very long time, or maybe only a minute, before writing Ana’s name at the top, and her own at the bottom. Feeling satisfied, she stared smugly at the wall in front of her.

    At 11:00 in the morning, Marcelle left her apartment in sandals, having absent mindedly drunk another 4 cups of coffee in an attempt to obtain some inspiration for her letter. She had also downed some benzos when the shaking made it impossible to write legibly, and finally abandoned the communication effort when she realized she had filled the page with thoughtless doodles. She was going to the bookstore downtown to look for a copy of Dostoevsky’s “The Double” because she liked the idea of it, and she liked to tease the male barista with the awkward smile.

    Marcelle preferred to walk to where she was going, even if it was 6 miles away, because she liked to watch the people pass her by, and because she wanted to stay fit and thin and healthy. Sometimes, the people made her laugh, or else they made her feel very serious.

    At 11:30am, Marcelle's thoughts began to run very quickly and less coherently. People she walked by stared because she was really only bones and yellowish skin, had several bruises on her face, and her nose had begun to bleed and she did not seem aware of it or of them at all. At 11:32 in the morning, Marcelle stopped walking and was staring blankly in front of her, speaking in a combination of English and Italian, and though she felt invigorated and alive and happy, it seemed as if she were slowly being crushed by the weight of gravity against her tiny frame.

    "I'm so glad I could see the sun rise today! It was beautiful, and I think Andrei, or Alex, or I really can't remember his name, he is beautiful. Sorella, how are you? How long it has been since I have seen you, how I have missed you... perché avete.... andato? So beautiful, you missed.... Alexei."

    It had been 9 days since Marcelle had last slept.

    At 11:35 in the morning, Marcelle fell into convulsions and did not get up. At this moment, an unending stream of traffic was just going over the bridge.

( Additional information )

            Democracy, now perceived by some as the fairest form of selecting regional leaders, comes in many forms, and has had some difficulty in becoming an accepted means of decision making. From Parliamentary democracy to socialist democracy to Iroquois democracy, the fundamental principle of democracy is “majority rules.” The largest concern over democracy by the ruling class has been what is sometimes called, “the tyranny of the majority,” as well as skepticism towards the competency of the general public. We in the United States have what is known as representative democracy, which is generally a way of including the public in major national and regional decisions, while keeping the authoritative power in the hands of the government. The United States exercises representative democracy through the Electoral College: a group of people representing each state and the District of Columbia, equal to the number of their state’s members in the U.S. House of Representatives, plus one for each of its two senators. The members of the Electoral College represent the votes of their state in an all-or-nothing final vote, so that the candidate who wins the popular vote in a state receives all of that state’s electoral votes.

            This process of election in the United States is either not understood by the public, or contested, supported primarily by those holding official government positions. In a recent poll it was shown that a majority of Americans support the idea of using just the popular vote, or direct democracy, to elect government officials. The poll was even taken across different political parties, showing that 78% of Democrats, 60% of Republicans, and 73% of independent voters were in favor of direct democracy. If democracy does use “majority rules” as its fundamental basis, why not take this information into account? The Electoral College was originally put into place by the Founding Fathers who feared this “tyranny of the majority,” which was concerned primarily with suffrage among laborers and indentured servants, as well as concern over the slow means of communication and travel which inhibited candidates from reaching citizens in rural areas. However, their concerns no longer apply to us in this day of live satellite television, mobile phones, high-speed internet, and much swifter forms of transportation. Many groups and organizations are working towards bringing down the Electoral College and replacing our current representative democracy with direct democracy. But without all the facts, and with little to no focus on the issue in popular media or debate because the current system is simply accepted or unquestioned by the general American public, it is difficult to understand the two opposing sides, or even see what the importance of the issue is.

            Common arguments made against the Electoral College primarily concern themselves with the unfairness of the method. While the electors have pledged to represent the popular candidate, they are not constitutionally bound to do so. Those that do not vote for the popular candidate are considered “faithless voters,” and the freedom for College members to override the popular vote is seen as contradictory and unjust. Another justice-seeking finger pointed at the Electoral College concerns itself with that, not only is it possible for candidates with the majority popular vote to lose the Electoral vote, but it has already happened: several times. The first was in 1876 with the election of Rutherford B. Hayes, then again in 1888 with the election of Benjamin Harrison, and most recently in 2000, with the election of George W. Bush Jr. over Al Gore. This method of voting puts heavy focus on particular states, especially “swing states,” which, unlike notorious Republican state Texas or Democratic state New York, have no solid standing in any one party. Candidates spend less time and money in party secured states than they do in swing states, and they may base their campaign strategies around the Electoral College, instead of popular votes. This inhibits those party secured states whose voters know in advance who is likely to win their state, and thus have little incentive to go to the polls and vote. People against direct democracy argue that using popular vote would simply shift candidate focus to large cities at the expense of rural areas, but the current system encourages candidates to focus on these swing states at the expense of party secured states, a much more detrimental and profound cost. The existence of the Electoral College winner-take-all system is also a disadvantage for third parties. Many voters believe that voting for a third party is a wasted vote, and fear that it may propel the success of an undesired candidate. Because the Electoral College only takes the one majority vote, third parties face impossible odds against the two central parties. A suggestion made to improve the Electoral College has been to eliminate winner-take-all, and use proportional votes instead, so that it would be possible for third parties to have at least a few Electoral votes.  However, it is possible that proportional vote would reduce that state’s influence in the Electoral College, and is also believed to be very difficult to implement.

            Supporters of the Electoral College believe that representative democracy remains faithful to the federal character of the United States. That is, “voting must come down to each individual state, or the federal nature of the United States will give way to a single, massive centralized government” ("Direct Election of the U.S. President "). They also believe that a candidate, through the Electoral College, requires widespread popular support to win, the fancy of minorities and those with special interests, and neutralizes turnout disparities between states by having electoral votes independent of state turnout. However, it is possible to win presidency without broad national support, such as the example of Abraham Lincoln, who won in 1860 without earning the vote of a single southern state. Supporters also argue that the Electoral College maintains the stability of the two-party system, and that oppressing third parties is a good thing, as it protects “the most powerful office in the country” from haphazard, flip-flopping minorities. Critics disagree that emerging third parties are unwanted, and use Ralph Nader’s success and popularity in 2000 as an example. Those in favor of the Electoral College also contend that the existence of the College helps in such problems as the death or unsuitability of a candidate, or attempts at vote fraud, since recounts occur only in states under suspicion, as opposed to nationally. They also say that electors can choose a suitable replacement “more competently,” in the case of a death or invalidity, than the general voting public could, although there has never been a case of a winning party candidate no longer being able to continue their run.

            Both sides of the American Democratic coin have their merits and faults, and enough people have concerned themselves over the current system’s issues to not just cry for abrogation, but instead propose reforms, such as the Amar Plan, Proportional Allocation of Electoral Vote, and the Congressional District Method. In the Amar Plan, states agree to allocate their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular election, thus nullifying the essential purpose of having individual state Colleges; the Proportional Allocation of Electoral Vote would eliminate the winner-take-all method of the College, and have electors cast votes proportional to the percentage each candidate receives from the state’s popular vote; and with the Congressional District Method, the state would be divided into a number of districts, giving each district’s popular vote winner one of the state’s electoral votes, and the winner of the state-wide popular vote would be awarded the final two electoral  votes. However, none of these proposals seem to practically or effectively address the issues, and, in the case of the Congressional District Method, would still have the possibility of allowing the loser of the national popular vote to win. Popular direct democracy reformation proposals include Direct Election with Instant Runoff Voting, which allows citizens to cast votes for several candidates by ranking them in order of preference, and if no clear majority is made, then the candidate with the least amount of votes is removed from the ballot and votes are cast again; and Direct Vote with Plurality Rule, requiring each person to cast one vote for the candidate of their choice, and reflecting more accurately the popular will of the nation. Statistics have shown that more people participate in elections when they know or believe that their vote has a chance of making a difference on the outcome, and the use of the Direct Vote with Plurality Rule causes each vote to affect the final total, thus eliminating the problematic dilution of popular votes through the Electoral College. Serj Tankian, lead vocalist, rhythm guitarist, and keyboardist for the alternative metal band System of a Down, is an outspoken supporter of Direct Election with Instant Runoff Voting, and advocates for it through an online petition on his website.  In support of Instant Runoff Voting, Tankian writes, “Tragically, too many of us who are electing public officials are affected and influenced by who is leading in the polls as opposed to who best represents our political and moral agenda. If IRV was in place, voters in 2004 wouldn’t have had to worry that their votes for Ralph Nader would have benefited George Bush” (Tankian).

            So why is the United States sticking with a system that has the ability to disregard and override the majority of its citizens’ decisions, when a prominent ideal of the nation is Democracy, “majority rule”? And why is the United States ignoring appeals for reform, or removal, of the Electoral College, when the majority of citizens seem to prefer a direct election? Primary reasons seem to stem from tradition, practicality, and that current electoral glitches are not significant enough to warrant change. They also point at countries like France and Russia, who had direct democracies, as examples of what could go wrong, even though countries like Switzerland have had, and been successful with, direct democracy for over 160 years. Arguments against direct democracy primarily concern themselves with pointing out flaws, like the scale of such an election, practicality, efficiency, and complexity, while ignoring remedial ideas presented by supporters. I understand that the Electoral College is intended to represent the opinion of the people, and allow elections to run smoother and more efficiently, but perhaps we should consider a more accurate means of representing the people, or even allow the people to represent themselves. If we think back to the numbers in the poll concerning public preference towards direct democracy, as well as the incidences concerning Rutherford, Harrison, and Bush, shouldn’t we also wonder why a country that boasts of freedom and democracy ignores the primary principle of democracy: “majority rules”? Or is that what is truly important: not the majority, but what majority? The majority of the Electoral College is greater than the majority of the people; the majority of the federal government is greater than the majority of the people. Is this not a dire and consequential flaw in the system? Should we not, then, be paying as much attention to the method by which we pick our leaders as we do the leaders we have to pick from, or else face another 1876, 1888, or 2000? Or maybe it doesn’t even matter if we do or not. After all, we are only the people.

One day I saw
from my rear-view mirror
the sun rise,
I mean God,
because it looked a lot
like what I think He
should like like,
if He were to exist.
Like a giant beautiful
explosion of pink and red
and orange and purple and
every color, with clouds,
and I wept on the highway
for that beauty, because
I was filled with such
a sense of magnificence
and insignificance, because
I could never be anything
even close to that sunrise.
But I was grateful for
the revelation it offered.

I bled in my car once, too,
and I wept. I was listening
to music, and there were murdered
deer on the road, and I cried
for them, and I was bleeding because
I was sad, and it stained my
jacket, my gray jacket.
I bled a lot, I bled profusely,
and it stained my gray jacket,
even though I tried to leave
no evidence of my melancholy.
I would have given anything
to be those deer.
I left a lot of evidence,
but nobody cared.
Only my soiled gray jacket.

A third time I wept in my car
because I was nervous and I was
confused, and doing something wrong,
and I dropped my cell phone in
the river, and Sophia was confused,
too, and so I cried because I thought
crying would make things clearer.
Instead, I went home and lied to my
mother, and Sophia slept under a dead
bird, and my cell phone was dead, too,
and I cried in the morning because
I felt bad for leaving my friends
under a dead bird.

There was also a time where I did not
cry in my car, but laughed. With a girl
I had only just met, and we were smoking,
and watching the moon and the stars,
and the police came and told us to go away,
so we went away and looked at naked Asians,
and laughed, and watched people, and smoked,
and I accidentally burned the ceiling of my car
trying to burn the moon out of the sky.
I laughed, and the moon is grateful I missed.

I laughed by myself once, too, because
a funny song came on the radio.
They could not pronounce the word "vacant"
and I laughed to myself, audibly,
because I wanted myself to know I thought
something was funny, and so I laughed
with myself instead, at how they could not
say "vacant," even though the song reminded me
of myself. I guess that's funny, too.
It was a very selfish moment,
but, for a moment, I was all right with that.

(I smashed that car into an Oldsmobile
and now all my laughter and tears and
memories are lying quietly in a junkyard.)

He was now slowly instilling into his soul
the poison which he hoped would blacken it,
and change its hue forever.
Who can hope to cure us?
When such as I, who have no certain roof
but the coffin-lid, set our rotten hearts
on any man, and let him fill the place
that has been a blank through all our wretched lives.
Pity us.
Living grave-stone, with its epitaph in blood.
Let no man talk of murderers escaping justice,
and hint that Providence must sleep.
We have none of us long to wait for Death.
Patience, patience!
He’ll be here soon enough for us all.

            “The Hollow Men” by T.S. Eliot, when read for the first time, seems to be a kaleidoscope of dark, fragmented images, vague religious and political allusions, and a general sense of hopelessness and confusion. It is at first difficult to see the fine thematic strand that connects the five parts of the poem together, creating not a fragmented poem of intermittent and disconnected imagery, but journeys through the various landscapes of what could be considered either literal death, or the metaphorical emotional death of a being. Each part of the poem describes to us a different perspective to the descent into what is revealed at the end to be the way the world ends, using such methods as allusions, sensory details, and metaphor.

               The two lines that precede the poem are allusions to Jospeh Conrad’s The Heart of Darkness and the life and death of Guy Fawkes, “Mistah Kurtz—he dead. / A penny for the Old Guy” (1-2).  “The Hollow Men” makes many allusions to outside sources, often causing confusion or disconnect if the reader is unfamiliar with these sources. However, if the reader is familiar with what Eliot is referencing, then the emotions and ideas that accompany the phrase are worth dozens or even hundreds of lines that Eliot could have written to get across the same idea. In the case of The Heart of Darkness and Guy Fawkes, we get a sense of the human mind gone awry, echoing in the final words spoken on the deathbed of Conrad’s main character, Kurtz, “The horror! The horror!” after reflecting on the deeds of his life, and the anticlimactic end to Fawkes’ life, with his elaborate plans and humiliating failure. The emotions and thoughts and events entailed by these first to allusions ricochet all along the poem, even to the very last line: “This is the way the world ends / Not with a bang, but a whimper” (96-97), recalling the last moments of Fawkes’ life, where his plans of destroying Parliament are dashed, and he is left with only a whimper at his execution.

               Throughout the poem we are led through changing landscapes. First, it is more of a desolate location, with no defining attributes, until we move on to “death’s dream kingdom” where we are given the vision of a broken column and a tree before we go to the “cactus land,” or “death’s other kingdom,” defined by a raised stone image to which dead men seem to hopelessly pray to. We are then in a valley, “Gathered on this beach of the tumid river” (62), which is reminiscent of Dante’s limbo, where men stand on the beach of the river, unable to be judged to either cross the river into hell, or be saved and taken into the kingdom of God.

               Some may argue that the entire poem is a metaphor, not a literal descent into “the end of the world,” or physical death. It is possible that the poem is symbolic of a man’s descent into emotional death, into apathy and hopelessness. That the hollow man represents an amoral, hopelessly confused man who wants those “with direct eyes” (16), or those who still believe in goodness and beauty, to see him, “not as lost / Violent souls, but only / As the hollow men / The stuffed men” (17-20). The fading star in the second part of the poem then describes the man’s waning faith, the star representing Christ, which appears again in the third part as another fading star above a broken stone which the man prays to, “Trembling with tenderness” (51). In the fourth part, the symbol of Christ is described as a valley of dying stars, where the hollow men stand in what we can believe to be limbo, waiting for Christ to return, “The hope only / Of empty men” (68-69). In the final part of the poem, the child’s rhyme that it begins with is perhaps reminiscent of the man’s childhood. However, it is perverted by the juxtaposition of the term “prickly pear” over the more seemingly peaceful mulberry bush. The lines following the rhyme are more indicative towards the new stance the man is taking on life, unable to pick between cause and effect, parallel principles, and oppositions, he seems to settle on the shadow between them all. Apathetic, emotionless, and callous, “This is the way the world ends” (94).

               Eliot’s poem “The Hollow Men” is open to many analytical conclusions. Some may argue that it ends on a hopeful note, while others view its final lines to be among the most profound and telling ever to have been transcribed. Its use of allusions, causing us to tie in our own emotions towards what’s being alluded to, sensory perception, and metaphors which can be defined in several ways, lends the poem its vagueness, its openness to definition and scrutiny, and its timelessness.

I'm surrounded by things that make me cry.
Pictures from last summer,
a painting I got for my birthday,
a note that says "we're sorry,"
books of poetry,
Polaroids.
I keep them around for nostalgia's sake,
or because when, at one in the morning,
I consider cleaning things out, the idea
of finally giving up, of letting go,
makes me stay in bed, makes my eyes burn
and I feel weak and childish,
and it's worse to know you don't care.

I want to cut myself
out of the big picture,
erase my memory and pretend
like I never existed.

I don't care what people say
about journeys, and how they're
the only thing that matters.
I want to sleep through it all,
like an astronaut, sleeping
for years and years until
I get to where I'm going,
and I won't have to regret
anything, because I slept
through it all, and don't
remember anything, except
my dreams, and you can't
regret dreams, only resent them.
So I'm under sheets at 4am,
thinking I'm so goddamn tired,
just close my fucking eyes,
blast through those burnt-out stars.
The Earth will do just fine
without me.

With the dusk light seeping in through the unwashed window, she looked more like an angel than he could bear. Particles of dust illuminated by the rays floated lazily around her figure, lending her a holy aura that caused him to think of that painting, the visitation of Gabriel to Mary, which his mother had in her house when he was younger. It was unsettling.

They said nothing. The silence was palpable; a tense lack of noise like when a sinner pauses and considers himself before confessing to a patient priest. But the girl did not seem to be waiting for anything, her childish form hovering several feet above the wooden floor. Her blank face was staring at a blank spot on the wall above the man’s head. He was looking up at her from his spot on a chair, his back to a computer monitor whose hard drive hummed quietly, unnoticed, from somewhere on the floor. She didn’t blink, her painted blue eyes staring at nothing, seeing nothing.

He wasn’t sure what to expect, and it felt as if they had been there for hours. Her white dress looked like the one his sister had worn for her first communion, or maybe for her baptism. Her long, dark, plastic eyelashes were exaggerated against her pale skin. Her presence was unnerving and unexpected, and her silence was making him uncomfortable. But a shimmer near the ceiling caught his eye, and he let out a soft, sibilant exhalation. A puppet.

“I can see your strings,” he finally says, his voice piercing the silence swiftly, like a bullet sinking into the soft heart of a rabbit.

Her response was immediate, her expression unchanged and without any movement, he noticed, even from her lips. “I can see yours.”

He woke up on the floor, sweating and shivering, his eyes wide, pupils running through various states of dilation and constriction despite a consistency in lighting. The sound of processing coming from the computer in the corner was the only sound in the room, the street outside devoid of life.

He tried to pull himself onto his bed, his body feeling weak and numb. Rivulets of tears, sweat, and blood ran across his skin, forming small capillaries that resembled the branches of winter trees. On the sagging mattress, his body was wracked with sudden convulsions, causing him to choke and gasp and rattle, his muscles exploding into spasms beneath his white, nearly transparent skin.

“Mom?” he asked the woman who sat beside the bed. Her hands were folded cordially in her lap, her back straight and her gently wrinkled face staring down at him with a look of polite concern.

But she said nothing, her blank eyes watching him with the distracted worry of a mother over a fevered son. His breath was short and ragged, and at looking at her face he almost began to cry. She had always wanted more for him, had always tried so hard for him.

Tangled in soaked sheets, shivering with a ferocity he was unable to control, his vision was wildly shifting from the woman beside him, to the ceiling, to the wall, to the woman, to the door, to the woman again. She had not moved.

“Are you really my mother?” he gasped, anguished with the gravity of the question. “Please…”

He could see something in the darkness, something on the other side of the room. He tried to move deeper into his corner, pushing his back against the wall, trying to get as far away from it as possible. From the darkness on the other side, something hit the ground and rolled into the dim light produced by the street lamps outside. A slender, cylindrical object. He watched it roll nearer and then stop near the muttering of the hard drive. A syringe?

He didn’t move, his heart bashing against his chest brutally. The thing’s skin was so white that it caught whatever light fell into the room, an alabaster demon standing in silence only meters away. His throat was so tight that he couldn’t make a sound, only a soft spirant hiss that exposed his distress.

It was only maybe two feet tall, and if he squinted he could see a human form. It was wearing a dress, and had dark eyes, two black holes amidst the whiteness of its skin. A porcelain doll? He shivered visibly, inhaling and exhaling quickly in a respiratory shudder.

“Inauspicious, don’t you think?” it asked.

He was crying on the bed because nothing was sitting still and he was afraid and he didn’t know why he was bleeding or from where but the sheets were red and stained and the computer was getting so loud and he couldn’t speak or breathe right or think straight and his heart was smashing against his sternum like it had been buried alive. He looked at the dark figure sitting at the end of the bed, the expression on his face asking for some sort of help, or solace, or comfort.

But the figure said nothing, its posture flaccid, wings folded loosely against its back. With a lantern in one hand, it offered the other up to him, the expression on its face unchanging beneath its dark hood.

His hands clutched the sheets, mouth open and slack as soft rattles escaped his lips, but he couldn’t cough. He moaned softly, his body getting so cold and so uncomfortable, and looking at the hand presented before him, he considered that perhaps it would take him someplace better. But as he looked up at the face of the creature, he felt some sort of familiarity with it. Like he had seen it before, before he left home, before he tried to pull himself together with needles, before his skin became bruised like fruit that has been dropped too many times, before…

He let go of the sheets and took the other’s hand with his own, thereupon letting go of the room and slipping gently into some kind of warm tide that would take him away from this dirty, landlocked town.

The orange light of the ascending sun slipped through the dirty window, illuminating the wooden floorboards of the third floor apartment, catching the gray, empty shell of an old computer hard drive, and reflecting off the white, tangled sheets of a bed where the slender, unmoving body of a young man is undisturbed by the brilliant morning light.

The winter sky at night reminds me of us.
Purple skies, orange street lights, visible breaths
and paper boats, and thin ice
and falling on purpose and throwing rocks
and cutting through people's lawns
and worrying about it, even though it's like
10 at night, and they probably don't care,
just so we can see the city we're working so hard
to get away from. It's tragically beautiful,
and thinking about
apple cider
custard
kites
frozen ponds
puddles beneath swing sets
strawberry milk
Halloween
freckles on everybody's noses
(except, I don't have any
I think I'm the only one)
mixed CDs
eating outside
cigarettes
basements
anyway,
it makes me miss my memories,
and all I have are my memories.
Where would I be without them?
Polaroids always make things look sad,
and distant. I guess that's accurate,
even if I only took the picture
yesterday.

I saw the pacemaker beneath your skin,
a dormant insect giving shocks to your system
every time your heart said you needed them.
When I saw it, it scared me.

It scared me to see you there
in a white bed with a blanket that had
a color and texture that reminded me
of the Cookie Monster.

My mom brought saints to watch over you.
Saints with pristine skin and flowing gowns,
holding children, candles, or swords.
Everybody admired their sculpted faces.

I think she's torn about this, my mom.
She feeds you, and speaks very sweetly to you,
and I think she prays for you.
But she's already let you go, and it hurt.

On New Years, the nurse and you were alone.
I don't think either of you were shaken by
the fireworks; you because you were dying,
her because everybody had already died.

You said you weren't hungry
and you pretended to watch TV,
even though you can't see without glasses.
I think you had given up then.

You hadn't smiled in a month,
but you smiled for her.
Who did you think she was?
Your smile made me sad.

So I guess that's why you left.
To be with her, and that's all right.
You waited for me like you said you would.
Thank you.

I'm not sure what kind of a poet
I want to become. The kind
that lives in a European town,
sipping tiny cups of coffee,
looking out a blue-paned window
at a sea port with colorful ships,
or the kind that lives in a shitty
one-room apartment taking shots
of vodka from the bottle,
drowning in debt and blood
with a needle in my arm
thinking about the ocean.
They both sort of seem
beautiful and ideal to me.

From the mountain we could see our house
and that's where we were, with jagged breaths
watching the clouds engulf the city,
eating everyone alive.
But our ears were popped with altitude,
and the wind was angry, so we heard nothing,
and your mother's lips were too far away to read
as they shouted for you, those airy monsters
devouring everything we thought we knew.

The only reason you didn't die
was because the needle broke
before you had finished,
and you lay convulsing on the floor
and your girlfriend just watched
and wouldn't say a word
and so he called the police
and everyone ran
and someone took your wallet
and someone took your shit,
and your girlfriend closed her eyes
and he held your head,
which is when they heard the sirens
which is when you went still
which is when they took you away,
they took you away.



Are you awake?

I took what Star said seriously,
because everybody looked up
to her and said very nice things
about her, and I think Amber
believed in her, too, because
we ended up in the same place.
I mean, tangled up in wires and
clouds, muttering prayers, maybe
not to God, maybe to ana, maybe
to nobody. I don't know
where Star is now, and to be honest
I don't know where I am, either.

An exaggerated portrait of self-contempt, he lay in bed, tangled in soaked sheets and shivering, like a baby, unfamiliar with this new world and feeling nostalgic for the womb. His eyes were seeing something beyond the room, pupils running through constricted and dilated states despite a consistency in light, focusing on objects that weren’t there. In an attempt to communicate, he opens his mouth, only to suddenly have his body wracked with convulsions that cause him to choke and gasp and rattle without having any air effectively enter his lungs. Rivulets of tears, sweat, and blood run across his skin, forming small capillaries that resemble the branches of trees, reaching blindly up to heaven.

In the corner of the room sits an un-tuned guitar with two broken strings and three missing tuning pegs. On cloudy afternoons, he'd take that guitar to the park and play it for people who he hoped would drop coins for him. He would take those coins and he would buy pills, the same pills that lay scattered on the floor, that he thought would help him forget his humanity, that was now brutally reminding him of his mortality.

Sounds from the bar downstairs drifted upwards, mixing with the hum of an air conditioner he kept running to help try and drown the noise. Some of them drank for their sorrows, others for joy, lining their glasses up like soldiers on the counter and priding themselves over what wonderful generals they are.

In the sky, he didn’t bother to look over his shoulder.