Solace

I have no words. I have no words and sometimes when we have nothing to say we simply sit in silence and watch. We watch the world change and evolve and we are impotent to act. We watch the people closest to us grow tired of us, or bored, and go away and sometimes we choose to intercede… but only sometimes.

And what I love about you is your beautiful, golden, sullen silence.

You and I are alone because we have chosen to withdraw into our own misery and hide away… to merely watch. Maybe we are both scared. I like to think you and I are on a “retreat.” Sounds like something pleasurable although it really isn’t. I wile away hours upon hours playing my “game” and you have your crossword puzzles and you tell me we are the way we are because we are both “water” signs and the stars and planets have chosen this path for us. I love the way you are able to interpret the bones, the winds, and the bottoms of espresso cups… we both refer to these as omens. I know the real reason is because at some point in our lives we were utterly broken and destroyed.

What I love about you is your quiet, prideful elegance.

The time I spend with you I cherish because you never ask me any questions. You are content to simply “be” around me. We sit on your patio sipping cocktails and smoking cigarettes watching the world pass us by. The “freakshow” as you call it. We sit together frozen in time like insects encased in amber. We are faded memories on a yellowed, blurred photograph.

And maybe this is what we both needed to heal… this solitude.

Yes, I think we both need each other, God knows I needed you, and somehow somewhere along the way I grew to love you. I love your sarcasm and pessimism and I think I love it because it mirrors mine. I love your obsession with old Hollywood Glamour, 80’s music, and interior design. You make me laugh. Most of all I love the fact you do not expect much of me save respect and adoration and I give you these things without asking any questions in return. I don't give you much else but please remember what I do give you is far more then what I have given anyone in the past 4 years of my life save my son.

So I raise my glass of wine and propose a toast… here’s to our continued retreat, may our beautiful sabbatical continue.

emergence(y)

Perfect princess I think you are made of stars so shining and bright. Worlds separate us right now, you are so far away... or perhaps you are right here in plain sight and I am the one who is so far away. However I am closing the distance. I am chasing doom every step I take, every twist, every turn... I am getting closer. My lungs are out of air and I have begun the long ascent back to the surface. If I plan this right not only will I break the surface but I might even fly. The quiet, murky solitude of the deeper then deep held me like a womb thru the cold winter but the sun is out and I must come back as all things do. As the flowers. As the birds. As does the rain. As do certain stars.

It’s a fine day
People open windows
They leave their houses
Just want a short walk
It’s a fine day

the road to awe

Yesterday I died. Tomorrow I will die. Vacuous lapses of time in between dreams, sleep, and sadistic sex. Stolen idols, broken libido, a divine cockroach stare – darting eyes and skeleton smiles. Things fall apart and the center cannot hold... and I so long to hold the rotting remains of you so tenderly in my arms and hum you that Russian lullaby you softly sang to me one snowy day long ago when I almost died.

It seems as though every night I dream of Xibalba. I vaguely remember excited voices around a crackling fire casting shadows into the howling jungle all around. The canopy above echoing with the shrill shriek of demons and above these demons a jealous moon carved of ebony and tears. Blood-red rivers and lakes of pus, and a forest of writhing bodies impaled on sheared bamboo and….

My god what became of us?

You and I were a fairy tale - a beautiful fable. Except fairy tales are supposed to end differently then we did. The princess did find her prince and the prince turned out be a cancerous fucking coward.

I miss you. I do.

There is nothing left of you now except the part of you that resides inside the solitary tree which grows in the recesses of my distant memory. And my eyes turn upwards to the sky, to an approaching star which is dying by the millenia, a sparkling nova cast in shades of yellow and brown - the Mayans named this place Xibalba.

When I reach my destination I promise you I will find you so we may be reborn as cats….

Patchwork

Sometimes the sound of goodbye is louder then the waves which crash on black rocks on a forbidden coast somewhere in the expansive archipelago of distant memory. And out past the rocks, beyond the coastline, the waves undulate in constant rhythm expanding and contracting like the chest of a sleeping titan. The monster rests, indeed, he rests… this kraken deep, deep below the red waters buried in sand and covered in coral. But as my world approaches conflict, as the drums of war hasten their beat growing louder and more oppressive, he stirs.

I know she has returned. Wherever it is she went she has returned and I don’t know how I feel about this. There have been sightings, although brief. There have been rumors, although unfounded - fragments of information. Someone's brother's roommate saw her at the mall. Insubstantial gossip perhaps but rumors nonetheless. And every lead I get brings me closer to the choice I will inevitably have to make. I am so lost. So… torn. I know I need to let go and in fact I thought I had – years ago. But what one thinks or one intends and what one actually does, in action, differ as day does from night. I still need her yet at the same time I need to continue to be alone.

It has been said the Roman poet Catullus wrote over twelve thousand poems all devoted to one single woman. and yes after all this time I still need my tuzik.

Life is a blur. I lose track of time and stumble through my daily routine as a small child wanders through a store oblivious of others around him. The sun shines more nowadays and the chrysalis is beginning to crack. My cousin is excited for the summer as this will be the first summer in a long time we will have motorcycles again and I will be free to join him in renewed adventures. I tell him it won’t be the same and he smiles and tells me with a twinkle in his eye, “ but it can be.”

heavy is the head...

Snow falls outside and it seems as though it will never stop, and on this side of the glass, in my world, there remains only black.

Black - as in the absence of color... as in the absence of all light and warmth.

I grow so bored. Bored of life and it's complexity. How I long to escape outside and find a quiet corner, perhaps underneath a tree or some cardboard, so I may sit alone and listen to the breeze and the hushed whispering of the incessant snow. I wish to listen, merely listen, and try to decipher their words. There must be a meaning to those words and in this meaning perhaps a solution… a cure to this illness which I cannot seem to lose.

I wish I could escape far away perhaps up into the mountains, desolation peak, and find a spot where I may simply sit and stare far off into space enjoying the sublime silence. And yes I would wear a crown of gold and a robe of crushed velvet.

Nirvanic

Dearest Leon,

My journeys have now led me east, to the mythical land of dragons and demons. I have found refuge among the ascetics here in a remote monastery nestled in the frigid, snowcapped mountains.

I realize it has been such a long time since you heard from me last, I can only assume you surmised me dead. And this assumption wouldn’t have been too far off my dear friend. But by God’s graciousness, I have unshackled the stubborn locks the opium and absinthe held on my thoughts and my body. I am clean now. It was a terrifying journey, a horrible dream rife with suffering. I still suffer. They still haunt me. Sometimes at night I swear I can hear their hushed whispers outside my window. Sometimes at dusk I will see their fleeting shadows on the hillside and I must resist the urge to follow. Sometimes I will see the silhouette of a man in my peripheral vision… only to turn and find myself standing alone..

It has now been several years since I defected from the battalion but for the first time since childhood my thoughts are lucid. I commune with God daily Leon. I see him in every gesture, every fleeting glance outside - I commune with God even as I complete the mundane tasks assigned to me, when I clean or cook or mend the thatched roofs, he speaks to me. We hold such lively conversations. Perhaps I shall tell you of these conversations, in fact I hope to my friend, over tea and hot cakes… one day.

If I can offer any advice, and I feel so foolish offering advice to you or to anyone, but I will write down these words so I may thereby also remind myself: If you are alive then be truly alive. Just open up your eyes and pay attention to the signs. Pay attention to the color of the sky and of the endless night. This life you hold so near and dear will fade in time.

So just let go.

You shall hear from me again Leon. I anticipate my stay here shall continue for exactly a year and then…well, we’ll see which way the winds decide to blow.

fitting in

I woke up this morning in Paris. Light streamed into my tiny room as I lay in my tiny bed staring at the cherubs zipping about above me. I reached out my hand oh so gently to catch one and startled them out of their playful revelry. The tiniest one, I believe his name was Max, smacked away my hand with a snarl. I shrug and swing my legs to my right-hand side, always my right hand side, and dismount the rickety bed in a fanciful flourish. Nothing is going to bring me down today for tonight I will be meeting my friends at the burlesque show for dinner, drinks, and various other forms of forbidden debauchery.

I pad my away across the cold floor softly humming Giussepe Verdi. I fling open the rococo white and gold armoire door with a loud “Ah-Ha!” No monster, he is taking the day off it appears. I shrug and pick out a crisp red turtleneck, black pants, and a black blazer. The perfect ensemble for which to haunt le musée du Louvre.

“ Papa where are you going today?”

I dab some mousse into my palm, rub my hands together like Mr. Miyagi, and press my mess of black, but graying, hair back into a neat arrangement. “Little man I am going to the museum and then I am meeting a friend at the corner café for a cup of chai tea. And then tomorrow this time, well, you and I will be spitting logeys at tourists off the Eiffel tower."

“ But we are tourists.”

I slowly turn around and look deep into his eyes… into my eyes. I hold a finger up to my mouth and shake my head. “Shhhhhhhhhh, no we live here now.”

repeat

It was 2001 and we didn’t give a fuck. Latin American kings intent on a dream. We were poor as shit, nothing to claim but the jizz in our dicks, the clothes on our back, and our motorcycles and road packs. We moved in a shadowy world of women, clubs, and filthy hotel rooms - we were like Iggy and David but minus the needles and spoons. Sometimes I tell people we should be dead, but instead you see me now here so fucked up in the head. Eyes made of lead with a heavy heart, falling apart, irony and bitterness a la carte. Life was simpler then, short days and long nights that seemed to never end and the scratchy record plays my memories again and again in my head as I stare into the elusive nothingness which I so used to dread. Nowadays I seem so dead.

I seem so dead.

I seem so dead.

I play the game and it's the same shit. I grow so bored and I'm too tired for it all. It is now 2008 and I'm no longer twenty-two and I'm also a dad. I sarge and I go out and I can still hang but given a choice I'd much rather sit alone in an empty room in a quiet house. I now find other ways to pass the time, no more games no more drugs no more playing the field. I am so incapable of love right now and I have erected walls and there's a moat with sharks equipped with lazer beams and trust me no-one is getting in.

No-one is getting in.

choices

Just a snapshot taken at a club of her and me. It is an impromptu “just fucking around” photograph taken on a whim… or so it would seem.

My cousin calls it “the picture that launched a thousand ships.”

She’s married, happily unmarried, but married. He cheats. She’s cheated. He’s an abuser. She loves to toy with his mind. A very miserable relationship. And I have been told by her sister that she wants me so bad she can taste the desire in her mouth like pennies. Tonight was the first time I have ever met her or spoken to her. She is pretty. She is Bosnian but she has stark white skin, blonde hair, and cold eyes… she looks Russian. An ice-princess. Although we’ve never met apparently she knew who I was and has lusted after me for some time now. In her mind it would be so perfect, my cousin and his girl, who is her sister, and she and I. We’d be one large, dysfunctional, fucked-up family. In her mind she “deserves” better… she deserves a man like me, and she obviously doesn’t know the real me, or else she wouldn’t mistakenly think she needs me.

But she is stuck in a dead-end marriage with a stupid dumb-fuck whom doesn’t appreciate her.

We all hit the club as a group to have some drinks, laughs, and unwind. Her husband distrusts me and is slightly intimidated by my cousin and I. He sees me as a threat and perhaps he should. I would never fool around with a married woman as I was married once and I would not want to be on the receiving end of infidelity. It’s just not right. But I will however flirt. I will have a good time. I feel-out my boundaries and then walk that imaginary line. As I did tonight. A light brush on her arm. When no one was looking a lingering look in her eyes. An innocuous hug. A smile. Several smiles. My cousin asks me to pose in a picture with her. We grin and look at the camera. We look so happy. We are total strangers but we are so dangerously on the verge of sharing each others bed. The air crackles with electricity. We both know what could “be.” We “could” blow each others mind if the stars would only align right. Or if we should happen to be at the right place at the right time, just her and I. There are so many factors, so many scenarios, and we both know this and we also know it might behoove us to avoid these scenarios like the fucking plague.

I walk the line.

She tells her sister that she wants me. Several times throughout the night. She tells her she hates her husband, as tears well up in her glassy blue eyes, she says she wishes he’d fucking die. That she could see herself with me. That she should be there , at the club, with me, not with him. That this is a mistake.

Her and her husband leave early. The situation reached a boiling point and none of us even noticed. He swears he caught me flirting with her yet he quietly slips out without saying a word to me. He was too afraid to have a conversation with me. She runs back in the club, tears now flowing down her ivory cheeks, and tells her sister they are leaving.

The next day I find out she moved out and they are getting divorced. I know it is not my fault, I was simply a catalyst. There are deeper issues that have nothing to do with me.

When I hear this I get a slightly sick feeling in my stomach. Butterflies. I have always gotten this feeling in that moment of certainty when I KNOW I am about to sleep with somebody. The cold shiver in on my neck when I pull down her panties, when I have overcome those final resistances. When I am about to become one with another person. It is a prophetic feeling and it has always foretold events that will in fact come to pass. It is always right.

But is this the right choice?

bleak

The distance between loneliness and loved is so minute, so uncertain, and indefinable. It is a line we waiver between numerous times every single day. It is the immeasurable distance between sanity and madness. The slow-plodding eternity in-between cigarettes. The awkward silence on the telephone. The nauseous feeling of disgust after sex. The irritable sense of discomfort when the coke wears off. It is the suicidal nuances we run through our brains as we sit alone in our cars commuting to work on a cold snowy Monday. It is the heart sickness we feel after the buzz and empowerment wears off and uncontrollable dizziness and puking sets in. The sine curve wave we all ride, eyes locked on a white sandy beach, never arriving to our destination.

Loneliness is pain and we all find ways to numb this pain.

I wander. When the higher then high wears off and I crash back down to earth in a heap of feathers - I wander. I turn off the phone and refuse to take calls. I shut down my heart. I become fearful of the world in these moments so I seek refuge in my dive-bar panic room. I close my eyes and refuse to let anything in except the dull bass drone of the jukebox which belts out sad songs over and over. A perpetual motion machine it is one of the things that shall always remain static in my life, the jukebox, my son, and the bottle. I close my eyes and try to make out the neon tracings in the back of my head and I miss my kid. Slamming shot after shot of the hard shit I hope I can find my way home. I hope I may be able to find the path, crumbling and overgrown with brush, that leads to Elysium.

That leads to you.

It is said the world may end in the year 2012. The Mayan calendar stops in 2012. It is understood something catastrophic will happen be it a heavenly body colliding with the Earth or the swift progression of a horrible virus or perhaps all-out nuclear war. The world will undeniably end. I hope I may shake this loneliness and learn to live in this world again and make the most of the precious little time we have left… I certainly try. But there are those moments of weakness where I must escape and hide. Life is the time I am with him. The time in between I am fucking dead – a zombie.

In the end of days I pray I am with him so I may comfort him and be his strength.

And after that when we all turn to dust I will be quietly waiting for you.