The nights were getting colder. It had been long since Erin's presence had smoothed the chill between their tangled bodies. He was beginning to forget how she felt. As the temperature cooled on his skin and in his heart, he began to remember how Phylicia's hand felt as it collided with his cheek. The words she said in the snow and the hand mark left on his face began to warm him far more than any feverish touch or tingle found underneath, on top of, or inside Erin.
After a few thousand miles running together, just as bonds run thick, conversation begins to run thin. Eventually, around mile marker four, Scott brought up the subject:
"If you could stick any animal up your ass, what would it be?"
There was silence. Not the assumed flabbergasted response expected at say, Thanksgiving dinner, if someone were to casually mention this. Instead, the silence was thoughtful and contemplative. The time the friends spent together had long ago worn down the rough edges of societal expectations. Personally, I thought this question was brilliant. I, of course, answered with a small antelope. Scott and some of the others shrugged off my comment with a bemused smile, but were actually slightly annoyed. This was serious. Scott answered quickly.
"A snake. A small one."
Tyler gave a small accusatory giggle.
"You know, that could be a sick homosexual bestiality fetish depending on where you are."
Someone else suggested a mouse. Fears of squirming pushed that choice aside. The subject of small birds were approached, but quickly denied after the thoughts of beaks and talons and their hunger for worms. Despite the fear of warts, frogs was widely agreed upon to be the best choice. This near unanimous decision was aided by a helpful does of charades by Ralph, consisting of a cup gently and push method.
--------------------------
That night, surfing the web, in addition to some interesting information about "snake fucking," I found that our frog choice actually had some advantages. See, in medevial times, they believed that a remedy for a cough was frog secretions. The easiest way to get these secretions into the throat was through direct application; that is, sticking a frog in the patient's mouth and shutting it. Hence the phrase, "frog in your throat."
Of course, I shared this information the next day, but by then the moment was gone. To be honest, the unashamed honesty of the previous day was what had disappeared. We were all embarassed that we had discussed animalia anal insertions, just like I am slightly embarassed sharing it now. Strange as it sounds, that day was a defining moment in my life. It didn't matter what we were discussing, it mattered that we belonged. In that moment of shit and amphibians, we all belonged to each other. We were no society, but friends. We had no stigmas, we had no boundaries. We had each other. It may seem silly that I choose this moment to remember these friends since our bonds and ties go much deeper than assholes. But to me, its not silly. That was real life I witnessed.
Eventually, our thousands of miles took us to college and into the arms of some girl. She was a stunner, full of beauty and cigarettes and stories and dreams. Just like Scott ran out of acceptable words on the trail, I quickly ran out of words with this new girl. Unfortunately, this came long before any sense of belonging that by now was a fleeting fading feeling from those days with Scott and the others. In downtime, I asked her:
"If you could stick any animal up your ass, what would it be?"
This girl who smoked quickly responded that we that we do not do anal. It's dirty and unhealthy.
With no more words and no sense of belonging, there was nothing left to do but snuggle. Eventually, there was accidental contact between my small snake and her rectum. Good thing this had been discussed before: Yea, we don't do that. Anal no no. It's dirty and shameful.
The image of my penis as a small snake reminded me of Scott. This was the first time I thought of animal insertion since that day on the trail. Suddenly, here I am thinking:
No. Anal is not dirty. Nothing is. If animal insertion wasn't embarassing, then why should this be. This girl has apparently seen the world, danced with foreign countries, romanced with drugs, all in the search for some kind of answers. But why is it that she hasn't found what it is to have true friends, to live a true life, where one needs look no further than rectums and frogs to find happiness and answers. A life where one doesn't have to be embarassed of anything. A life where one doesn't have to go on adventures to live it. A life where one doesn't have to run away from herself to find out who she is.
For a second, maybe I could show this girl that you can live without cigarettes and regrets. Maybe this girl, who sucks in life with sweeping French drags, in through one hole and out the other, can be content to just relax for a minute and look around at what she has, which happens to be her smokey past and me.
Where we have been always leaves marks, just ask the shit covered frog fresh from the rectum. Where I have been has left me with a frog. Where she and her cigarettes and French exhales have been has left her with smoker's cough. Wait a second, is that a frog in her throat? Don't I have the perfect cure? I shoved that frog right up her ass. I wanted it to squirm its way up to her throat, in one hole and out the other, just like her smoke. Oh, um, we don't do that. Anal no no. Well, today we do. In one hole, and out the other.
It's not so much that I am scared off it. It's just that I am waiting for it. Every minute passes and this feeling inside me builds. This tell tale heart need to confess something, or to possess something, or to be possessed or found or lost or hurt or loved. Every mundane part of my life around me is building. Every piece of my life is so absurdly normal without you in it for the moment that all of these things are shaking, as if suggesting the nearby presence of a Japanese movie monster stumbling towards me riding an earthquake after swallowing a power electromagnet. Each mouthful of food, each blinking turn signal, each change of the channel is speeding, increasing, rumbling into a crescendo. But towards what?
I've felt this twice before. The first time was before I met girl number one, the second time was before I met girl number you. Heh, right before we met, I remember staring at a paper towel roll casually laying on its side on a shelf by the air conditioner. Within moments, I slip from hazily gazing on my way to a nap at this quick pick up marvel of the cleaning world, into staring with a face wide eyed with shock. Out of no where, I feel the paper towel roll is moving faster, harder, methodical. It's no longer waving lazily in the air, it's now breathing, soon to be beckoning, belaying all of this feelings. I'm not scared, I'm just anticipating an explosion, ejaculation, exclamation, everything or anything to climax this buildup. I never napped. I got up before the AC unit could become a monster and my blue quilt a suffocating tidal wave. Out the door, around the corner, to see you for the first time.
Today, I felt that again. And I'm scared. I don't want another big change like that. I could be so happy with you. I haven't lost you, but that doesn't explain why my Christmas tree lights are quivering in anticipation of some huge occurence in the near future. Maybe I'm fucked up. I am fucked up. I feel like Scrooge, with the three ghosts. I'm waiting for the third ghost to wake me up from this dream I've been living with you. I feel like your going to disappear from my life, dissolving with all the smoke and leaving me with mirrors to see my sorry state. I feel like I'm going to be pushed into the arms of some new girl who will teach me, love me, and then ultimately fade. I feel like the only reason I am having these incredible experiences with girls and ghosts is because I need to be taught something. I'm scared. I'm supposed to change the world. I have to. I have all these things to say and I don't know how to say them. And I want to. And I have to. I am the world. I am a piece of the world. I'm fucked up because the world is fucked up. I can fix the world to fix myself. I want to. I have to. I need to. So just don't leave me. Don't be another ghost. I want to slow everything down. I want to ritardo this crescendo. I want to learn more from you, I have to. Chain yourself to me like Jacob Marley. You are going to be my past one day, so chain yourself on to me now like you will whenever you are in my past. Haunt me now, in the flesh.
He had this habit of swallowing all the cruel things she said, all the cruel things she did that left his heart dead. He had this habit of following this digestion with the internal suggestion that his heart was left whole, a reminder that the remainder of this division left him ok. Wrong or right as this was, with his heart whole, it was impossible not to love her. She once asked him if he thought they would always be friends. Her with her instinctive life, refusing to look past tomorrow, daring to ask the truth about what he felt about the future. Honestly, he loved her so much, that whatever she did to make him stop loving her would be enough to make him hate her. All the words, all the jealousy, all the boys with their limbs and voices, all her choices, these things he swallowed, would come back up as bitter bile. All of the hurt would squirt from his heart, his mouth, his eyes. When the spew left him empty except for the taste of her in his mouth, dripping out to stain his sheets, he would lift his head. He would kiss her and ask her if she liked the taste of her bitter past.
While we snoozed, the sky cruised from the blue hue of bruise into a brighter view. On this morning, that view was imbued with you. On this morning, the newborn clouds still wet with dew brought with them news that you were scared to lose, that you would refuse to be my muse, that you being confused was just an excuse. I am not amused by this news. I don't want to pursue and subdue you. I want you to be you, and me, me, and us, us, through and through.
I want someone to review my truths with, lose my taboos with, choose my views with. I want to someone to let loose with, tumble through with, forget who with. Shampoo, tattoo, kalamazoo, canoe, can too! A toucan and a kangaroo. Me and you.
Hitherto, I deduce, construe, and accuse you of seducing me, confusing me, all the while refusing me. Adieu.
Fuck, how she lit him up! How his eyes burned when he wasn't looking at her! How his skin baked without her! How his loins kindled for her! She was his oven, his stove, he was warm for her form.
From the very start, it was all scald, scorch, sear, singe, smoke, smolder. Then she sauteed his heart. And everything, this raging fire in the very black and white tiled kitchen of his existence, exposed. A wind springs up. A spring winds up. Wind, wound, water. The fire condenses. The kitchen walls fall down, leaving a single romantic table. Place settings for two. The fire condenses into a single lit candle, suspended.
"See? It will always be there. It burns."
It burns. And burns. And burns.
These girls, they try to blow it out. They blow in his ears, they blow on his chest. They blow him in the ways that remind him of the way she blew others. The candle sputters - it stays lit. They pull the world out from under him in a way that reminds him of the way she built his world up. The candle falls, the light stalls - but it stays lit.
It burns. A single romantic table. Place settings for two. A single lit candle, suspended. Suspended in time? Suspended in place? Suspended in thought? Suspended for her? Who knows? It burns.
Parent.....................these
.............words
.....................please.
The uncemented title of this is falling
towards the indented body of the text.
What mauled letters are meant to come next?
Now these untended words are crawling
inside hyperextended parentheses
that bracket
half shat mistakes,
half baked splats
of ink that I think;
Excuses that stink.
I'm outside the brackets
but stink and racket slides idly out.
The grammar menagerie,
this clamor thats scary,
didn't invite me,
the subject.
It's alright.
Reject, delight, connect, excite, abject.
Just not with me.
It's apparent.
I'm a fascade. I'm a liar.
I'm a dangling modifier
in my own life.
Every morning when he woke up he searched through his clothing drawer to find the clothing that would not interfere with her perception of him. Every morning when she woke up she navigated her clothing drawer to retrieve the piece of clothing that would best influence his perception of her. He sought the best ways to influence her life with his prescence, while she bought the best ways to interfere with his. Every night, after their clothing mingled on the floor and their intentions mingled in the bed, they laid there unsatisfied and naked. He wanted to be naked to show her he was hiding nothing. She wanted to be naked to hide the fact he was nothing to her.
True love can only be found and felt when what one wants and one needs can be found in one breath, one taste, one thought, one girl.
...............................................................Thomas Monarch
"You do love her, don't you?" she asked.
"I feel more than anything I ever have. Who knows if that is love?" he responded.
"I know."
"Yea. I guess you would."
"She doesn't love you back, does she?" she continued.
"She knows she should love me back. She needs it. I don't know if she wants it. Who knows if that is love?" he responded.
"I want your love."
"I don't know if you need it," he replied, much too quickly.
"It's a pity you waste all your love on her."
He looked at her and swallowed. "Pity is the reason I loved her in the first place."
The silence did not last. She would not let it sit comfortably. Rather than let it settle, as with water, to reflect the meaning of what had been sit, she disturbed its surface with a stone.. Her thoughts came like ripples, reglar but fading. She told him everything. The words she meant to say in the rain, the marks that had been scratched in her, the memories she would take back, the smells that she would keep with her, the boy that she wished he never was, the way it felt on weekend mornings, the things that had filled her but now left her empty with only these thoughts. He couldn't respond to her demonstration of emotion. Eventually the ripples ceased, and silence returned as the stone sank to the bottom.
"What makes the desert beautiful," said the little prince, "is that it hides a well somewhere."
..............................."The Little Prince" Antoine de Saint Exupery
It was love at first taste. After eighteen years of wandering through asphalt, deserts, and rock desolation, he found it. The well. And he loved it at first sight. Small and stony, insignificant enough to be easily forgettable, significant enough to be easily noticed. And he loved it at first sound. He dropped a stone in and the sound of the splash it made upon entry and the sound of the thud when it reached the bottom were close enough together that the former echoed over the latter - the water was shallow. Unless one listened carefully, the thud as the stone came to rest at the bottom of the well was indiscernible. He liked this. The masking of the stone's sound as it reached the bottom gave the appearance the well was infinitely deep. And he loved it at first taste. The water from the well could simply be described as real. It excited him without him knowing why. It dominated his thoughts, his feelings. And he loved her at first touch. She touched him in the middle of one of his longer drinks from the well. The emotions that were pulled from the well he immediately transfered to this newcomer. He didn't know where she came from, or how she found him or the well, but he knew immediately that she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.
All these feelings of life being real, of life being refreshing, he transfered to this girl. Thus, the boy called the shallow water in the well love. And he sat with the girl and shared the love with her and she shared it with him. Boy and girl, sitting by a well, sharing love, in the middle of desolation. Real. After eighteen years of wandering through asphalt, desert, and rock desolation, the boy was happy.
However, happiness cannot last alone on first sight, first sound, first taste, first touch. This disappointed the boy. He really wanted the shallow water they shared to be enough, but both the girl and the boy knew that the water level would need to be higher to sustain them. Together, they decided to mix experience with their love. Experience would be enough to raise the water level so they could be happy forever.
Together, the boy and girl went off to experience the asphalt, desert, and rock desolation. They saw things great and small mixed in the desolation. They saw things wondrous and beautiful, and horrifying and tragic. And every time they experienced something together, they scratched it into a rock and put the rock in the basket. And eventually their awe was all spent, and they returned to the well that held their small pool of love within. And together, they grabbed the basket and dumped all of their experience rocks into the well, so that they could raise the level of the water to a level where it could sustain their happiness forever.
The first few rocks raised the level of the water as hoped. Soon, the dust from the experience clouded the entrance to the well. The swirling clouds of dust paraded around the boy and girl. And inside the clouds danced the memories of the boy's and girl's experiences. The boy and girl were delighted to recollect on the grand things they had experienced. Delight turned to distress as the dust settled.
With the disappearance of the dust and memories, the boy and girl were horrified to find their water was gone. The level of rocks had risen above the level of water. The water still existed, but below the rocks. It could not be seen, heard, tasted, or touched. It was essentially gone. The boy and girl had so saturated their precious love with experience, that the experience soon outweighed the emotion.
The boy clawed at the rocks, tearing and clawing until his bloody hands fell limp through the cracks of the rocks into the water below. The girl, disgusted at the thought of blood reaching their love water, ran away. The boy tried to reach after her, but his hands were weighed down by tons of experience. The boy stumbled from the well into the asphalt, desert, and rock desolation.
When they found him, he was sprawled face down. Splattered to his side, written with the stumps of his hands, was scrawled a note.
Small and stony, insignificant enough to be easily forgettable, significant enough to be easily noticed.
Love and loss, insignificant enough to never be noticed, significant enough to never be forgotten.
She rolled out of bed her normal time - early enough that she didn't have to feel lazy about wasting that morning, but still late enough that she could waste the rest of the morning without feeling lazy. But on this particular morning, the timing of her awakening was not important. A much different awakening had occured in her. No matter how much her desire to do nothing that morning, her productivity could not be avoided. It was of the lazy sort, and thus the best sort, that required nothing more than simply existing. The fact is, something had changed during her peaceful lengthened sleep. At the moment she felt this, the thoughtful conflict did not arise in her between whether the world had changed or whether she had changed. Instead she simply felt. When the teapot whistled, she hesitated before pouring her waking cup of tea. Everything was different. Magic. As she tilted the spout she could feel it in the air, as heavy and permanent as the disappearing vapor and the echo of its heralding whistle. Magic. She suddenly wasn't sure of this new world and of this new her. This new day convinced her that she shouldn't be so sure what was in the teapot. Everything seemed uncertain, foreign, but balanced. Magic and change hung in the air - change far less substansial than nickels and quarters, but change that could be considered far heavier then monetary value. This made her feel like anything could fall from the tea spout. Something quaint - a bouqet of flowers, sprung from the spout with petals that would never melt and dew drops that turn to sweetener. Something evil - a scaled snake, slithering out of the spout, with a million writhing snakes hissing, pouring out behind it, leaving behind skins like used teabags. Gunsmoke, tears, kazoos, gold, bats, butterflies. Anything. The world was unfamiliar yet that in itself it felt familiar. Magic. At the moment she felt this, she wasn't sure how she had this new power to see things; whether it was her power over him that had shown her how to discover, or whether it was the power that he had over her - the thoughtful conflict did not arise her. What did arise in her was an acceptance. She's a little teapot and he floats away like steam.
Anytime I write I am always writing with one person in mind. And nothing scares me more than that one person finding out that I am writing for them. But I like being scared. So whenever there is a person I care enough to write about, I find myself returning to this journal, posting, hoping the person I wrote the entry for reads it. But the hope ends there. I never want them to know it is an open letter to them. Because then I am scared what they will think. That they will be scared of how hard I feel, of what I feel, be it hate or love, fear or hope.
But no more looking back about how I have written. Only foward. From now on, I write no longer to one person. It is too hard to constantly change your target person, to adjust to what you want to write, to what people want to hear. From now on, I write for myself. These are the things I want to say. These are the things that the world has given me, that I have processed inside, and spit back out. You are going to be a part of them, because you are a part of the world. But I no longer want people to assume - "when he says love, is he talking about me?" - these are no longer assumptions I am going to care about. I'm not going to use names, I'm going to keep identities hidden, because they are hidden to me. I am no longer writing with one person in mind. I am combining everything that has been given to me. So if you want to assume that you are the person I am speaking to; that you are the one that won my heart, that inspired my words, that you are indeed the 'you' that i speak of; then go ahead and assume that. Because you aren't wrong. I am writing to the world. So when you see something I write that connects to you, be happy. Because you are part of the world.
Why this sudden change of pace? Why the loss of hidden meanings and attempts to impress and attract and signify? Because I've found that truth doesn't exist. The only thing that exists for me are stories. And I just want to write these stories down. They are stories about you. About me. About him. About her. About us. They are in the first person, the last person. They cross all ages, experiences, even genders. They contain pieces of everything and I can't even begin to try to understand where they come from. My life has become too complex.
Welcome reader. Before we continue, we must undergo a test. Remember, the goal from here on is for me to no longer write to 'one person', and for the people that formerly occupied that role as the 'one person' to accept their role as no longer being the focus of my stories. So this test is comprised of three words. The only story that I can think of today. I don't know if I said them, if I thought of them, if they were told to me, if I overheard them, if I discovered them, if I made them up, if I found them, if they are truth, or lies, or if they mean something or if they don't, who they are to, who they are from. I no longer have the patience or time to worry about these things any more. All I know is that they, in their entirety, make up the story I want to tell today. They are the chorus playing in my mind, the movie spinning in my eyes, the lines that are encircling my heart, they are the best place to begin. They are, as follows, with a little grammar adjustment and spell checking:
I love you.
