I think that at the heart of all sentimentality is a fear of insensitivity, that lingering fear that we might not be feeling things like we should. Maybe our feelings are broken?
There were times in my life when I knew I should be feeling something, something more than what I felt, which felt like nothing at the time, and I was scared, but those were hard times for everyone I could see.
The world was such a hard place then.
Sentimentality only made those awful days longer. So I shut it off. I zoned out. And now I fear that maybe I cannot feel. Maybe I am a sociopath. I can’t turn it on, I can’t zone in.
So I reconstruct the ingrained sentiment that got burned into every fiber of that suit that I wore which was there every day, impartially soaking up the morbid sun and all of those prayers which wavered out to sea, addressed to a God who still has yet to come. The green suit. The orange suit. We were at war.
The fiber was as much a slave as I was. It was only there because I had gotten us into this mess with my hasty contract signing. The fiber was the most virtuous in our twisted war story.
To liberate the rag and that sentiment, those feelings which ought to have been felt, which are there by way of infusion, that is my goal. I will accomplish it with scissors and water and my hands.
Destroy it, and as it turns to pieces, smell the sun and the cigarettes and the racist jokes and the homophobia and the cordite and the prayer oil and the oc spray and all those hot nights alone staring out over what can happen here because we are insane and thinking blankly that surely this is all absurd.
Reconstruct the sentimental fibers into paper, in the shape of my story, as a vessel for it’s own story.
The stories, the paper, floats out over the ocean like a prayer or a styrafoam cup or a passengerless airplane, a mute gesture made in vain towards a cruelly fair universe in which we’ve created our own hell. The gesture reads: “I can see that you’ve given me these lemons… well…”
It is a story that only me and my uniform know, and the uniform is the only one of us that isn’t a liar.
SPC Mixon
The Paper Trail 
Wow, this is an amazing piece of writing! In just a few paragraphs you brought me into your world. You should turn this into a trade book. I’m NOT kidding–your work lives in the heart. You’re the real deal and this project is amazing. Thank you for posting this.
Peace,
—j
Those are very high accommodations John and I am humbled by them. I hope that upon reading through the rest of this blog your spirits stay as high. You might find my world a little tedious at times. I sure do.
Real is all I’ve ever wanted to be from my little world of dreams. To be the real deal would mean a great deal to me. Let’s both of us hope that I am.
Then maybe someday I will get a real deal.
`O
you write beautifully
I wish that I could fully accept this compliment but at this time I still find that writing is something that happens to me which is more or less out of my control so if it is truly beautiful than I am nothing other than lucky that my inner self is not hideous to the outside world which I so often fear it to be. I think this condition runs rampant in our demographic.
embrace your beauty, kid.
I just heard “The Cage” on radio today. I was blown away by it, by the very thought of your survival, by your compassion for the detainees. I am equally moved by your writing above. It is something important to me to discover a voice like yours amid all the current grotesqueries of our national life. I wish you well.
Thanks Jane. I’m glad that you found this blog. I hope you continue to find it enjoyable.
Mr. Mixon,
I’m digging the “Edge City” entries. Contact me. We should get together soon for some sort of creation. I still have to make my poster design for the Just Seeds project. You should teach me to do the screen prints.
Brother, Salute from from an old one, long ago in combat.
Hey, this is Sommer from Flying Guillotine. I want to send you the book we made with your paper! Email me your address here: flyingguillotinepress@gmail.com, will you? I’m sorry about your pot charge, it infuriates me. Good luck. Love from Denver.
You make me want to be a better person, to feel those things only felt when you push way beyond what is not just comfortable, but fathomable.
I cant read this page