Sometimes when things are quiet and I can finally admit to myself, yeah, you’re alone… that’s when I think of my brother, and all the nothing there is. Just a great negative space in the center of my heart where nothing can be. It’s then that I know, without a doubt, there is no God and all my hoping isn’t going to change a thing. It’s then that I realize I don’t know anything. I’m no better than the stones.

But then Langston will charge into the room, bustling with energetic demands, and I remember, no, I’m not. I’m not alone. There are things that need to be done, and time is running short. I have to explain some things, boy. Listen carefully. I love you. That means you matter. Don’t forget it. Even after I’m gone and your mother is gone and you’re all alone with nothing but hunger and cold. Remember you matter. Think that and nothing else. There’s nothing else you need to know or believe.

And I wonder, who told me these things? My parents? But who told them? And so on and so on, back to the very beginning, before there were words or lies or confusion. Who told us we were special? And why do we believe it so? No matter what life throws at us, no matter how ugly it is, something deep down will not give up. A quiet voice, and not even that. Like the urge to breathe or suckle, we are compulsive dreamers, always tempting the horizon.

Stevie Wonder sang “they say that Heaven is 6-zillion light years away/but I say it’s taken Him so long/because we’ve got so far too come.”

Maybe the journey is coming to re-learn what my son hasn’t forgotten yet, what he has just learned by being born. He’s special, he was created, and he has a place. He’s loved.

And if you’ve ever been truly loved, you never forget it. I think that’s why even believers like me get down on God sometimes. Sometimes you don’t want to feel any more hope, sometimes it’s the most painful thing there is next to dying. But of course love being love, it gets you all over again. Drags you close, closer, whispers, “Listen, kid, no matter what happens… remember me.”

You think you know so much with your modern science, with your particle accelerators and missions to Mars. You think you can somehow capture the Universe in one of your telescope lenses, like some kind of screwed up peeping tom spying through a window.

Well, I hate to break the news to ya, Sport, but your cool, sane Universe is really one big chewy gum-ball of fucked-up chaos.

Long, long, long time ago there was this thing, this Seed, more itself than anything ever has, can or will be. It had always been that thing and would never not be that thing. It was perfect. And at that point, it was the only thing that could be said to exist at all.

Nobody knows what happened next, but something did. How do we know? You numbskull, look around you. We know because all this shit exists! Flowers, muggings, dope, Jesus, calculus and American Idol. The whole kit-and-kaboodle is here now, Pandora’s box is empty, and it’s goddamn for sure not because of nothing. So get your head outta your ass and pay attention.

Like I was saying. Something happened and nobody knows what, but afterwards things existed and started moving around. For the first time ever, the Universe was… different.

Things started simply. At first, there were only two things, the two most special things that ever existed. They were brothers. Sisters. Friends maybe. Who knows.

The first sibling to wake up was Darkness. And Darkness looked out over all the nothing and found nothing lacking. He found it utterly perfect and rational. For a long while, he wandered the Empty alone, content and fulfilled.

Then one day, the first Darkness had ever noticed, he saw something in the distance and was alarmed. For one, he was not used to seeing, as there had never been any light or the need for it. Two, such a thing as distance struck him senseless and unnecessary, a horrific division of an otherwise perfectly knit void. Nevertheless, he found himself drawn to it and began to drift towards it.

When Darkness laid eyes on Glory, it was love at first sight. I know what you’re thinking. It’s nasty, a brother thinking that way of his sister. But this was different – they weren’t related in the genetic sense people are, people are related in the cosmic sense that they are. They were the first relationship. The first conversation. It went pretty much the way all such conversations have since.

“You new around here?”

“Sure, I guess. You?”

“Nope, been here a long time. Seen everything.”

“Yeah? Well, then, what’s to do?”

“We could go walking around. I could show you everything.”

“OK.”

The thing was, as the Two started off walking, Darkness immediately noticed something was different about Everything, and though secretly terrified, he did not want Glory to know. After a while of just walking, he asked, less boldly than intended, “Well, what did you think?”

“Think? Of what? We haven’t seen anything.”

“I know. Isn’t it beautiful? It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen… until today.”

“You calling me beautiful?”

“Sure.”

Make a long story short, they ended up falling in love and moving into together. Of course, Glory wanted to decorate, so she starts making things. At first, Darkness thinks her creations are interesting, if juvenile, and indulges her, but gradually as the making of things began to take up more and more of her time, he started to get jealous. One day he found her in a garden and confronted her.

“What are you making now? What is so special about all these things?”

“They are living things. They can know and enjoy things. They love and fear. Aren’t they beautiful?”

Darkness looked at the things around him. Small, puny, frail and pointless. They grew, they divided, they fought and they died. He could find no meaning in it. He could find no beauty in the passionate brevity of their lives, how desperately they struggled to remain alive, to last a few more moments before the inevitable end.

“Why have you made them so frail? They do not last.”

“You taught me the beauty of nothingness. My creatures come from nothing, it is only right they return there. My creatures are your children too.”

Darkness was aghast. His children too? Could it be? Was some part of himself in these weak, transitory beings? He didn’t know. Darkness was no great thinker, he only knew what he wanted.

“Don’t you still love me?”

“More than anything, my love.”

“More than your creatures? If so, then destroy them and return home with me.”

“I will not do that. I love you through my creatures. I am not complete without them. You cannot have me without them.”

Darkness thought powerful hard about it, but not long.

“Then I will love them too. Though I see no value in them myself, I will love them for you.”

“That is enough.”

Things were good for a while. Happy almost. Darkness and Glory had many children – gods, men, animals and spirits of every kind – and there was order. Darkness grew to love his children for their heroism in the face of certain doom, for their relentless spirit and determination. It was very strong, this spirit within them, it reminded him of Glory, his love.

Then one fateful day, without warning or herald, Darkness awoke and found his beloved gone, nowhere to be found. He called out to her but heard nothing back. He beseeched all his children to help him find their Mother, but none could find her anywhere. As the realization that their great Mother was missing slowly set in, a kind of desperate madness began to grow within their Father.

Darkness set off, leaving All There Is for the even greater, vaster emptiness beyond, certain in some inexplicable part of himself that he was guided. Through unutterably desolate space, Darkness surged like an irresistible wave of desire. There was no thought beyond To Glory. To Glory. To Glory.

God knows how long he went on that way. We simply cannot reckon it. But on he went until he went beyond Everything There Ever Was and came out to a new place. Only then did the madness leave him and he let out the longest and most terrible, bloody shout that Ever Will Be…

“GLOOOOOORRRRRRRRYYY!!!!!”

And then he sat down. Then he fell asleep and dreamed a strange dream. Of an Unsown Seed, a beautiful girl with eyes as bright as stars, and other strange things he couldn’t figure. He dreamt so long he forgot he was dreaming, until his dreams were of nothing but darkness, darknesses and glories, and slumbering things in the void.

The first one to wake up was Darkness…

You think you know so much with your modern science, with your particle accelerators and missions to Mars. You think you can somehow capture the Universe in one of your telescope lenses, like some kind of screwed up peeping tom spying through a window.

Well, I hate to break the news to ya, Sport, but your cool, sane Universe is really one big chewy gum-ball of fucked-up chaos.

Long, long, long time ago there was this thing, this Seed, more itself than anything ever has, can or will be. It had always been that thing and would never not be that thing. It was perfect. And at that point, it was the only thing that could be said to exist at all.

Nobody knows what happened next, but something did. How do we know? You numbskull, look around you. We know because all this shit exists! Flowers, muggings, dope, Jesus, calculus and American Idol. The whole kit-and-kaboodle is here now, Pandora’s box is empty, and it’s goddamn for sure not because of nothing. So get your head outta your ass and pay attention.

Like I was saying. Something happened and nobody knows what, but afterwards things existed and started moving around. For the first time ever, the Universe was… different.

Things started simply. At first, there were only two things, the two most special things that ever existed. They were brothers. Sisters. Friends maybe. Who knows.

The first sibling to wake up was Darkness. And Darkness looked out over all the nothing and found nothing lacking. He found it utterly perfect and rational. For a long while, he wandered the Empty alone, content and fulfilled.

Then one day, the first Darkness had ever noticed, he saw something in the distance and was alarmed. For one, he was not used to seeing, as there had never been any light or the need for it. Two, such a thing as distance struck him senseless and unnecessary, a horrific division of an otherwise perfectly knit void. Nevertheless, he found himself drawn to it and began to drift towards it.

When Darkness laid eyes on Glory, it was love at first sight. I know what you’re thinking. It’s nasty, a brother thinking that way of his sister. But this was different – they weren’t related in the genetic sense people are, people are related in the cosmic sense that they are. They were the first relationship. The first conversation. It went pretty much the way all such conversations have since.

“You new around here?”

“Sure, I guess. You?”

“Nope, been here a long time. Seen everything.”

“Yeah? Well, then, what’s to do?”

“We could go walking around. I could show you everything.”

“OK.”

The thing was, as the Two started off walking, Darkness immediately noticed something was different about everything and though secretly terrified he did not want Glory to know. After a while of just walking, he asked, “Well, what did you think?”

“Think? Of what? We haven’t seen anything.”

“I know. Isn’t it beautiful? It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen… until today.”

“You calling me beautiful?”

“Sure.”

Make a long story short, they ended up falling in love and moving into together. Of course, Glory wanted to decorate, so she starts making things. At first, Darkness thinks her creations are interesting, if juvenile, and indulges her, but gradually as the making of things began to take up more and more of her time, he started to get jealous. One day he found her in a garden and confronted her.

“What are you making now? What is so special about all these things?”

“They are living things. They can know and enjoy things. They love and fear. Aren’t they beautiful?”

Darkness looked at the things around him. Small, puny, frail and pointless. They grew, they divided, they fought and they died. He could find no meaning in it. He could find no beauty in the passionate brevity of their lives, how desperately they struggled to remain alive, to last a few more moments before the inevitable end.

“Why have you made them so frail? They do not last.”

“You taught me the beauty of nothingness. My creatures come from nothing, it is only right they return there. My creatures are your children too.”

Darkness was aghast. His children too? Could it be? Was some part of himself in these weak, transitory beings? He didn’t know. Darkness was no great thinker, he only knew what he wanted.

“Don’t you still love me?”

“More than anything, my love.”

“More than your creatures? If so, then destroy them and return home with me.”

“I will not do that. I love you through my creatures. I am not complete without them. You cannot have me without them.”

Darkness thought powerful hard about it, but not long.

“Then I will love them too. Though I see no value in them myself, I will love them for you.”

“That is enough.”

Things were good for a while. Happy almost. Darkness and Glory had many children – gods, men, animals and spirits of every kind – and there was order. Darkness grew to love his children for their heroism in the face of certain doom, for their relentless spirit and determination. It was very strong, this spirit within them, it reminded him of Glory, his love.

Then one fateful day, without warning or herald, Darkness awoke and found his beloved gone, nowhere to be found. He called out to her but heard nothing back. He beseeched all his children to help him find their Mother, but none could find her anywhere. As the realization that their great Mother was missing slowly set in, a kind of desperate madness began to grow within their Father.

Darkness set off, leaving All There Is for the even greater, vaster emptiness beyond, certain in some inexplicable part of himself that he was guided. Through unutterably desolate space, Darkness surged like an irresistible wave of desire. There was no thought beyond To Glory. To Glory. To Glory.

God knows how long he went on that way. We simply cannot reckon it. But on he went until he went beyond Everything There Ever Was and came out to a new place. Only then did the madness leave him and he let out the longest and most terrible, bloody shout that Ever Will Be…

“GLOOOOOORRRRRRRRYYY!!!!!”

And then he sat down. Then he fell asleep and dreamed a strange dream. Of an Unsown Seed, a beautiful girl with eyes as bright as stars, and other strange things he couldn’t figure. He dreamt so long he forgot he was dreaming, until his dreams were of nothing but darkness, darknesses and glories, and slumbering things in the void.

The first one to wake up was Darkness…

Everyone’s first theory of the world is magic. Nobody starts off thinking in quarks or physics. Nobody starts out thinking limits or possibilities. Nobody starts out thinking about sin.

The news isn’t real. The news is just people competing for our attention. Things don’t occur to us unless they affect us. What’s going on in Haiti right now doesn’t matter to me. Not really. As an abstraction maybe, as the idea that it is generally a good thing to try and help out people, sure. It goes in the same category as not bashing in kitten heads. There isn’t possibly enough stuff to fill up an entire 24-hour news cycle. It’s not that there isn’t plenty going on, because there is and, jesus, you don’t want anything to do with it, believe me. It’s that there’s not enough stuff that we give a shit about to fill up that much time and keep it fresh. A few things happen everyday that matter to all of us, the tv watchers and newspaper and blog readers. Way less than our insatiable hunter-gatherer’s appetite for intel.

My yeah-and-a-half-old son’s toy Elmo depresses me. He doesn’t know it’s not real. He thinks because it needs batteries, Elmo’s sick. That’s fucked up to play with a kid’s emotions like that.

subtle change in the ether. had a strange note the other day. felt like stopping.

so much river left. turned my head to the left, to the right, taking deep breaths.

fill my lungs until the river gives out or i do

gotta keep pressing on, only thing left to do.

i just realized that someday langston is gonna look at facebook and all my shit is gonna be t/here. everything i thought to tell the world, all these songs i loved, videos that made me laugh, it’s all gonna be there. he’ll be able to experience a part of me in a way that’s more vivid than any generation before. i am creating a testimony for him, an inheritance made out of experiences and not money. there is something profound about this ‘social networking’ phenomena that cuts right to the white meat of how we live and think about our lives.

i’m not saying it’s the end-all-be-all, but it’s a good start.

[a spontaneous bop arising from an instant message with a friend of mine, the words are his)

i don't even watch tv
ha, as if creating
only helps us know ourselves
cuz the world's 'digressions' jus tear us apart
shattered and scattered
imposition of our break downs thrown up and around
when we jus want someone to care so here comes customer service
they'll understand
even if i speak in tongues

follow him on twitter @bLcKtRsH

I myself don’t subscribe to the existence of race on the same basis as I don’t believe in a bearded, blue-eyed Jehovah – just drawing it so don’t make a thing such. Human beings are one species as evidenced by the vast amount of genetic intermingling that has gone down since the dawn of history. Nobody on earth today is a pure blood. We are all mutts, mongrels, bastards and mulattos. This is how it is supposed to be. Evolution would have it so. Natural selection would have it so. Genetic diversity is an asset to our race – the human one.

Culture resembles race because it’s something that gets passed down instead of thru the genes, thru communication. It gets passed down in words, in gestures, in peer pressure, societal norms and taboos. If genetics is our hardware (the machine we buy to run our programs) then culture is the operating system on which they run.

When culture and genetics get conflated for no good reason, the ideological abomination known as ‘race’ is spawned. Race makes the unforgivable error of attaching permanence to cultural attributes that have none and imputing conditionality to intrinsic human attributes through no other rigor than dumb prejudice.

The purpose of culture is to organize the process of sustaining and nurturing human life, not define it. Culture does not tell anyone who you are so much as how you are. What we are is intrinsic and elemental.

What we are is basic. Animal. Consumers of stuff. Excreters. What we are is functional.

How we are is a different story. How we are is poetic, transcendent, cruel, forgiving, warring, passionate. How we are is our adjectival existence. What we are is nounal – concrete, unmysterious, quantified. A father, a brother, the offspring of, the friend or enemy to.

Clarifying our thinking, crystallizing the reality around us and representing it clearly in our thoughts without prejudice or passion, this is a crucial step in reclaiming birthright of our universal humanity.