here we come a wandering

I tell her the world looks like Siberia, the snow falls and falls. Silence accompanied by crackling static on the other end, she mumbles some things and I barely hear or understand what is being said - perhaps because I’m drunk. A pleasant conversation, it seems, I might have had with myself - or nobody at all; imaginary friends in imaginary places.

And the snow falls.

A friend of mine told me this weekend he wants to kill himself.

Happy Holidays.

obtuse

“You know I would say she’s like on of those new cigarettes… the ones where you squeeze the base and with a click the cigarette transforms from a regular cig into menthol. You know which ones I’m talking about?”

I nod. I don’t look at him. I completely miss his expression. My attention is focused on the job at hand, sawing at the rock-hard slab of steak placed before me. “Yeah I don’t get that. Why would you spend MORE money on a box of those things when you wind up paying LESS either buying a pack of regular cigarettes or a pack of menthols? If you ask me, it’s a gimmick.” I wave my fork at him. “A fucking gimmick.”

He pauses. “I don’t think you get it man, that’s not the point here. This girl… I can’t figure her out. One minute she’s totally cool and we get along and the next, she’s this total bitch.”

I shove a glob of mashed potato specked with pieces of corn into my mouth. I hold up a finger indicating for him to wait as I chew my food. He drums the table with his fingers anxiously peering out the window. I wash my bite down with some cold milk; wipe my mouth with my napkin.

“So what are your thoughts?”

I smirk. “I think the food here is horrible.”

“No dumbass, on this chick?”

“Well what you’re saying here, I think what your implying is that a regular cigarette is somehow better then a menthol… like a regular cig is something amazing and great and menthol is horrible, or vice versa, and you know what? I really don’t mind either to be quite honest with you.” I poke at the steak again. “Hey could you pass the salt?”

with a pocket full of posies

We fly, you and I, on opposing ends of the lightning storm. We ride the winds, you and I, lost together in the perpetual round and round locked in eternal, inescapable torment; forever cursed to chase one another thru this elusive, hazy nothingness. I gaze across the mass of dark clouds, writhing flesh, and sizzling lights and there I see you looking right back at me.

You are a flickering shadow - a black and white grainy photograph. A ghost. And your eyes are gray… and they are sad, so heartbreakingly sad.

I long to escape, I grow so tired. I long to break these invisible shackles and fly away like a sparrow-hawk who freely rides the world’s wind alongside the crashing sea, yet I cannot. The dark heart of the storm, the unblinking eye, pulls us, you and I, binding us with invisible chains.

We suffer because we foolishly chose to succumb to the crimes of the flesh a long time ago in life. Our love story was a simple one. It was purely defined by the thrill of touch and the absolution of orgasm. We shared a chemical love affair, you and I, a methamphetamine-laced, beautifully sublime, tragic, black-magic romance.

And I am told there is a place reserved for me deeper within... in the seventh ring, where the harpies hungrily circle and lick their gluttonous lips in anticipation for the meal to come. But I am bound to you here. You and I. Together. Yet I am so fucking alone as I pirouette and spin in the endless winds like a discarded trash bag tossed about a dark, barren alley.

So you see, in an odd sense not only are you my greatest curse, but you are also my salvation.

necrocalypse

Look at the stars; they no longer shine for you. They no longer twinkle instead replaced by the dead stillness one would find in the blank eyes of a rotting dog left on the roadside. And in a way the stars have taken on a new beauty - a wondrous new shape which twists and contort in a convoluted dance for all eternity. The stars have changed or rather, perhaps I am the one who has drastically changed and it is my eyes, not the stars, which have taken on the wordless aspect of a dead animal. My eyes became reptilian slits a long time ago, cold and unblinking, which mistrustfully stare out at a desolate world.

It is strange to be completely alone once again and not to have the company of a spoon or bottle. I stay clean and sober because I must, although if I needed to lose myself in the madness it would be now. Time grinds her heavy thighs across a barren wasteland, every day is a blur punctuated by cigarette breaks, jerking off, and sleep. I am alone because I must be. This is my glorious clean slate for which I hope to re-create the Sistine chapel. However, I never understood how cities can be built upon cities upon cities. I’ve always been under the impression you must utterly destroy what previously existed before you can rebuild as I have so often destroyed everything I ever came to love. And the city I strain to re-make pales in comparison to the city which stood before which in turn paled in comparison to the city which stood in its place before that.

malignancy

Sadistic depression settles down uninvited into my softest plush chair and refuses to leave. He sits there and hovers like a dank fog resting over pitch black water. Hushed whispers feeding into my ears like insidious, parasitic larvae which twist and wrap itself around my lower brainstem up through my medulla oblongata - a nightmarish creature out of a sci-fi film which leaves me, the host, “receptive to persuasion.” He refuses to leave despite my pathetic pleading and piteous threats.

The shaman urges me to down a vial of snake juice, a caustic combination of ipecac and peyote, urging me to drink so I may kill the demon which resides inside me. She waves her rat-bone rattler above my abdomen and in slurred, indistinguishable speech speaks to the demon as I writhe and twist covered in beads of acidic sweat. My eyes blur and the smoke above me coils and dances to the distant drums, drums which lull out the cumbersome beast-king which lurks beyond the safe light of the campfire, deep in the belly of the forest.

It shrieks and fights and refuses to leave. This demon, this depression, this desperation, it clings to me like a half-eaten monkey clings to a junkie’s back, razor talons embedded into muscle grinding upon bone. Biblical boils spewing rivers of pus and honey. It gorges and grows perpetually feasting upon it’s tail shitting out it’s offspring which erupt into this world through my malicious words and crystal puddles of spilled semen.

and the leaves turn...

The expansive sea stretches before me into endless eternity. Summer has come and passed and in its wake remains a thin, scaly sheen of oily murk. Death, rebirth, and then death again. Round and round we go and where we emerge again nobody knows.

The blind man turns to me and stares into my soul through merciless cataracts and with cracked, rat-teeth he implores, “ There must be some kind of way out of here…”

I buy him another drink. I buy myself two.

21st century Ponce de Leon

High energy, dirty electro floods my clicking-clacking skull and with guns blazing I hit the treadmill, free weights, and lap pool. Last night I turned my clock back, and tomorrow I will turn my clock back, and the next day I will turn my clock back. Winter Ruva escapades and someone told me once how nice it is to frig yourself to orgasm in a tanning bed. Your body simply melts and you drift away in a sea of indifference, like a hit of heroin and a menthol cigarette. Stolen moments alone to counterbalance my hectic vida. Ephedrine and diet Rockstar fuel this time capsule propelling forward, and at the helm a heroic space monkey shitting bricks thru a clenched sphincter. H____ told me once, in a disgusted tone, that my heart has probably aged to that of a fifty year old. I told her she has absolutely no idea. In fact last week I smoked Crystal Meth with a girl at work just for the fuck of it. And it was fun, no it really was, but I probably shouldn't taste those hot lips again, I'm not the young buck I once was.

Friends re-emerge like it's Spring. I think it might be a blast if the Illuminati get together for a reunion. The class of 2005. Complete with a punch bowl, white frosted cookies, and little smokies. I can brag about the man I once was and we can all re-tell our beautiful stories. In fact the green fairy and I had a discussion earlier about youth, creativity, and celebrity. Is it possible to re-capture lightning in a bottle lost so long ago? I go back and read my earlier epic (mis)adventures and it's as though I am reading someone else's words, someone else's work - reliving someone else's life. Was I a better writer back then? Smarter? Faster? Stronger? I'm sure my ex can confidently attest that I was, in fact, a better lover.

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 know the real reason we are the way we are 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.