this is what it feels like.
The following contains selected pieces from the past nine months detailing how it feels to me.
Though I’ve written countless private pages on the raging act, I’ve never done a collection on it.
I always assumed that trying to publicly justify doing the thing was against the spirit of the thing itself.
I also assumed that you had to earn the right to publish about the thing.
Most days, I daydream about getting paid to write 500-1500 words a day for some newspaper or magazine. I wake from these daydreams and remember it’s 2025, I never got a degree, the job market for writers is dogshit, and I’m basing my desire to be a successful writer on nothing but a gut feeling that my stuff isn’t shit.
Back when I started writing on a blog… Back when I referred to all these writings as, “the Papers,” I used to have a saying:
Write what hurts. Publish to let it go.
Anyway, here goes everything.
pebble in the mudslide.
what does the pebble in the mudslide feel?
the leaf in the giant forest?
the drop of water in the sea?
do they feel the way that most of us feel?
lost to infinity,
anonymity,
without destiny,
no story,
but the same one told a trillion and one times over.
the cavemen,
who didn’t invent fire,
the wheel,
or the pointed spear,
did they feel as lost as most of us do?
i used to drink,
and ask myself these questions,
content that the questions might drown in the booze,
or at least that i would.
now,
life is dry,
i mean that i don’t drink now.
life is anything but dry,
for the pebble in the middle of the mudslide.
on writing.
pencil floats above paper,
tense moments pass.
and all the years of self-doubt rush towards me all at once.
that’s all writing is,
ad infinitum.
it is this way.
it can’t be this way again.
another start to the year,
broke.
coming off,
the end of the year,
broke.
this year it’ll be different.
yep.
maybe this year starts in Feb.
all i need,
well,
all i need is a lot,
but for now,
i’d settle for a job.
soon i’ll be standing on the corner,
with a sign that reads:
WILL CUT MY WRISTS,
AND BLEED ON PAPER,
FOR FOOD!!!
the way to write
it needs to be dressed in dirty, Dickies workwear.
faded boots,
and socks with holes in it.
don't dress the writing up.
don't give it a suit,
a tie,
a dayjob.
it dies that way,
shrinks into nothing,
but pomp,
circumstance,
and pretentiousness.
raw.
does it read raw,
with the nuts it takes to carry on trying day after day,
after failure,
after failure,
after failure?
if it doesn't,
stop.
stop before they say that cutting thing
the only thing that really hurts,
it sounds like you're trying too hard.
i figure,
it’s gotta be tough to write.
if it wasn't tough,
then,
well,
by default,
it'd be easy.
you want easy?
scroll, scroll, scroll,
like i keep telling you to,
rot the brain with those eyeball sugars and trans fats,
there's a good chance you'll be just as happy or unhappy anyway.
it's gotta be tough to write,
and it's gotta be easy to read.
it’s gotta be able to be picked up by the fuckin' nerds at NYU,
and the bums who live in the closed down,
bombed out,
McDonalds,
on Northside Drive.
(you know the one, across from Cook-Out).
the writing is for both the scholars and the bums,
and it's for neither of them, too.
i've tried to impress both those gangs,
and it only feels hollow when the ink dries or the eraser shavings get swept up.
the way to write,
after all.
is to do it for all of them,
all while doing it for none but you.
it's simple as that, really.
how it comes out.
sometimes it comes out of me like a load on a lonely and frustrated night,
right after seeing a clip of Denise Richards in Wild Things.
i’m writing this while i shit,
and sometimes it comes out of me just like that,
like a faucet.
hot,
fast,
it flows,
and it can hurt when it comes out like that.
sometimes,
to have it come out,
i have to force it.
it is dogshit when i force it,
and i’m better off doing,
really,
anything else,
when it’s forced.
when life is at it should be,
it comes out the same on the rainy days,
and it comes out the same when the sun casts goodness and peace over all,
even me.
and all the dark inside.
when chaos is captain,
and a monster in me rules,
it is a toss up really,
if it comes out or doesn’t.
i don’t drink anymore,
and it comes out all the same.
who would have guessed,
not i.
in love,
it comes,
but it comes in a different way.
i think i have a hard time finding the words for the thing while in love,
but still,
for better or for worse,
it comes out.
out of love,
it comes out,
and comes off whiny,
searching,
academic,
in a way that drives me nuts and makes me want to take a torch to my old notebooks.
burn it all,
let me forget,
so i can put it down,
and let it come out better tomorrow.
sometimes,
it comes when i’m confused.
it comes out during confusion in a desperate way.
like it’s running out of time to find the answers,
and has to exit,
just to have a chance.
it comes out like it’s just escaping being drowned,
with a manic inhale and exhale.
there are several,
several,
several,
data points,
to measure how it comes out in confusion,
as i’ve spent most of my life,
in utter confusion.
but…
when it comes out with certainty,
this confidence that it’s all falling just as the stars intended it to,
i must admit it feels the most gratifying,
the most natural,
the most important.
reality follows soon after.
i curse this thing within me that forces me to care when it comes out like that.
i wish i was a line worker at an automobile factory when it comes out like that,
focused on finishing my part of the work,
and dedicated to moving on,
uncaring to the final product’s ultimate destiny,
just focused on the work.
that would make all the failure,
the rejection,
hurt less.
sometimes it doesn’t come out at all,
and tragedy,
doom,
apocalypse wins.
sickness festers inside of me,
and in those times,
i am truly a mortal,
dying in perpetuity,
never to be carried on by these words on the page.
i need the writing to come out.
i think i’d die,
or go mad,
or kill myself if it didn’t.
thank god it’s coming out tonight.
inside.
bastard son-of-a-bitch,
boiling blood,
raging rioter,
lustful lover,
demon drinker.
with smoke-filled lungs.
fuck,
with no light of love in the eyes,
drink,
with no amount ever to quench the thirst,
smoke,
until my lungs are black,
and i am six feet under tightly packed dirt.
sometimes,
that,
all of that,
is all i’m afraid is inside.
and out comes,
words on paper.
to stave it off
to stave off the misery,
from the poverty,
and the failure,
the passage of time,
and the onslaught of getting older,
there used to be drinking,
and smoking,
and writing.
now,
there’s just the writing,
and i chew nicotine gum,
and drink more Coca-Cola.
really there’s just the writing.
it doesn’t stave it off,
not really,
rather,
quite the opposite.
it makes the misery,
sit front and center.
it puts it on a pedestal,
all for its own sake,
the writing’s sake.
now,
how do i stave it off?
i find it in the quiet,
i find it when i’m in a rage.
the misery,
it sticks around,
and i write about it now,
on this page.
how do i stave it off?
well,
be sure to tell me,
when you find out.
no pencil.
no pencil in reach as i write this,
so i scratch this with a leaky pen.
2:04 AM and i am called to the page.
some days feel like a slow-motion rolling car crash.
violent,
hypnotic.
i rage against the death of my own creativity.
some part of my soul must believe i am a great poet,
some writer with gifts yet to be shared with the world.
hubris.
other parts of that soul think that in reality,
i am a man who should be working as an HVAC tech for the rich and more talented,
as my father does,
in defiance,
i leaned towards my skill in spelling and grammar.
i love my father,
i hope his side doesn’t win.
at my desk.
i sit at my desk,
and beautiful days go by my window,
heart,
not full,
but longing.
the end of the year,
whispers melancholia in my ear,
not for what comes,
but for what is passed,
and left undone.
fall is bitter.
it brings the feeling of unmet expectations,
as time floats away,
carried by the same autumn breeze,
that takes the leaves to their next place.
all these thoughts,
of wanting more,
and still i’m behind my desk.
just writing.
save me.
the way they find my body.
surrounded by the woods,
it’s quiet here in this empty house.
quiet,
save for the errant,
semi-automatic gunfire after midnight,
at least once a week.
i hit the deck once,
only once,
nose touched the floor,
the most recent time it happened.
i have heard gunfire,
in the neighborhoods i’ve lived in,
nearly all my adult life.
but this one time,
and only this one time,
i hit the deck,
scared shitless.
i was afraid,
because i’ve only just in the last year,
made it out of the window of time where my mother would have to find out that i drank myself to
death in an empty fucking house.
if a stray bullet,
came and ended it all,
and i was SOBER to boot?
hell.
well anyway,
dead in my empty house,
it wouldn’t matter much at all.
all that would be left,
would be notebooks full of regret,
and a rotting piece of meat.
someone would have to tell my mom,
that’s all.
one of those.
god,
i hope i’m going to be one of those cases,
where a long,
tumultuous road,
leads to glory.
received with honor,
humility,
and grace.
because if this all goes to shit…
if my metaphorical road,
leads only to a metaphorical cliff,
with death-bringing, jagged metaphorical rocks waiting for me below…
then i’ll be one of those,
they found at the bottom of a real cliff,
in real life,
with real rocks stuck through me.
amen.
on Buk.
imagine you’re a Catholic.
you’re in a church,
empty,
quiet,
pure.
inside though,
in your heart,
you’re all razors, cigarette butts, and vomit,
all the nasty parts of livin’.
so you go into the confessional,
ready to shit out all those sins and push it through the wood mesh window.
then,
you hear Father on the other side confess the darkest sins you ever heard.
boozing,
and fucking,
and drugging all through life.
and he tells you all of this with a laugh.
and it makes all your shit seem like daisies, and hugs, and the warm sheets
after they come out of the drier.
i guess that’s Bukowski to me.
cliff’s face.
i don’t think my life is Buk’s,
or Kerouac’s,
or Burroughs’,
mine,
mine is the cliff’s life.
not the cliff’s edge,
the face.
changing only when battered.
beat to shit,
wave after wave,
year after year,
the hits just keep coming.
the cliff is singular.
not in its oneness,
rather,
its lonesomeness.
i used to be aspirational.
thinking i’d lead this writer’s life.
now i compare myself to geographical features.
simplify.
lobotomize me.
factory reset me,
so i grunt in response to questions about my future,
so i drool,
just sitting here,
so i can just sit,
look out the window,
and watch all of time and trouble pass with the falling leaves of the autumn season,
year after year.
because year after year,
it just gets more complicated,
and i long for the days,
of darkness,
ignorance,
bliss,
forgotten.
like back before they cut me out of Mrs. Barrera’s womb.
i must have had a big head when they cut me out of Mrs. Barrera.
and they knew it too.
i wish somebody would have warned me of the consequences of having that big head.
for it is the same big head,
that urged me to chase Olympus,
the impossible,
heaven itself.
i’d like to simplify.
i’d like one set of clothes,
and a few bits and bobs to carry me through life.
i’d like the tools to make some art,
some love in my life,
and quiet.
for the first time in my life.
i’d like calm seas,
and clear skies,
because the shore,
seems unreachable,
as i sail along.
simplify,
works a different way too.
just do the work.
i suppose it’s that simple.
exhale.
it is Feb.,
and there are too many blank pages in the rest of this black notebook.
i don’t want to force it.
i won’t force it.
it won’t come that way anyway.
it's gotta come easy,
in that easy way.
smoke rolls off the lips on a quiet night.
exhale,
the smoke from the cigarette’s got no choice but to come out of you.
exhale,
try not to choke while the words fall to page.
i used to smoke a pack of these a day,
and the words would fall out in that easy kind of way.
now my teeth grind.
and i chew, chew, chew away,
on my nicotine gum,
pretending i’m not an addict anymore,
and pretending that the words still come easy.
i smoked when i was stressed,
just like the lot of you.
it isn’t this sexy thing to me.
it's a panicked smoke.
i exhale,
smoke rises,
and i wish all at once that i could float away right along with that burnt tobacco.
it takes me right around nine minutes to burn an American Spirit Black or Blue.
it's a slow burn,
because i used to pace and talk while burning one of these down.
stressed.
hell,
stressed now too,
but all i can do,
is chew, and chew, and chew.
i’m smoking this cigarette now though…
i wish i wasn’t,
but…
god…
exhale,
let the words come again in that easy kind of way.
this lustful thing.
when pencil touches paper,
it still,
after all these years,
feels like this slutty thing.
it is pumped full of sex,
even when it’s bad.
and,
when it’s good,
it's good,
real good.
i never went to college,
but i imagine it’s college sex,
after a party that runs into the morning.
i wonder,
how that is,
why that is.
the movies.
god,
the movies is work.
the movie business,
it is bills,
and meetings,
expectations,
deal making
heart breaking,
sometimes millions of dollars,
and sometimes,
nothing but a couple fuckin’ dimes.
it can be mechanical,
while,
all at once,
being so high-stakes.
the college kids,
and all the fucking,
well,
that seems low stakes to me.
i pencil this now,
in a cheap, black notebook.
and later on,
i’ve got a meeting about my fuckin’ movie,
with a representative from a financial institute.
this penniless writing,
this low-stakes art,
this lustful thing.
this,
just this.
the raging act of it,
this will always be more sexy to me than the meetings,
and pitches,
pandering to those who want a pound of my flesh,
just for a signature,
on some dotted line,
that decides my worth as a maker.
my gravestone will likely be a tiny one,
for that will be all i’ll be able to afford.
i think,
what they’ll put on it,
might be something to the effect of:
ALWAYS IN LOVE WITH THE LUSTFUL THING
WE BURIED HIM WITH HIS NOTEBOOKS
WHICH HE MADE NO MONEY FROM
maybe that’s too much for a little gravestone.
maybe instead:
A HALF-DECENT,
UNKNOWN WRITER
LIES HERE.
BROKE AND STUBBORN.
that’ll probably be too much.
it’s all too much,
in life,
and in death.
last page thing.
here it is.
the last page of another notebook.
i watched a Joan Micklin Silver flick from ’77 last night:
Between The Lines.
it's about growing up when you’ve already grown up.
more days than i care to admit,
i dream about growing up in a time when it was more acceptable to be some broke-ass artist.
i live in this self-pity,
thinking about how Vonnegut said that if he was born any later,
he'd have offed himself because there would be no hope in becoming a writer.
Vonnegut was born in 1922.
T.C. Barrera was born in 1998.
i think about all of that,
and pencil stories and pieces down anyway.
hard truth is realizing that many of my heroes’ success might’ve been a product of their time.
hope,
i think,
is understanding that it won’t be replicated,
but a present day version of that success MIGHT exist.
fuck you,
Bukowski, Kerouac, Burroughs, Ginsberg, Kesey, Vonnegut, all of you.
your lives are not mine.
most days,
it feels like i’m working in those last days of The Back Bay Mainline,
but that is not my life either.
to know my life,
is to open these black notebooks.
that’s all.
“YOUR PAIN IS THE BREAKING OF THE SHELL THAT ENCLOSES YOUR UNDERSTANDING. IT IS THE BITTER POTION BY WHICH THE PHYSICIAN WITHIN YOU HEALS YOUR SICK SELF. THEREFORE, TRUST THE PHYSICIAN AND DRINK HIS REMEDY IN SILENCE AND TRANQUILITY.” – KHALIL GIBRAN
still writing,
TCB
