Fists of Jagged Concrete

Let us start at the beginning. It is a very good place to start. I however do not know the beginning. I only know what the young man told me. When you are forced to share a cell, it is hard not to tell all. Mostly it just happens. You talk to forget the pain, the hunger. Something clicks and you have to talk; you might be dead tomorrow.
I slowly came to hate him in that cell; he hated me from the get-go. Something about my face, he said, being just plain boring. I always look now, for the boring, fearing I too will one day see it. I hated him because he never accepted his lot as cast. Ever. He never just did things the easy way, the way I had done my whole life. I slowly came to love him in that cell; he loved me from the get-go. Something about my soul, he said, shining bright and pure but always secretly yearning for the Big Sleep. I loved him because he refused to forfeit his integrity but, in the end, always managed to do just that.
He was a mess; so am I. We talked about the way things had been. The girls and the booze and the stagnating wonder of America in a dangerous new century. The days were theirs; the nights belonged to us. In slivers of moonlight I taught him chess on chips of concrete marked in our own blood. It was all we had, really: concrete and blood and the dry Southland heat.
We had only been trying to help, to clean up and rebuild after the San Andreas Fault had finally shifted, and churned the Los Angeles Basin into a froth of concrete and twisted steel. The aftershocks had been fierce, relentless. Our Sons of the American Revolution chapter had called up a ‘Phoenix Brigade,’ thirty fearless men eager to help their most desperate fellow countrymen, regardless of color, craft or creed.
We were ambushed in the smoldering rubble somewhere south of James M. Wood. Scrambling they came, the mad rush of a fearful starving mass. The very earth seemed to spit them forth, machetes flashing in the sunrise.
Why the two of us were spared is unclear. We were tortured, but what could we realistically have told them? That the Valley was still burning? Simply look to the hills, to the north, for that still-expanding wall of smoke. That FEMA was now hopelessly overwhelmed? That agency hadn’t been right since Katrina. With wildfires and extreme weather ravaging the Union, their resources had been already stretched far too thin. Maybe our captors enjoyed the torture; perhaps it becomes easy, if you push a man far enough. Maybe, they did it because someone told them to do it; maybe I will never know.
I would fix his wounds as well as I could. One day he found a needle. He learned to fix me up too, but my stitching always healed better. We scratched the walls to mark the days. They stopped feeding us. We didn’t really miss the burnt tortillas, but food is food, plain and simple. Desperate, we ate cockroaches and drank our own blood. We sucked fresh air through stress fractures in the reinforced concrete walls. Water seeped up sometimes from a broken pipe, to pool in the corner.
Like a warrior couple of antiquity we nursed, scolded, wept. We had bared all and shared all: our bond was complete. We were as close as two men can become and not want to fuck each other. Weak from hunger, we knew the end was nigh. “Jump them with fists of jagged concrete,” we whispered to each other in the dark. “Kill or be killed; at least go out swinging.” Secretly we each prayed to die defending the other. Our hearts were noble and pure and sang as one.
“Tomorrow... tomorrow.”
The next morning, twenty days after the ambush, the young man was gone. The steel door to our cell stood ajar. Drag marks and splattered blood led outside. Sparrows erupted into blinding early light, scolding me in their fright. Shifting mounds of bricks. Rubble and smoke. To the east, the Library Tower rose tall and straight amongst its crooked neighbors. I cursed myself for not having awoken in time. Wailing and tearing at my hair, I fell to my knees, cutting them among the jagged red brick. Tears rained down to mingle in the dust with the fresh blood. Gasping, my heart broke. I grabbed a brick and slammed it into my head over and over.
When I awoke the sun stood at azimuth. Blind hope flooded my being. I stumbled back inside. “He’s just hiding,” I repeated to myself, “he’s still here.” I searched for hours in the dusty heat. The needle was gone; he was gone. The crude chess pieces scraped and rattled in a pocket of my tattered fatigues; I dug a small hole and buried all but one.
As the last handful of soil drained through my fingers, I vowed to all things right and true to keep his memory – his stories – alive. Fresh tears welled. The shard of concrete marked with my blood, his blood, our blood, pulsed in my fist. I searched the heavens for some sort of sign: spotlights stabbed suddenly skyward into the failing light, caressing the Griffith Park Observatory in slow circuits.
“If only I can make it there, I will live,” I thought sadly to myself.

My name is Colonel Reginald Steele. I dedicate this to you, Luce Baine Jutland. Forgive an old man if he misses a detail or two, here and there.
If you still live, know I love you.
If you are dead, may you rest in peace.

at the precipice

when circumstance dictates your happiness

and your soul is only a sham

an amputated cesspit of loneliness

sadness far-reaching and grand

and daily you struggle with hopefulness

and daily destroyed are your plans

and you find yourself at the precipice

where future and nothingness meet

then hard is the task of restarting

your life on its daily repeat

and courage must come from the notion

"it is I who determine defeat"

Exodus from LA - Day 1

Time: 3:55 pm
Grand Junction, Colorado. They exited into intense, Death Valley heat. Reginald set out for a quick walk, something to get the blood flowing again after fifteen hours of sitting. By accident he followed a few rainbow hippies wearing greasy baseball hats. When they ducked into a bar he kept right on walking. He had given up the sauce recently, due to realizations gained during an intense bout of hallucinations (a result of food poisoning from eating street tacos in Tijuana, Mexico). His soul hovers above him in space, a lozenge of cool bright neon… the components of his life like milky comets spinning slowly down and away from it. The How and the Why and the Wherefore of each event is suddenly, overwhelmingly, clear. His fifteen year affair with booze is linked to every major source of woe and failure, a thick spine running the length of many ribs.
He’d added “no more booze-houndin’” to his List of Rules.
So far, avoiding the sauce had been remarkably easy.
Grand Junctionians lounged in the shade along a newly constructed pedestrian shopping corridor. They stared at him as he passed. In LA he had relished the flamboyant anonymity, confident that people would not trouble themselves with his presence. But that is no longer the case, old friend, he thought as he walked among them. So let them stare. Take it as a compliment – no sane person would ever wear sunglasses like these.
The bus was not ready when he returned. Charlene had changed clothes. Her gaggle had dwindled to two diehards. Reginald munched generic Runts candy (a perfect early dessert) and waited with the other passengers. The candies are cheap and if you know how to wiggle the dispenser just right, like Steele does, you can get more of them than intended. Separate little groups of travelers all watched the news together: recycled political videobites; and updates on the latest national disaster…
Captain Fearmongery, may I introduce, Her Majesty – Lady Despair.
The combination ticket counter/snack bar was closing down with a kind of hopeful reluctance. The bus departed twenty minutes late.
They eased back onto the road, dipping and climbing deeper into the Rockies. Reginald had been tempted to talk to a few of the cooler-looking hippies in Grand Junction but was afraid he would burst into tears at any moment. The earplugs had remained in place. They were working quite well as single-serving friend repellant.
A rumble passed through his gut. He drank the last of his water and concentrated on the hunger, felt it, followed it along the peripheral nervous pathways all the way up to his brain and forced it to go away, to stop bothering him.
Hunger is weakness, and the Poor can’t afford to be weak.
A few hours later, in Glenwood Springs, he bought a bag of chips and a candy bar. Denver was still a good way off. He yearned to be there already, to be away from Charlene and the rainbows sneaking off to smoke weed, away from people who needed nicotine so badly, away from simple conversations and lighthearted banter. Something deep inside him knew that Denver was the fulcrum, that place where things would change, where he wouldn’t have to be so damn sad all the time.
Thunderclouds were passing low overhead, creeping westward. He hadn’t seen rain in months – summers in the Los Angeles Basin can be quite dry. Static discharge flashed and rumbled through the deep surrounding valleys. The air had that unique post-rain coolness to it. He stood by a bunch of trees to one side of the gas station’s gravel parking-lot. It occurred to him that he could be hit by the lightning and should seek cover.
The internal war was brief – his depressive mind won. I’ll just stand out here in the open by these tall trees for a while with lightning flashing overhead, he thought. Just then, the setting sun burst through an unseen gap. It set the fringes of the dark flashing thunderheads aglow in a riot of orange and gold.
His heart leapt and he was cheered. He realized that it mattered not if he got hit; nor if he got back on the bus; nor if he ever saw LA again.
The beginnings of an actual smile tugged at the corners of his mouth.
If I do get hit by lightning, he thought; at least I’ll have seen that.

Focused Ramblings of a Sad Sad Little Monkey

I woke up for the fiftieth time this morning and finally realized why I had been woken up the other forty nine. My smoke detector had been chirping and beeping throughout the night, ripping me from sweet repose into a sort of half waking over and over again.
To add to this I’ve been in perpetual torment since last Friday when I went on a date with a wonderful gorgeous college girl in Westwood. I had brought up my mom being dead now seven years and went from thoroughly enjoying her presence and the evening to catatonic despair, fearing she would see that I have emotions and things I haven’t worked out yet and would not want to deal with it. As we left together and parted ways, I froze like Bambi facing a semi and DIDN’T go in for the kiss which I could tell she wanted. Her face fell and my heart broke and I just wanted to die right there on the spot. She hasn’t gotten back to me since sand I’m killing myself inside, cursing my foolishness and lamenting the loss of such a being perfectly shaped to my highest standards. Oh woe is me. I’m out of Aderall too and can’t picture leading a successful and productive life without it and the constant struggle I face with addiction and my desire to write but difficulty doing so and today’s been not great.
I’m lost and sad and curse myself every second for not being good enough or quick enough or just plain stable enough to begin a good relationship with this knockout chick. And then in all my grief I think back to the day I got busted for heavy armed robbery and my dad sat me down at the dinner table with my mom and sister and proceeded to categorically break me down. He broke me all right and I snapped and have since lost that burning driving confidence and love for self that I see shining in so many other people and had to build my psyche and self esteem back up but I think I messed up along the way. I didn’t ask for help and no one offered it really and now when my chips are down and I’m depressed I can’t help but thinking thoughts of death and just plain wanting to give up. But I can’t give up because it would break my sister’s heart and my brother needs and loves me too so I push on and try to write, try to find some meaning in my life or some sort of goal. But I keep crying and just started again and am wearing sunglasses not so people won’t know but so they’ll leave me alone. I’m a selfish bastard with tears on his cheeks sitting on Prospect and Vermont trying desperately not to fall in love with every gone girl I see and trying to write shit down and make some sense out of things. And all I want is a nice pretty girl who’ll LISTEN to me and accept me for who I am mostly and I saw her on Friday but my mind got in the way and totally fucked me over, and now that it seems I’ve lost her I just want to get shanked in some street fight over something trivial and die in an alley forgotten and unloved or steal a car and jerk the wheel into a goddam bridge embankment.
I’m still really mad at my dad for what he did and should tell him and explain the consequences of his selfish act and forgive him and maybe love him again and I have to hurry before his lungs give out and he dies too. But I may never forgive him for how he tormented Mom on her death bed, complaining over and over about her wanting to die in the States close to her family and how thing’s would’ve been much better had they stayed in Germany. But she’s dead now and I miss her so much and just want to make her proud but it’s too late for that and who the fuck cares anyway. People do care but I can’t seem to care for myself enough to get real help from a professional and try to get my head straight because every time something good seems to happen in my life a deep dark part of me licks out and sabotages it and I downspiral into self pity and - loathing. I don’t talk to people about this because I don’t want to burden them but I have to if I want to be sane and productive, and my whole life I’ve been trying to be accommodating and nice but that gets you nowhere and you just wind up sacrificing yourself for others’ sake and then they leave you or you leave them or they forget but I never forget and then they don’t appreciate you anymore and that just freaks me out too.
I sold a bunch of stock recently, mortgaging my future per se, but I used it to pay off a lot of debt and thought that would reduce the stress and help me focus a bit but it hasn’t really yet because I’m still stressing about a lot of other stuff and feel powerless to fix it. Things like my apartment in gang territory and all the roaches and stopped-up sink that plague me there, and the fact that I’m not pursuing some career at some bullshit corporation like society tells me to and which I could have been doing but now can’t even bear thinking about. - I had to come inside just now because some fag with a high nasal voice started talking right in front of me and checking me out and normally I don’t mind gays at all but I almost went over and shoved my pen in his eye. - So I’m a sad sad little monkey today and just fell in love but won’t talk to her because I’ll probably just start sputtering and cry and she’ll laugh at me or just ignore me and leave.
There are three main aspects to my personality: a) the wolf b) the jester c) the scholar. Not long ago I realized the scholar had gone bye bye for a bit and I’d been running on jester and wolf, who are good for smashing and maiming and insults and showboating and boasting, but a tripod can’t stand on two legs so I’ve been coaxing the scholar back but I think he’s scared, still reeling from the tumult and chaos of my life recently. I’m scared too but together we’ll march on, two steps forward a mile back, never giving ground but always losing it. The moments pass and I sit here and see everyone and watch no one and try to find room in my heart to love myself again. Oh woe is me.

JPR 4/30/‘08

HAIKU

under cloudy skies
raindrops become pleasant mist
kissed by rising sun

damn the eyes of the curious

Damn the eyes of the curious

Searching with clandestine affect

As simple changes wield unexpected results

Adding the hint of unspoken lust to a stolen glance

Choose the retrograde, the rough path

Undauntedly challenging each crag and defile,

Each moment a tangle of the past woven

Into the roiling chaos of next moment's wakening

Steering confidently into the future

All the while grasping for a rain soaked pearl

Peace must be made, the three conjoined

And what emerges; bright gleam on humanity;

mudscraping whore; cannot be foretold

ultima ratio regum. X

interlude - project inferno - "on purpose"

As far as I can put things together, there is no predestined fate, no red thread that you've been dragging behind you all along. Far from unintentionally leading to a way out, to some sort of salvation, this string can become tangled along the way, and get you in far worse trouble than you would be without it.
The damn thing about a sense of purpose is that it is unequally distributed among us. Some possess of it from the start. They inhale it with their first breath. But for some, it must be learned, earned. And in a way, I'm happier for knowing that I must earn it, that it will not be vomited into my lap. Because otherwise, the confidence and drive would be neither so savory, nor so elusive.
Life in this foul, fast world however conveys a false sense of purpose. So easy is it to set your standards to that which you can achieve. But the unattainable must be targeted, must be the apple of your eye. If you reach it, and have got what you desired, and are happy with that, well done and many proud slaps on the back. But at times along the way, something else pops up, and looks more interesting, perhaps even easier. So follow that path, see where it goes, find that trough of muddy gold.
Many troughs lead off of the main way. They promise many things, many nice things that you might very well be happy with. But those paths tend to disappoint.
What happened to the dusty, gritty days of this country's youth? When you had to hammer/shoot/drive your way to the heart of the American dream, your own worst enemy? I say those times haven't gone. The dusty, gritty days are upon us, and you'd best specialize in something, dentistry, hogfarming, CNET IT solutions, whatever. No one wants a jack of all trades. They want someone with a clear set of characteristics that they can understand. but don't give them that luxury. keep them on their toes. send one volley after another of predictable response, then dive off into the utterly insane. be sure to come back, though, quick, so they're not sure if they're going batshit, or if you are.

ulrare. JP

the antediluvian

The Antediluvian

In the land of the pretentious, the humble man stumbles
Upon the need to become self consumed.
Choosing flashy new clothes, he ignores the rumbles
His stomach makes, so as not to be marooned
On an island of discontent.

Blind he seems to other and virtuous paths
That on his death bed would give repose
Instead the easy life beckons, drugs and laughs
Cheat him of a shining glory that once rose
From his presence, when darkness in twain was rent

What far-off goal beckons past the borders of this land
But the sum of his life’s choices, each small path
Running over the next, so any slight of hand
Could one day see him exalted, the other an epitaph
Worn by ages, its message spent

Whence take the guidance to choose a course
If those around make decisions just as rash?
Seek then the primal, like water yearn to sluice
Ever lower, with slow violence down to crash
The flimsy pillars of conviction proven bent

Perhaps he on his white horse will claim you first
And the pains of life will cease for good
Then that patient wrath will cook your blood
And leave the soul to wander, evermore, in constant thirst,
Worn by apathy, its options spent

Stumble then, onward, never admit defeat
Hold ye close of knowledge every bite
And from your idea of self not one step retreat!
Of advice, be it quick, sharp or light
Be wary, for wrong directions it may have lent

So rest now, fain wanderer
For just a moment; look up, search the sky
And give us a newborn’s smile before you die

Mahalo. JPR

LA and some of her people

Recent developments in my understanding of Los Angeles and her people have put me in the mind to record one or two of same, at some point in time, perhaps now, perhaps later.

the apartment is a mess, clothing covers the floor, empty pizza boxes litter most surfaces, and a grey Chinchilla has been loose for weeks, his droppings everywhere. We play pranks on people on the street, filming from above as one after the other reaches down to pick up the seemingly innocuous dollar bill, only to discover that the “down” side is covered with fresh, human shit. The preparations for this stunt included many instances of near vomiting, much gagging, and the supercautious air people take on when handling others’ fecal matter.

Having been picked up and not taken the bus this time, my skateboard is not with me, and the prospect of having to bus it home, and not thrash the four odd miles all downhill does not excite me. Buses in Los Angeles are doable, they actually aren’t that bad, but still, you’re taking the bus. Immediate major negative cool points. Not that anyone’s counting, but Everyone’s counting, and that’s all that counts. The good and bad of this city is that everyone is watching you, judging you, talking about you at all times while trying their hardest to ignore your very presence. Strange. Hard to pull off at the best of times, impossible to remain outside of it once you’re here long enough.

As a compromise I take my friend’s board, a brand new deck with sick trucks and Bam wheels, which is slipperier than I’m used to, which almost costs me my collarbone on the corner of La Cienega and Santa Monica, but I get the hang of it, and don’t crash once. Back home, I make my way about things for a few hours, then get a call that my buddies are on the Promenade, and that I should come. Dutiful as ever, I find myself on the bus, heading west at a healthy clip, skateboard in hand. People can’t seem to stop looking at me, must be the new shades or something, so I pretend to be very distraught but trying to do my best to hold in the fury, which is a lot more fun than just sitting there. The anger creeps up behind my eyeballs, cuts the waste from my movements, and sees me through to my stop.

None of us really buy anything, besides jock shirts that look good but really aren’t normally part of the wardrobe, and we jokingly question our reasons for coming so far for basically nothing. The question seems irrelevant, so we drop the subject, and head for the beach. We smoke a joint by the life guard stand, and I watch him on his binoculars on each hand off, just to be sure. Hungry, we decide on Bubba Gump’s on the pier, get a shitty table in the back, are seated without a waiter, and I finally get up and let the oblivious wait staff know of our predicament. Apologies come grudgingly, but a young guy comes up to serve us, and we browbeat him into serving us drinks without checking ID. Doesn’t matter in my case, but my companions are both underage. Dinner’s alright, especially with three boilermakers apiece.

We finish our food, pay, and take our drinks to the bar, so they won’t card. They do, but luckily she asks the only guy who’s packing a fake. Time, about five pm. Closing time, about ten pm. In the ensuing five hours, two of us including myself have another dozen boilermakers, bringing the total in six hours to fifteen, or the equivalent of about 30 beers. We’re so drunk we each spill at least one drink, but the tenders keep ‘em comin’ and we don’t complain.

The shopping bags are abandoned three separate times within the eatery, I lose the skateboard and a pack of smokes with the last green in it, Brian gets the hot tender’s number without even asking for it, and Danny almost gets slopped up by some girl sitting next to her fiancé who’d been all up on his junk all night.

They finally kick us out, but by that time, another five of our people have showed up, we acquired a football, and I’m blacked out. The bartenders kick us out, locking the doors behind us but watching us through them , and Brian, in an attempt to impress the hot one, throws the football hard at a couple walking by, then proceeds to hoodslide a cop car parked out front. We play football on the pier, and catch, smoke more, and I’m abducted by a friend who convinces me to buy 40s, which some guy actually sells to me. I’m in t-rex mode, where shiny things catch my eye, the speech centers are on idle, and I can’t approach something without first aligning my whole body toward it, then stumbling over.

One of our old friends shows up, saying we can stay at her house. She lives with her mom and sixteen year old sister in Venice, and there’s no drinking in the house. Staunchly ignoring this warning, I sneak my half finished 40 into the house on the third try, and promptly pass out in someone’s room. Luckily it’s the old friends’, but in the night, supposedly in an attempt to forgo pissing myself, my body wakes me up and leads me to the bathroom, where I regain consciousness for the first time in ten hours.

I have no idea where I am, whose house this is, what time it is, what city I’m in, where my wallet, cellphone, and keys are. Still very drunk but awake, I tiptoe from room to room, finally locating my buddy on the floor in the younger sister’s room. It seems like a good spot, so I grab a stuffed animal and curl up next to him. I wake up to sunlight and the shakes, I’m so cold. I see that the girls have left, so I take my pants off and get under the sweet smelling covers. The old friend’s mom comes upstairs to get everyone to come down and have some pancakes, but I’m so painfully hung over and her heavy French accent is annoying so I hide under the covers, and fain incoherence and partial sleep when she discovers me. The pancakes turn out to be bland and undercooked, but the younger sister is chainsmoking at the table, so that lightens things up.

Finally someone comes upstairs to wake me, and we leave, but not before I puke all over the bathroom while trying to take a piss, catching most of it in my hands and shoveling it into the toilet. Ten minutes later there are no traces of recent pukage anywhere to be found.

All of my most valued items (cellphone, wallet, &c) have been kept safe in a shoe box, and are redistributed to my various pockets. The old friend’s mother insists on seeing us outside, and on giving Brian some things he had left behind at the old house, which he must take or else they will be thrown out.

We make our way toward Westwood, debate going to class with our old friend, but I veto the notion, as I can barely see and have one of the worst headaches in years. So we make our way toward our respective bus stops through UCLA. One of us asks everyone he meets where he can score meth, weed; I’m highstepping along checking out every girl who passes and voicing my opinion; we all look like homeless guys with shoe boxes, bags, and few brain cells left.

Having thus terrorized the campus, we enter our buses, and are swallowed up by the vast capillaries of LA Metro.

Selah. JP

In memoriam

9/11/2001

RIP

Love. JP

THE RESULTS ARE IN

Thanks for tuning in. if you’re reading this, I express my thanks. Thanks for taking the time to get a glimpse into the inner workings of me.

Confrontation. Today. Not more than an hour ago. All my fears confirmed. In order not to become physically violent (psychological violence already in progress), not to break things, and to stop myself from punching my face any more, I just skateboarded three miles, fast. Sweating, angry eyes blazing out of cheap, see-through aviators. The preppy, surf-themed t-shirt a friend gave me very recently, now drenched in sweat. The anger boils just below the surface. And why?

Because she told me at the beginning that she couldn’t be in a relationship right now. But that’s not true. Because we had been together, we just hadn’t called it by that name. Minutes after we spoke, it came to me:

It’s not that she can’t be in a relationship right now, IT’S THAT SHE CAN’T BE IN ONE WITH ME. And why? Cash fucking money baby. I can’t afford to swoop her in my car, and finance a trip downtown, to go shoot guns at the shooting range. And that’s about all she fucking wrote. Cash fucking money. Or maybe it’s the major design flaws that I see permeating my system right now. My niceness, often confused with pushover syndrome. My empathy. The fact that I chew my fingernails. My inability to fully appreciate the sexual encounter unless my partner can fully appreciate it herself. My apathy toward anything I decide not to care about.

Except for the cash flow situation, I got everything else pretty much covered. I love her, even if she never really believed me. I have loved them all, and will have an empty place in my heart for each and every one of them, till it stops beating. How many more holes can I take? How many more empty places will I be able to bear before LOVE stops coming, before everything is just a fucking illusion? Just a lie?

I wish you the best, beautiful Bostonian. I hope your man now, the one with whom you CAN be in a relationship, makes you happy. I hope he keeps your belly warm, and your bed rumpled, and gives you what you need. I hope that the respect I have for you as a person, for you as a friend (?), shows in today’s call. In today’s attempt to reach closure. I think I understand your decision, why you decided NOT to go with my offer, and upgraded instead:

The average relationship lasts, what, about 14 months? And not having money sucks anywhere, but in L.A. especially. Plus, if things are going well, and you see yourself being with this person for a while, you want the assurance that your life isn't going to be a miserable, poor mess for the forseeable future. Plus, you start thinking about kids, and they need cash, you can't be poor for that shit.

Yes, things did peter off. Things kind of just stopped, after you carved me out of your life a few weeks ago. The one thing though, the thing that really pisses me off, is that you said you were my girlfriend, just not by name. then, you met him, and he was great and wonderful and well connected and had fucking cash, and then the feelings stopped along with the close contact. THAT pisses me off.

That you just let me fall by the fucking wayside, and confirmed my fears that I was just a placeholder all along; just a stopping point, someone to get you back into the rhythm of dating, of having someone close. I was a stepping stone, to get you from isolation back up to speed, back up to where you could net a hot, nice, rich guy, and have him provide for you, and make you happy.

So. Enough. If you’re reading this, please know that I’m not mad: I saw this coming from the beginning. Don’t believe me? Read back a few posts. I’m just sad that it actually happened, that I dared to hope, dared to love. But, fuck it. There’s no money in a pity party. So, godspeed, faire thee well, welcome to the fucking dollhouse.

Out. X

post-RelationshipSlowDeath

“You must be a traffic ticket, because you’ve got ‘FINE’ written all over you”.

Ha. Good times. For the most part, a good weekend. Three whole days of nothing more, really, than self-stimulation and not too well deserved rest. But the underlying question of the weekend remained.

How will things progress from here? What will happen with the groundling, infantile relationship that had blossomed briefly before the advent of her friend? Not too long into the extended visit of her childhood companion, she had, for the most part, broken things off.

It had happened slowly at first. Of course, she wouldn’t want to hang out too much. Of course, things would be awkward with a third wheel around. Of course, he wouldn’t be able to share her bed any longer. At least until the friend was gone.

Then, however, the death knell had come. The step that would surely lead to ruin. It had been an otherwise normal phone conversation, but when she stated that he would not be welcome any longer in her friend’s presence, it had killed. She had claimed it was because the friend, so long from her last physical encounter, possessing so fully of the hidden and dark secrets that made Her her, subtly put her down, made her feel bad, when he was around.

Well, you can’t very well get rid of the friend, so, out with the temp bedbuddy, the soft and the niceness, he who would give so much, but who knew, deep down, that much of himself was a lie.

Not a really terrible lie; not one crafted malicious. But one brewed slowly from the fundamental misunderstanding between sexes, from the years of agony that had lead up to his first encounter. So often had he bungled things just before the moment of triumph. So often had he slipped, saying the wrong thing at just the wrong time, and turned the reaching, green tendrils that bore an end to pure auto-eroticism into the curling, snagging vines of embarrassment, rejection, shame and defeat.

So the lie had, for him, been born. Necessity had led him down the path of deceit and coercion, into the realm of auto-induced affection. It had spoken with his mouth the words that would bring a girl close, that would win over her confidence, and warm her to the thought of lying with him. And now…

What now? What had the years taught him? For one thing, he had never seen the lie through his current eyes, with his trove of experience. At least not until now. And was it really a lie? Or was it simply another one of the masks he wore? Was everyone capable of shutting off love, of twisting shut the pipeline of happiness and wonder, leaving behind cool indifference and hostile neutrality?

In that case, at the root of it all, his whole life was a lie. Always putting on the different masks, always adjusting to others, sensing their needs, calling up the files of past conversations with them, putting them at ease. Being ever the confident, capable, sometimes almost prescient, friend.

He had wanted to be close, loving, sharing of everything his. EVERYTHING HIS. He would have given her his life, had she but asked.

But everything for him, now, was nothing.

No cash. A broken tooth causing underlying annoyance edging on aggression, which would not be fixed until cash was available. A smoking habit. A penchant for self-pity, which was, thankfully, after years of nearly unconscious evaluation and probing, soon to be under more control. A taste for the random, risky encounter.

A propensity to give*. Money, love, feelings, advice.

Love…

But when you give, and don’t truly receive back, you slowly become annoyed with the recipient, and the giving morphs almost imperceptibly into resentment and indifference. Story of my fucking life.

But just last week, maybe the week before that, we had shared something soft again, on one of the now infrequent work breaks. We had stood outside, in the warm afternoon sunlight, and held each other as we had at the start of things. And that had given me hope. And hope, like love, spring eternal, and curse and praise them for it. For if the pain of heartbreak did not burn so darkly, we would forget the blinding inferno of love at its peak.

And so, it has come to pass that she now makes frequent references to a certain “friend”, with whom she has obviously spent many happy hours over the past fortnight. And guess what: his tooth ain’t broke, he’s got cash, and a fucking car, and is probably a really nice guy.

But he isn’t me, and it’s not fair, and I just want to be with her, and be nice to her, and give. And give. But life is pain, and the lords of credit are waiting with blood on their hands. So, let not in to self-pity. Stay the course, even if it seems crooked, and not like the grooves of others.

For I am the lie. I am the dark face of the skilled womanizer. But I am also the soft, bright face of unrequited, undying love. And to my final rest will I bear this tryx, this prong of opposites. And I will learn to bend it better to suit my will. And the slings and arrows of this comfortable life I live will not drag me down.

Indeed, they will drive me to see my future as I wish to see it, and grant me the tools to place myself in fate’s way; to make it so.

* This propensity to give is not simply that. It would be impossible to explain it fully as it extends so far back into my psyche that I cannot find its root, and it permeates so many daily, automatic functions that it seems an indelible part of me. Anyway, regardless of who asks, I will give to them. I will do my best not to let them know I have given to them, and refuse steadfast any attempt to pay back. Oh, I will accept compensation, should the other press hard enough, but such as they, for better or worse, are few and far between.

hope springs eternal

I feel lethal. On the verge of frenzy.

But at the same time, I am sad. To the core sad, like that dog in Japan waiting for his master, who had died weeks before at work. Still waiting. Ever faithful. Recently, I found myself at an internal crossroads of sorts. I was ready to abandon, actually I was deathly afraid I had already abandoned by goodness, my inner purity and selflessness. In a sense, this is true. I have had to abandon much of my innocence to make it this far, but last night I found myself able to abandon more. I hope I kept what was left. To lose that too, to become self-centered, selfish, oblivious to others’ feelings, to lack empathy, would leave me a shell.

I am sad for the girl I wish to make happy, but can’t, because I’m poor. It hurts when she won’t be close, when she keeps herself closed, guarded. I stand there, unsure what to do with my hands, wanting so badly to hold her, to stroke her hair, her face. But the vast majority of my tender advances of late have been met with indifference, a tense patience. So after a few tries I stop, cursing myself, whipping myself inside for pushing too much, for not being the cool motherfucker who doesn’t fucking care that she exists, that she is hurting too. Would I be that person? I could, but I chose not to. Oh, I hope I chose not to.

And I cannot change it. While her old friend is here, her time is taken, and I can only so many times tell her I love her without her saying it first for a change. So I stop. Stop saying it. Turn off the pipe again that makes me want to say it. And that makes me saddest of all, sometimes.

Sad at myself for feeling sad about this. Sad for not having the stuff to keep my job, for losing it, for having to find a new one. Had I only done so many things differently, had I not binged and blown thousands of dollars on drugs when I first got to this city of such vast potential. What would have happened? Would I be happier now? Will I know not to make the same poor decisions in the future? I hope so.

There it is. Hope. But hope dies in the face of humanity, in the harsh breath of selfishness. Hope should be altruistic, communal. Hope is the bread of those who cannot feed themselves off of the flesh of action, who cannot bring themselves to look beyond the moment, and see the forest through the trees. Hope is a crutch for those incapable of seeing action through to a desired end.

I hope. Still now. And hope springs eternal. Mahalo. Be safe. Love JP

TempusFugit

And so I find myself here, once again staring into the abyss of uncertainty and doubt. Doubt feeds depression. Lack of money feeds doubt. Lack of control and restraint drains money supplies. Depression, and the desire to free oneself of control and restraint brings momentary happiness, but only for a short while. Then, they lead back to doubt. Vicious fucking cycle. Circle de Diablo.

And all that.

It is up to ME to find the way out of this, to take responsibility for my actions, to strictly limit expenditures. To eat cheap. Not to go out. Save… save… save…

But how do you do that in the middle of a teeming metropolis? With friends who want to see you, whom you want to see? How does that work with a girlfriend? God. How does that work with a girlfriend? Which fucking chick is going to want to be with a guy who can’t even take her out to fucking dinner? Ah, there’s the depression…

It set in hard while running today, three miles up La Cienega to Sunset and back. I cried, had to stop running. Had to summon the fear, the disgust at myself, the Engine. The Engine, that fountain of anger, pity and spite that chimes in, sometimes loudly, sometimes not. It dulls the edges, hazes out right and wrong, diminishes pain. It keeps me in a constant state of despair, focused, driven anguish that somehow keeps me going.

Am I becoming too bitter?

Have I passed the point of no return, and am now incapable of really being happy? I hope not. I hope that all, no, I will work to make sure that my worst fears do not come to pass. That I retain a working position, or attain a new one, one that will allow me to ease the strain of massing debt, instead of steering me slowly toward it.

Not to point fingers, and not REALLY to misplace blame, but I never truly learned how to deal with money. Hell, I didn’t know what the fuck credit cards actually were, how credit card debt worked, until I was three grand in the hole. And then there’s the giving nature, the desire to see everyone having a good fucking time, fuck the expense. Wait, bro, until you can afford to do that. Don’t risk your whole future on this coast, don’t jeopardize everything you have, have worked for, for trifle friends.

For that is what many of those I met early on have turned out to be. Not worth the steam off my piss. But, eh, was fun while it lasted, right? It was, but not that fun. Maybe within the fog of drugs and delusion, inside the faux warm underbelly of communal society.

But it has given me the means to find myself out of this financial predicament. By writing about it, by putting it to word, making it fun, hard to read, I can claw myself out of this mess, and live the life I wish to live. Write, fain soul. Please. Eschew Them for a while. They can take it. Use this month without Her to write. Get it out. DO IT. Fucker. Just fucking do it. Time waits for no man, death rides your coattails, and love conquers all. Bouyah. Lv JP

The great treatise

The great treatise, the grand answer of life is nothing. Not in a negative way. Simply, it is that point between one moment and the next. It builds with the lover awaiting word of a war removed mate. It lies in the deep valleys of fear. Of pain. Vast fields of pain.

From keeping yourself at the point where you don’t truly love her. Something is kept back. And maybe down the years she’ll cry, and, knowing, will ask you why you never fully loved her. And you tell her, that if you hadn’t kept some back, there’d a been no spark. No mystery. No reason for fights.

Because unconditional love is precious. It is not to be given to one and all. It is to be shared with all who fit into its vast embrace. But, at the core of things, at the very base, perches the everlasting fact that you die alone. There is no such thing as redemption. Perhaps things go on, or perhaps the grooves of existence will simply go on without you.

And so the uncertainties of the word, the painful unfulfilled desire to write, interrupted by this so wonderful of a quagmire. But perhaps soon the tap will be turned off, the pleasures of companionship and life coaching (hehe) with it. And love. Love would leave. Goodbye love. For king, for country. Fuck the king.

What kind of god would be so cruel as to make her. To show me all the qualities that make a woman great, then wave her in front my face, before taking her again from me. Into the hands of one equally, if not more, worthy. But I remain by far the most worthy. I have put myself in the face of destiny, and let my instincts flow.

I was myself. I am someone I’ve never met before. Someone bad. Someone who is really not a nice person, buried in grief and anxiety, grinning wildly as she broke my heart, again. This time, it was in the living room. Perched atop a tan couch I watched her turn, hearing her confirm her open options policy. And me riding the fine line of a long term options policy.

Because you really have got to think about that, these days. Fuck. 29. it’s just a slump. Keep you head up legs closed eyes open. What pressures stress induces on the soul of the pessimistic.

pain.love.fear.trust

Goodbye, for sure. Goodbye to hope. To the knowledge that you are somehow good enough, even if you are. Sometimes, it boils down to the fact that you simply do not have the resources to give a girl what she wants, thinks she needs.

Pain blood fear pain slash burn hurt hurt pain. Let them go. Waste them not, please for the love of everything good and whole and pure, stop slicing away at your soul. Stop getting yourself into these kind of situations. Sure she enjoys your company, and needs someone like you around, someone with a level head, who can grin and walk into their cannon fire. She might not know it now, may never truly admit the truth to herself, but she knows.

Become again calm, a pillar of sincerity, a void of trust. Let loose the forces of generosity, the driving biting urge to do good. Let it out. So what if people abuse it, see it for what it is, and say NO THANKS. Their loss. But don’t let them go, keep them close, let them know that they are in fact your ward, yours to protect, shelter and guide through these rounded boulders of western living.

Hurt hurt die not good enough not good enough. Stop please. Stop. Stop it. Sto flood drown slice crush heart breaking nothing good enough. Never good enough. Too nice fucker. You’re too nice. Suck at this, she’ll never love you. Never let herself, because you’re too nice. Too giving. Not aggressive, actually care for her, her feelings, her loss, her wellbeing. Can’t ride the fine line. Can’t be everything. Not good enough.

Due to global warming, the US’s glacier national park, in fifty years, will just be a national park. At the time of birth a baby can swim. It looses this ability within a year. The once pristine Lake Managua has been turned into a death zone by industrial runoff from the Kodak company. Cane toads swallow with their eyes. Bread is legally considered a food in Germany. Love is a chemical process that takes place in the brain very similar to eating large quantities of milk chocolate. The average human body holds blood equivalent to roughly a twenty four pack of beer.

Why does she not want me? I know why. Money. Money. Money. Money. Sugar daddy I am not. If I had a million in the bank, there’d be wedding bells. Now, she won’t even be my GF. Ah fuck it. Plenty of fish in the sea. But no, there aren’t. not fish like this. Not ones that share so much, yet are divided by such differences. It’s one in a couple hundred thousand, and she’s hot. Fuck. Never learned. Never understood how to simply be fucking egotistical. To look out for ME. Never had that. No cash, fucked and drank it all away. Job at a standoff, questionable.

Can’t even write coherently. Stay positive. Remain in the center. Become nothing. Leap to the quick, be happy, angry, but not self pitying. Never. Because you are the master of your own destiny, hope springs eternal, love will live another day, and…

At least you got to have her. If only for a bit. If only for a moment. Miss Mom. Miss her. So much. Just wish I could cry. Can’t let myself. Can’t tell her my true feelings, lest she cut me off from everything. Lest what little we share leaves too. Stay calm. Bright side. Think nothing. You are nothing. Nothing matters, you wait long enough. Never wait. Keep moving. Keep loving. Keep hurting, hating yourself, flensing the soul. It all comes down to something in the end. Be more loving. Tell those around you, those you miss dearly, you love them. Never stop loving. kill love. Never trust. Never stop trusting. Find good everywhere. Sacrifice good at all cost. Stop being greedy. Embrace greed.

It ain’t fair. But who said it was gonna be? At some point, things will fall into place, then get wretched back out again. All men fall into their groves. Will I be stubborn and refuse to fall into mine own? Hm. Time. Time. Time. LV to H. JP

Rake up some shake and buy me a cake

Rake up some shake and buy me a cake. Make it pretty on top, with cherries and chocolate, split what is mine between those I love and those who claim they love me, equally. Before that, split half between my brother and sister. Dad, sorry. My gift to you all these years have been grief, heartbreak, trust, love, nothing.

So what do you do on a weekend, when you’re juggling trying stay employed, out of trouble and in poon? Well, for starters, you could enjoy a wonderful, harrowing time with a new friend, just missing the sun rising, in a new and confusing place. Then, wander through Los Angeles steadfastedly toward that temple of mass transit, Union Station. If you have time, veer to the left having just entered through the west entrance, and give a glimpse to the magnificent side ship that hides there.

After that, spend some time in the garden a little further down on the same side. If possible, get yelled at by a seventy year old grandmother for taking a picture of some hanging brass lanterns and upside down Japanese umbrellas. Then, make brief friends with a Japanese girl, letting her call her black Marine boyfriend on your cellphone. Do not under any circumstance let her borrow the phone, in case he calls back, while you go to do something else with the last fourty minutes before the train south leaves.

Cross the street to the west, heading for the park, where many times you can come upon world music festivals touting the best musicians from through the Americas. Dance some meringue, walk directly in front of the stage to take a picture of a worn brass statue that catches your eye. Furiously down a bottle of water, then a can of Diet Coke, trying not to scope the older hotties too conspicuously.

Arriving in San Diego, hail a cab, and hightail out to the Coronado Naval station. The guard most likely won’t check your ID, so hop on a shuttle with a bunch of people who COULD be going to the same wedding you are. Join in their conversation, become a little too friendly, watch the fairly older hottie in front of you start questioning your voice, not really recognizing it. Fear from the unknown.

Arrive as pictures are almost finished. The ceremony long over, most everyone seated already. Shit. Stay calm. First item of business: greet the mother of the bride, immediately admitting that you missed the actual act of marriage. Something changes in her face, and you know things will never quite be the same. Something clear, good, pure, gone. Bastard.

Find your seat, and greet old friends. Make small talk, thinking all the while of rolling up and smoking a fresh one somewhere. After a few minutes, get up and make your way from table to table, shaking hands all around, kissing all the beautiful cheeks. Make them love you. Make yourself visible, so they can see you. Hate you. Judge you. Question you. Create images in their heads that they will carry around all evening.

As the dancing gets underway, about eight drinks deep, get down and dirty with the hottie cousin, who is an absolutely fantastic girl, and who’ve you long ago fell to an extent in love with. She dances like a snake, and, after a bit, starts rubbing your hands ever closer to herself, exciting her nerves, happiness, a giddy headrush keeping her loving it. Take her outside when it gets dark, and kiss her on your back on the grass. Naughtily caress her, driving her into a frenzy.

But then, as those things go, a delicate balance shifts, and things become less fun, somehow tainted. Could it be you? Are you the catalyst of this change? Perhaps, but perhaps the desire to have a perfect wedding overshadows the ability to have fun, and the pure and simple fact that someone willing to try to steal the show shows up, and it’s just the way things were bound to go.

Make the mistake of taking external advice, and force the hand, removing the girl from her mother, taking her out of the soft drunk cushion of happiness she’s riding, as she helps to clean things up. Back at the main hotel, you don’t have a room, which ruins everything. All she wants to do is be away from her, somewhere else. She leaves, and you corrupt a group of kids. The grownups find out, and break up the party. Quietly you vacate the premises, changing clothes by the side of the road.

Then, wandering about the dark, deserted streets looking for cash and a cab, everything seems just fine. Because even though you really wanted to fuck her, wanted to ravish her nerve endings, it would have destroyed whatever goodness and truth you currently share. Find a cab driver, tell him your story of failed conquest as he takes you south, past the low scrub and dunes of the peninsula.

Forcibly wake up the night manager, and get your key. TV sound keeps cutting out. Fuckit. Pass out. Wake up sweating. Make coffee. Roll up some smoke. Leave with a minute to spare. Walk a mile and a half to the trolley station.

North now. Downtown San Diego. Town still sucks. Nothings’ changed. No new bars, restaurants, no movement. Town gonna die. Town dead. Get on the train heading north.

Back at Union Station, detrain, wander the streets of downtown LA. At times, you’re the only white guy for four blocks at a time. Good to be not in the majority again. Like in NYC. Search for the bus heading west, saunter up to a stoplight diagonal from some CHPs, holsters fit about their sides. Post up for the light, see the red banner of rapid municipal transportation. Rejoice openly.

At the top of the hill, by the bus stop, you’re stopped by a man with a clipboard and badge, who tells you to just look natural. To by no means acknowledge the camera crew in the heli directly overhead. Is the bus coming, you ask. Should be running shortly, the reply. Think this guy found a golden goose. A man sprints into traffic, veering down the center lane. Light a smoke. Feed on the energy from the staring castmembers, then ask again annoyedly about the bus. After the second take, the bird almost clipping the tops of the streetlights, as the crew wraps up, accept a free day pass from a somewhat reluctant Latino, then haul for the subway station, hopping down granite planters all the way down the sidewalk.

Train. Up the stairs, two at a time. K-Town. BUS taking it’s fucking time. Maxin, i.e. being just sexy enough at all times, as the minutes pass. An older German gentleman meanders over a manhole cover, which suddenly decides to belch air three times, snapping open like a mouth, spitting out a single, small rectangle of black shopping bag. Laugh hysterically, then agree with the man that the city should weld those fuckers shut. New York and Belfast know what they’re doing.

As you’re getting on the bus, a fight erupts in the back, three on two. Then they’re out in the street, but everyone’s watching some kid get his face stomped in, and not moving to the back to let the hoard trying to fucking pay and get in on. Sit back, enjoy the show. Blood splatters on the ground, shirts are off, and the cops are fast approaching, telescope batons out to max.

Make the first push, get people moving, force them to react to your presence. Herd…

Home. But not for much longer. Please, take me from this sty, from this place of disorder and dirt. Give me mine to clean, to nurture. Bamboo. Knives distributed for easy and immediate access. Maybe a shotgun above the door. To get the drop on them. My metamorphosis is nigh complete. I believe. Not that this will be the last. Or, it could be, quite simply, a ripple in time.

ode to thursday

Bone. Gristle. Maim. Kill. Lust. Fear. Pain. Slice. Flense. Kill. Blood.

These are the emotions I must let boil just below the surface. These are the substitutes for outward frustration and anger. For a brief time, when no one at work is looking, I think these thoughts. They rush and burn behind my eyes, filling me instantly with an inhuman desire to rend flesh.

Then, as suddenly as they arrive, they leave. And once again I am the picture of corporate responsibility. Always wearing black socks, dress shoes. Always in a collared shirt. Hardly ever letting the various violent and mischievous urges even out to play, merely hinting at them at times of stress.

And to have the stake thrust through my heart today, that almost did it. I almost snapped. Almost put my fist through the drywall. And why? Well, because of the most recent in a long line of girls known as Her. Once again, due to what can only be some sort of fucked up joke, I got the following line:

“oh, I don’t think we should do anything together at work. I really want to, but, I don’t ever do anything with guys at work…”

and then, THEN, you know what the fuck she’s going to do? She’s going to go out and fuck some OTHER fucking guy from work, because maybe he’s more aggressive, more fucking loaded, more prone to treat her like fucking shit. Not that I won’t, but I’ll give her just enough shit to keep her in line. Not to degrade her, not to run a major power play, but to keep my fucking head above water, and her ego at a comfortable level.

And why I know this, and don’t just kill the fucking emotions for real, lobotomize myself against any sort of future love, beats the shit out of me. Sitting there today, hiding the self pity and anguish behind layers of corporate blankness, I knew that I MUST do this. I MUST never stop loving. Never stop giving. For the bad man is the charge of the good. And the good man the bane of the bad.

Most people don’t care if they don’t do the right thing, as long as they don’t get caught. I know it’s wrong, and I know that if I don’t do it, someone else probably will. But if you keep your fucking head up, and just walk calmly into their midst, grinning as their slings and arrows whiz by you, then, maybe, just maybe, you will come out the other side something more than you were when you went in.

Because that’s what things seem to be about right now. They seem to be the culmination of some process of evaluation and readjustment. Some fulcrum point at which I CAN move on. I can die, and be reborn. I can love those around me, become a better friend, learn about my limitations, and how to conquer them.

I can give, and expect nothing in return. I can hurtle ever forward into the warm unknown idea of Future, and know that I will, I MUST, become the king I was meant to be.

thoughts on contemporary women

Well, things started out on Thursday, as I was coming home on a bus from work. And right now I really can’t fucking concentrate because there’s a tv on in my room, so let’s just wing this.

When do you decide to buy into the overall idea that circulates, and when you do, what effect does it in fact have on your whole basic frame of reference? Take for example the underlying subtle idea or notion that, as a man living in LA, you somehow will hook up with gorgeous women, and have sex with them, and find yourself smiling a smug little smile the next morning lying next to her in her gorgeous bed.

Now this sounds like a pretty fucking good night. But one thing that makes things a bit weird, is that the girl probably didn’t do it because she likes you, or because you’re particularly witty or smart. She probably did it for the same reasons you did:

Because fucking beautiful people is what Los Angelans do. If you’re beautiful, if you work hard on your body, and wear nice or, better yet, somewhat outrageous clothes, and you’re fairly intelligent and have a stunted sense of guile or shame, you can have sex with more women here, I hazard, and hot, sexy women who have money or fame, no matter how moderate, than you can most other places.

I fucking love it. On the one hand that is, because I get a fucking redwood just thinking about the fabulous possibilities of sex life in this city in this foul year of our lord, second millennium, year six. And as the doors part on yet another club or bar, and my mind is dulled to any of the titillating scenes of flesh and nubileness flitting about the room. I scowl, refusing to acknowledge the fact that I could in fact turn into a blubbering, giggling fool at one word from one of these beauties.

This has not always been the case. Over perhaps the past four years, through the course of many embarrassing and painful liaisons and flings, I have learned some things. Mainly I understand to curb my emotions, to squelch the feelings of love and affection that arise immediately when talking to a superhot. I have learned to lock them away, ignore them, and generally abuse them until they are quite fed up, and really want to just go have a snack somewhere away from the more abusive synaptic functions.

But now to thinking with the head, with the cold hard heart of logic that shines forth everbright through the moving canvas of my prefrontal projection screen. The head tells me that beneath the scanty specs of clothing, under the finely adjusted makeup, hidden in the long, flowing locks of pristine hair, lies nothing. Not nothing in the sense of void, but nothing in the sense of substance, and I know that were I to wake up next to the girl the next morning, I would feel only slightly less revulsion at the sight of her delectable form than I would waking up next to a fatty slutbag.

But, as they say, fat girls need loving too, and after a while, you kind of take what you can get.

Now, the point I think of this brief missive is to say that BOTH sides fighting within are right, and have their valid reasons. I really do enjoy, on one level, the chase, acting out scenarios, reciting lines and generally playing one cool ass motherfucker, until this superhot is quite attracted, and I have the opportunity to be more aggressive, perhaps leisurely kiss her, or slap her ass, or refuse to buy her a drink.

On the other hand, the futility and absurdity of the whole situation makes me angry, and I just want to stop having to act, and just have a fucking intelligent conversation with a beautiful woman, then lay with her. I want to wake up next to her, and have her smile at me, and do stupid shit together, and have me fall in love.

Ah, that is when things get really shitty. Because, out here, in fact anywhere, if you fall in love, you’re fucked. You’re fucked unless you’ve known them awhile, or you’re friends of friends, or you have her parents tied up in a Brooklyn basement. Face it, I’m filthy, can’t seem to find a relationship that’s wealthy. But fuck that, why would I restrict myself like catnip to a cat?

Which is better, to be a hunter, or a fucking farmhand? Guh. Time will tell. Until then, I’m for goddamn sure not going to let my underappreciated ass go falling in fucking love.

Break. Some weeks later. Oh god, it’s pretty much happened. Kinda crept up on me. Of course, when you meet a gorgeous girl who bears all the characteristics you find attractive in a woman, things may get a little hairy. And all I have to do is to get myself away from constantly thinking about how she reacted slash is still reacting to our interactions this past week and some.

Flensing, cutting away at the happy smothering kindly self-pitying moods that highjack my senses. The deep, underlying urge to just try to fucking make shit happen with a woman I enjoy being around, that is what is killing me right now. And she loves it. And I know how she feels, because she has somewhat of the upper hand, and I’m not squirming too hard, just hard enough to scowl a lot and get really angry from time to time to maintain control. I’ve been there, seen girls go through that, basked in the harsh, uncaring glow of power and control.

And I’ve loved it. But after a while, it gets old, and the chick generally realizes that it’s worthless. I. Shit. I have tried to KNOW that it was worthless from the start. But her energy, and the feelings she was leaking that first night, and the other since then, those she can’t hide. And they give me hope. Hope springs eternal. Hope is a hellish poison that blinds.

On the one hand I hope that she will just give in. Hope that my not being TOO aggressive with her, not trying to force her into consensual sex may just in fact prove the fucking basis for something good, maybe even lasting. Fuck those random flashes in the pan. Short term pleasure, a temporary repose from the madness that comes with extensive lack of sex.

I want to understand that she would potentially be with me, and eschew random hookups, at least until one or both of us started drifting away. I wish that she were not as good at repression, that she was not as good as I at simply burying her urges, her desire to get down into wild sweating passionate biting pure lust. At hiding that powerful attraction, that love of closeness, that burning passion I sense off of her briefly at times, to hide behind the façade of cool calculation, of practiced indifference.

Maybe it’s that she’s been fucking random people so long that it’s gotten to the point that I’m just another steppingstone on the way to something better, on the way to the next conquest. Not to mean it in a cruel way. It’s just kind of what happens when you’re in the dating slash random hookup world for too long. Short attention span. Adult ADD. The transition to modern TV generation having already robbed us of our ability to fucking commit, and, with our similar mindsets, possibly similar self-perceived multiple personalities, we find ourselves alternately yearning for and despising commitment, love and a functional adult relationship. God this is a mess. I love it.

I just hope she’s going through at LEAST SOME OF THIS. Maybe not. Probably not. Shit. She probably was just running on booze the other night, and really didn’t enjoy the hugs, your light kisses on her forehead. Yeah. When all else fails, hit low. Aim for the balls, for the blinding goodness growing inside you, and kill the fucker. Show him what for. Take him down piece by piece, for nothing good can come out of this most likely, only more heartbreak. But, oh, if it could.

And it’s not like you didn’t do it to enough young innocent beautiful things yourself so a good many fucking times. Why the fuck are you so honest with her, and she with you? How is it that you’re comfortable around each other like old friends? Conditioning? Perhaps. Both used to being around many persons of the opposite sex, flirting, acting, hinting, luring, crushing? Maybe.

One option of course is that a little part of her wants to just fucking try, and her rational self told that part to go fuck itself. Kicked it in the ass down the stairs, for any number of reasons. Past boyfriends. Suckerfish fucks who told her she was gorgeous, then fucked her for what it was worth. Really great guys who just couldn’t find the courage or the angle to make it out of Friendsville, always delegated to the sidelines, bearing her grief at the next failed man. Secretly hoping that one day she’ll pick them. Wait for it, and die sad.

Carpe diem, make it happen, create your opportunities, stay focused, and move when the time is right. Take the pain, take the confusion and love for her, ride it out, see where it goes, but stick to your guns, and don’t go down without a fight. For this one, she is, simply put, beautiful.