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Belt.

Belts are great. They hold up your pants. Especially for men like me who have nothing to hold up their pants without one. There is a particular belt I own that means the world to me, twice over. It’s the twice over part that gets me.

You see, when I took this belt that I am talking about; from my grandfather’s corpse. I expected to hold on to it for the rest of my life. It’s a symbol to me, at that very moment it became one. The Model-T on that belt buckle is like my “S” insignia, it became hope.

If you have been following my writing for some time I am sure you have read about my cousin, Paul. Paul was the little brother I never had. He looked up to me with these eyes. Eyes I have only been able to enjoy again since my nieces and nephews began to use them. He was also my best friend at the same time — because we were exactly two years apart. So it flipped between the two, but more often than not he would look at me with such admiration. He did it more as I got older, and I still miss it dearly.

It’s this reason why no matter what anyone tells me, I feel a particular guilt about his loss.

I know he had plenty other influences around him, and I saw him but maybe twice a year for most of our lives after our early childhood — but damn do so many of those times define me. I want to think they did him too.

I remember before he was even smoking cigarettes — riding bicycles to town so I could go buy some. He would ask to have one and I would oblige, knowing full well if he wanted to no one was going to stop him anyways. It’s not the sharing that sticks out to me, it’s the bicycle ride.

Just like my friend Alex, so much of the time I spent with Paul was purely with him. Just him. We didn’t need or want anything else, and so many memories I have of him are like titanium encrusted across my brain. So a lot of the things I said and did, I feel like they stuck with him.

Like I wrote, I know there were a multitude of other influences and I was far from the largest. But I still did then and now feel a modicum guilt for the path he went down and ended at. Paul made his own choices, but I think with any loss we feel like there is more we could have done.

This is going to be about what I did do, though. I gave him the belt.

It’s funny, thinking on it — I didn’t even physically hand it to him. I believe I gave it to my Mom and she gave it to my Aunt Mary to give to him. That titanium memory though is from Megan and I’s wedding. May 4th, 2013. Just over four years ago now.

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From left to right: Paul Perkins, Mary Pillivant Perkins, Kevin Perkins at the Elms/Taft wedding. Photo by unknown. ©2013

The wedding was over. The reception was over. It was the after party. I can’t remember which relative’s room we were in, but it was facing on the starboard side of the hotel. There were two beds, most likely queen — it was in the Boulderado in Boulder, CO, which is a historic and old place. You know the deal, shiny whites and golds, filigree, encrusted and rimmed mirrors, don’t forget the pretty chandeliers. This room wasn’t filled with all those things, but there were two windows on the far side facing as you walked in.

Paul and I stood amongst the room that was so loud we got called in on a few times. We were center, in front of the beds. Center again, in the gap between the door and the windows. Center. In a world of our own. We just stood there and talked. It’s one of those conversations I only got to have with him once and I was looking forward to checking in on it a few years later to see how things progressed.

It started with him telling me he did not like my now wife until that very day.

Something he saw in her, in me, in us that day. It made him realize something about growing up. How he didn’t exactly know everything. He apologized for it and we had a great heart to heart about him getting to know Megan better.

There was alcohol involved, but I know we both remembered this whole conversation clear as day. Since he had already broached serious subjects I decided that it was the perfect time for me to have yet another talk about his health, and making the right decisions — not putting his body in danger by making bad ones. I was well within my recovery at this time. I was not off probation, but I was on emails only at that point.

I said to him, after probing questions about what his plans were over the next couple years,

“Paul, I’m going to give you Grandpa’s belt. Understand something. If you fuck up again I am going to take it back. I don’t want it back, you don’t want to give it back. It’s Grandpa’s belt.”

He was over the moon about it. I remember him calling me after he got it and being concerned about needing to put a hole in it.

“Paul, Grandpa had a fatter waist than me, I put a hole in it. No worries, wear the thing.”

I really, truly, never wanted that belt back. I am not going to lie, I missed it sometimes. When I would see him and he wasn’t wearing it, I got bummed out — but I know he wore it. From my own recollection, family’s… and how worn that new hole is.

This is why I say the belt means the world twice over to me. I took it off my Grandfather, I hoped to inspire my cousin, and now I keep them alive inside and on me with that belt. I think about them both every day. I have them with me every day.

What I wouldn’t give, though. To be bummed about him not wearing that belt when he could be.

Thank you for reading.

©2017 Trevor Elms.
Featured photo by Trevor Elms ©2017
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Grocery.

Feeling a little drained of my writing juice again. One must push on, though. We don’t get better or accomplish anything by sitting on our laurels. Now I am at the point of writing in multiple drafts before I hit my groove and finish one. Maybe I finish this on this sentence, or maybe I go to another draft and keep writing. One will be finished.

I’ve felt I was beginning to ramble a bit there but I think that is a good thing. Sometimes I still ramble, and sometimes I am still really uncomfortable and just don’t feel mentally healthy. A thing that I no longer feel uncomfortable about is going into grocery stores.

Something happened after I lost my marbles. I was terrified of grocery stores. I think the most interesting thing about it is I have always been able to explain it — I even owned it when it was happening. I would refuse to go to grocery stores alone and be very uncomfortable in them. I’m pretty sure when Alex visited me in Hawai’i we only went to ABCs and the like. Mom did the grocery shopping.

I have not been able to explain completely why, but the repetition of all the items made me feel really uncomfortable.

I’d hazard to say it was almost like a form of claustrophobia? There’s plenty of room in grocery stores so that is the worst way to explain it. I felt like all the products on the shelves and produce in the baskets were aggressive. Like they were an army encroaching with knives lodged in their teeth to pounce on me. That was a terribly oppressive feeling to be getting from Aunt Jemima, Mr. Peanut, & the Green Giant.

I felt like shopping carts were warthogs snorting and charging at me. When a squeaky wheel went by it would summon a twitch.

I would still at times have thoughts that the people handing out food samples might want to poison me.

This was after getting out of Kahi Mohala, this was after starting therapy, this was just an every day thing that I had to deal with and fight against. It lasted up until around five or six years ago as well. I have Megan to thank for helping me through it because those feelings don’t come up any more. I used to have even more that I can’t even remember and am happy to be so far removed from the ordeal now that I don’t.

Megan accomplished this feat in the sweetest of ways, too. She would just softly nudge me to go to the grocery store for one thing. In and out. Just continually dip my feet in. I think there was one day where Megan was out of town and I needed to get more than one thing. If I remember correctly she stayed with me on the phone and walked me through the aisles so that I didn’t lose myself in there.

That’s certainly a laughable matter, a grown man getting lost in a grocery store — but I wasn’t laughing at the time. It was a matter that needed to be taken seriously and I needed to keep myself grounded and focused. Otherwise I very well could have just lost myself in an abyss of madness again. Who knows what I could have done the second time, and I surely would have broken my probation, therefore giving me a cool one-hundred-twenty years.

I can’t remember exactly how the DA came up with that one, but I think I remember it having to do with my plea deal then being broken at that point, so the assault would revert to being on a police officer — and they would have the ability to double the max sentence of all crimes committed. That would be a really hairy situation to put myself in over beef jerky looking at me the wrong way.

It’s my awareness about these feelings and the fact that they were unhealthy that differentiated me from the person who makes an irreversible scene. That’s it.

I think that’s something that some people don’t realize about mental illness. I am much more balanced now that I’m far removed from my substance abuse and mental break with reality. For the longest time, though,  I was just on the verge of cracking again.

This was before I got on medication, I was still refusing my diagnosis of being bi-polar. Let’s be honest here too — these things I  was dealing with go a bit beyond bi-polar anyways.

Megan’s small pushes in the direction of getting myself acclimated with them was perfect, though. She wouldn’t ever belittle me or make fun of me for it, but she would totally call out my nonsense and say that it was something I needed to work on to function. That I would need to go to the grocery store at times because she wouldn’t be able to go for me.

When I write it out like that I feel like it may make her sound a bit motherly. She definitely wasn’t motherly. At that time it was more like an embarrassed girlfriend wondering what cuckoo she had gotten herself stuck with. I needed every bit of that.

Megan would often make me laugh at all the ridiculous stuff that coming out of my insanity would cause me to do. The fear of grocery stores sticks out to me most of all — and the others were so minute that I would have to ask her, I have forgotten.

This is another time where I am not sure what the meaning is, but damnit I am going to try and find one, and it’s going to be about conquering your fears. I picked this draft because I just needed to pick something. I had a fear that I wasn’t going to be able to write a full article because I haven’t in a couple days and lost a bit of my spark for it.

Here I am nine-hundred-ninety-five words in. Just a few more to go and I have a full piece to edit and post in the morning. Just like my fear of grocery stores. Conquering it started small but then it grew into something more and more. Until the journey to the end becomes so overbearing compared to the fear of the beginning that you end up seeing the end much sooner than you may have thought.

It’s really nice to set the mind to conquering a fear, and then doing it.

Thank you for reading.

©2017 Trevor Elms.
Featured Photo by Trevor Elms ©2016
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Vinyl.

I just wrote this about… ten minutes ago while watching Alan play Metal Gear Solid Five and listening to Maurice Jarre’s magnificent score for Lawrence of Arabia, on a first print vinyl.

Took a great motorcycle ride to Ma & Pops’ house and finally got a hold of my moleskines from when I was in college. Those always prompted me with their size to write the very particular kind of poetry I love to write. I was sitting on the couch and begining to wallow about still not being able to write poetry.

So I said, “why not?” to myself, picked one of the unused ones except for a single line — crossed it out and began to write beginning with today’s date. This post will be going up at 4:00PM Sunday, but I am typing this out at 11:50PM Saturday night. May 5th, 2017. My second poem now in many years.

Vinyl.

These records we listen to give us such bliss,

With many a note,
or just a few.

The obsidian architecture spins weaving the sweetest of nectar.

For the scene we see in abstract is an indoor campfire,
with no matches,
but tracks.

 

 

Thank you for reading.

©2017 Trevor Elms
Featured photo by Trevor Elms ©2017

 

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Fifteen Minutes.

Dahlia is a mutt of epic proportions. We’ve done a DNA test on her. Just under fifteen percent shar pei, less than five percent of chow chow & bernese mountain dog. The rest of her is thousands of other breeds with such a small percentage that it could not be discerned what they were.

She is incredibly healthy at nearly 6.5 years old and still learning new things. Many dog owners will say this about their own, and I am no different; she is the smartest dog I know.

Sometimes I feel like animals are not given enough credit just because they don’t speak our language.

For one, from what I know about history and the evolution of human bone structure over many thousands of years — we are animals. We are a part of the animal kingdom just the same.

We wear clothing and create machines while drinking roasted and distilled beans. We have also selectively bred a common ancestor of the gray wolf so that we can have these creatures by our side. However all the empirical evidence standing in front of us says we came from the Earth just as naked, just as in-eloquent, and just as naive.

That is why my dog understanding what “fifteen minutes” means is so fascinating to me.

Make no mistake, it’s not that she understands exactly what “fifteen minutes” is, but her response is extraordinary just the same.

One of the things that sticks out to me is how she listens. Like with human beings she makes a connection via looking dominantly at the eye of her right. I am not sure if you have noticed this, we do it quite subconsciously — but this is how one human looks properly in another’s eyes. We use our right eye and focus on the other’s left — it creates cohesive eye to eye contact.

Dogs having this ability really floors me every now and again. It is part of what  I understand makes them “man’s best friend”. As you can see in the featured photo above — she’s known how to look at a camera from very early on as well. It’s clear cats have this ability too, they just don’t care to do it often, or at all, depending.

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Dahlia, just over 4 years old. February 1st, ©2015 Photo taken by Megan Elms.

When I call her name calmly, “Dahlia” — the reaction is just the same as a human. Instant response in the direction of the utterance.

She will come up to me sometimes, just after having been brought inside or after dinner looking for something. It will not be time for what it is she is asking for — which could be an entire rundown from getting a duck treat, or checking the window to let her know I am aware of what she needs to tell me about.

We will make eye contact, just the same as I would with you, reading this writing. I say to her “fifteen minutes”, with love — and a touch of sternness. She will typically (though not always) immediately drop eye contact with a high-pitched “hmph” — as much as a dog can manage anyhow. She likes to talk like us, a lot. She just isn’t capable of the same sounds.

Then it will be anywhere from ten minutes to an hour, but she comes back looking for the same exact thing she was asking for — and I give it to her. Satisfied she will then lie down for a nap.

This is just one of the many things she is capable of understanding. Dahlia’s ears will often pick up when the word “she” is used around her. Megan and I have also noticed that she is regularly able to tell the difference between “she” when we are talking about the cat, and “she” when we are talking about her. We noticed this based on how invested her ears are in what we are talking about.

When we drive to Niwot and roll down the windows on 63rd St. — she starts to go crazy whining, wagging, and sniffing up a storm.

She knows exactly where we are going, and who we are going to see. It’s so touching when Megan and I take her to the empty house for our own getaway weekend. She will grab a bone from the basket, run a full circle around the first floor, run up the stairs — and then stop. Dahlia will then realize her plight and ask to go outside. Where she would ask to go if they were home, too — because she is a dog.

Dahlia creates attachments to stuffed animals that she is not ready to fully disembowel yet. She has a pig almost five years old that my brother gave her. We legitimately have to hide it when other dogs come over because she is possessive of it. She won’t get snippy right away, but she gets very upset and doesn’t want to share. She will share all the rest of the toys however begrudgingly, but nobody touches the pig. I would hazard to say at request — considering the eyes Megan and I have both gotten about that thing.

We both believe the attachment to the pig comes from it being given to her by Alan. She sees him but maybe twice a year and it’s the most excited we see her in that timeframe — when he first walks through the door.

Dahlia is happy, healthy, inquisitive, and aware.

It’s the awareness I want to focus in on as I close out this piece. Dahlia is not the first of her species, or the only species that I have seen an awareness of some kind in. Plenty of them may not have the same level of awareness as a dog, but it is awareness — and thoughts just the same. Plenty have more awareness than a dog, just not the the same strength of connection with us.

There’s a bit of cognitive dissonance I have to have when I think and feel these things. Because I very much love to eat meat and I have no intention of stopping. Cows have been bred to have much less awareness, and chickens really don’t have much to begin with. Though I do know what goes on and I just have to live with that as something that happens in nature. Nature is unforgiving and cutthroat.

So it’s just something I like to appreciate when I can. That we share this planet with all sorts of animals that there is a connection with. An awareness and sense of some kind. Maybe not the most provoking of thought — but it is life that can feel pain, loss, happiness, fear, comfort, and plenty other emotions.

It makes our connection with Dahlia just that much more special. Plenty of people call themselves “Mom” or “Dad” when they have pets, and it really isn’t off. Dahlia looks to us as her protectors and defers to us as her parents. She doesn’t understand this world without us. The three of us have developed a language where she understands us and we understand her.

I feel pretty lucky to have that connection with a completely different species.

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Dahlia, just over 6 years old. February 6th, ©2017. Photo by Trevor Elms

Thank you for reading.

©2017 Trevor Elms
Featured photo by Trevor Elms ©2011
Posted on by Trevor Elms · 1 Comment

Long Nights.

This was written August 7th, 2008. I used to have so much difficulty sleeping. Even during nap time, I would stay awake and make finger fights.

These days it’s not so consistent, and it has been better since I have been writing again. I feel like I have accomplished something and therefore sleep finds me more easily.

I do still have nights where I do not sleep. I will stay up until 1:00 AM of the next full cycle before it wraps me in its embrace. However it is nowhere near as bad as the poems  I used to write represent.

I actually don’t need to be driven in a car or otherwise, and it didn’t take someone doing that, though Megan would — for me to find the person I want to spend my life with.

It is still a nice thought though.

Long Nights.

I didn’t sleep last night.

Just like any night where I lay, exhausted body to sleep.

My whirlwind mind keeps attention in a dreamless reality.

Clinging desperately to unfinished, un-analyzed, arbitrary thoughts.

I will not find sleep, until the sun falls again.

In fact, I never find sleep, it finds me.

I can control it a little more than before.

Sleep used to find me in such opportune times as every class in school.

Every day.

Sleep shies slyly,

smiling, and slipping away.

As my eyelids close and my brain fires into a bustling metropolis.

The one place I have always been able to find rest,
almost instantaneously,
is in the backseat of a moving car.

Maybe one day I’ll meet someone,
just crazy enough,
to drive me around until sleep takes its hold.

On these wonderfully long nights.

Thank you for reading.

©2008 Trevor Elms
Featured photo by Trevor Elms ©2017
Posted on by Trevor Elms · 4 Comments

Football.

Catharsis. One of my very favorite words. Football is something that gives me great catharsis. Right up there with being tattooed, & riding my motorcycle. I love to watch football with my family, or even entirely by myself at home. Because of the great catharsis it gives me to get emotionally invested in my team and the game — and give in to those emotions entirely during it.

This is something I wish I understood more when playing ice hockey. I’d like to have been more emotionally invested in the game, anything, in those times. Though I guess when you don’t understand emotions at all it’s hard to understand your own — as well as when and how to harness them.

I really wasn’t the biggest football fan until turning nineteen, going crazy, meeting Megan, & starting mandatory therapy. Now, I was a Broncos fan — since the start of the 1997 and Super Bowl XXXII winning season. Which was when I was getting Sports Illustrated Kids in Andover. Many articles about Terrell Davis & John Elway, my then idols, were consumed. I was also eight years old and had spent a fair chunk of my life outside of the US playing soccer as a goalie on concrete during lunch. My first real exposure to football that I can actively remember was after moving to Andover, and watching Super Bowl thirty-two on the fancy big screen.

I went to a number of Broncos games and CU Buffs games growing up. Relatives will tell you I’ve also been to a handful of Patriots practices at Gillette field, don’t believe them. Not a word, I won’t admit to it any longer.

Football just didn’t click with me, though. Elway’s retirement and Davis’ subsequent injury-forced one are the first real heartbreaks I can remember. Aside from losing my great-grandmother, Nana. So I kind of forsake the sport for a good amount of time.

It just awoke in me one day, though. I can’t even remember what caused it.

My brother has given me a hard time and tried to postulate that it was because of the Tim Tebow season. However I have fine evidence of me watching the Broncos have a grand ol’ time fielding Kyle Orton — and watching that garbage fire of a season before 2011 when he was thankfully replaced part way through. I remember really disliking Josh McDaniels as well.

Of the ones I have seen, that 2011 season is the most hilariously successful season the Broncos have had. Watching that glorified halfback attempt to hit the broad side of a barn for three quarters, then have the defense & Von Miller’s Defensive Rookie of the Year season — keep it close to save his butt. The guy continued on to pull out some halfback/quarterback nonsense, to win the game.

It must have been so infuriating for the opposing fans. Then there’s that wildcard playoff game against the Steelers. Where the Broncos won the first overtime game with the updated rules in league history — on the first play. On a Tim Tebow pass of about 15 yards to Demaryius Thomas who took it to the house.

What I really want to talk about though is the stadium experience, that’s my favorite.

There’s absolutely nothing like it for me. I have been to a lot of places and experienced many different things, going to a live NFL football game is one of my very favorites. I’ve certainly found it to be one of the greatest natural highs there is for me. Even starting with waking up on game day. Megan and I, or anyone that I go with, typically make a whole day of it. It’s a vacation, for that day, to Mile High and the surrounding area.

Orange, a sea of orange as far as the eye can see is something that just gives me such warmth and comraderie. I feel like I am a part of something that is just in general positive and fun. I’ve met and shared so many laughs with strangers whose faces I will never forget and names I will never remember.

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A literal sea of orange at the Civic Center in Denver. Super Bowl 50 Parade — February 9th, ©2016. Photo by Trevor Elms.

Usually we sit in the five-hundreds which are the highest section up. I prefer to sit in the center field and those are the most affordable tickets for us at this time. I also like to be able to see the whole game. As long as I can read the numbers I am good, and there’s not a bad seat at Mile High for seeing digits effectively. It’s live all-22 film, I will never get enough of it.

That’s what’s so frustrating about watching the sport on TV sometimes. They spend so much time focusing on the football and the quarterback that you honestly don’t see all that much. There’s been so many times now I have been at a game and I see a big bomb in our favor or theirs before it even happens. I love groaning or gasping before the ball is even thrown — it’s exhilarating.

Speaking of exhilarating, let’s talk about the crowd.

That’s where most of the catharsis comes from. Starting with the walk up the ramps to the five-hundreds where I can see the crowd below and there’s just such anticipation that can be felt in the air. The excitement is palpable and invigorating! It just makes me feel satisfied with life. That I am at a place with all kinds of human beings just trying to get through this chaotic journey of ours. This is something we all share — regardless of religion, political beliefs, or any other such thing that causes people to not like each other for whatever reason; we share this. We are all football fans and share a love of something together.

Of course there are always jerks that either drink too much or take rivalry too seriously. However, for the most part the grand majority of the crowd I have found to be good respectable people looking to have a good time. I’ve had great heckling sessions with all kinds of opposing fans where we end the game no matter the score with, “good game” and shake hands.

When kickoff — kicks off, that is when I get to release any frustration, anger, depression, or any other in a breadth of emotions that just need release.

One of my favorite things about Mile High is not only how loud people are with their vocal cords. It’s the stomping. You can literally feel it throughout the stadium. From what I understand it isn’t anywhere near what the experience was in the original Mile High — but it’s good enough for me.

I get to roar at the top of my lungs. It’s absolutely liberating in the best of ways. My parents always taught me not to boo excepting very particular circumstances, and not to curse because there’s always going to be kids. So I end up yelling things like “Get him! Saaaaaaaack! Pansy! Laaaaamo!” or I just yell with all my might. Sometimes I will go so hard I almost pull a muscle in my core. I have before, it’s not fun — but it is at the same time. I do slip up and say nasty things sometimes, I try not to though.

Even when we lose, I feel better about life after a football game; that’s true catharsis.

I think these are things we need to find, escape — release. I’m learning as I get older that true experiences are meaning more to me too. I absolutely love video games and comic books, but there’s really not anything like actually going out and experiencing the world. Doing something with my body and with other people. It’s making me feel more connected and less of a meaningless speck.

At the end of the day because I am quite a bit of a nihilist (sans the rejecting moral principles portion) — I still think I am a meaningless speck, on a meaningless rock, in an ocean of so many meaningless rocks and stars that if you tried to visualize the number it would wrap around the Earth many times over.

But, in a way, isn’t that what makes life and this existence beautiful?

That if all I have, is this and these experiences? That I do what I can now because there is nothing, and no one after? It makes me feel pretty optimistic, really. The fact that I am happy and enjoying my life. This website in a morbid kind of way is meant to be my mark. Regardless of if people like this or want to read it, find meaning or not — I am finding meaning in it.

Just like football. What football means to me is that it is absolutely a part of me. It gives me great catharsis and happiness. It allows me to push on and appreciate what I have when I wonder, truly, if anything myself and we as a species does matters. Because honestly, from what I know about space, stars, time, & the universe — it would go on without a sneeze if we disappeared tomorrow.

That makes football, and life, so spectacular to think about for me. I’m really happy I get to experience these things, with people I love. That is what the meaning of life is to me.

Thank you for reading.

©2017 Trevor Elms
Featured photo taken by Trevor Elms ©2015, From left to right: Trevor Elms, Alan Elms.
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Lullabies.

January 5th, 2009. I think this may have been the very first thing that I wrote after getting out of Kahi Mohala. There’s a lot in these words I am still trying to make out. Thinking about it I am pretty positive that I was wondering if my substance abuse and halting of dreams at night had anything to do with making me crazy. And my dearest friend would be myself, the former self.

I still don’t dream very much any more, and when I do it is usually a nightmare. I am comfortable with that reality these days. That when I dream it is often pure torture. I think many have this problem.

Lullabies.

Dreams…

Real?
Unreal?
Or Surreal?

Nightmares.

The haunting eclipse that has daunted the narrow path,
since before I can remember.

I used to fall to my death multiple nights of the week,
to wake up right before I hit the ground, on my bedroom floor.

I used to be scared shitless, of the open closet door.

Though supposing the halt of these subconscious realities every night,
made it hard to deal with the problems I never knew existed.

Was it you? One of my dearest friends, that made the reality back home, so much harder to bend?

If it was, just know.

That I will go farther in life, than you could ever go.

One step back I may have taken,
but from this crack, my bones won’t be breakin’.

So from those deaths in my dreams,
I will always be stronger, than when you were scheming.

 

Thank you for reading.

©2009 Trevor Elms
Featured photo by Trevor Elms ©2016.
Posted on by Trevor Elms · 1 Comment

Scattered.

Something I wrote September 17th, 2008. This, for me, may be the most beautiful poem I have ever written. I am not sure if I am capable of writing anything like this ever again, and it pains me.

I was so terribly broken when I wrote this. I wrote in this poem what writing means to me in a way that actively makes me feel the pain I was feeling — and how writing wouldn’t help, no matter how hard I tried.

Scattered.

I thought it was gone,
but now it’s come back.

As I lay down, my thoughts begin to snap.

I cannot find the peace and tranquility —
that is to thrive in dream-filled continuity.

Then to pass the time away,
scribbling, scratching, thoughts — ’til I decay.

I eventually crash when the sun arises,
a new day.

Though I despise this repetition,
what I reap in reprisal is refinement.

Reflectively recording all rational thought.

On scattered shreds of my soul…

 

I wrote recently about gaining my love for music back, and I did also write my first poem in years the other day. However I have not yet unlocked poetry within me. I need that again, it’s my favorite thing about language.

Thank you for reading.

©2008 Trevor Elms
Featured photo by John Elms ©2014
Posted on by Trevor Elms · 3 Comments

Jury.

If you have been reading my writing of late I am sure you have noticed a theme. I am often tip-toeing around a very particular time in my life. Bringing a lot of my experiences back around to it, but not specifically writing about it.

Not yet.

People who know me closely know my recollection in person, but I am not ready to write what I remember of my insanity yet. Often when I write something it is released from me. I feel a weight lift up and outside of me. Or at least, the burden of that experience and those thoughts lessens.

I think through life we are constantly gaining more burdens and finding more strength to carry them. I am not ready for that burden to be any lighter yet. It’s something that keeps me in check every day.

So this will be the story of how I got to be a jury member on a murder trial, and how seriously I took it.

I want to say this was five or six years ago now. So a year or two into my probationary period. I got called into jury duty like any normal person, but figured I was Scot-free because they would tell me to get out as I walked in.

I was on probation for five felonies, plus some. Multiple burglary and robbery charges, multiple breaking & entering charges, assault on a police officer (which thankfully was reduced, because of a guilty plea). It was on a deferred sentence, so I didn’t have to admit to it on job applications and only the court system could pull it up.

If you did a background check on me today I would come up squeaky clean. I’ve checked.

Though I and my family have the paperwork to prove otherwise. This is nothing I am proud of, it’s just a fact. I have a criminal past that even though it was expunged and there are no state records of it any longer, I will live with for the rest of my life. If I did not admit this and did not carry it with me, I would not be who I am today. Who I was is proof positive for me of what and who I never want to be again.

Back to jury duty.

It started innocently enough, I just walked into the Adams county justice center and sat in a room with I want to say a couple hundred — maybe a hundred and fifty very unhappy people.

This was like a snow day for me, though. I was able to get out of work for the day and my boss at that time couldn’t find a way to get me out of it. He did try to tell me to figure out any way I could, but I was so stoked I got a letter from the State saying I could do something that every American citizen has a right to do — that wiggling a way out wasn’t in the cards for me. I was really hoping I had a real shot.

I very nearly sat in front of a jury of my peers, awaiting their judgement. So I really wanted to take this seriously.

When the clerk came in maybe a half an hour after signing in, she made an announcement:

“Alright everyone, we have a few civil suits and a murder trial today. Please be patient and we will get the jurors called. Once that happens everyone else can leave. We will have a short orientation video to watch and form to fill out before we get you to your courtroom.”

There was a collective gasp throughout the room when the word “murder” was mentioned. This seriously only made me more excited. If I had the chance to be on any kind of trial and try to do my best as an American citizen, I wanted a murder trial. That is something that I would take even more seriously just based on its gravity as an act.

Be careful what you wish for.

Looking back on it, it’s almost like fate or something — the way it all worked out. I was put in the group for the murder trial, the exact one I wanted. Then when it came to the questionnaire I filled it out more seriously than any test I have ever taken in school, or otherwise.

I answered every question 100% truthfully and with so much information that I ran out of paper. I admitted my criminal past and how the thought of being a juror really hit home with me. How I felt it was my duty as an American citizen and recovering criminal to give back, to do something right. To try and make it right.

When all was said and done and the voir dire process was complete, I was the 13th, alternate juror. By the end of the following day I was locked in as the 12th juror. I was in. I was going to be a part of something and make a difference of some sort that would mean something to me.

I know Bill Curren was a murderer but we had to let him walk.

One of the very first things the judge told us as jurors when he introduced himself is that all the information we hear and see needs to be put into context of the law. That the law is black and white and cannot be interpreted. We must take the law at 100% face value if we want the system to work how it is supposed to.

This doesn’t mean that the system is always 100% correct. Like anything there will be mistakes, but hopefully if taken in this fashion less mistakes overall will be made. That’s why I am still upset that I have to live with letting a murderer walk because the prosecution decided to charge him incorrectly.

I can’t remember the exact degree he was charged with but it broke down into “Defendant went to willingly rob victim and victim lost life in process”.

This man went to murder the victims first, and robbing was just icing on the cake.

That may seem like a small distinction, but it’s not. The entire prosecution was all about how Bill among others treated the victims — torturing them and then killing them, before taking the pounds of Marijuana in reward. Which was in an entirely separate location as well. There was even evidence of a meeting beforehand about murdering them and then robbing the drugs — at Shotgun Willie’s, a strip club in Denver. The case was a fourteen or so year old one that happened in the late 90s. I can’t remember why it took them so long to get a jury on it.

The trial went on for two and a half weeks or so and I was only paid $50 a day by the state, while still having to provide/purchase my own lunch. I’m lucky that I misunderstood how the whole thing works with companies legally and told my boss he had to pay me like I was working. He definitely wouldn’t have if I hadn’t, and he admitted as such.

During this trial I got to see and hear about things that I had some experience with, but these people went much farther, and lost themselves far more than I did. I can still see the maggots crawling throughout the victims’ faces after they were pulled out from under a ditch overpass on a county road — where they were disrespectfully and unceremoniously dumped.

I can still see the layout of the backyard where they pulled in an Atlas moving truck. Which was then used to transport the bodies to the disposal site. I can still see the shoes, duct tape, trash bags, and blood.

I can still remember being one of two or three jurors at the start trying to convince the entire deliberation that we didn’t wan’t him to walk, but the law stated he HAD to walk.

There’s such a dichotomy of emotions for me when it comes to this experience. Because there is a part of me that is so proud that I really stood for something I believed in, with a small group of others, and we made a difference.

Then there’s the fact that what we stood for was letting a man that all the evidence pointed to — was a murderer. A 100% arrogant, sociopath, scum of the Earth human with total lack of remorse.

Regardless, he was charged incorrectly.

It was not our duty as jurors to tell the prosecution what they should have done and then decide to find Bill guilty because that’s what we felt should happen. We needed to take this seriously, so maybe in the future the prosecution would think a bit more about what they were doing the next time.

Even during the trial itself it was interesting to me. I really felt like the prosecution thought they had the thing hook, line, & sinker before the horse was even let out of the gate.

The defense was made up of two older gentleman. One who was portly, sweaty, and often couldn’t tuck his shirt in to completion. The other looked of an aged crane, very tall and lithe with the most glorious beak of a nose you will find. Mr. Crane mostly took the lead in the proceedings and would often lose his place in his notes or his train of thought.

I believe this made the prosecution very complacent and they forgot exactly what they were supposed to be arguing for, because otherwise I am not sure how they could have chosen the course they did with the charge they went with. As I stated previously the entire prosecution was all about the abundance of evidence against Bill that his whole mission was to kill these people and then take their stash too.

So why charge the murder as if it was happenstance?

It just baffles me, still. The worst part is that the memory most emblazoned in my mind is Bill’s family walking out of the courtroom thanking us profusely. As if we had just saved their relative’s life, and that we did it from the kindness in our hearts.

Nothing about me felt kind, happy, or even correct. I think that might be what justice is supposed to feel like. I’m not sure justice is supposed to be something you feel good about. I do think it is something that is supposed to stick with you, though. Now when I hear or see about any kind of court proceeding with a jury I know what they are going through.

I have been both a criminal with the fear of a jury, and a juror with a criminal’s fear in my hand. Neither is something I want to recommend, but I do think that being a juror is a privilege, honor, and duty as an American citizen.

The larger meaning in this piece for me is that I am going to take it seriously every time. Whether it’s a traffic dispute or a murder, I want to treat it in the same way I would want my jurors to treat it if I was a part of the proceedings.

I hope you do too.

We could have just interpreted the law the way we wanted to, and given a guilty verdict. Philosophically though, where does that stop? How else could things be re-interpreted and looked at as a means to an end? I feel that’s a bit of a slippery slope to go down.

This is my burden. I may have let a murderer walk, but I didn’t compromise my values as an American citizen.

I’m pretty proud of that.

Thank you for reading.

©2017 Trevor Elms
Featured photo by Katie Wood, ©2016

 

Posted on by Trevor Elms · 2 Comments

Music.

Music is something I have a very personal relationship with. So personal I very rarely share my music interests with others. So personal that I have stopped listening to entire genres of music because I could not control my emotions or desired actions while listening.

Music is so personal to me I literally feel it inside of me. My favorite thing to do during my substance abuse days was to sit by myself in nature, on LSD, and listen to music. To let it absolutely consume me. My every atom. That is, to this day, my favorite experience in life. I don’t know if that will ever change.

I’m starting to finally be able to feel music again. I can listen to Metal again which is fantastic. I’m actually going to a Slayer & Lamb of God concert this summer with my cousin, Ryan. Well, Megan’s cousin, but he’s mine now too. I don’t think of him as anyone but my cousin, and family. That’s why I am comfortable with going to this concert with him. This concert in this genre of music that means so much to me.

After I went crazy music was dead to me.

Completely, utterly, unquestionably, dead. I could not feel it inside of me. It gave me no pleasure. People would try to share their music with me and I would pretend to care. I couldn’t listen to anything. Not the Rolling Stones, Faith No More, Metallica, Tech, Rage, Queen, Tribe, Common, Zep, and on and on and on.

It’s one of the worst experiences I have dealt with — and it lasted years. It really wasn’t until the last few months where music made me really want to move around again. I’ll never be much of a dancer, but I’m saying that I wouldn’t even tap my foot to a beat at this time.

There were spurts, surely. But it wasn’t as deep or as consistent as it is right now. I’m open to and discovering new music. Something I haven’t done again until recently. For the longest time I was either listening to sports radio or film scores — as I never lost my love and emotion for film, so their scores were a form of music I was still capable of connecting with. Kind of a funky roundabout, but it really helped me cope with the issue for a long time.

It’s Metal and my love for Paul Perkins that has brought music back to me.

My cousins Kevin & Paul are the biggest metal heads I know. They were just finally getting myself and my brother into it right before I went insane. Alan went on to become just as big of a metal head as the both of them. I, on the other hand, could not listen to it any longer. I was too angry and it put me in even more of an angry place. Even when the songs weren’t inherently angry! Something like Amon Amarth’s Live Without Regrets is just super optimistic and inspiring.

Unfortunately Paul is no longer with us, but I like to think that part of the reason I am able to really connect with music again is because of that loss.

The journey of me being able to connect with music again can be traced back to a trip myself, Alan, & Kevin took to a record store in San Francisco while visiting Alan together — not very long after Paul’s passing.

This was the first exclusively vinyl store I have ever been into. My brother is hugely into collecting vinyl records like I am with physical movies, so he was super excited to show us his digs. There was a great smell in there. Like the kind you get when opening a brand new paperback book. It just wafts of creativity awaiting consumption.

Rows of boxes with hand-written cardboard signs denoting genres, sales, & price ranges. Records just littered in organized chaos, awaiting fingers to eagerly rifle through them. It’s here that I just went off on my own and started looking around. Alan wanted Kevin and I to each pick out something so we could listen to it together. Alan, Paul, Kevin, & I spent many hours solely listening to music together. Music was our language. I just wasn’t feeling it, though. I didn’t know what I was interested in picking up — because I wasn’t interested at all. I just wanted to get out of there.

Then I watched them look through the Metal section, and walk away from it without anything in hand.

I thought to myself “Well, if there’s nothing interesting for them, maybe I can find something.”

That’s all it took. I walked over to the left most box in the section that was facing the wall and started flipping through each record. I’m the kind of person that loves to judge a piece of artwork by the cover chosen for it. If you don’t put effort into your presentation then don’t expect me to put effort into what is behind it. “Don’t judge a book by its cover” has been far more relevant to me in life when it comes to people than when it comes to actual books.

Tempest
The album artwork for Tempest, by Lycus. ©2011

And then I saw it, Tempest, by Lycus. There was something about the album artwork that just spoke to me. It felt like something that if showed to Paul he would not allow me to put down. He would grab my shoulder vigorously and bring his head close to my ear with a “Duuuuuuude! That’s wicked!” So I called Kevin & my brother over and they did something really similar. It was everything I wanted it to be.

Lycus is a specific kind of Metal, Doom Metal. It’s very melodic, deliberate, and patient. There’s  a lot of chanting, and it just had a way of worming into my bones when we listened to it. It’s a kind of music that really allowed me to embrace my torture and grow with it rather than fight it.

Since the three of us first listened to that album my connection with music has been like a tarp full of water with a small tear in it. It starts as a small drip, but as it continues to rain, and slowly drops — that rip ever grows.

I realized today after having reconnected myself with music like Bullets & Octane, Coheed & Cambria, and even the original World of Warcraft scores — the tarp is almost entirely gone now.

I can bask in the rains of music again.

It’s a really liberating thing to be honest. I missed it quite a bit. I’m pretty sure human beings as a species in general share this same connection with music that I have. So you can understand when I tell you that having music dead to me is maybe the worst thing out of this journey that I have experienced.

This is the thing I am talking about when I say that everything happens for a reason.

The greatest gift I can give Paul in his passing is what I am doing now. I am using his loss, and my heartbreak from it to make me a more complete person again. It’s what he would want. He would be so excited to hear that I am going to the concert this summer. I only wish I didn’t have to carry him with me and that I could actually have him there next to me.

Thank you for inspiring me, Paul. Thank you for bringing music back to me. I miss you.

Music 2
From left to right: Paul Perkins, Trevor Elms, Kevin Perkins. ©2008 – Self Portrait

 

Thank you for reading.

©2017 Trevor Elms
Featured photo taken by Trevor Elms ©2015, Pictured from left to right: Kevin Perkins, Alan Elms