The Earth Is Not A Cold, Dead Place

"I was out on the town so I came to your window last night.
I tried not to throw stones, but I wanted to come inside."

I rolled home with the windows down and let the
uncharacteristically cool air flow over my work-weary body.
The above lines were sung through my speakers and
it kind of made me
smile.
I know it's all hype and over dramatized songwriting,
but there was a time when I actually thought that way.
When I was in college I threw myself down like a hot beat
and created some epic scenes that deserved
accolades.

These days I am stoic.
I pictured myself outside of our Brooklyn apartment
staring up at the window in present tense and feeling
that empty yearning.
Yearning for something that never was and never would have
been.

The only realities are the rubber and the road
and the hum of the engine beneath me.
Life is mine now.
I am the captain of this potentially sinking ship.

If I found my way there again I know
that I would probably just keep on going.
The past has passed me
by.

This fresh ink on my shoulder reminds me
that silence has the loudest voice
and we will never
speak
again.

Having A Great Summer, Wish You Were Here.

So the other day she sent my mother
my forgotten birth certificate in the
mail.
Apparently she found it while doing some cleaning and
thought that I should have it.
(Or so the enclosed note indicated.)

Well I'll be.
It only took seven months to finally hear something.

She ended the note with a hearty:
"I hope you are all well."
Well isn't that cordial.

I listened as all of this was relayed to me and
I mostly felt a heap of nothing.
Enough time has gone by
that I have all in all stopped
caring.

However, if I were her
I would have skipped the well-wishing.
One should be aware when words perhaps are no longer
warranted.

Even the nice ones.


My roommate is being cheated on by his live-in girlfriend.
She stands in the driveway and relates the hows and whys to me
and it is interesting to listen to the other side of
misery.
Listening to her I actually get insight into many things
about my past that I failed to understand and
the lessons are valuable and I am sure improve my experience
if ever so slightly.

Yet I can't help but be nauseated.
Loyalty is a dying art.

But who am I to judge?
I'm just taking it all one day at a time and
if you are reading this
then I hope you are all
well.

Honesty

I've had a hard week.

The money isn't coming like it used to,
through no fault of my own,
but the good times have dried up.
I've been spending the majority of my time with
faces younger than mine and
half the time they have no idea
what I am talking about.

Tonight I broke down.

I got off of work and I went
a few doors down to the bar.
I walked in and saw the usual suspects
and it reeked of alcohol and shame.
I could actually smell the odor of bodies sweating
away mixed drinks and martinis and
I turned to someone and said as much.

"Yeah, isn't it great?" he asked as he smiled an inebriated
smile.
I nodded and the bartender passed me a glass.
"On the house," she said.
I took the glass outside and sat down in the evening air.
It was humid and I stared at the glass in my hand.
I raised it to my lips and before contact was made
I lowered it again and thought about everything:
How tomorrow I would feel sick
and how tomorrow I would need a ride to work and
how I would still be so empty and
how I would curse myself for the whole thing.
I stared at that glass of wine for ten minutes
until I stood up, walked to my vehicle, and
got in.
One good decision.
One in about eight years worth of terrible ones.

I never realized how painful and difficult it would be
to stop being a drunk.
I have built an empire around the sauce and
ninety percent of the relationships I have built
revolve around it.

Alice.
Bottles of wine and cigarettes.
Endless conversations over glass after glass.
Drunken sex and headache mornings.

I stood outside tonight and looked up at the sky.
The house is far enough from downtown that you can still see a star
or two.
I realized that I now embody the antithesis of everything that
I ever wanted to be
as a child.
I have become trapped in this feminine energy
that keeps me captive in second guessing and
overly emotional agonizing.
I dwell with fear and it with me.
I let New York steal my confidence and bravado.
I used to grab women by the wrist
pull them outside and
push them against the wall into passion and persuasion
before I even knew their names.

Perhaps a bad example but truth nonetheless.

A vicious cycle that persists, and persists.
Drink, sickness, sadness, drink, sickness, emptiness.

You wouldn't know it to talk to me.
But then I come home at night and type it
on a screen that prints it somewhere
no one will ever know a thing.

How brave I have become.
I hope that tomorrow delivers me.
I hope that I will save myself
before I become the things I hate.

Lost and desperately trying I grasp for straws.

When The Pipes Are A-Knocking...

"I get on the train and I just stand about
now that I don't think of you.
I keep falling over, I keep passing out,
when I see a face like you."

Today's visitor to my home turned construction site
was the plumber.
Knocking pipes and blocking the driveway
the water was promptly shut off and I was once again
a refugee about town.

I've heard it said that you don't get what you want
but you get what you need.
Well if this is the case
then something big is coming which all signs point to
as either being lost in the jungle
or homelessness.
I'm becoming very adept at survival.

I've never adapted very well which
- if one spends any extended amount of time with me -
becomes painfully evident.
Especially at the end of a relationship.
I shake my head at the thought of the tears
which I have so shamefully shed
in front of a retreating lover.
I wonder if years down the line they remember it.
I, the emasculated.

The details of my life story in the past six months
are getting blurry.
I find it difficult to recall the names of the evil
or afflicted,
or bit players in my overdramatized journey.

I suppose that I should be grateful.

I do appreciate the plumber,
and the shiny new showerhead,
but he is unwittingly just another reminder that
it is nearing time to leave.
Six more months and I would like to be there -
a there in the next there in a long line of theres.
Possibly better for the experience.
A little stronger,
a little leaner,
and with a slightly dryer eye.