Unforgiving Places – Sky to Falling Sky

End of another Day – The Barn at Soergel Hollow – Evans City, PA

Time for me to get out of this unforgiving place…
Sun on my back and the wind blows on my face…
Time to run from the never ending pain…
Four hours till darkness and no sign of rain…

Under the full moon I quietly hug the end…
A law is to be broken and rules will bend…
Stars brightly shine from sky to falling sky…
Sobriety is low and the good memories high…

Windows cracked open to let in the warm breeze…
The ground settles down as the trees lose their leaves…
Distant train warning approaching with speed…
Another soul in back while the others take the lead…

How long must one wait to understand paradise…
The breeze through the trees is my only advice…
Heavens gates separate the mighty church and state…
When the trees lose their leaves we will understand fate…

Broken branches fall in the storm of our existence…
Life is of hardships and death is of resistance…
Mountain sides slide into the shaded valleys below…
A swamp simply sits while the great rivers flow…

To give is to practice empathy like planting a seed…
The poor become flowers while the rich nurture weeds…
Into the forest a mother chases her one and only son…
Only after death do the different function as one…

plant petunias and question everything – chriscondello

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Slaying Dragons – Felon Dreaming

“The First Rays of Sunlight” – Frick Park – Pittsburgh, PA – An older photograph… But perfectly suited for this poem… This cairn is a representation of how I want to feel… I want rays of sunshine… Not the black cloud often seen following me…

Eyes on the ceiling… Back to the ground…
Rain drops drop in a rhythmic sound…
Thinking about how my life would be…
Living without heroin and a felony…

My arms show the scars of a million pricks…
Result of a mountain of heroin bricks…
Experience that only earned me a fight…
Desire to live lies in my will to write…

Writing is my last shot at redemption…
Art and photography my only salvation…
The few worlds where pain gets you paid…
One of the trades I bring in spades…

No options but to carve my own path…
Stand up and give the haters my wrath…
Take away my voice but can’t take my pen…
Thanks to God I still have a friend…

My only option is to continue writing…
Accept reality and continue fighting…
I will never be a part of the white-collar crowd…
Searching for a way to make someone proud…

Looking for a reason… A will to live…
A continuing reason to charitably give…
Locked out of opportunity… Left alone…
Societal failure… I’m on my own…

Can’t look down I gotta keep looking up…
When my glass is half empty I’ll hit you with my cup…
The world always seems to be pushing me down…
The jokes on you… My best work is on the ground…

plant petunias and question everything – chriscondello

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The Other Side of the Noose

“Self Portrait” – © chriscondello 2013 – Conceptual Composition – Hamnett Way – Wilkinsburg, PA – Alley puddle… Mud… Food Coloring… And my reflection…

It’s 2 AM and sleep eludes me… Honestly… I don’t know how I ever sleep… I have gone 7 days without sleep or food… I’ve gone months without real rest… Shit… I’ve gone years without rest… The only difference now is the absence of opiates… I still can’t seem to shake the baggage…

Damn people… I’m really struggling…
Ups and downs like I’m constantly juggling…
The moment I stand I’m torn to the ground…
You chop me down without making a sound…

Five hundred and sixty five days clean…
Still not sure what they meant by serene…
I wish that I could unload these bags…
Even if it’s just my shitty used rags…

A hundred dollar camera… Decade old computer…
Tough to add value when you were just a junky user…
Resumes a joke… All my teeth are broke…
Writing this makes me want to cry and choke…

I need to find a place that I fit in…
A place where they will see past my grin…
A place where I can feel accepted…
Instead of feeling repeatedly rejected…

Until then… I’ll cover up with my hood…
Trying to find a medium that will be understood…
Took some time to look into school…
Met with roadblocks because I’m a felonious fool…

Someday I hope to find a way to make a dollar…
In industries dominated by brilliant fucking scholars…
Photography… Writing… Artistic behavior…
Doesn’t mean a thing unless your the lord our savior…

How can I compete against a CMU degree?..

I can’t…

I have to constantly remind myself I’ll be ok…
Suicide is not an option… I’d rather pray…
Pray to a god that doesn’t give a fuck about me…
Laughing at the broke guy writing about trees…

Empty wallet… Empty life… Another fucking joke…
Talking to plants… Perpetually broke…
What I lack in money… I make up in heart…
Praying for daylight… Another fresh start…

It doesn’t matter… I’ll just fuck it up…
Fill it up then spill the cup…
You make me painfully aware I have no value…
A sentiment that I was already aware…

I need to find my place on this earth…
A simple attempt to rationalize my birth…
I mean… You untied the noose around my neck…
I was happily dead during the Emergency check…

Why the fuck didn’t you leave me hang?..
Instead I’m here as a broken ass man…
I have the tracts to prove my stupid move…
Ten years spent in the heroin groove…

Try to get a job with that reference…

So tomorrow… I’ll take my cheap ass camera to work…
Till the earth with my broken pitch fork…
Dreaming… Believing my life will work out…
Believing there’s a reason I didn’t check out…

There has to be a place for me… I’m just not sure where to find it… Or… If it will find me…

Until then… I’ll keep on keeping on…

plant petunias and question everything – chriscondello

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For My Friend

“Singular Squill” – © chriscondello 2013 – Calming blue… Soul soothing tones… The perfect companion on a day like today…

I wrote this yesterday… But I couldn’t press post until today… Sorry for the delay…

Today I received some grave news regarding a close family friend… Things are not looking good for him right now… This is not something I have had to deal with in quite some time… My initial feelings were rather cold… Having used heroin for the better part of a decade… I had become accustomed to regular death… Almost hardened to it… I expected it… And as a user… I embraced it…

It took roughly ten minutes for what I had just been told to sink in… Oddly… My initial feelings reminded me of being dope sick… I just felt ill… My initial reaction was purely physical… My stomach twisted… My head started to throb… Then I realized what was happening…

My face got warm… And it became difficult to see… Weird… My mind left the present… And immediately focused on the past… Memories… And not the bad memories I commonly associate with the people I used to use drugs with… But good memories… The kind you relate with a real friend…

The feeling was so foreign to me that the only thing I could comprehend doing was heading to the woods… It is the only place that makes any sense to me at all… Walking at break neck speeds… I choked back tears along the entire seven block walk to Frick Park… I have severed a finger without making a sound other than quietly asking to be taken to the hospital… I don’t cry… But today I cried…

Normally when I get in the woods I become a different person… I become highly aware of my surroundings… I look for color… Observe movement… Listen to everything… I don’t just think of it as walking through the woods… I walk with the woods… I don’t subtract… I add…

Today was different… I was expecting the good forest vibe to trump my grief… I was expecting the trees to kill my pain… Or at least dull it… Like an opiate dulls physical pain… But it did not… Although I was no longer on the brink of crying… I was still lost in thought… As I walked aimlessly through the woods… I realized that my mind was far from the present… I had no focus… I had no aim… I was just off-balance…

As I started to realize what I was feeling… I was able to focus it… And use it to some degree… Though I would compare it to learning to walk all over again… Normally… When I find a place to stop and work… I can focus on the present and get right to it… But today I could not focus… My mind was in the trees…. My mind was with my friend…

“Watching” – © chriscondello 2013 – It is difficult to write about the feelings I had running through my mind while I was on this rock… Really painful…

As I clawed my way to the top of the steepest trail in the park… My mind was focused on getting as far away from the relentless onslaught of people walking their dogs through the park as humanly possible… On a normal day… This is one of the parks best attributes… But not today…Today I needed to get as far away from them as possible… I needed a place to be invisible…

At the top of one of the trails lies a shale outcropping… From this rock… I can see five trails… From this rock… I can see myself… From this rock… I can see you in the pale gray distance… I will do more than this stack of stones… Maybe 100 stacks… Maybe 1000 stacks… I just don’t know… I won’t know until it feels right… The only thing I do know… Is he deserves more… It is very rare to know someone who has had a positive effect on every person they came in contact with… Those that do… Deserve something special… I don’t grieve like most people… And I don’t memorialize like most people… But I do cry…

“Holding Up” – © chriscondello 2013 – Because when you needed a friend to help hold you up… He was always available… And willing to help…

I will create art……
I will plant trees…
But most importantly…
I will not forget…

peace – chriscondello

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Biohazardous Waste and Folgers… Not the best part of waking up!

Hot cup of coffee while the sun comes up… The first sign of morning is the laser beam of blue light that is enhanced by the cigarette smoke that accompanies my coffee… My body is still numb from the sleep… But my mind is electric from the lack of rest… You see… My body may have been asleep… But my mind wouldn’t shut up… Maybe I can focus for a few…

Let me see here… I just can’t seem to get my mind in order to write… Concentration seems to elude me… Blah!.. Seems to be the only complete thought I can generate… Nothing… Nil… Nada… Zero… Just sit and watch the news… With a cat… And my empty thoughts… Thoughts of nothing… Thoughts of everything… So many thoughts… I can’t seem to be able to put them into words…

Is it possible for the human mind to think nothing?.. Because it’s a very common answer to the question “what are you thinking?”…  I mean… Who in the hell actually thinks nothing?.. Even when I rest… My mind seems to just roll forward… From one thought to another… My mind weaves in and out of mental traffic… All that I can usually do is hold on… And hope for a red light…

Sometimes my thoughts are dissonant… I wrestle with the daily struggle that is the symphony of my mind… I struggle with every choice I have ever made… Sometimes it feels like a prison… As it does today… A prison that won’t let you write… Or display any kind of emotion… Emotion is nothing more than a sign of weakness—what a stupid statement…

Sometimes remembering something is worse than forgetting… My desire to be a socially sentient being has led me way off the beaten path… It’s amazing how many mistakes you can make in the name of friendship… But at the end of the day… I still have ten years of nothing… A million “exp” points and no gold…

I long to forget so much… And I hate to remember things… You could almost say that I have a fear of my memories… The dominant memories are drug related… A daily struggle I will never get used to… A struggle that at one time left me hanging by an extension cord… Even death is a feeling that I vividly remember… And every thought leading up to it… Save that for another time…

Recent memories are of a guy I used to hang with… He lived in a cold basement with his fiance… Junkies… Like I was… Held together by a parasitic bond… They seemed to feed off each other… Though in reality she fed off of him…

In this damp hell of a basement the only available light came from a candle… And a small glass block window that let the cold in through what I was told was a bullet hole… The lack of light was a good thing though… Not really much to see… A soaking wet mattress sans box spring on the floor… Two garbage bags of clothes… And an assortment of drug paraphernalia that would warrant a biohazard sign… Everything else was darkness… The penetrating sound of dripping… And nothing…

It was a rare thing for me to say I had a friend while I was still using… I guess we weren’t so much friends… But we had history… I went to school with him… And he always looked out for me… He hung himself in a jail cell… For reasons I actually understand… Oddly enough I was the first person his fiance called… At the time… I was the only person she thought would care… But I wasn’t sad that he was dead… I was sad that I lost my hook-up…

That is the kind of thought that predominately occupies my memory…  Everything I see reminds me of painful times and places… I find it very difficult to be positive… Though I try… As a writer I am trying to explore subjects that aren’t so doom and gloom… I hope this post puts my writing into a little  perspective…

Peace, love and happiness are feelings I am now attempting to explore… But given the fact that as an addict the only times I ever felt these emotions was when I was sky-high… You can understand my fear of the relation…

emotion is nothing more than a sign of humanity – chriscondello

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