2012

January 2, 2012 
Life

“Make food. Take a bath. Do the fucking dishes.”
“Are you implying that I don’t?”
“Not by the looks of things.”
“Maybe not often.”
“Not often enough. How do you get a woman?”
“I get plenty of women.”
“No, you get girls. Girls will put up with shit. They don’t know better.”
“And I do?”
“You should.”

 
Distracted

“I loved you. I loved loving you.”
“It felt too hard.”
“Love is hard.”
“Not that hard.”
“No, I guess not.”

 
No, really

“Go outside and lie down on the floor.”
“That’s how you get arrested.”
“It seems that’s what you wanted.”

 
What are you saying?

“This is a three-way thing”
“No way, fuck you no way.”
“Put him on the stand.”
“I don’t need to.”
“Put him up.”
“Fuck you.”
“No, fuck you.”

 
Conversations

“I can’t carry on these conversations.”
“What conversations?”
“With the thoughts in my head. Isn’t that natural?”
“No it’s not.”
“Am I sick?”
“I don’t know.”
“Are you?”

January 3, 2012 
Light

“Turn on the light.”
“No, I’ve got to be strong.”
“Turn on the light.”
“No.”
“It’s ’cause what happened to you when you were a kid.”
“Everything happens to you from when you were a kid.”
“Turn on the light.”
“No, I like being scared.”
“Honey, I don’t like you being scared.”
“I’m so afraid. I can take it.”

 
Hit

If you hit a dog, they’ll put you in jail. If you hit another person, you better have a good reason. Why are you allowed to hit your kids? The ones with the most loving, trusting attitudes you’ll ever see. You beat them out of your own hatred and fear; what scares you. Not the other way around.

 
Perils

“I remember you being wicked smart. And funny.”
“Unfortunately wicked smart comes with wicked stupid.”
“Sometimes, yeah. What do you remember about me?”
“It’s shallow.”
“Try me.”
“That you were about the prettiest thing I’d ever seen, and.”
“And?”
“And it gave you the power to just not give a fuck.”
“I sorta like that.”
“I sorta like you.”
“Kiss me.”
“Where?”
“Brazen.”
“It’s my defining characteristic.”

 
This thing we’re doing

“It isn’t going to happen.”
“Why not?”
“Because we’re just going to fuck. I don’t want that right now.”
“And?”
“And everybody likes to fuck.”
“Go jerk off.”
“I was planning on it anyway.”
“Yeah, I figured.”
“You do?”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah but I’m way hotter than you are. Wetter. Somewhat softer.”
“Don’t tease.”
“Only if you stop asking.”
“I’m done.”

 
Verbiage

It’s not the words. It’s not the comma or the semi-colon. It’s the wrong word. The words are a disease and, unfortunately, it’s my charge to cure it.

 
Girls

“You’ve fucked hot chicks before.”
“That’s all you seem to do”
“Stop naming names.”
“Stop being you.”

 
Open

“Let it be open.”
“I don’t think that’s smart.”
“What’s been smart up to now?”
“Let it be fucking open.”

January 4, 2012 
No

“His semen is in your body right now.”
“Why do you have to be ugly?”
“His semen is in your body.”
“I’m sure some of it dripped out.”
“Mean.”
“Really?”
“Understandable. That’s all I’ll give you.”
“I wanted you so badly.”
“And I didn’t want you until I lost you.”
“You’ve lost me.”

 
Knock, knock

“No, that’s how friends knock.”
“Knock?”
“Well, they don’t necessarily knock.”
“No.”
“Kick it in.”

 
Urine

“You smell like urine. Homeless people smell like urine.”
“I’m not exactly homeless.”
“Close enough.”
“I’m not the only one without a job.”
“Find someone else white.”

 
Phone

“You call her 15,000 times a day. Something is going on.”
“It’s not like it seems.”
“It’s always like it seems.”

 
The store

“We’ve got to go to the store.”
“They close at midnight.”
“That’s in, like, three hours.”
“Shit happens.”
“Shit happens to you.”
“I know. That’s why we’re in a hurry.”

 
Li hing

“What is it?”
“You won’t like it.”
“Can I try it?”
“You won’t like it.”
“Why?”
“If you didn’t grow up with it you won’t like it.”
“How do you know?”
“You’re going to waste it.”
“Give me a piece.”
“Here.”
“Yuck.”
“That shit’s expensive. At least hand it back.”
“Gross.”
“Really? After what you did last night?”
“Shut up.”

 
Meat

“Oh, my god. That’s raw.”
“No the grill just has to look at.”
“”It hasn’t looked long enough.”
“Taste it.”
“No. I’m not putting that in my mouth.”
“That’s what she said.”
“That’s not funny.”
“Turns out? That’s also what she said.”

January 5, 2012 
Prostitution

“I think I’m in love with a hooker.”
“Then we can’t hang out anymore.”
“Prejudice.”
“Are you kidding me? I hardly judge anything. Smell my balls for god’s sake.”
“No thank you.”
“I’m not judging. I just don’t want to be in that situation. Trust me I like hookers.”
“Then walk away.”
“I’ve already started walking.”

 
Anger management

“I’m not mad at you.”
“What?
“I would be at me if I were you.”
“What? Why?
“Because I fucked her.”
“When?”
“It’s not like a one time thing.”
“Fuck.”
“I know, right. At least you get her. I have to wait.”

 
Carry

“How are you?”
“How am I? How do you think I am?”
“I think you know what I mean.”
“We?”
“We’re going to be dead a lot longer than we’re alive.”
“A little dramatic.”
“What have you come to expect?”
“It means every moment counts. Every breath. And you’ve wasted so many of mine.”

 
Facts

“When’s the last time you had sex?”
“Last week.”
“I don’t like that.”
“I don’t like a lot of things. I’m married. I have to fuck him.”
“That doesn’t mean I like to think about it.”

 
Actions

“Your words.”
“Yes?”
“They’re too raw.”
“Nobody has to look at them.”
“You put them everywhere.”
“Nobody has to look.”

 
Knowledge

“You know too much.”
“You don’t know enough.”
“And look what it brought you.”
“That’s an easy thing to say. At least I love Emily Dickinson and punk rock.”
“And, so that makes you what?”
“I guess smarter and sadder than you.”
“Yes.”
“We’re still going to be the same dead in fifty years.”
“Nice.”

 
Hold

“I’m not beholden to you. I’m not beholden to me.”
“Let me.”
“Let you what?”
“Let me in. You can’t do this alone.”
“Do what?”
“Honey, let me in.”

 
Uh

“I don’t like losing my temper. Especially around you but I didn’t lose that invoice.”
“But.”
“But? But? Toss my fucking account away and look at our past.”
“Okay.”
“Too late. fuck you.”

 
Incarceration

Jail. I don’t think you should go if you haven’t been. And I don’t suggest you do. But it will define you. It will make you or, more likely, it will break you. Be hard all the time? See what falls.

January 6, 2012 
Banal

“Since when did banality and mediocrity become the norm.”
“But Justin Bieber and Taylor Swift are so sweet and talented.”
“No. No they’re not. They’re just as fucked up as the rest of us.”
“What do you want your kids listening to?”
“I don’t care I just want it coming from someplace.”
“Like Janis or Billie Holliday? They’re not very good role models.”
“I don’t care if they died in pools of their on vomit or blew their fucking heads off. I’ll be the goddamn role model.”
“Good chance of that.”
“Yeah, well. At least they’ll get fucked up listening to something good.

January 7, 2012 
Operation Ivy

“Daddy, daddy, daddy, I don’t like that music.”
“You’re going to grow up with something that fucking rocks. Your mom and sister can have Taylor Swift. Now listen to Mötorhead and to go to sleep. It sort of gets softer at the end of Overkill. And if you can’t sleep? Be glad you have a dad that makes you listen to Operation Ivy.”

January 8, 2012 
Weaponry

“Do you have any weapons?”
“That’s a stupid question.”
“What?”
“Almost anything in this room can be weaponized.”
“Are you carrying any weapons.”
“Did you not hear what I just said? That’s a stupid question.”
“What would you have me ask?”
“If my intent is to hurt you.”
“Is it?”
“No.”
“Wouldn’t that have been easier?”
“You’re missing the point.”

 
Necessities of us all

“Are you warm? Are you safe?”
How did it come to that? I love them. I need them. I want them. How did I fall so far that they feel like these are necessary questions?

 
Food

Everyone gets everything they want. Don’t you see? That’s what’s the fucking problem.

January 9, 2012 
Different

I go to the office to pay rent. And I look at the guy behind the desk. I don’t mean this meanly. And I’m, like, this. This is what you want to do with your life. Fuck. We are so different.

January 21, 2012 
Sobriety

“Why do you sound so well?”
“What do you mean?”
“Sober.”
“Because I’m sober. I could go get fucked up if you like and call back slurring.”
“I’d prefer you didn’t.”
“Then don’t ask if I’m fucking sober. It’s hard enough to be this way without being tested on it.”
“Calm down.”
“I am calm. Why don’t you fuck down a couple notches?”
“That’s not calm.”
“Okay I lied. This fucking sucks. And your asking about it? Only brings it closer back. So shut up.”
“That is uncalled for. Don’t tell me to shut up in my own house.”
“Shut the fuck up.”

January 25, 2012 
Do you want to see?

Do you want to see me bleed? Do you want to see me come? Do you want to see me fall? Do you want to see me stagger? Do you want to see me drunk? Do you want to see me sober? Everything. Small or large. Everything. It is all for you.

 
Who again?

Who the fuck cares who gets caught in the middle? Left, right. 50-50. Everything is the same. We have to tear down the wall or nothing will ever be different. Nothing.

 
I’ve fallen

It’s over. Thank you, God it’s over. I can see the light. I kiss grandma. I hug uncle. Then a voice rises. “Go back. You’re not finished yet. Go back.” It’s like a womb. It’s so warm and I don’t want to leave. “Your daughter. Your son. Go back.” I wake and I run home. I grab their hands and lift them to the sky. She giggles. He mocks her. And I try not to cry.

January 26, 2012 
The hurt

Where are you? I look and I can’t find you. Without you I have nothing and no one. How did we come to this place? How did you find me? Why did you find me? To make me want again? I had just smashed that need. And now it’s back. I don’t know to thank or to curse you. Need hurts. And I am so tired of hurting.

 
Sorry

“You broke me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“That’s not enough.”
“What’s enough?”
“You go be sorry for ten years. You figure out a way you bring my youth back. You go back in time. You don’t hit my mom. You don’t hit me. Sorry? You’re sorry. I hate you.”

January 27, 2012 
She calls at four in the morning

She tells me, “I have to go to bed.”
“You’re fucking kidding. Now I’m up for the rest of the night? You know we live in different time zones, right? I’m three hours ahead? It’s four in the morning.”
“I just wanted to say good night.”
“Good night was six hours ago.” But I love her. I love her. And tonight I’m up all night.

 
Yuck

Everyone makes 1000 mistakes. One more time just for old time’s sake.

January 28, 2012 
Art at any cost

Before anything new can be created, everything else must be destroyed.

 
The story

“I put you in the story.”
“I don’t want to be in it. That’s you not me.”
“What do you mean? Here you are.”
“That’s your story not mine. Keep it to yourself.”
“Too late, you’re in it.”
“Keep my fucking name out.”
“Anyone that reads it is going to know it’s you.”
“I know, asshole.”

January 29, 2012 
Rememberance

I remember. Maybe you have forgotten. But I remember. All I do is remember.

January 30, 2012 
Lies

“It doesn’t fit.”
“What?”
“I look into your eyes and it doesn’t fit.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re lying.”
“About?”
“I don’t know. But I can see in your eyes that you’re lying.”

 
Midsummer

“Or, if there were a sympathy in choice,
War, death, or sickness did lay siege to it,
Making it momentary as a sound,
Swift as a shadow, short as any dream;
Brief as the lightning in the collied night,
That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth,
And ere a man hath power to say ‘Behold!’
The jaws of darkness do devour it up
So quick bright things come to confusion.”
“How do you know that shit?”
“I told you, fucking Punahou.”

 
And now

“So we play this game. You go “sssshhh.” And I go “sssshhh.” And then we stay silent. And everything around us gets to be grace and love. Fuck this. I want more. I want your undivided attention. I want it all. I want it all.”
“You can’t have it all. You can only play a part.”
“That doesn’t mean I can’t want it.”
“Want what you want. But you get what you get. Take or leave.”
“Jesus. Fuck. Take.”

January 31, 2012 
Okay I may have told a white lie

I said I wouldn’t talk about this. But your voice goes through me like a hot knife through butter. And I can feel you. Your voice is like an aria when it finally plays. Your face is like Da Vinci. And your attention is all I crave. And I can feel you. Your body is secondary. Of course, it serves a purpose. But it’s your eyes. Your breath. The taste of your tongue. Our history. I’m not just moved. I’m shoved to the side by the memory of my will. Lucidity. Tranquility. You.

 
Stay

“Are you doing this because I said I love you?”
“No.”
“Are you doing this because I cannot cry?”
“No. I’m doing it because I love you.”
“Stay.”
“I can’t. Goodbye, my love.”

 
You’re crying

“You’re crying? Why are you crying?”
“Your words.”
“All I have is my words.”
“No. You have me.”
“No you have others that need you.”
“You have me.”
“I? I have nothing.”

February 1, 2012 
Much

“I love you too much.”
“I didn’t know there could be too much.”
“And still you need more.”
“I always need more.”
“I give all that I can give.”
“I always need more. Too much is never enough.”

 
She

“She thinks too much of you.”
“Really?”
“Do you have a second?”
“Nothing starts good with that question.”
“Let her out.”
“Let her out of what?”
“Let her out of you.”
“Never. That girl will always be mine.”
“We’ll see.”
“Yes, we will fucking see.”

 
No can

“The pain of loss. I can’t do it anymore. I can’t live with and without you.”
“You have me now.”
“It’s not enough. I need more.”
“This is all you can have.”
“I know.”

 
42

“I’ve lived on this Earth almost 42 years and everything that means anything to me fits in a duffle bag.”
“I don’t fit in your duffle bag.”
“What do you mean to me?”
“Once you said ‘Everything’”
“Everything and nothing are a lot closer than you think.”

February 2, 2012 
Forward, right?

History tells us about ourselves. It informs everything about us. From your next breath to your next step. How the fuck do you know where you’re going, if you have no idea where you’ve been?

 
Chaotic

If there is a God, he ain’t got no plan. None that I can see. All I can see is a random chaos where nothing and no one matters. A loving remark or a wild car hits you on the street. Where is the purpose? Where is the meaning? I just don’t see any.

 
Dark and light

I absolutely refuse to let this loneliness kill me. No more downward spirals into the darkness. I will write about my experiences there, but no longer relive them in order to write them.

 
Numb

“Escape.”
“There is no escape here.”
“Just walk out.”
“Walk out of my mind? I don’t think I’d get very far before it caught up.”
“So you sit in here and numb the pain?”
“Yes, I sit in here and numb the fucking pain.”
“How are you ever going to get out?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you even have a plan?”
“Yes. To numb the fucking pain. Please leave. I don’t need a guilt-trip right now.”
“It’s been almost four years.”
“Trust me. It’s been a lot longer than that.”

 
Visceral and intellectual

I’m trying to write so that the visceral and the intellectual are equally represented. And explain in cogent, descriptive, raw terms how a metaphorical punch in the gut feels. How it feels to flail, to fall down, and then pull yourself up and do it again. Then, reflect on it and make it as real as I can. Complete transparency and total honesty, as I know them any way, is the only way out. And the only way to stop falling.

February 3, 2012 
Nihility

I believe it’s almost immoral to perpetuate superstitions, however comforting, onto anyone outside yourself. We’ve been creating these stories since fire, and hominids becoming bipeds. They explain the unexplainable with specific myths that change in every culture and over the millennia. With no empirical evidence whatsoever, these ridiculous stories become embedded. And then people kill and die for them. We are chimpanzees that figured out how to talk and start a fire. Nothing more.

 
La verdad

Being an artist means expressing your true feelings. Whether it be on canvas or WordPress. Simple. Honest. Clarity. Redaction. Reduction. Forms. No compromise. Often in the moment. No regret. Being an artist means being the truth.

February 5, 2012 
The valley of the shadow of whatever

You’re going to walk through the valley? You better watch your back. If there is a God? He only helps those that help themselves.

February 6, 2012 
Where do you think you’re going?

“It’s dark outside. Are you going to walk? What if you need to run? What happens when you run out of money? What is your plan? What about your kids?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know? What kind of stupid fucking answer is that?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know, you don’t know. You are so frustrating.”
“That, I do know.”
“I love you so.”
“I know.”

February 7, 2012 
Weird

“People think I’m crazy, off-putting and weird.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because I’m crazy, off-putting and weird.”

 
Hide

See with your eyes. Smell with your nose. Taste with your tongue. Nothing in this world is hidden.

February 8, 2012 
Fiction

The stories I tell, though embellished by a personal myth system, are for the most part true. But fictional, lest I step on the wrong toes. This is all fiction.

February 9, 2012 
Hard

Do you know how hard it is to be what I am?

 
Whole

This person. This life. This feeling. It all comes down to this doesn’t it? She. This woman. She makes me feel like I am more than I am. And with her, I am more than I am. God bless and yada yada. She makes me whole.

 
Having

“You can have me when you’re here, but I’m not yours.”
“Were you ever mine?”
“There might have been a time, but I didn’t trust you so I walked away.”
“And now?”
“I still don’t believe in love.”
“I love you.”
“That’s what you say.”

 
Hurt

“It’s weird, how when it’s fresh it hurts.”
“And now?”
“And now it’s just numb.”
“So, you don’t love me anymore.”
“I think I do. I just can’t feel it.”
“Nice.”
“No. Not really.”

February 10, 2012 
Drunk

“You’re drunk.”
“So are you.”
“You’re not supposed to drink.”
“Says who? The drunk police?”
“I worry about you.”
“I worry about myself.”
“You’re so frustrating.”
“Imagine being with me all the time.”
“Yeah.”
“I know, right.”

 
Anger

“Do you feel that anger? Do you feel how it burns?”
“I hate you.”
“I know. But do you feel it?”
“Yes.”
“That’s how I always feel.”
“How do you live like this?”
“I don’t know.”
“What’s wrong with you?”
“I don’t know.”
“I want you to die.”
“Sooner or later I’m sure I will.”

 
Miss

“Where are you?”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m not sure I even miss you.”
“Nice.”
“You started it.”
“I’m not unavailable. You knew the situation going in.”
“That doesn’t mean I liked it.”
“That’s on you.”
“No, it’s on you too.”

 
What matters

“What’s the matter?”
“I want them to know how great you can be.”
“I don’t feel great.”
“It doesn’t matter what you feel. It matters what you do.”
“I haven’t done anything.”
“Do it now.”

 
Out

“I want to know how we got here.”
“It just happens I guess.”
“This shit just happens?”
“Well, this is where we are.”
“This is where we are. I’m not happy.”
“What can I do?”
“Change.”
“Nothing ever changes. Not really.”
“I know.”
“Then what are you asking for?”
“Out.”

 
Kill

“How hard would that have been?”
“To what?”
“To wake up one day and be like everybody else.”
“I can’t answer that.”
“Why do you always have to be the bad seed? The damaged goods?”
“I’m different?”
“You’re not different. You’re like everybody else.”
“No.”
“You’re right. Not everyone is killing themselves.”

 
Unconditional

“Your friends are right. You have a good heart.”
“But?”
“But you’re stuck. And I can’t be stuck with you.”
“I thought unconditional meant without conditions.”
“I didn’t say I don’t love you.”
“But?”
“But, I cannot be with you.”
“What’s the difference?”
“Trust me. There is one.”

February 11, 2012 
Seventeen

“My eyes hurt. My stomach burns.”
“Stop living like you do.”
“And what is that.”
“Like a 17-year old.”
“Thank you for the advice.”
“I need to tell you something.”
“Shit.”
“Are you sitting down?”
“This should be good.”
“I love you.”
“When does the shoe drop?”
“There’s no shoe. There’s no drop. I love you.”
“Shit. That buildup. I thought it was done.”
“You can’t get rid of me that easily.”

 
Let go

“Part of life is learning to let things go.”
“Are you letting me go?”
“Do you want to be gone?”
“What kind of silly game is this?
“What do you want?”
“I don’t know much, but I know I want you.”
“Then say it.”
“I want you.”
“Not right now. No.”

 
Faith

“Don’t take this the wrong way.”
“What?”
“I have almost no faith in you.”
“Jesus, is there a right way to take that?”
“I love you.”
“The totally emasculated version of me or me?”
“Stop.”

February 12, 2012 
Thread

“Go say you’re sorry.”
“Why?”
“You hurt her feelings.”
“Maybe her feelings are a little too light.”
“Go say you’re sorry. We’re all just hanging here by a fucking thread.”

 
Vicarious

“Who are you?”
“What does that mean?”
“I’ve known you ten years and I feel like you’re a stranger.”
“I’m a stranger to myself.”
“It hurts.”
“It does. This distance.”
“This distance.”
“Can I come home?”
“I don’t know.”

February 13, 2012 
Do, don’t try

“What are you doing?”
“What do you mean?”
“Why are you like this?”
“Like what?”
“So far away.”
“I’m lost.”
“Then get found.”
“If it was that easy I would have done it years ago.”
“Get to it.”

 
Stripper

“You’re dating a 19-year old stripper. And not the heart-of-gold kind, the by-the-airport kind.”
“She’s had a few problems. She’s off her meds.”
“What is wrong with you?”
“I like pretty girls?”
“At what expense?”
“Everything, I guess.”

 
Forever

“Remember the days we thought we were going to live forever?”
“And now?”
“Everything comes to an end.”
“What are you saying?”
“I don’t know.”
“What are you saying?”
“Nothing lasts forever.”

 
Missing

“It’s like you’re a dead man walking.”
“I can’t feel anything.”
“So many people love you.”
“Not you.”
“Not the kind that you want, but I do love you.”
“That hurts more than nothing.”
“Is that what you want?”
“What?”
“Nothing?”
“I’d prefer that to feeling this way.”

 
Joy

“So we leave as we came alone.”
“It’s better to have no joy and no sorrow.”
“I miss the joy.”
“Then embrace the sorrow.”

February 14, 2012 
Lover

“He’s coming out again.”
“Maybe.”
“He’s your lover.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You don’t have to say anything. Do you love him?”
“What do you want me to say?”
“The truth.”
“Yes.”

 
Anywhere

“Where are you going?”
“Home.”
“I wish I were coming with you.”
“Come.”
“I need to stay.”
“I need to go.”
“You’re never going to get anywhere if you’re only doing it for yourself.”
“Come.”
“No.”

February 15, 2012 
Relax

“Who are you?”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know who you are.”
“Baby, relax.”
“Don’t tell me to relax. There’s a stranger in my bed.”
“I’m not a stranger. What do you want from me?”
“The truth.”
“No. You don’t.”

 
Better

“I often find myself thinking about the attraction of beauty and death.”
“Why are you so morbid?”
“Why are you so happy?”
“I don’t worry myself with these things.”
“These things are all I think about.”
“Come back. Come back to us. Come back to life.”
“I’m doing my best to just get through.”
“Do better.”

 
Home

“Go home.”
“Is that what you would do?”
“I don’t know what I would do.”
“Then how in the fuck do you tell me to go home?”
“Go home. Be there for them.”
“I don’t know how to be.”
“Find it within yourself.”

 
Bones

“I can see your clavicles. Pronounced.”
“So?”
“So it means you’re getting too skinny.”
“I like being too skinny.”
“Let me touch you.”
“Why?”
“I want to feel you.”

February 16, 2012 
Be

“I don’t have your strength.”
“Endure.”
“I’m not quite sure I know how.”
“Just be. Just be.”

February 19, 2012 
Insomnia

I suffer from intense, crushing insomnia. My record is seven days with no sleep at all, at the end of which I had a seizure. But at least that finishes in fireworks, a trip to the E.R., an I.V., and a prescription for Ativan. It used to be Ambien, but that’s another story. The worst are when insomnia turns into months of broken, fitful, not-quite sleep. The half-dreams, the struggle to shut your racing mind juxtaposed with a quiet loneliness as the world is still, and the grogginess of being first outside during “regular” hours. The condition provokes an array of well-intentioned home remedies, but my favorite is, “Why don’t you just go to sleep?” “Why didn’t I think of that?”

February 24, 2012 
Mantra

I sit in a dark corner and watch movies on a 13-inch screen. I’ve stopped watching documentaries about physiology and anatomy because they make me think about decay and its relation to forever. And I’ve never been much for romances, but now even scenes that show connection in movies not centered on a relationship seem to exacerbate my feelings of quiet. I repeat platitudes to myself like mantras never quite believing them. Things like, “Being alone doesn’t have to mean being lonely.” Liar.

February 26, 2012 
You are not alone

“It feels that way most of the time.”
“What way?”
“Alone.”
“You’re not alone.”
“Does that matter if it feels that way?”
“Everything matters all the time.”
“I thought I’d know better. I thought I’d go further.”
“You talk like it’s too late.”
“Isn’t it?”
“Never.”
“I wish I had your scrubbed-clean view of possibility.”
“Everything is a choice.”
“Not everything.”
“Fair enough. But this is.”
“Show me.”
“It doesn’t work unless you show yourself.”
“Of course.”
“Yes. Of course.”

February 27, 2012 
Share with the world

I am so in love with you right now. All I can feel is your breath on my neck, your soft lips against mine, your body filling the crooks of my own. I wish that you were here, like water filling completely the empty spaces. Leaving nothing but absolute touch.

 
Grief

I find myself sobbing sometimes. Wherefore? I don’t know. It comes often at the recognition of sacrifice. Television. The newspaper. Someone giving everything. It resonates. What have I sacrificed? What have I given? What did I trade in to be what I am? This feeling of a personal integrity, often failed. At what cost? No compromises have put me in compromising positions. I can be more careful now. I know where the boundaries are. And I will tip-toe to the ledge, look down, and rage. Middle finger raised. Congress shall make no law respecting yada yada yada. These small-minded, ignorant bully-boys will not define me. Now that I understand the logistics, there’s nothing to be scared of. Now that I understand how things work, I won’t walk with my head down and passively accept what’s given to me. The system is a joke, run by amateurs who understand nothing but the worship of the status quo. I won’t do what you tell me.

 
Pick-up sticks

I had reassured myself then that these things take time. Like a game of pick-up sticks I needed to be patient. I needed steady hands to extricate her from the pile of former lovers and current suitors, to remove her from the situation without disturbing any of the others. Without disturbing her. So I got drunk and steadied my hands. And waited.

 
Plumelia

plumeria.jpgI walk to the store and I can smell the magnolias as the stench permeates the misty morning. I don’t see the sun. The smell suggests the plumerias from home. Almost a stink sweet. But for some reason, the magnolias stink like death, like the slow burn of a Southern dying melancholy. Plumerias, so common, so complex, represent the opposite in my nose’s eye. The sap bleeding from the picked flowers or broken branches that ooze white lifeblood. So common, so complex. Like the rebirth of long-awaited airport greetings, or high school graduates buried in flora. It is the surging force of beauty and occasion, of celebration and happy.

February 28, 2012 
I got it bad and that ain’t good

I see the veins in my wrists. Pushing hard against the skin. Vibrating. Pulsing. I listen to Nina Simone and she makes me vibrate. Her real name was Eunice Waymon, so you might forgive her stage name. Presence. Where are these presences? What are going to come to replace? Brittany, Christina, Jennifer? Nothing seems to fit. Janis. Billie. Nina. They make their own sentences.

 
Borderless

My new favorite website, and not just because I’m a contributor.

 
Agenda

What are we going to do? Should we push forward? Or should we peel back? There’s a man standing next to me, and the music is making his eye tear up. My eye. That man is me. We’re crawling. We’re happy, but we’re sad. What goes on now? What happens? Who am I? Who are you?

 
Dabble

I am so far removed from home. I dabble in the politics of there and all I can feel is foreign. Hawai‘i may look and feel like paradise, but it’s nothing less than a battleground. Because it retreated, people won’t remember, but same-sex marriage was put on the battlefront there first. And to it’s eternal shame, Hawaii let the religio-fascists walk her in the other direction.

I wake up sometimes and worry about us. Us. You can see episodes of humans being small everywhere, and that truth fills me as much with wonder as sadness or disdain. After any kind of real connection with any kind of real person it’s amazing to contemplate how small we often are. But we are.

Sometimes I wonder what I’m doing. Why can’t I just put my head down and serve life as it is requested. Unfortunately, or perhaps most fortunately, that is not me. Love is my call. And this rabble-rouse seems to be its manifestation in my understanding. I may be frowning, but I love you.

February 29, 2012 
Scientology

There are so many wonderful things about this country. Unfortunately, the best about us lies in the abstract. America has always been a nation knee-deep in hypocrisy. It’s almost cliché to point out the tug between slavery and rhetoric. Let’s go church and state.

Rick Santorum. If he wasn’t so beatable I would be carrying a flamethrower in the streets. This disingenuous, rapacious, vomitous, torturous blight on society. How is anyone so anti-mind. His belief system is so backwards, that in my heart of hearts I believe it’s a political mechanism. It’s like Scientology. No rational person can believe that shit. It’s just a tool to keep people with insight at bay. Out of harm’s way.

How did we fall so far? How did we get to the point where small-minded ignoramuses actually have a national spotlight? My only reprise is that the other party has a philandering hypocrite (Gingrich), psychotic bigot (Santorum), and fairy tale-believing zealot (Romney) as their front runners. But how did it get to this? Really? Have we fallen so far?

Are we so desperate that we believe this nonsense? Where is the accountability? Why do we have to be sinners in the hands of an angry god? Are you that afraid? Open your eyes little boy. Your fears aren’t going to change anything. Hopefully they exacerbate what scares you most.

March 1, 2012 
Knowing

This everything. This anything. This something. This nothing. Feel the voices, feel the breath. Nothing can’t give you anything no matter how hard it tries. I saw a girl on the bus today.

“Can I have your number?”
“I have a boyfriend.”
“I wasn’t picking up on you necessarily.”
“You look like you were.”
“What does that mean?”
“Good looking.”
“I guess I might take that as a compliment.”
“Take it how you want to.”
“I’m going to give you my number.”
“What makes you think I want it?”
“I know you do.”
“You’re cute.”
“You’re pretty. When you’re not being a challenge.”
“Always.”
“I know.”
“You better.”
“With you, my love, I know.”

March 3, 2012 
Memory

I remember thinking, “Maybe this can all end. If I just close my eyes. You know I ain’t going to fit inside that picket fence. What now?” Yeah, right.

March 5, 2012 
A question

Love. Faith. Was it a dream? Where does it come from? Where does it go? Who is going to save me from myself? Clearly I’m not up to the job.

There is only this. All else is fake, is false, is nothing. Who am I? Is it wrong that I let you, that I want you to define me? Who am I, my love? Who am I?

March 6, 2012 
I guess, again

“What’s wrong with you.”
“We can’t all be smart.”
“How many times are you going to fuck up?”
“As many times as you let me?”
“You think you’re smart, asshole?”
“No, in fact, I think I’m stupid.”
“Wise ass.”
“I am what I am.”

March 7, 2012 
Taste

I want to taste you. I want to feel the small of your back as I pull you into my mouth. I want to taste you. I want to taste destiny. The hope you represent. The life not lived. Alive. With you I am alive.

 
Flaw

“You are a genius. But you are flawed”
“Who isn’t?”

March 9, 2012 
The teather

“Hold on. Pull it in, pull it in, pull it in.”
“Oh, god, why them? Why am I waiting for you? Why am I the fool? What am I missing? Why do I need you to pull me though?”

March 10, 2012 
Morning

It’s been a long night. I’ve been waiting for the morning. It’s been a long time. Things are bad, things are sad. But the morning is hope. It represents hope. I’m bad, but I’m not evil. And the morning is always there to represent reciprocity and maybe the goodness of mankind.

 
Life lessons

Hold it, God, while you can. Maybe use your left hand. I’m going to bend right now. But lately every time I lay down. I can’t even close my eyes. You put me here. You made me what I am. If you exist. If you’re there. Make it end, please.

March 11, 2012 
The world

“Look at the world.”
“There are many worlds. The one you see. And the one I see.”

March 12, 2012 
Guns

Who puts the guns in hands of these people?
Of, course the answer is we do.
Where do the guns come from?
They come from America.
And we have culpability in the blood of all the death.

 
Scared

” What are we taught? What do I see? I’m scared.”
“That is the beginning of wisdom.”

 
Front

Front and back? They follow one another. Am I good? Am I evil? The back follows the front.

 
Anger

Anger is the deadliest disease. And I have learned this truth too closely.

 
Truth

The truth will not be cheated. Look at your feet. Look at your hands. The truth is what it is. And it will not be cheated.

March 13, 2012 
Stink

“I’ve had the same bar of soap and bottle of shampoo for nine months.”
“That’s fucking gross.”
“I don’t stink do I?”
“That’s not the point.
“Fair enough.”

 
Are

I don’t feel people. I don’t feel them like I used to. I don’t feel lost, but I’m not found. I’m not heavy, but I’m not light. I miss you. And I hate you. We are who we are. I repeat it as a mantra. We are who we are. Why are things like they are? Because they are.

 
Hard

One’s words? They are rarely better then silence. Keep silent or come hard. Let me tell you first. I will most likely be harder than you.

 
Seek not to contend

Where there is no contention? There is neither defeat or victory.

 
The Tao

My way is the Tao. And I will always look to seek for it.

 
Attack

Peace and quiet comes before victory. When attacked? Run away.

March 19, 2012 
First-time readers

Sometimes I feel like Elwood Blues, who (with brother Jake) is seemingly surrounded by those that would maim, kill, or arrest him if given the chance. I’m Elwood, this here’s my brother Jake. And we’re The Good Ol’ Blues Brothers Boys Band…”

Yet even with a clear disclaimer–not inches to your right–still think it is an autobiography. It’s not. I have people (those that know me in real life, anyway) who inquire about my mental health more than ever before. Thank you for the concern. I’m no more crazy than you crazy bastards. I think I should write about it. Oh wait, I do. Don’t worry, just like all banks, loan officers, and credit-scoring companies, I have an infallible system to protect your identities. I change your names through a complex, though confidential, algorithm. Will? You are Bill. María? You are now Mary. And Dave? You are almost invisible as Davey. Sweet. And I promise never to do anything ill-toward with that information, nor will I share it with any third-party company nor any government that asks about you, should you be one of their known dissidents citizens.

I guess I can’t keep you out (if I could just talk Google into giving me the last-three digits of your i.p. address? I’d probably know more about you than your mother does. If Facebook cooperated? I’d be taking treasure baths, while tanks rolled down the center streets of every city in every nation. I’m a strong proponent of totalitarianism, when I’m the benevolent dictator. Ask anyone in my 8th grade Spanish Club, which I ruled with an iron fist circa 1983. (“I said a horse pinãta, when this is clearly a donkey. Take it end back.”)

Sorry, way off base there. These stories, reflections fictionalized remembrances and outbursts are about a character in my near identical demographic, so I can see why some people may get confused (this counts for people who don’t know what a disclaimer is.) Sometimes when it is true, I’ll name names, but then only in a positive context.

I don’t write about rainbows and unicorns and Skittles® raining down edible, sweet candy from the sky. The content is mostly graphic, sometimes pornographic, and sometimes it’s just plain mean. There will be a lot of ”fucks.” No, I mean a whole fucking lot. And in several contexts. I think this lesson covers it pretty well.

If you don’t like that? You’ll probably enjoy it here. But not if you’re over 12, because then it’s just creepy.

Name That Movie Disclaimer “You took the gravestones out but you didn’t take the bodies did you?” And if you think about it–think!–this is an excellent metaphor.

March 26, 2012 
Creationism

My six-year old told me, “Daddy, you believe in science and not God, right?” First thing I said (internally) was, “I hate the south, more specifically, Texas.” Then, (externally) I said, “My sweet little girl, don’t trouble your mind, you can feel both.” I hated the ignorant influence of whatever teacher had put that thought in her mind, but it’s a pointless struggle. Fear is a powerful motivator, especially in the context of a belief system.

What’s easier? To attribute existence, as we know it, to chaos and a random result with no finish line–no justice!–at the end? It is as it is? Or would you rather a father who makes everything better? He raises up the fallen, and metes out justice to the wicked. That feels better when you are fallen, or perceive your situation to be unjust. Virtue is rewarded. Suffering is never in vain, right? Justice must be the cosmic balance.

It’s pretty to think so isn’t it.

March 27, 2012 
Sometimes

It’s hard to sing with your soul. To let that voice, your true voice, out. Sometimes we are bigger than we are. And it makes it harder to be smaller again. Learn to live like a god, and you will be one. Feel it in the moment. Bigger, stronger. Everything all the time.

March 29, 2012 
Trust me, it’s harder on this side

Lies. They should be considered as a certainty. People lie. The consequences of which range from from null to hurt feelings to incarceration. Who is more believable? Unfortunately, I have exhausted my credibility by crying the proverbial “wolf” too many times. The irony is that now that I don’t give a fuck, I rarely lie. My defining characteristic, good or bad, has become transparency. It’s too hard to hide in the era of Facebook. So I do the opposite. I share it all. And not always is this a helpful strategy. But I know that I have nothing to hide. Like Popeye, I ams what I ams. Judge not. Lest ye be judged. And we’re all fucked. You know that as well as I.

 
Slip sliding away

I feel you slipping away. Nothing you did or I did. Shit just happens. What an explosion it once was. Your body, the proverbial temple. Your mind. Your spirit. I don’t like it, but I feel it slipping away. Always to be appreciated. But not in the now. Not in the tastes. Not in the smell. You will always be to me a perfect symbol of what might be. What was. But it was never forever. As pretty as that thought might have been. It couldn’t happen. And it didn’t. It was what we needed at the time. And now you need something else. I would waste one wish on that it were me. But that’s what it would be. Wasted. I love you and always will. And, of course, you can always come back. I just don’t think you will.

 
Bikini’s

I don’t remember how I got to Bikini’s or why. It was across town in an area I’d only ever driven past. But I knew when I went there I needed a drink. My right hand was shaking so badly that I had to hold it with my left as I took a long draw from a tall glass of beer. I was self-conscious about my shaking until the realization came that it’s probably not that big a deal for any bartender who’s been working longer than a day.

I took a shot of rot-gut tequila and fought the immediate urge to vomit on the bar. I caught the waitress’ eye and with a twirling of my right index finger ordered another round. I traded the burning sensation in my throat and stomach for the warm glow of calm and confidence. My hands were still.

Now, again, why was I here? I looked around the bar and suddenly from the recesses of my memory realized that I had been here before. In 2006, before the fall, I had come here to watch BJ Penn in some Ultimate Fighting Championship or other. I chose it because there was no cover. It was a rip-off of Hooters, with a uniform of various states of undress. Bikini’s was actually a misnomer. Despite no obvious protest from the clientele, nor the hall monitors from the health department, there were breasts, buttocks and pudenda with close proximity to nachos and chicken wings. I, of course, was here for the salads. Repeated rounds of tequila and lager were merely dressing.

 
Mental polaroids

I need to get out of myself. I’m too much in my own head and I’m sometimes overwhelmed by the power of my necessity to feel. A blessing and a curse. My whole scattered life has been a blessing and a curse.

Help me. I think I need you at the exact moment I realize I shouldn’t tell you that.

I want to crawl into bed with you and pull tight up close and finally sleep for a while with your breath being the last thing I hear as I drift off.

I wish I could see those six pictures I took of you, late at night on May 19, 2010 when I captured you forever, arms in the air, and a happy, pursed-lip smile, dancing to whatever song we were playing at the time, more sweet than sexy, but oh so fucking sexy. In that moment you, and I through you, were perfect.

March 30, 2012 
Blue

For the first time in a long time, in years, I feel like I’m making decisions not out of desperation or need, but out of love and optimism and hope. I feel like after a string of bad decisions, I’m finally making the right one. You.

I’m having a good Sunday, thinking about you, thinking about the future. There’s a line from a book called The Pawnbroker that goes “Everything I loved was taken from me. And I did not die.” It is with that defiant optimism that I sit with a smile on the still-wet-with-dew grass under a cloudless sky that at the horizon is just about the color of your eyes.

How wonderful it was to hear your sweet voice; I’m just off the phone with you now. How quickly 20 minutes slips into the ether. The excitement in the air around me is palpable– crackles and snaps electric–as I contemplate finally being together with you, filling in the crevices of my emptiness with the warmth of your body.

 
The thing is

Only I, like Ishmael, only I am left to tell you. The last six years of my life have been bad. And the last three have been a nightmare. A nightmare in which I have become inexplicable, even to myself, and scary to those that have crossed the line and chosen to love me. Pity them if you have pity. When I drink this rage, this terror, and most of all this inability to explain paralyzes the love that has been so graciously granted upon me. I don’t understand it, even while I live it.

 
Afflicted

Only those that have been there understand. The agonies of adolescent obesity. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury? Look at this tangle of thorns.

I feel like this must be prefaced with the following disclaimer so deeply rooted is the hurt, so deeply buried is the truth. The path to normalcy begins with a blind acceptance and a willingness to do whatever makes “normal” possible.

I believe it is impossible for the truth to be spoken, objectively or rationally. I still bristle at the inability–at the refusal–to recognize the similarities between pathologies like alcoholism, addiction or psychosis. And the idea that the damage caused remains insulated, affecting only one person, is disingenuous or, more likely, another form of denial.

So deeply rooted is the hurt, so deeply buried is the truth. I’m not sure it’s my place to out the casual ties of this internal war. I can only, with any integrity, speak about myself.

My whole life, my self-esteem, who I am, has a perfect inverse relationship with my weight. The less I weighed, the better person I was. And it it didn’t matter how it was achieved. Anorexia. Bulimia. Body dysmorphia. I cannot see myself without having revulsion for a body so distorted by long-ago obesity that it will never be normal to me. I still flinch when a lover touches my abdomen, distended and forever changed by what I once was.

I rarely appear shirtless without necessity of the situation. Shirtless only with the dysfunctional shield of shame.

So with this problem, these problems, how can I possibly say my relationships are unaffected by it. Surely my revulsion has been noticed by my lovers. By my kids. And how are they to believe, “I love you no matter what,” when I clearly hate myself?

The truth is I would rather be dead than fat again. And I know it’s wrong to feel this way. My twenty-year weight loss camouflaged in the correct clothing makes my weight control a success story. Unfettered access to the recesses of my memory would undoubtedly show the monsters that made me fat so many years ago. This only looks like success.

April 1, 2012 
Guilty until found innocent

You’re ahead of the game if you can afford to hire an attorney. Court-appointed doesn’t have the financial incentive to provoke an attorney’s best effort. I was told by mine, “You get what you pay for.” And he may be, though disgusting, he was the most honest person I endured in the process.

It is hard to deny the fact, with any credibility, that racism, sexism, and a myriad of prejudices based mostly on a socio-economic status are hard wired into the system. It is what it is. And always has been. This so-called system of justice. I have several anecdotal experiences that I have seen that seem to empirically prove this sad fact.

A white defendant I shared a cell with was offered six years probation for being caught with two kilograms of cocaine. A first degree felony and he walked. Our Latino cellmate was given five years in prison (he was in year four of a five-year probation for possession of cocaine for violating probation with alcohol in his urine.)

Is he innocent? Of course not. But does the justice meted out seem fair to any rationale person? Not quite to me. His first dirty urinalysis. And an history of addiction. Again, these are anecdotes not intended to illustrate any typical punishment, but the variance is so egregious they they are indicative of a flawed, racist, unfair often unethical system. The saddest part about it all is that almost everyone accepts the status quo as “just the way it is,” and that the gangster motherfucker got exactly what he “deserved.” I was in a cell with him for two days. I promise you. That’s not what he deserved. Flawed, yes. But kind-hearted and fighting a disease that not many can beat. When I asked him if he was angry at the discrepancy in punishment his response was telling. “Welcome to Texas, fool.”

And that’s if your guilty. If you’re innocent there is no system in place for pre-trial negotiation. An innocent person, willing to go to trial, has nothing to offer the prosecutor. An innocent person or, of course, someone adamantly claiming to be, is the worst case scenario for the D.A. It represents the most work (gathering evidence, subpoenas, interviewing witnesses) and provides the most risk. Like everyone in this adversarial system, the prosecution doesn’t like to lose (this is exponentially true in Texas where D.A.’s are elected; won-loss records are kept like baseball standings (not publicly, of course) and EVERYONE in the system knows the winners from the losers. Prosecutors, however, only risk losing face, not liberty.

To avoid trial and mitigate risk they will use whatever leverage is provided. The most common tactic is seeking an oppressive bail. An incarcerated defendant is far more likely to accept a plea bargain if only to regain his liberty. And since bail is almost arbitrarily set by a judge–who works with the same prosecutors everyday and presumably has established at least a working relationship with them–leaves almost no recourse for the indigent defendant once bail has been established. The presumption of innocence at this point means almost nothing as a poor defendant has no means of release.

April 2, 2012 
Tofu

I made seaweed, and tofu, and bulb onions, an miso. It was so comforting. It made me feel like home.

 
She had a confident smile but a nervous cough, and we got off

I never knew anyone like her. She seemed a different person than she was. She said, “I’m sorry people think I’m pretty.” And she was pretty. But the beauty came with pain. She was abused. And even though she was massively intelligent, the majority only saw her face and her body. Which were incredible. But some of us looked deeper. I loved her, like I might never love again.

What a waste. What a tragedy this love was. Empty. Lost forever. Never to be recovered. She has stars in her eyes. But terror in her heart and weight in her feet. We were lost before we were found. We were at some party, and she didn’t say anything. And I knew it was the beginning of the ends of things.

April 3, 2012 
Waking life

I stay up late and get up early. I irritate my friends because they all live in different time zones and my rings come at shitty times. I’m a good friend so usually they take my calls. I’m blessed with the lovers and loved ones and friends and family. Not just anyone will take a call at 554 am. I’m pretty certain that if necessary mine will. Thank you, my love.

 
Things

I miss the soft kisses. I miss your body. I miss the warm touches. I cry at the emptiness were once there was fullness, I miss how you made me whole. And now I feel empty. And now there is no you anymore. I am pathetic and alone.

April 4, 2012 
Little boy

The constant over-stimulation with music, movies with my quasi-Bohemian love churning. And when I have been free, the deep never-found appreciation, for what I do and have loved in terms of what I’ve have loved and allowed in my ear, eyes, and mouth holes.. The ability to face deep-seated fears with calm and stillness, and the ability to regain control, somehow lost after briefly losing it. A reintroduction to a capacity for love manifest in an ability to forgive, and a need for artistic accomplishment with completed works of consequence is a distinct–perhaps ultimate–goal of the life I’ve been given. Finally, new found. Perhaps finding is the more correct tense. The ability to turn things over in my life to the Universe. That unnamed creature loving, for lack of a better word, energy that represents everything. What is the way it is. Only good things happen when I let it be. Close your eyes little boy. There will be an answer.

 
We all go for the blonde

Sweet, sweet girl. I loved you. And maybe I was wrong. But I did love you. My bad, my wrong. But I did love you.

April 5, 2012 
Life

What is the purpose of life? Why are we here? What is life? Who am I? Who are you? Is there any meaning? I don’t see one.

April 6, 2012 
Voices

“I’m seeing things that aren’t here. I’m hearing things that aren’t here.”
“You have to go to sleep.”
“You make it sound so easy.”
“And you make it too hard.”

 
Here

Here is God’s hand. Mine it’s not what you are; it’s what you think you are.

 
Perhaps

You didn’t live the right life. But it was your life. And in a way it was the only life that mattered. You matter. Your life matters. In a way it’s the only life that matters. Cherish it, because it’s all you’ve got.

April 7, 2012 
Girls

I dreamed I kissed a girl. But there are no girls. There is only humiliation. I love women. Women are my favorite thing. And it’s perhaps an irony that they hate me so much.

 
Birthday

It’s almost my birthday. The day of my birth. What a waste. What a tragedy.

 
Life

You were nothing before you existed. Why would you believe that something goes on when you cease to exist?

 
It’s all that you have

“It’s all that you say I have.”
“What’s the difference”
“The difference is everything.”

April 8, 2012 
Tears

It is what it is. And you are what you are. Stop crying.

 
437 am

“What are you doing calling someone at 437 am? So rude.”
“I’m not arguing that with you.”
“There’s no argument.”
“Arguments can be made.”

 
Tomorrow

Tomorrow is my birthday. And there will be no celebration. Who have you become? What happened? Where are you? Why?

 
So you know

“I wanted to let you know that I cared.”
“And why does that matter now?”
“I still care.”
“Liar.”
“I still love you very much.”
“Asshole.”
“Perhaps.”

 
How we are

“Are you okay?”
“What makes you ask that?”
“You don’t seem okay.”
“Really? Is it that obvious?”

 
Girls

“You’re asking me to turn over my little girl?”
“She’s wanted.”
“I will die first.”

April 11, 2012 
Honesty

Everybody believes that only the truth matters. But nothing could be more honestly wrong.

April 12, 2012 
Hmm

There comes a time in your life, when your life goes away. And your faith seems to go away. And you feel like you’re alone. And the irony is that it needs someone like you to save you.

April 13, 2012 
Ah

Each time I think I can’t feel any pain, somehow you manage to break my heart again.

 
Looks

“You’re hot. You’re incredibly too young for me.”
“Plus, I just broke up two days ago.”
“I just got divorced four years ago.”
“Cool, then.”
“Cool, can I get your number?”
“I’ll text you.”
“Sweet.”

That’s exactly how it happened.

 
Lost

So what do you when you lose your way? Everyone says, “buck up, it’s not that hard.” For some of us anyway? It is that hard. It’s a struggle I’ve been fighting my whole life. You show me the path and I’ll follow it; this existence is miserable.

Nobody owes me anything I’ve been blessed. But the ennui and the pain are like insomnia. “Why don’t you just go to sleep?” “Why didn’t I think of that?”

I’m convinced now it’s a pathology, unfortunately put upon creative types, or those who believe themselves so.

We gotta be Van Gogh, right. Doing something of consequence requires suffering, right. Why then are all my heroes dead by 40?

I’m trying. I can’t believe I made it to 42. When I turned 28, I said, “You made it. You beat the odds.” But what are the odds? This don’t feel much like winning.

April 14, 2012 
Win

How you win the game? Just don’t care anymore.

 
What is

“Do you want to do it today? Because then it has to happen tomorrow.”
“Nothing has to happen.”
“Everything happens all the time. Sometimes you just feel it.”

 
Run

You can run from the minute you’re born. And you know what? You stay where you are. You go nowhere.

 
Asking

I ask her what she wants.
“Do I want to kill? Do I want to be slow? Am I allowed to be sad?”
“Give yourself two seconds to process things.”
“Then what?
“Then, of course, you fall in love with me.”

 
Claws

I made a wrong turn a few times. Did things I don’t want to explain. I somehow scratched and clawed my way out. And I’m still here. Maybe you can make it too. Welcome to my silly life.

 
Legs

Put your hands in, little boy. Put one leg on the other. It feels better. Everything will be over soon.

 
Brain

“Your brain. It doesn’t seem a safe place to be.”
“How do you know? Where are you ever safe?”
“You’re a genius, your work is breathtaking but your mind is not a safe place.”

April 15, 2012 
Scared

Sometimes you die only a little at a time. Sometimes it’s piece by piece. It always happens. Work on? Fearing it the least?

 
Rain

If I could run away. If I could fight? I still might run away. Where is the rain? Where is the relief? Where is there no pain. Point me the way. Show me. Stick out your finger and point the way. Then cover me. I won’t believe you when you say it’s okay, but cover me. Let me just watch the rain.

 
Broken

I’ve always got a dime, and there’s something on my feet. I’ve got these spoiled, rich kid’s troubles. I mean, we weren’t rich, but no one was begging for soup. I’ve managed, in not too long a time, to mess it up.

Was I trying? Clearly I wasn’t trying to break everything. Things just ended busted up.

 
Crazy

“You’re crazy.”
“What do you mean?”
“What do you think I mean?”
“You are headed for disaster.”
“Wouldn’t that be beautiful.”
“Are you joking?”
“A beautiful disaster.”
“I can’t do this.”
“I’m the one that’s going to implode.”
“I won’t watch it.”

 
Hearing

The voices that vanish, finally, in my head. How can they hurt me now?

 
Destruction

“Normal” people don’t understand. The urge to create is also the urge to destroy. Flip side of the coin. So when you’re like this, it can be dangerous, because one impulse will sooner or later give to the other.

It is a blessing and a curse. Genius is rare. But fuck me, it ain’t easy.

 
Women

“You? You will never understand a woman.”
“That’s already been shown. Clearly, I think.”
“Just wanted to remind you.”
“Thanks for the refresher.”

April 16, 2012 
Advice

Take my advice. And get rid of everything on the inside. It chains you. It brings you down. Most of it is no good. Trust me. Throw it away. It may not make your life better, but it will put the ones that love you at slightly more ease.

See? Suicides understand. We are just compelled by something bigger.

 
Dichotomy

“You do something shitty or you do something great. It’s exhausting.”
“But at my best, I’m pretty good.”
“Just be 70% and relax.”
“Tell a dog not to bark. It’s a part of me.”
“Then I can’t be a part of you.”
“I think I understand that, and it sucks.”
“Yes, it sucks.”
“I love you.”
“I will always love you. Perhaps your memory.”

 
Baseball

These pusillanimous over-priced new-era pitchers.

Don’t get me wrong, baseball is still my favorite sport. My son is named Maddux after Greg.

But, shit. Christy Mathewson threw 320 innings a year then went to World War Two, killed like a million Nazis, then came back and threw 340. Today? If a guy throws 200 innings he gets some elbow disease. Mathewson and Maddux are the two greatest right-handers of all time. Where are our heroes?

 
Dinosaurs

Dinosaurs. Why are they important? Because if they don’t die, you’re not reading this. This is a metaphor. Sometimes catastrophic destruction is necessary. I don’t like war, I hate the idea of killing. But are you going to let Hitler stick around?

I’m the most liberal person you’ve ever met. I’m a stereotype. Death penalty, gun control, defendant’s rights? You can guess what I believe.

Harder matters to wrap your head around? Iraq. We went there on a lie. And though I don’t believe in his execution, wasn’t it better for the world to remove Saddam.

Perhaps I’m a hypocrite. We kill so many more people than he did. 250,00 in both Iraq wars. Innocent lives. And we are the standard bearer?

We have to choose. You and me, we have to choose. And then we have to talk. First to the people that love us. Then that we know sort of well. But everyone needs to hear.

Death is final. And we as a nation are putting it on too many people. It should be put on no one. Yet, we, this supposedly advanced civilization have killed more people than anyone else. Our annual “defense” budget doubles the rest of the world combined. No one has ever invaded this country. The term defense is almost laughable.

Russia has enough nuclear weapons to destroy the Earth 15 times. We? Can do it 4000. Take some of that money and give it to the hungry man on the street, the kid that needs a liver, a mom that needs a new heart.

This is doable. We have to speak out.

 
Love

“I love you so much. But you are intense, manic, irrational and crazy.”
“But brilliant.”
“Yes. You are brilliant. But at what cost?”
“Loneliness.”
“So tone it down so someone can handle you.”
“I forgot where the knob is.”

 
Hot food

I like spicy food; really hot. But one time, five years ago, I was dared to eat a habañero. Drunk and full of moxie? I said, “Give me two.”

To the delight of the darers, all I did for hours was salivate, spontaneously. My mouth kept filling and I had to keep spitting. The only thing that stopped me from throwing was the fear of the pain again. Oh, and a million beers. Moral? You can be hard, but you need not be insane.

 
Nuts

“Did it for you.”
“What do yo mean?”
“You did it all in two hours?”
“I mean tell me if you want me to change anything.”
“You know you’re crazy? Normal people don’t do that.”
“What stay up 48 hours? It’s a lot easier than it seems.”
“Not for normal people.”
“What is normal? I see C-students and mediocrity. I didn’t be born to be normal. I was put here to be great. And damn anything that tries to stop me. My conclusion can be greatness or oblivity.”

April 17, 2012 
Complicity

I loved you. I really did love you.

Maybe there were too man drugs or whatever, but it doesn’t change the fact that I adored you. I worshipped you.

Then you betrayed me.

You were totally complicit in the acts of our demise. I wasn’t perfect. But I am the one that paid the price. You got away scot free.

And I still don’t hate you. I loved you too much.

 
Winning?

One military strategy, we seem to use especially, is smash hard, hit first, and do it by surprise. Or there is more to come, baby. And in a way, though I don’t like it, it seems to work. Even in personal relationships.

April 18, 2012 
Mi corazón

If you don’t know how to fix it, can you please try to stop breaking it?

 
Talk

“We have to talk.”
“Oh, fuck.”
“What, baby?”
“Because every time we have to talk it’s about shit that I have to do.”
“Well.”
“Well, what?”
“There’s some shit you have to do.”
“See? Fuck me.”
“After you finish this shit we have to talk about.”
“That’s not funny.”
“It wasn’t a joke.”

April 19, 2012 
Sad

You say you come into this life? And see, and feel sad by what you see. You? Can’t see anything anymore. You’re not allowed to see. You were let in to the passion and then pissed it away. You get no more access. You made me feel crazy for just being different. I never wanted to be the same.

April 20, 2012 
Phone

“I called and texted like three times. You didn’t pick up your phone.”
“It was on vibrate.”
“It’s always on vibrate. But you don’t miss your girlfriend’s calls. Do you have vibrate sensitivity?”
“What’s so important?”
“You’re missing the point.”
“Which is?”
“I don’t know, just answer the phone.”

 
Attention

Am I drawing your attention, or am I seeking it to feel alive? What do I need to go back to the middle. Super high seems a little damaging. I say, “I’m not here for mediocrity. I’m here to be. Great.” That causes wonder and resentment. Furtive grasps at the divine. But, I’m going to keep grabbing, pulling, pushing, shoving, because I want that greatness.

 
Look again

Don’t you see? Don’t you see? Everything is rigged. It’s all in place. It always has been and always will. People always say, “What about Bill Gates?” His dad was a millionaire lawyer. He started life on third base. Ok, he made it home. But it’s not like the guy was bunting with two outs.

April 21, 2012 
Howl

It’s the call of the wolf. On nights when the moon is close, and I can’t resist its pull. That’s what “normal” people don’t understand. They don’t feel that crazy that washes over some of us like bath water.

It insinuates and fills every crevice, just like water. And then the impulses strike. And they sound like such good ideas in your mind. And then you blurt out something that makes so much sense when you’re thinking it.

Insanity can often appear lucid, and that is why it’s so hard to understand for people without mental illness.

How would you react to hearing a voice when you were alone? Or a song that’s not playing? Or shadows that look like demons when you turn off the lights? Some parts of this shit are disconcerting at best, and frightening at worst.

I haven’t turned off my lights in six months. I haven’t slept well in 30 years. I am wholeheartedly aware that this is not not normal. I am not choosing this. Somehow, it has chosen me, and those of us that are chosen have no promised land. And can’t see a welcome party at the light at the end of the tunnel. Most days I don’t even see a light.

 
5 long years

It’s been five long years since I sold my soul to the devil and gave up on my dreams I had as a child. All for a pretty wife, a too-big house in the suburbs, two cars in the garage, and an office.

I never wanted any of that. Maybe the pretty wife. But that damned path of least resistance, doesn’t resist. The only direction it goes is down, even though you feel like you’re moving from side to side. And I signed that contract with the devil and it turns out he doesn’t wait until you’re dead before putting you in Hell. And the irony is, you actually put yourself in Hell, because when you get everything you thought you wanted, and it’s not what you want? All you do is self-destruct.

Devil doesn’t lift a finger while you lift the bottle or turn mean and irrational because you’re so mad at yourself about your choices. While you push everyone that loves you slowly away, and spiral down? It’s your foot on the pedal. He doesn’t need to lift a damned finger.

So where, then, is salvation? If there is a God, he truly only helps those that seem to help themselves. There’s no elevator out of Hell. You’ve got to crawl and scratch, and more than half the time you lose your grip, and fall back down into the pit.

April 22, 2012 
Misery

Being sad or cynical is considered treason. They’ll even try to medicate you for it, if they notice. Look at the world around you. Yes, there is beauty, but there is also plenty of reason for sadness, anger, and cynicism. I want to feel. I want to feel alive, not some half-version of myself. Sometimes sad, angry, and cynical is the correct response to a situation.

What’s the difference between prescription dopamine and serotonin manipulators or marijuana and cocaine? They’re all chronic. I guess one’s a little worse for your cardiovascular system. But it certainly does change your mood slightly better. At least with that you get euphoria. The others are kind of bland.

Why does sad and cynical even need to be cured? The cynic in me says, “Because there’s money in it.” Do you think Big Pharma cares about you? They care about you as much as McDonalds; they care about the money. Individuals from these places surely have integrity and are working hard to save lives, but, in essence, they work for a steamroller. At least rappers are explicit and honest about what they want money, grass, or ass. Big Pharma says, “We’re here for you.”

Google all the things they’ve done that were at best disingenuous and at worst deadly. Think of all the money put into erectile dysfunction, when people are dying of so many other things, that perhaps, with the same effort, might have a breakthrough. It’s because sex is more lucrative. That seems pretty obvious. I don’t know why it’s even necessary to say.

Corporations have the rights of people, but none of the accountability. Who do you send to jail when something goes awry?

Follow the money. That’s the way to today’s truth in America.

 
Gargoyle

“You know what you are? You’re a gargoyle. You’ve been around since the dawn of time and are very hard to get rid of.”
“I’m your girlfriend.”
“Not any more.”
“You’re breaking up with me?”
“No. I broke up with you about two months ago, I just never told you. God, that feels good. I feel like I just broke out of Shawshank.”
“That’s not nice.”
“You haven’t been nice in two years.”
“I love you.”
“I love you too. But we’re done.”

 
Evil

Why does there seem to be so much evil? Because it’s easier to get people to act by appealing to the worst parts of themselves, instead of their best. We bring out our best at sometimes crucial moments. But, life is mostly wasting time. And megalomaniacal people, both good and bad, have figured out how to manipulate that feeling of existential meaningless by giving people a meaning. Good or bad. We’re not so different from sheep; this is why advertising is so effective. The best, and the worst, rise above and below respectively.

April 23, 2012 
Please

Readers, I’ve said this a couple of times in previous posts explaining that this blog is a work of fiction. Most of these things did not actually happen. This is not an autobiography, but rather a laboratory where I try to work out ideas for the book I’m writing. I try to torture my anti-hero character and since my narrative style is, I think, conversational, it seems, perhaps, like I’m recounting things. I’m not. A lot of it is dark, but with a title likeConsolations of the Worst-Case Scenario, what do you think you’re going to get?

Now, the political stuff, in fact all of the opinion stuff, is real. But those are few and far between. When it’s about politics or religion? Then that’s me. The rest of it is me trying to put myself in the mindset of a terribly troubled person. Of course, I’m drawing on experience. These rambles, however, represent my experiences to the nth power, imagined or stylized if I feel it’s too near to real occurence.

Thank you for reading and for all the wonderful comments, mostly positive, but even the negative ones are appreciated, because someone has taken the time to articulate their dislike for what I’ve written. I think a strong negative reaction is, in a way, an indication that the words succeeded. It provoked someone to act, even if they’re nasty about it.

Anyways, I’m rambling. Remember. Please. Fiction.

April 28, 2012 
I know what’s going to happen next

And in the knowing there is a sort of homecoming. Calm. Perhaps, not peace. You were there. I was there. That’s it. You are more credible in this context, you’re quieter, so I guess your version precludes mine. But I was there. I was there.

I know what really happened. And to make the sufferings less? I’m no longer willing to modify the truth. I was there.

You can lie until you draw your last breath. There’s something about you that I know will always be troubled by this. I saw it in you the last two times I saw you. That cognitive dissonance between the words spilling out of your mouth and what really happened. You can’t seem to look in my eyes. And I know it’s not because you’re afraid. What is there to be afraid of, except yourself?

Keep pushing. Keep doing the same things you’re doing. You don’t sound so happy. You don’t look happy. It all comes back around. Happiness and lies are apparently incompatible. I don’t have to hurt you to get even. You hurt yourself.

Everything is good for you, except when it’s not.

April 29, 2012 
Oh, god

Where have you been? I’ve been waiting here. Did I miss my bus? Did I miss us? Do you only come to those with no questions? Because I have a bunch.

Why her? Why him? Good and bad. Everything seems so arbitrary. And we’re supposed to put everything in what most likely may be nothing?

Believe as hard as you want you want. Try harder. Believe more. Still, you know as much as me which is nothing. You have to die to know, and I’m hedging my bets and keeping what I know as long as I can.

It can all end tomorrow. It was nothing for eternity, whatever that is, before this. And it shall return. All I know is now. And I will scramble, clutch, crawl, and scrape for what I know.

Sorry if I don’t have what you call faith. I think it’s a mechanism to mask your fear of what we’re all afraid of eternity. It always existed before you, and I guarantee you no matter what happens here? It ain’t going nowhere.

May 1, 2012 
Shit happens sometimes

Things rarely happen in the ether. Normally, things require situations. And though some of us might lead lives that beg them to occur, sometimes what happens is the product of a situation, and not begging. Situations. Not necessarily ones that one would choose, but that were still compelling enough to choose to live by. Especially if life was the predominate choice. It all depends upon your situation. And there are lots of situations.

May 2, 2012 
Using words as ammunition

Were that I was not an expert in this area. Words have always come easily, in most circumstances. Unfortunately, anger is a circumstance. And collateral damage has rarely been an insight in moments of rage. But look at the damage I’ve done. Don’t think I can’t see it or feel its effects. They are as real to me as they are to anyone else. I just get to take the blame as well.

May 5, 2012 
Your crystal ball ain’t so crystal clear

“Don’t ever say you’re just you.”
“I’m just me.”
“No. You’re more than you.”
“I don’t feel more than me.”
“Your feelings are a lie.”

May 6, 2012 
There’s thunder in the air

I can hear it reverberating. There’s a boom. It passes. It always passes. Sometimes the bad things have to go away. It quiets. It darkens. The tears stop falling. And then it falls back to normal. Whatever that is.

 
Here’s a little something

Your hands don’t shake. Your mind don’t ache. Still, you’re dying. Every breath you take is one less. Top of the world? King of all pimps? It always ends. There is no escape.

 
Everyone

They call her, “Merry.”
I’ve nothing but called her, “Meredith.” Three syllables.
I loved that girl.
“I like that you call me Meredith.”
“You will be in my mind forever.”
“Forever is a long time.”
“You, Meredith, are forever.”

May 7, 2012 
Shower

“Mommy’s in the shower.”
“Well, let her know I want to talk to her.”
“She knows.”
“What?”
“You always want to talk to her.”
“Tell her when she’s done.”
“I will, Kalan.”
“I love you, too you know.”
“I know.”

 
Limits

There are no limits to what some men will do. Look at the ground. Look at your hands. There is evil everywhere. Feel the feeling. Know the knowing. Come inside. Come.

May 8, 2012 
Path

There’s a walk back, and there’s a way back. Sometimes you have to find it. I want to say, “Fuck you,” so badly. I think I will retreat. Let the fuck you’s slide. Be someone my daughter can be proud of, for once.

 
It reads hard

But I didn’t mean exactly what I said. I never hated you; I sort of hated myself. I loved you. More than I should have. And now we see the consequence. Of pain. You hurt me. Goodbye.

 
Her

Why does it always have to be this way? Maybe for once I hate you instead of adore you? It’s a trap. This thing we call love. We could call it anything. It’s that hand on the knee, the kiss. We are chimpanzees. We require touch like monkeys. How do we be more than ourselves?

 
Do you love her?

“Of course I love her.”
“Is that why you guys sleep in the same bed?”
“There are other reasons.”
“Do you love her?”
“Always have and always will.”
“She could do worse than you.”
“Thanks.”

 
Miracles

“It’s a miracle when I can say I love you.”
“I don’t believe in miracles.”
“You will.”

 
There’s a smile in the sea of sadness

She put the ice to my face and then it melted away. I woke up and my hands were gone.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m still breathing, right? I still know how to use a comma. Sometimes people take a part of you with them. My eyes are burning, and I think my nose is bleeding. Where are you? Where are you? Gone.”

May 9, 2012 
How will you meet your end?

Can you stay as strong as you seem. There’s Hell upon the breeze. Can you make it through the heat? He had to die. Now how do we live?
“You’re so dramatic.”
“I’ve been this way since the day you’ve known me.”
“It makes you a good fuck.”
“That’s why you’re here?”
“No. I sorta love you now.”
“Sorta?”
“Sorta.”

 
You do a lot more damage then you think you do

Punch the wall. Break your hand. It doesn’t matter. The bones and the muscle don’t matter. They’re just things to think about when they hurt. You can’t make hurt go away. I promise you nothing less than hurt. Embrace the pain. It is you.

 
I look at the moon and I think of you

So bright, and so close. It feels like if I could reach you I could touch her. She is in more ways than one, a metaphor for you. Mahina. You seem so close, but I can’t reach you.

 
Beauty

“I look beautiful in your pictures.”
“You are beautiful.”
“Lies told when we’re almost asleep. Tattoos. That doesn’t mean love.”
“What does?”
“I don’t know. Show me.”
“I thought I did already.”
“Show me again.”

 
Darkness cost and dollars lost

“I love you.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“Why do you say that?”
“You say it to every pretty girl that crosses your path.”
“What makes you think you’re pretty?”
“C’mon.”
“Baby, I know I rock your world.”
“So why do you fight me?”
“For the same reason you ask, ‘Why?’”

 
I drank your language

You’re hurt. Your heart. I felt you. I always felt the way you moved.

 
I don’t know about living

But I kinda know something about dying. I’ve been on the ledge. Do you want to walk with me? It’s not that hard. It gets easier with every step. Do you love me? Show me.

 
Lies

Prayers are success failed. Keep asking. Keep wanting. Nothing ever comes true.

May 10, 2012 
One day we’ll be strangers in our own land

Shush. Be quiet. There’s a knock at our door. Be safe. How can you be safe? It’s raining. Go to the back room. Your nose is bleeding. Maybe you should let them take you. Maybe they can help. I don’t want to see you like this.

 
A better person

“She’s a better person than I could ever be.”
“I don’t think that’s true.”
“She’s my daughter.”
“Okay, so you have to think the best about her. That doesn’t mean you have to think less about yourself.”
“I don’t think I ever loved myself.”
“I love you.”
“I love you too, K.”

 
Loudness

It’s thundering again. Small changes in things. The big boom. Normally I like things smaller. I don’t like to shout and I don’t like being shouted at. I’m not one for loud noises. Too many of them when I was a kid. We all blame our past. It can’t do anything but be what it is.

 
Funny

“Ha.”
“That’s not funny.”
“The situation is abnormal.”
“That doesn’t make it funny. It makes it what it is.”
“Are you always this serious?”
“I am what I am.”
“You’re sort of fucked up.”
“Look at yourself.”
“Fair enough.”

 
Change

“You’re too much. You’re too intense.”
“I thought that was a good thing.”
“You’re like a five-year old. You don’t change. You’re not going to change.”
“Why should I?”
“You had responsibility once.”
“And?”
“You threw it away. You spit on it, you stomped on it.”
“I never didn’t love you.”
“What good did that do you? You’re my best friend. I don’t want to feel like I can’t tell you anything.”
“Tell me you love me.”
“Not the way you want. I can’t do it right now.”
“When?”
“Perhaps never.”
“You don’t love him. Break up with him.”
“How do I know I love you?”
“I’ve all you ever known of love.”

 
A ghost of elegies

I don’t know about god, I just want to see her face. Please, lay your hands on me. Wake me up. I’m tired of sleeping. I need to rise.

 
To believe in you? I have to close my eyes

“Baby, I was born just to kiss your mouth.”
“You say that now, but where will you be in five years.”
“Up your ass.”
“Promise?”
“I like it there.”
“Freak.”

 
Cold cut

“I’m freezing.”
“It’s cold outside.”
“I miss the warmth of you.”
“You miss a lot of things.”
“I guess that’s true.”
“Of course it is, silly.”

 
It’s over

I mean, you love me. I don’t want to hurt the gut. Somebody had to be hurt? Right? Look in my eyes. It doesn’t make the pain go away. But it makes you know I love you.

 
Don’t

Don’t call her back. Don’t call her back. Don’t call her back. Especially if you think you want to.

May 11, 2012 
Hello

“You always call me to say hello.”
“Well, then say, “Hello.”
“Hello.”
“You’re such a fucking dork.”
“It’s why you take my calls.”

 
You’re always

Waiting for something. Waiting for what. Go waiting. Waiting for a, “Yes.”

 
For

For all the world. For any world. You were the best of the world. I wasn’t the very best. But you were. You somehow needed to be. But you were.

 
What works

Crack your fingers. Punch your face. It still works. It still hurts. That’s why you’re doing this, right? You just want to hurt better.

 
The cold of December’s face

You don’t want to see it. It’s a bit colder than you want to feel.

May 12, 2012 
Let’s go

More, more. Do more damage, feel more hate. Feel it more. Want it more. Pull the trigger at me. Pull it. Coward.

 
You’ve got like 15 seconds with her

When the phone rings? Answer.
When she wants to say,”Hi.” Say, “Hi.”
With a woman like that? You don”t get that many chances.

 
Merry Death

You’ve always killed me. Now who am I? A stranger? Someone that comes to you? He’s fiction.

 
How

How are you? How do you live? I live naked and alone. The damage done. Sometimes there finds a way to come back. I hope you’re not around for that. You deserve more than you’ve had.

 
Laws

“That’s against the law”
“They’re are several laws.”
“Some of them are right.”
“Who chooses?”
“Right now? I do.”

May 13, 2012 
I don’t whant this

“Tell me what you want.”
“I need you to die.”
‘I’m not ready to say, “Yes.”
“What do you want to say?”
“Okay.”
“Then, okay.”

 
Less

Less is more, more is less. It’s actually the secret to being happy. Nobody really gets it.

 
Don’t

These things about life. They were real people. These things happened. These thoughts were thought. You just decided to to come around and think them. Think your own.

May 14, 2012 
I don’t think the landing

I kinda wanted to give you a good show. Sorry for the results.

 
I

I think I skip. I’m tired of the mistakes we made. Say sorry.

 
It’s almost your berfday

How do you let me say, “Hi?” I just want to be friends.

 
I can think

And you can think. But you can’t share my thoughts. I can feel. And you can feel. But you can’t feel what I’m feeling. It’s an impossible question. How do we be whole?

 
You loved me?

I’m sorry. I’m not quite sure I think I loved, who is it, you.

 
There is a little bit of blood

I don’t think a sorry is necessary. I don’t think it might be enough.

 
It’s crazy

It’s like it always is. Things go wrong and then they go wronger. How do you know what’s right? How do you know who you are?

 
Blood

“It’s coming out of your nose. It’s spilling on your pants. What’s wrong?”
“I’m not sure”
“Get sure.”

 
My hands

“You have burns on them where the restraints were. Are you embarrassed? Are you ashamed?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“I’m exactly as you’ve made me.”

 
Dates

I know the date. I know the date. It will never go out of my brain. I still know your number. I just know not to use it. You fucked me. I sort of didn’t get to fuck you back.

May 15, 2012 
Wanting

You want what you want and you like when you get it. But it’s just like everything else. It means nothing.

 
Who can you bullshit?

Eventually it all ends. Eventually it all falls. We are nothing at the end. We are nothing at the end. Life expects only death. Life is a failure and only exists for itself. We are a parasite on the resources of this planet. There is no meaning.We all fall.

May 16, 2012 
I bled on myself

“How does that happen?”
“I don’t know, it just happened.”
“There’s blood on your nose.”
“I’ll wipe it off.”
“You’re sniffing blood.”
“Back off.”

 
It was no distress

I watched her her under arrest. It made my night, but not in a good way.

 
They all thought you were faking

“Well it’s been five years.”
“Yes. And it’s killing you in slow motion. Women, the drinking.”
“Usually it happens the other way around.
“Don’t you want to be happy?”
“I don’t remember ever being happy except in short bursts. Why is the goal to be happy?”
“What would you prefer it to be?”
“To feel.”

May 17, 2012 
I’ve lost love, but I found it again

It’s been a while now. I think the best of me left awhile ago. Maybe the best is over? ‘Cause I haven’t felt it in a long time.

 
Self-centered

So gifted. So flawed. Sometimes flaws are the price of gifts. There is collateral damage, though. People that don’t understand the flaws or won’t abide by their features. Especially when they’re people you love. They go away. But flaws? They seem to not be going anywhere.

 
What if?

You ask somebody, “Do you love me?”
And they say, “I guess so.”
Not really positive reinforcement.

 
Gummy bears

All I’ve been living on is li hing gummy bears, perhaps some blood, and pain. When the cops finally show up, I want to request that they take me to a hospital rather than jail.

May 18, 2012 
That

The lying, disaterous cunt that burned my life down. You could’t speak what you spoke. You’re anger? At what? I never had a part of? I didn’t do what he did when you were 13. And you killed me, and not just in small ways. I hate you, but in a way hate is love. Never again. And I know you suffer. That’s enough. You deserve better. But then, again, so did I.

 
Life

Nothing else animal that exists seems to care about the end of it’s existence. Except in the moment, I guess. We’re the only ones that care about it. You get to be dead a whole lot longer than you lived. How do you deal with that?

 
Liver

I’m not sure where my liver is. But I think it hurts. I hope that’s not superbad.

May 21, 2012 
Fear

Don’t be scared. Your fear brings nothing to the situation. Except your fear. What wants to hurt you won’t stop because you’re afraid. Take a breath, and proceed.

 
That was at Beauty Bar

That picture of me with her. We used the same photo booth that you used with your sister. You were sad when you were with me. You appear sadder now.

May 22, 2012 
Pull

The pull for the intensity of feeling necessary to create motivates predilections that most people are able to avoid. I don’t expect you or anyone else not enjoying/suffering the same condition to understand. You see brilliance and you see madness. And you can’t wrap your mind around the fact that those are two schoolgirls holding hands.

May 23, 2012 
Look

I killed everything. I didn’t mean to. I wasn’t even trying to kill myself. But watch the funeral parade. See the black flags flying. Each one indicative of something I destroyed. Each relationship. Each chance. Each choice. A loss of grip on humanity and a slow slide down the rope into despair. Look left. Look right. There is no one else to blame.

 
Perhaps nihilistic

Nobody knows the trouble you feel. There’s trouble everywhere, and it’s not that I don’t care. Nobody cares that the feelings really feel. Come home. Why drunk every night? Chicken? Egg? What causes what? Funny how the web tangles and catches what you think you are. What is free? And where do you go from there? Back to the suburbs? Back to being a part of everyone? Doing laundry and going to Wal-Mart? I can’t do it. It’s like asking me to settle with a cute little family on Mars. I can’t breathe there. I speak the same language as most of the people around me. But I can’t understand. Why are you doing what you do? Everything is so transitory. Why does what you put in your mouthhole, eyehole and earhole so motivating? The only thing that means anything, for its fleeting existence, is human touch. You’re wasting your time on almost anything else.

 
Reasons

There ain’t no point in changing places unless you have somewhere to go. But the path that I had taken had filled our pockets, and emptied out my soul.

 
Today is Wednesday

Wednesday. Odin’s day if you’re Norse. It’s why we spell it funny. A week without it. Speak about how strong you are. Thor’s day. Friggs’s day. Saturn’s day. Sun’s day. Come see how brave you are on Moon’s day.

May 24, 2012 
Dichotomy

You rip me up. You tear me up. And then you make me feel like I’m whole. Almost the dictionary definition of dichotomy. Pretty soon you are going to have to make a choice. Two sides. And I assure you? That one side will make it for itself.

 
Fate

Some of us are born to suffer. What I feel right now is gratitude. The universe finally let me know. Will she end my suffering? No. It is, if it’s even possible, in my hands. Ease the suffering.

 
It was nice but now it’s gone

Emptiness. Silence. Do whatever you are going to do. I’m not hanging on. I’ve gotten too old for this shit. I will not play second fiddle to any situation. You go be what you need to be. I will not be beholden to anyone. Go off. Party. Get drunk every night. You’re going to end up in the same place I was three months ago. Total regret. But go. Find out for yourself. Even the very beautiful people will crash. I promise you.

May 25, 2012 
I am A positive

And a blood transfusion in situations will prevent a circulatory collapse. Which means your heart fails. Soon after, your brain. This is a metaphor. Love goes and your “heart” does. Clearly, your heart doesn’t feel emotion. But it feels like it feels.

 
I’m not ready for this

“I’m scared.”
“I am too.”
“There is blood, there is bleach.”
“And there is you and there is me. This time? I will bring you home. Let go.”

 
Do

Do you want her name? Do you want her phone number? It’s not like I’ve forgotten it. I dialed it 10,000 times. What do you want? Her name? Her number? I’ve always had it all.

 
Release

Can’t you see? There is no release. There is no relief. No one is coming to save you. And even if there was they would be doing it for their own reasons. The only person that can save you now is you.

May 26, 2012 
What kind of man am I?

A man of faith or a man of reason? Reason seems to hurt a lot more. Yet faith seems capricious. What do I believe in? I believe what I see. But even that is a trick of the brain that relies on a flawed optic nerve and several blind spots in the eye itself. Visual perception is an amalgamation of flawed phenomena. Like smell we are not as good as animals with our senses. We have reason. But reason brings a sense of the future. And this is often not a pleasant realization. So what do I believe in? I believe in you.

 
Live together, die alone

I’ve been alone for far too long, but I am not about to die alone. I refuse. I rebuke the idea. This hole isn’t that deep. And I will not let it cover me. Those who might toss dirt? Look at your own sins. Not one of us is without flaws. Not one has a mistake they’re not embarrassed of. Not one parent is perfect. Not one child. Not one. I give up beating myself up for the mistakes. They were made and cannot be unmade.

 
Run

Why are you running? And can’t even say what you’re running from. It’s because you are running from yourself. You’ll never get away. Unfortunately your self is always with you. Not a moment’s respite. Not even one moment.

 
I can’t do this alone

I don’t want to. I’m asking you to trust me. It’s not called a leap of faith because it’s easy. It’s hard. It’s so hard. That’s why most people can’t do it.

 
Do it again

Do it again. Do it again. Now do it again. Trust me, you don’t want to do it again.

 
This is your life now

It may hurt a little. But get used to it. It’s not going away. Not quickly anyway. Embrace the pain or destroy yourself. Clearly, two shitty choices. I suggest you choose the first.

May 27, 2012 
Love?

Love and fucking are two different products. Eventually they separate.

 
You can’t win an argument when your drunk

You’re going to look like you’re wrong. Trust me on this one. You can only come out of this being an asshole.

 
Hoy

Tradition and heritage are dead people’s baggage. Why are you carrying it? Live today. Yesterday is gone. And tomorrow may never happen.

May 28, 2012 
Connect

Don’t mistake coincidence for fate. You’ll get hurt I promise. Humans have a natural tendency to try to make patterns and make connections. Perhaps we want to be connected. That doesn’t mean they exist.

 
Laupahoehoe

Laupahoehoe. It’s the kind of lava that flows smoothly. A’a bursts. But like with everything Hawaiian there is kaona. A hidden meaning or a symbolic reference to what is happening. Laupahoehoe flows and pillows for a reason. Find the reason within you. And then flow. Don’t a’a. It’s against the system.

 
J

What comes around goes around. I don’t know how but it always does. You will get what you get and it won’t be by my hand. It will be by yours.

 
Heart

In all of our “hearts” there is safety, and terror. No one wants to be alone. Trust me, it sucks. But it happens. And you still need to reach out. Others are more important than they might seem. Others? Are why we are here.

 
Mad

“I don’t want to speak with you right now.”
“Why are you mad at me?”
“I’m not mad at you I just don’t want to talk today.”
“You kill me. Slowly, but you kill me.”
“You kill yourself.”
“Thanks, Goldilocks. Trust me you have culpability.”

 
Shoot

I ain’t begging for this cursed life. Pull the trigger. Pull. Coward. Now let us both suffer.

 
Pretty vacant

I heard the words and did not recognize myself. What had I become? I would never hurt you on purpose. When I was a whirling dervish, you were just standing too close. It ends. It all ends. Everything ends. You just have to wait for the moment.

 
Yin Yang

Yin? You are in Florida. I’ve known you forever but I think I’m letting go. Yang? You are in California. I seem to be stuck in the middle. California? I love you more than anything I’ve loved in my whole life. And I’ve loved. Florida? You were my first true love and I will always hold you in my heart.

May 29, 2012 
Alone

Loneliness is a form of emptiness. You got fucked over last week. I could not give two shits about that. What is now? Why are you here with me right now? I didn’t drag you here. You came because you wanted to. Why? Figure it out and let me know.

 
The revolution

It’s a success. Nirvana is in the Muppets. We made what we wanted for everyone. You might argue it’s been co-opted. But punk is inside now. People that never would have known it have it in their awareness.

 
I looked it down

The pain came to me and it brought everything. Then I looked it down. There is someone I want so bad I can taste it. And I have to remind myself to stand down. Stand down. I try to say, “Want someone that wants you.” It doesn’t make a difference. We want what we want.

 
Fear

You don’t scare me. Do you think I”m afraid of anything? Perhaps death. More specifically, dying.

 
Nothing

How can anything mean anything when nothing means nothing. Your lies don’t hurt anymore. Your words mean nothing. Please keep them to yourself. Nothing matters. You don’t matter. And miraculously there is no pain. Let go. That is the truth. That is the answer. Hurt comes because you care.

 
Care

No one really cares about you. You float on this raft called life. You hope that someone rubs against you every once in awhile. Happy if they do. Disappointed if they don’t. But what does it mean? You got rubbed against. That makes you nothing more than a monkey. What does it all mean?

 
Hard

Trust is a hard thing to win back. It can come slow. But it comes slow.

 
Rain

The rain falls on us all. Poor, rich, smart, or stupid. There are some things you can’t transgress. You can try. But I promise you ain’t kicking that water back up the hill. It falls. We fall. It’s part of the procedure.

 
Run

Go. Run. You’re not going to get away. Anything that really wants to get you will come. The irony is that usually it is yourself.

May 30, 2012 
There’s no time

The money is low. Stay if you want a confrontation. Otherwise go. I have a hard enough time taking care of myself. I can’t take care of you.

 
Happy

I don’t want to be happy. I never did. I just want to change people. Move them with my words. The rest is just rubbish.

May 31, 2012 
Always keep one in the chamber

You got the fifteen. Thirty-two if you’re packing a Mac -10. But always keep one in the chamber. After the shootout? You might need a shot. (Full disclosure I have never shot a handgun.)

 
Skinny

“You’re getting too skinny.”
“I like being skinny.”
“Honey, come back”
“You’d be surprised how skinny a person can get. You’ve never been fat. You don’t understand how the world changes when you are skinny.”
“My love, please come back to us.”

 
She calls me K

I guess she loves me in her way. I loved her since the moment I met her. A month later I saw her and remembered her name. I won’t say it because I said wouldn’t. I love her and always will be in love.

 
We sold our soul for rock’n roll

I sold my soul for a lot less.

 
You can’t push

You can’t ask me not to push. It’s who I am. Shall I ask you to be who you not are? It is what it is honey. I push. Hoping you’ll pull. But if you don’t, you don’t. Do I love you? Absolutely. But things are different now. I’m done jumping through hoops. I’m done.

June 1, 2012 
Andromeda

In 4 billion years the Andromeda galaxy (M31) will collide with ours and make a new kind of galaxy. There will be turbulence. The elliptical shape of our galaxy will be gone. No one will be here, of course. But, again this is a metaphor. The violent collision of two lives. It can bring passion. Or it can bring destruction. Right now you have a choice. In 4 billion years you won’t. It’s coming at us at 250,000 mph. Thank goodness for light years.

 
I’ve given all I can

But it’s never enough. It is never enough. “For a minute there I lost myself.” But I found me again and I’m not sure if it’s enough.

 
How it works

When you love a woman. She feels too secure. Yet she doesn’t trust you. Doesn’t feel the same. Dance around like a fool. It doesn’t matter. Women want what doesn’t want them.

 
Punk

“You’re a drunk.”
“You’re a punk.”
“I’ve been one since I’ve known you.”
“I thought you would grow up.”
“Well, I’m never not going to be punk. I have it tattooed on me for god’s sake.”
“Yeah I know.”
“Do you think I would ever take it off? That is me.”

June 2, 2012 
Pili Leka Leka

It literally means gummy or to be sticky. But again with Hawaiian there is kaona. It means to push together. It means to push together. Ho’okahi kahi ke aloha. Be one in love.

 
What’s on your mind for God’s sake

“Just spit it out. Spit it out”
“I sort of think we’re over”
“We’ve been over for awhile.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I’ve been trying to be a nicer person.”
“Good job.”
“Fuck you too.”

 
Notorious HIV

That is my new rap name. It could have been Tupac Shot 14 times, but I think this flows better.

June 3, 2012 
C

I’m not going to say your name because of the shit you’re going through and I’m not going to add to it. Just know that I love you. And I’ll be here for anything you need. And if you ask me to do something, I will jump. You are my heart.

June 4, 2012 
C2

I love that girl with all my heart. And I think she sort of loves me back. So everything gets amplified. Basic statements are made great pronouncements. I haven’t been in love forever. This is new/old to me.

June 6, 2012 
The world

It keeps moving in one direction. You can’t turn it around. You’re not going to change. If you’re going to go, you have to go with the flow.

 
Sometimes

Sometimes you just stand there. You get beat up. You don’t deserve it. But you take it. That is how the world is. And it isn’t fair.

 
Do you want to see?

How crazy I can be? I don’t believe you do. You probably shouldn’t call me out. Something might happen.

June 7, 2012 
The ghost of Eli

Returns. And haunts us with his pain. Are we going to be punished? Shall we pay for the sins of Hophni and Phineas? Who pays? Someone always pays. Where is Hannah to sing her beautiful song to God? Who might save us from ourselves?

 
The thing is

I didn’t know it. Looking back I can see pretty clearly. I can honestly say that I am sorry for my mistakes. And I have paid dearly for them. Probably have to pay a little bit longer. But I am sorry for the hurt I caused, and I promise to try to rectify that.

 
Sometimes

Sometime things start with a good idea. And then they go to shit. We push and we strive and we have ambition. But life sometimes has a way of curbing that. You have to believe still. And manifest what you believe.

 
Four years

A lot of things change in four years. More stays the same.

 
Adjustment

You want to see? It takes awhile to adjust? Take a look at my life.

 
Why

Why am I alive? I’ve done everything necessary to kill myself. Yet, here I remain. Fuck death. You’re a pussy. I win.

June 14, 2012 
Gaunt

“You look gaunt.”
“I didn’t mean to.”
“I don’t think anyone ever means to.”
“It just happens.”
“It just happens. Now get help.”

June 15, 2012 
Cuticles

“Your cuticles are again filled with blood.”
“It’s a long story.”
“I have some time.”
“My nose bled for some hours.”
“You know that’s not healthy when you don’t clot?”
“I kinda have other issues going on.”
“Clearly.”

 
Aye

The sound aye means yes in so many languages. Hai in Japanese, oui in French, sí in Español, ae in Hawaiian (not to be confused with ai which means to eat or a’i which means consent to sexual relations, though I prefer the latter) . We all must be connected. There must have been a common language. I’m going to call it Orangatangian.

June 16, 2012 
Days

These days are long. The nights are longer. Paranoid. Scared of knocks on the door. I haven’t done anything wrong. But I’m still afraid. In two weeks I’ll be on a plane or on the streets.

 
Eye

You can’t turn around or look away. You’ve got to look this one in the eye.

June 17, 2012 
Feel

I feel nothing. All feeling is lost. I know I should be afraid. I can look in the mirror in the dark now. Nothing. I feel nothing. I have no fear, because I don’t think I care.

 
Trust

There’s no trust. Something will go wrong. Someone will get hurt. This is going to end badly.

June 18, 2012 
Proof

That Hell really does freeze over. Or maybe burn up. I seem to be in it. I can’t tell if it’s hot or cold.

 
48

Potatoes have two more genes than people, 48. The same as gorillas. Tool has a song called 46 and Two about people pushing past their limits and evolving to 48 chromosomes. But I don’t think I want to be a potato or a gorilla. I’ll keep my 46 chromosomes for now.

 
Trillion

After ten days most cells in your body are replaced. Certain things take a little longer. Your liver and your spine, specifically. But after seven years every single one of your more than a trillion cells are replaced. You are literally a new person. Take advantage of the opportunity.

June 20, 2012 
Virgin

“Wow, your ex-girlfriend is beautiful.”
“Of course she’s beautiful. I only sleep with beautiful girls.”
“I don’t know how to take that.”
“It’s not like you’re a virgin. Take it as a compliment.”

June 23, 2012 
Better

When do you know? What do you do when you think you know what you do? What if you’ve made a lot of mistakes? You remember when you were on top. Remember that life is just a game. Then remember how to play it better.

July 13, 2012 
Moving forward back

Is this darkness in you too? Did you move through this night? Do you know you’re not coming back from it? What are you to me anymore, except nothing? Have you ever had anyone die in your arms? Look. Life is often cruel.

July 14, 2012 
Realization

Life goes from bad to worse. I still choose to live.

July 16, 2012 
And so

Things have a way of coming around. You can put it on another person or a situation, but, generally, the mess falls at your own feet. Salivated bile doesn’t travel far being weighted by thick strands of yellow-green mucus.

I vacillate. Most of me remembers how I loved you. The rest of me, and it’s not an insignificant percentage of my self definition, hopes you die of painful cancer. I don’t enjoy feeling that way. But denying it is useless. Lying to oneself is not the most effective form of self destruction.

It will come around, I am convinced. But I’m also pretty sure that this won’t make things better. It will be different, but the smart money, if there’s any left, is not being wagered on improvement or happy.

You looked as miserable as I felt the last time I saw you. The dictionary definition of a Pyrrhic victory. You lose doesn’t mean I win. I will win. But I don’t need to see you losing. And you are. And you will.

When the decision was hard you contorted unnaturally to squeeze into easy. Short term? Awesome strategy. Now? The days are lonely and the nights are long. And that dizzy feeling just doesn’t seem to go away.

July 21, 2012 
Ha

The difficulties are what they are. They’re not going to go away just because you’d prefer they might. In many ways, difficulty defines you. Easy goes by fast. Hard shows what you are. Semi-sweet is where the action is. It’s the rind on the melon, not quite what you might want.

It’s so easy to say, “Fuck this,” that we forget our heroes actually say, “Fuck you.”

 
The Hold Steady almost killed me

You have to be part of the pack to get the joke. And I know this. And I fall out. But some nights? I admit we were gorgeous. TGI Friday’s and Vietnamese food on Thursday. Everything sparkles when it’s holy. And holy comes easy when most nights you cry. When you don’t feel anything, nothing quite hurts. I’m not sure what I miss the longing, the ache, or the long silence. Sometimes it rains.

July 28, 2012 
Anger management

It’s interesting, in hindsight or when witnessed in others, what anger, especially unyielding, unending anger, actually means. Generally, it is a mechanism in the futile attempt to mask insecurity. But it’s about as successful as parading around town in a shirt that says, “I’m not insecure. Really.”

You reek of it. Trust me. And being a constant bitch isn’t a sign of empowerment, nor does it make you seem strong. It just makes you a bitch. And, ironically, it broadcasts your weaknesses.

I know because I spent a few years on that ledge, fueled by rage and spewing vitriol. It takes one to know one.

 
Forgiveness

There is no way that I can explain all the things that I’ve done and do. And there is no way that you can forgive me. So? I forgive you.

 
25-ish

I never thought there’d come a day when 25 would seem so irritatingly young. I remember being on the school bus when I was eight or nine and we’d go from lower campus at Kamehameha to pick up the kids in high school on upper campus. They seemed so old. Now I look at ninth graders and they seem so tiny. The same transformation has happened with twentysomethings. When you are one? You rule the world. You know every answer. And your way is the right way.

It takes hindsight, I guess, to recalculate and add up all the stupid fucking decisions and the risky behavior that when bulletproof seem like manifest destiny, but in reality is mostly the luck of the draw. If I met the me from ages 25 – 35, I would tell him to quit being such a fucking asshole. Think of those that love you. And can you please try to step out of yourself for one second?

My new theory is that it’s evolutionary. We need that bravado and sluttiness to propagate our genes. But at what cost? I’m not that old, really. But I see more clearly things in other people that I don’t like. And what you hate the most in others? Is really what you hate about yourself.

July 29, 2012 
Here’s the deal

I’ve been through at least three of you. This is all you’ve seen of me.

One of the rules that I live my life by, and there aren’t many, goes as follows never ask a question that you don’t already know the answer to. Especially when the answer might be, “No.”

July 30, 2012 
Better

“You’re get better than anyone at anything you try to be.”
“Seems like I’ve been trying to be a loser.”
“And, again, you’re the best.”
“Cold comfort.”
“It doesn’t have to be this way.”
“Yes. It does.”
“Almost everything is a choice.”
“Almost.”
“You need it.”
“Need what?”
“I’m not quite sure, but it’s whatever the fuck fuel that makes you move.”
“Technically, I stay still most often.”
“And there it is.”
“And there you are.”

 
A different focus

Focus your weaknesses. Channel your obsessive compulsive tendencies into one event. I guarantee you it will be a success, and there’s no possible way that you might be disappointed. It’s inconceivable.

If it didn’t involve people (okay person) that I care about, it would almost be funny. Self-induced implosions are fun from the outside.

 
If nothing is true

“I gotta go.”
“I understand. Go.”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t know it was going to be like this.”
“Weird. I did.”
“Then why’d you come?”
“Because I thought I might be wrong.”
“You and everyone else.”
“Yes, this time there was a kind of consensus.”
“So, why?”
“Why not?”

 
Learn how to kill your darlings

It hurts at first. But soon enough, time reveals itself to be like water, dissolving everything eventually. The attachment is like any other. The initial separation sears, but the following ache only hurts when you think about it.

August 4, 2012 
Sympathy for the devil

I remember calling collect from central booking and asking what happened.
“Did you tell them you kicked me? Did you tell them that I was trying to stop you?”
“Yes.”

But you didn’t. And so the myth began that now stands, at least officially, as fact. Before my five minutes were up you told me I was going to lose everything. And I remember thinking how final that seemed over something that was basically a loud mistake. What I didn’t know then, of course, was that you had already started to bury me.

The sad thing is that you were right. I did lose everything. It took a whole bunch of consistent insistence on your part and a systemic complicity that was so one-sided in its advocacy that it really needs to be experienced to understand. But I learned the hard way that once an official decision is made, everything–every single thing–is used, excluded, or willfully distorted in support of that version of events. No one else was there, but two actual witnesses somehow morphed into certainty, as if there existed virtual cameras and audio spyware, or infallible psychological analyses of behavior and intent.

Everything I had is gone. Four bedrooms and a two-car garage now somehow fit into a suitcase, an overnight bag, and a backpack. I can carry everything in one trip. And I have learned that the position of the devil’s advocate is not necessarily a place of antagonism, or pessimistic dissent. Evil is sometimes just bad press.

 
The mariner’s revenge song

It can’t possibly remain the way you left it. Otherwise life has no meaning. We really are nothing. Chaos and stardust scattered like the proverbial room of infinite monkeys typing Hamlet.

A curse on you for what died and didn’t need to, especially if there’s no other life. That is the great tragedy of the wasted lives we waste for wasted reasons. Drunk driving, Iraq, suicide. What if this is all there is? What if your memory forward reflects the one you can’t remember of the eternity behind you? There is no answer. And in my greatest fear, but in my almost absolute belief, is silence.

No one wants to believe this is all we have. But look. 100 billion human and/or human-like creatures in close to a million years. Prove anything. Nothing. Empty.

Here’s what you do. Love your daughter. Cherish your son. So when they’re alive, at least, they know how much they were loved.

This horrible system only knows how to be what it is. There is probably no individual immortality. The best we can hope for is to eat eternity. Live for the now. Pray that it’s not painful. Try not to be sad that it’s most likely nothing.

August 6, 2012 
Don’t be so paranoid

Most likely? They’re not out to get you. More likely? They’re acting in their own self interest. And if you impede that self interest in any material way, you should expect some kind of push back. The greater the perceived threat, the harder the push. And, yes, the word perceived was chosen specifically and deliberately. A real threat isn’t a necessary component in reaction.

Paranoia, in the parlance of our times, gives aid and comfort to the enemy. Paranoia is a self-inflicted attack, doing unnecessary damage that otherwise might not even happen. You can, in certain circumstances, change the way a person acts. But this is almost always temporary. People are going to believe what they are going to believe. And their behavior generally follows in accordance with this truism. Worrying about it doesn’t change a thing.

August 8, 2012 
Clams have feelings, too (actually they don’t)

Pain still hurts. I can feel that, so I guess I’m still alive. It’s counterintuitive, but sometimes pain is preferable to the alternative, if the alternative is nothing. It’s hard to explain to those not bothered by nothing. Some people, actually most people, manage to fill their whole lives with nothing. Who can blame them, then, for looking down their noses at those who are willing to sacrifice everything to avoid nothing? (Read it again, I promise that makes sense. And if it doesn’t, it wasn’t meant for you.)

August 9, 2012 
Yeah, but

“It still hurts.”
“It’s supposed to hurt.”
“Then it’s working.”
“Good.”
“I don’t like you much.”
“I hate you.”
“See? That just proves you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

August 13, 2012 
Thoughts, not so much abridged

“What do you do?”
“What do you mean?”
“He bakes bread. He fixes cars. What do you do?”
“I think.”
“You think?”
“Yes.”
“Why should I care?”
“I think very deeply.”
“I sometimes do as well.”
“No, you don’t.”
“What do you know about me?”
“I know you don’t think deeply.”

August 15, 2012 
I wish I could have been there to share the moon with you

But what you can reach is sometimes limited. Given what we wanted, we would grab. But sometimes you have to wait. And I hate waiting as much as anyone. But the pleasure. Pleasure isn’t the right word. It’s somehow what makes things right. Passion, kisses, observation, intensity. I mean, who needs love if you have that sometimes?

 
A prayer for the wicked

Are you real? And if you are, do you ever intervene? Or are we a collective ball rolling to the same unseen? I understand I’ve done some really dumb things, trying to fill the hole you put inside all of us. And in doing, I’ve hurt people that love me, and who I love. Do you listen to all the whispers? Which get granted? I’m not sure I believe in the concept of you, at least not the way people think. But perhaps, you’re my last best chance, a lottery ticket with infinitesimally small odds. But you’ve got to play to win.

 
What do you want?

“Remember the days we thought we were going to live forever?”
“And now?”
“Now, everything comes to an end.”
“Was it ever any different?”
“I don’t know.”
“What are you saying?”
“Do you want to see the blood on my hands. They’re sort of out there.”
“Stop talking like that and tell me what you mean.”
“Nothing lasts forever.”
“You already said that.”
“I said it differently.”
“And I wasn’t supposed to notice the difference?”
“No one ever does.”
“I did.”
“As usual, you are the exception that proves the rule.”
“I like that.”
“It sounds better than it is.”

 
Every time you say, “Goodnight,” I hear, “Goodbye”

It’s weird for me like that. If it’s going to happen, it happens instantly. And when it ends it always comes with shock and awe. Though we both of us, we know, how the end always is. My ends at least. I feel everything in exponential measures. And I haven’t quite decided if that’s something to hold on to. I’m less than stable, I know, and I’ve been your cause for woe, but I’ve loved you ever since you said, “Hello.”

(I stole that last thought from a singer you’ve never heard of.)

 
What I like

Leering off-puttingly, digging awkward silences, reducing elements to their simplest forms, recognizing duplicity, moral turpitude, being the most clever boy in the room, nuzzling the girlfriend, rousing rabbles, and manifesting a nuanced understanding of the human condition.

August 17, 2012 
How could hell be any worse

“I remember thinking.”
“That’s your first problem.”
“You actually interrupted me.”
“I know. I didn’t want to hear how it finished. Finishes? Finished.”
“Funny.”
“I’m not trying to be.”
“That’s the best kind of funny.”

 
This is the life

“How come so much?”
“If it was easy everyone would have it.”
“I don’t want it.”
“It’s not really your choice.”
“Choice?”
“I like the word.”
“Another lie?”
“I prefer illusion.”
“I guess that sounds better.”
“Most things sound better than the truth.”
“True?”
“Reasonable facsimiles.”
“Whatever.”
“That’s your problem.”
“My one problem?”
“That is amongst your problems.”
“Which is?”
“You live too much in the what if, and especially in the what was, instead of the what now.”
“Deep.”
“Drown, then.”

August 18, 2012 
The guy code

“I took her home.”
“Why?”
“It’s the guy code.”
“Of course. What?”
“We both like her, but you did first, so I defer.”
“You deferred?”
“This time.”
“Thanks.”
“Unless she’s very open minded and then, um, see you at the after party.”

 
Achtung

“You were only 18 when you started.”
“You’re only ever anything whenever you start anything.”
“Always so clever.”
“I’m not trying to be.”
“Then stop.”
“Stop what?”
“Whatever it is that makes this happen.”
“This?”
“You.”
“Fuck you.”
“And that’s what it comes to?”
“That? That is what it is.”

 
Knowing

“I’ve known you since your name wasn’t your name.”
“My name has always been my name.”
“No.”
“What?”
“Power always lies in the person who cares less.”
“You care?”
“I never cared less than more.”

August 25, 2012 
I feel funny

“I don’t like to feel this way. I think before you die your mind clarifies.”
“Are you dying?”
“Not today, but I feel like there must be some moment of truth.”
“Is that my responsibility?”
“Not unless you want it to be.”

October 16, 2012 
Exclusivity

“You are an unreliable narrator.”
“How do you mean?
“You keep talking about her as if she’s here.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“But I can see her.”
“Where do you see her?”
“Where she stands. Where she moves. Where she speaks. I can hear her voice. Soft. Mellifluous. Her hands are open.”
“You know you sound crazy? Or drunk.”
“I don’t think those two are mutually exclusive.”

 
E ala e (She wakes, she wakes. She rises.)

You are so internal to what means everything, yet juxtaposed with what means nothing at all. It’s funny how the two go so well together.

Your lies are precious to me. In a way, I guess lies show that you care about the reaction.

 
430 am

“Do you know how I know you love me?”
“Because I put up with your shit?”
“No. Anybody can put up with shit.”
“I’ll bite. Why?”
“Do you love me?”
“Of course I do.”
“Then I’ll tell you you pick up the phone.”
“I pick up the phone? That’s it? That is how you know?”
“You just picked it up.”
“And?”
“It’s four-thirty in the morning.”
“Which means I love you?”
“Exactly.”
“I’m hanging up now. Don’t call back.”
“If I did it’d be a test.”
“I don’t like being tested.”
“Then don’t hang up.”
“I’m going to sleep. I love you.”
“I already told you I know.”

 
Optional

“I look. And I can see your hands.”
“They are, actually, visible.”
“I look, and I see much more.”
“I don’t want you to cry. Sad is so emotional.”
“I see you bigger than this. Was that your intent? To be bigger?”
“Everything turns out that way.”
“I love you.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I love you.”
“I’ll believe that when you are kissing my mouth and have no other options.”

October 24, 2012 
The mask

Before there were cars or airplanes, before there were cities, before there was electric light, before there was Facebook, before there were computers even, there was day and there was night. Life was simpler. It wasn’t better or worse than it is now. It just was what it was.

Every morning, the sun would come up over the edge of the ocean with streaks of yellow and orange making a path to land over the turquoise water. As morning turned into day, the sun would rise high, changing the colors of sky, lighting the clouds and warming the ground, while the people moved around far below.

After a few hours, though, the sun would disappear behind the other side of the tall mountains to the west, and late every afternoon, slowly, the sky would turn darker, back through all the different shades of blue, from celeste to indigo, and finally to black and night.

No matter how hard you try, you will never be able to imagine how dark the night used to be.

 
Raison d’être

“Why’d you do it?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It does to me.”
“There are a million different reasons to do any one thing.”
“What was yours?”
“It wouldn’t make sense to you.”
“Try me.”
“No.”
“You’d prefer to be difficult?”
“Prefer? No.”
“Then, what?”
“I can’t do what you’re asking.”
“What am I asking?”
“For a reason that you’ll understand.”
“And?”
“One doesn’t exist. There are only a million reasons, not just one. ”
“So what do I do with that?”
“Choose one that makes sense to you.”
“Even if it’s not true?”
“Especially if it isn’t.”
“Is this a game to you?”
“No.”
“What is it?”
“It just is what it is. No more. No less.”

November 6, 2012 
Why would I care

“What’s the difference between, ‘Yes,’ or, ‘No?’”
“Nothing.”
“She can’t say no?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Words don’t matter?”
“In your instance? In this situation?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“No?”
“It’s rare that anything ever matters. And that you think it might? Sort of makes me happy for a minute.”
“See? You always ruin it.”
“Me?”
“Yes. You.”

 
What makes you think something is wrong

“What’s going on?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re calling me at 2am because nothing is wrong?”
“No. I called you at 8pm where I’m from.”
“Whatever. What’s up?”
“I really don’t feel like being pathetic now that the sun is down.”
“The sun goes down every day, K.”
“I know. I’m working on that.”
“Let me know how that goes.”
“I will. But it’s probably going to be at 2am. Your time.”
“I’ll be sure not to answer.”
“I know.”

 
Come clean

“Admit you love me.”
“I’m not admitting anything.”
“You didn’t say no.”
“I never say no to you.”
“Sure you do.”
“Eventually I always say yes.”
“That’s because you love me.”
“No.”
“See?”
“I see nothing.”
“Say the word and I’d give you the world. I mean I would try.”
“Try.”
“It might be hard to fit in my car.”
“The world?”
“Among other things.”
“You’re so fucking clever.”
“Perhaps.”
“How is that working out for you?”
“Judging by results?”
“What other judgment is there?”
“None I guess.”
“So?”
“So I guess I failed.”
“Maybe.”
“Still the offer.”
“Which is?”
“Say the word and I’ll give you what you need from me.”
“The word.”

November 14, 2012 
Schrödinger’s cat

The past seems set in stone, and the future merely a possibility, but Schrödinger helped me understand that the actual future is as inevitable as the actual past. And if it were possible to somehow “know” the infinite factors that manifest in our consciousness as the present (ever fleeting), then we would know with as much precision what will happen and what has happened simultaneously and infinitely in either direction. Lacking these infinite factors is my defense to every bad decision I have ever made, am currently making, or will ever make.

November 15, 2012 
Degrees of bullshit

Take a deep breath. Feel your feelings. Everything either means everything, or it means nothing at all. Something deep down inside is trying so hard to believe in the former. What are we except the smallest parts of what we are?

December 5, 2012 
Punk memories

“Hüsker Dü somehow made it big. You know? Bob Mould, Sugar? And they only came from nowhere like St. Paul. Like the Hold Steady. Though I guess they reference Brooklyn as “home” now and sing a lot about Ybor City.”
“Ybor City?”
“Yeah, it’s this party part of Tampa. I don’t really know the connection, but they sing about it more than once.”
“How do you remember all that minutiae?”
“How did you forget?”

December 10, 2012 
The original wreckage of our hope

I’m hoping that perhaps, this time, that the past can stay the past. I used to joke that I would never come back here, “What do you think? I’m stupid? Do you think I would ever let her do that to me again?”

And so it is. And here I am. Back again. You caught me looking for the same thing. What it is I can’t even say for sure. I can hardly recognize it, let alone describe it. Like the Supreme Court definition of obscenity, I can’t tell you what it is, but I’ll know it when I see it.

It certainly feels real. And I certainly do seem to want it. So do you. Why else would we keep crossing paths? Two intersecting lines only meet once and then go on forever in opposite directions. Clearly you and I are not lines. To carry the ridiculous mathematic metaphor to its extreme we are more like a wave meeting repeatedly at some random axis. Perhaps we never will-or at least were never meant to-overlap. But when our points meet, the equation of my life seems correct.

It all makes sense to me.

December 11, 2012 
Wherefore art thou

In the past you’ve told people you thought that I was faking it. Whatever it is. Perhaps now you see how wrong you were. There are many things you can say about me, many of them derogatory, and most of them are probably true, but fake isn’t one of them. If I lie, it’s with intent.

And so the terrible lurch downward appears from certain vantage points to have lurched downward again, this time in your universe. And from on high it is easy, I suppose, to look down to the place where I’ve chosen to stand. I would think it might be hard to make a judgment about that choice considering you have most likely never stood here yourself. If you’re thinking (and I’m pretty sure you are), “that’s your choice,” this time you’d be correct. Everything everyone ever does, consciously for sure, but unconsciously even more so, is done by choice. Every situation, every action, every failure to act, every consequence, are all an amalgamated product of the infinite set of choices made incrementally from one nanosecond to the next in the history of time that was, and that will ever be.

We share the same nature, if not nurture; even our mannerisms are quite similar. But our constitutions could not be any more different if they were purposefully made to be so. Even our drugs of choice, and I’m speaking metaphorically, are diametrically opposed. Judgment, then, from either side seems to me to be at least hypocritical and most likely disingenuous. The fire that burns in me, that often burns me, seems only to simmer in you in a place where control is never not an option. The corollary, of course, is that you never get burned if you’re never on fire.

It’s too much, I understand, often it feels too much for me as well. Oh, but there are moments when too much feels like it could never possibly be enough. Please don’t use the threat of my alleged influence as explication. There are many examples of bad choices being made, hidden and not so much, that occurred, are occurring, and will most likely continue to occur. It’s pretty clear to me how easily mine might serve as a deflection from these. But, in fact, beliefs to the contrary, until the levee broke, the raging waters of my predilections were hidden from those to whom they should have been. And even then the Earth didn’t flood.

My reputation, though inaccurate, was occasionally deserved, and enough of the myth was true to make for a cohesive narrative. I should have been more attuned to the power of perception, especially considering I have dedicated my professional and creative life to altering perceptions. I was careless. But the contrarian in me, as it so often does, bristled at interpretations of my actions as weakness, or in need of outside control. Contrary becomes self-righteous sometimes. And self-righteous easily morphs into reckless, which often continues down the path to self-destructive. Ladies and gentleman of the jury, I give you exhibits A through Z.

But, as is often true in trial, things are never really as they seem. Almost nothing is black or white, not even black and white. It is too often incorrectly repeated that there are two sides to every story. I would suggest that there are actually, potentially, an infinite number of sides, depending on how many people are looking. I know the answer to the age-old philosophical quandary as to whether truth is relative. Of course it is. Reality is relative.

As you probably already know from my ramblings, I am a firm believer in the philosophical implications of quantum theory, and I can see clearly, more so than in most situations even, how it applies here. Nothing happens by accident, nothing happens without being observed, nothing cannot be predicted, and nothing can be changed. And I assure you, that your reality is far different from mine. But that doesn’t make it any less true.

I love you.

December 24, 2012 
Love conquers not much

I wouldn’t go as far as to define emotion as illusion, but it is definitely illusory. Perhaps compulsory might be a better choice of word. Who feels it knows it, as the song says, and this often seems the only way of knowing.

She likes her apples room temperature and her red wine cold, sometimes even on ice. And these facts betray two strange truths 1) that I know her well enough to recall these preferences with no effort on my part, and 2) that in anyone else these might be deal-breakers. What makes for tolerance or acceptance, even celebration, in some, brings only cringes and bad-tastes-in-mouths in almost everyone else. Go figure.

December 26, 2012 
There must be some kind of way out of here

I always knew this day would come; I knew this was going to happen. Even when I hated you, I loved you. Do I enjoy thinking about others with you? I’ll be honest. No. Part of the process seems to require pain. And as much as I claim Machiavelli as my own? That ends justify the means bullshit is just that. It’s bullshit. I would have preferred different means to this end.

But here it is at whatever it is. I feel like I can take a breath. They were all because of you, sometimes not quite obvious, still true.

You can lie. You can hide. But, I see you.