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.
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.
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.
Adam and Eve
It’s best not to begin with Adam and Eve. Original sin is baffling. Besides, kids are scared of naked people holding apples. Start with the talking snake. Kids like animals. Children like what animals have to say. Let him hiss for a while. They’ll figure him out in the end. Describe sin as suffering and leave it at that. Steer clear of confessionals. Children associate them with toilets. They’ll be able to describe it soon enough. If they feel the need to apologize, tell them the moon is there to forgive. As for the priest, let him sleep. He’s less dangerous that way.
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.
Until something goes wrong
I wish to think that we’re not just slaves to dopamine and serotonin levels. The cynic in me recognizes chemicals and their resulting imbalances. The part of me still capable of tricking the rest cries, “Love!” I listen to songs or I read poems and the words shuck and jive, as they should, but sometimes one or three land a punch to the celiac plexus and still manage to draw my breath. Just like the literal and metaphoric heart, the diaphragm is a muscle that might work forever without your notice. Until something goes wrong.
Hold it
Now that you have done it, see if you can hold it. What are you really losing? And anything you lose, anything you feel about this is completely within yourself, and therefore completely within your control. The actual pain is long gone. Nothing you do can ever turn that past into a win–nothing short of a miracle anyway. And thereʻs no point in making her lose too. Sheʻs doing a pretty good job of fucking up her life without you. You canʻt save her, especially because she doesn’t want you to, but you can save yourself.
Donʻt feel bad, thereʻs nothing to feel bad about. She will only recreate the worst of you in her mind no matter what really happened. She will keep giving the benefit of the doubt to the people just using her to fuck.
You are real; there is no taking away what you are and what you’ve done. It cannot be cleansed. You cannot change anymore. If this ever has a chance she would need to be the one that has to change. I swear I swear I swear I hope Iʻm wrong, but I’ve been right with everything else.
Full color at high speed with no filter
I’ve asked myself what it is, and I guess it’s more a kind of darkness. There was enough distraction when I was younger and preoccupied in the establishment of a life, that I was able to ignore it, with situational exceptions. Other proclivities like sex and alcohol sometimes made it feel like there wasn’t even anything to worry about. What I’ve come to learn is that unhealthy sexual shenanigans (if they even exist), or alcohol, or sometimes drugs, were not in and of themselves the disease, but were, in fact, the telling symptoms of something far more dangerous that was just waiting for me with its gangrenous soul, and sad, sad heart. But, oh so pretty to look at.
I guess my misguided attempts to always live in full color at high speed with no filter, and in possession of a ferocious, single-minded intensity I sometimes used as a means to those ends, my life became double-edged, semi-charmed, yet, more and more, self-destructive. I can also say that I’ve been to more cities than I can count on Trip Advisor know more about the subtle nuances of the human condition than I had previously thought was possible, felt deeper feelings (good and bad) than anyone I know not suffering with a serious mental illness, and been in situations that I know most people will never see, want to visit, or even believe exist. (I can’t tell you how many times I’ve found myself in a random house or hotel room at three in the morning with some random Mary Magdalene, contemplating what to do next and thinking to myself, “How in the fuck did I end up at this moment, in this place, watching what I’m watching? What’s my play here?”) But everything bad that happened was happening too often to be a coincidence. Is still happening in some respects. When the darkness finally rose above, it came swifter and stayed longer than I thought was possible, and consequently damaged and collaterally damaged much more than I could pretend not to care about; everything in its reach got and gets caught in its velvet web
The argument can be made that my experiences have helped make me the person that I am. And for the most part that’s a good thing. I love madly, forgive quickly, feel empathy deeply, laugh hard when I’m happy or sad, make others laugh and smile, and easily make real connections with people. But there’s an opposite side to that same coin that doesn’t sound like charisma, though it has as its source the same dark energy. I catch myself crying spontaneously at almost nothing, hurt intensely with an emotional paralysis, wander the streets lost and lonely, and strike back hard with words when I feel that I’ve been damaged intentionally. Yet I know that I don’t do evil things because I’m not inherently evil. I take action that looks evil not with premeditation, but by following the paths of least resistance and instant gratification, without regard for any consequences, good or bad, until they happen.
Someone I love dearly spoke of me once to another person I loved dearly (when I wasn’t there) saying to her, “He’s super smart, kind, and engaging when he’s in the mood, and seductive as he wants to be. But there is a dark side.” At the time I was mad at that spilled, heretical revelation. But it’s difficult, disingenuous, and ultimately pointless to speak anger to truth.
Lost highways
She lifts her dress up to her knees and walks barefoot to the pool. Those delicate feet. I’ve had them in my mouth. Clean from the shower I tasted the feel of her veins. You can lick anywhere you want. I hate that she said that to anyone else. But I understand. We all want that feeling of touch. That moment of excitement when you feel wanted. So it hurts but I’m not mad. I’m mad at me. But in a way, we’re all mad at ourselves. This one is not the same. It honestly felt there was a god when she came out of the stupid internet. Then she was real. Then she cried because I hurt her. Then she laughed because I’m funny. Then she said I wasn’t funny anymore.
She makes me want to listen to Hank Williams and understand lost highways. I don’t think she knows who Hank Williams is.
Specific unmet needs
I trust my dreams in a way I don’t trust myself. In my head, I am a pathological liar. I know better. My dreams know better. It eschews pronouncements. And instead suggests a tone and other vagaries. The familiar hurt that doesn’t shake. Still hours next to you. Sleep finally dies. In the dark. Eyes closed, the feeling remains. I can hear your breath. I can feel your naked skin. They fail to reassure. “Your touch repulses me.” Only spoken in a dream sounds like something you might say. If you weren’t holding back. If you didn’t think this way is easier. And only temporary. You turn your back to me and lie flat on your stomach. “It’s how I like it.” But it’s not. That’s not how it ever was when it really was how you liked it. I wonder how you were two months ago. When you were looking for it. And how it would be if you didn’t still have specific unmet needs.