Category: History

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Lick the bottom

You have to lick the bottom, so you know what it tastes like. You have to lose a lot, maybe everything, to know what you had meant anything at all. This existential struggle? Everyone goes through this, some just can’t articulate it. Who with a contemplative mind has not contemplated forever? Who hasn’t feared the idea? How many ants or roaches did you kill this year? What do you think their afterlife fate is? What do you think yours is?

I used to go to parties and realize what hour it was, and realize there were only so many hours left to try to have fun. That’s how I’ve been looking at life lately. If I’m lucky, I have 30 years left, and that’s far less than I’ve already been here. Are you ready? I’m not.

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Solopsism revisited

I can trace back every anxiety and the majority of bad feelings in the last eight years to one source. Every time I drank too much, dissociated, or quit, I had one thing burrowed in my mind. Everything I was most scared of has happened. In every instance where the choice was binary, me or the other, the other was chosen. Everything I have explicitly asked for was consistently denied. This is true as recently as last night.

The consolation is that there is nothing left to fear. There is not much else to try. There is nothing left to lose.

And for all this, I am never spent. I wake up every morning still breathing, my heart still beating. The embers of forsaken ambition not related to you still smolder in my damp mornings. There is something else, and perhaps there always was.

A weird version of solipsism, at least in the universe of us. I am the only thing I can be sure exists.

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Random email

“The recurring presence of drama in my life recently is evidence of my complicity in its creation. And when it already exists I’m just as likely to aggravate it as I am to defuse it. Whatever is actually happening, I’m too close to having developed a meaningful insight yet. But on a visceral level, I can tell you that whatever the cause, the symptoms are painful and I hate the way it feels.”
“Are you really emailing that to me at work?”
“You’re missing the point.”

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Sentient gorillas

This life isnt easy. Gazelles don’t have it easy. Eventually 80% will get eaten by lions or hyenas. Honest to Buddha, I just watched a documentary on it. We are sentient gorillas. Look at a gorilla and try not to say fuck he looks remarkably like me. If you try to kill him he won’t like it. Probably put up a fight. They’re really strong so in this scenario he probably kills you. But after you’re dead do you think he thinks about tomorrow? Or death? Or why his gorilla girlfriend fucked another gorilla? This is hard to understand, but the Buddha teaches us it only hurts because you want it. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t care. Everything is transient. In this life you will lose everything and then will lose your life. Wanting more will bring you to your knees. I promise you. It all goes away. The sun will go away after it eats the earth. It’s sad to think about because you’re attached to your life. No matter how it ends? It will end. Friends will lie. Your children will disappoint you. Your lovers will leave. That is how it is. If you live 2 years or 200 years, in the span of forever, what’s the difference? That’s not a call to nihilism. What’s the point? You have five minutes on this spoiling, rotted globe. Why hurt other sentient gorillas if you can help it? Why hurt yourself? Dumb question. Everyone is killing themselves. What you eat, what you breathe, who you fuck. You’re not getting out of here alive. This sounds shitty. But my point is, and this was a long-winded way to say it, be nice.

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California king

I wake up on the floor in the only bedroom of my apartment. I’m parallel to the bed, but facing the wrong way. The lights are on. The fan is barely spinning; its movement looks almost accidental, as if it were being driven by exhalation rather than electricity. As consciousness slowly returns I am aware of a pain radiating down my right leg, starting with a serrated, stabbing sensation in my hip and ending with burning, near-numb needles in my purplish big toe. My left ankle literally feels like it’s on fire, but I’m unable to sit up and confirm the cause. Panic drives me to use the footboard of my bed to pull me to my knees, but the pain is so intense I crumble into a heap between the bed and the wall. Just before hitting the ground, I decide it was a mistake to squeeze a king size bed into such a small room. The bedroom furniture was one of the few concessions I was granted in the divorce, however, and I was determined to enjoy the Pyrrhic victory.

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The Ben Folds Five

The band is actually a trio, but I guess you have to be a fan to get the joke. Reinhold Messner is hard for me to listen to, even though I love it. It’s too close to home and too near the bone. I never tempt the past with Muse or the Weakerthans. I remember when we were a secret, when it was dangerous and beautiful. I remember the fire drill when we stood in the stairwell and I stole a hand squeeze, and we spoke innuendoes about sex and corporeal delight by quoting song lyrics.

I sometimes feel like I’ve lost that ability to yearn. When celebrities die, I subtract my age from theirs. The number keeps getting smaller.

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Stubborn thorns

Here’s another irony. When I’m calm the things I say cause the most chaos. I’m just riffing. I like how words feel in my mouth. My girlfriend called me disgusting over some bad poetry. Feel the divine, dear. I can change if it helps you love me. I can’t change the word no. That one is a stubborn thorn.

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Vocabulary is a handicap

There was an emptiness with her. It was a squalid, bleak emptiness without her. She prompted existential questions. Is this it? And then I found the lack of her prompts troubling. Who the fuck uses the word squalid? Who even knows what that means? Vocabulary is a handicap. You can’t feel something if you can’t think it. But what if you can think of everything? Walk in my parade for this block.

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Count your breaths

Our capacity for weakness is clearly demarcated. The weird part is how close is it to greatness. Put down the drink. Say another word. And the play ends differently. It doesn’t have to end insanely. Pull in your arms. Count your breaths. Try to sleep. Ignore the noises. Especially they voices. Pull in your arms. Count your breaths. And sleep.

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The ghost of you

The ghost of you is horrific and often returns to me in dreams. Even to this day. Even last night. And so it can’t be real. You in my dreams must represent something else. There is nothing visceral left between us. Any physical pleasure your body brought mine has been forgotten. The mind is a terrible thing to taste and even harder to erase.