a New Cult

i drove with the windows down this morning. open road - kissed out sky full of nothing clouds. my memories of you didn't last the year. i lied about that. i wrote about you instead, threw the paper away. clear my space. clear my head. what the fuck is in store for the new year? 

   It was about age 7 when  i became fully aware of the cameras following me around.. a documentary film crew was filming my life. At least that's how I saw it from then on out. I don't know why, the inner conversations, the endless interviews..all the things i said and did were not just for me but for the world to see. my first kiss, Id smile from behind her back into the invisible camera. later on a thumbs up into the darkness after a sweaty session of sex. I was important and interesting. everything i had to say quotable.  All the funerals, the online hook-ups, the road trips, the motel rooms, the music, the stories,  the words, the tits, the ass. I wasn't just making movies, i was living them.  the down time on the cutting room floor. the hours alone reading and writing and jerking off. the two or three lives we all live. inside, outside and the secret one we long for.

   the windows down the air cool the sun high. I try to think of adjectives and proverbs and short little words that feel like breathing and sinking. that's what this is, a quick fade left and jab and hook. another fight. another tooth missing. another head ache. I need about 100,000 dollars so i can quit my job and just write words all day. just live the real fake life. treasure hunt. fuck my wife when she comes home. meet my lover in a motel room 200 miles away. find the loose ends. let them go.

I promise the last word i wont say this year is "sorry". Ill tell you that much,  I'm living it all like i want to now. I'm doing nothing you want me to do and everything fun. I'm being good and true and dirty and messing with all the wrong buttons. I'm driving fast and dreaming hard and using it all. I'll make up the rest as we go along. fake it until the end of the line. until we bruise and bleed. pretty words with brutal definitions. i can see her running in the distance. running through the snow, the mud , the salt water. closer and closer. reach out your hand, jump this train. come along for the ride.

photo:
A mid west girl

Holiday in pictures -

Happyland Express

I find myself looking inside her medicine cabinet. I do this kind of thing. you meet online, she invites you over and do you really know what you're getting yourself into?  and what if - what if by chance, this doesn't stop at just sex? what if she turns out to be the kind of girl you want to bring home for Christmas. 

Prozac, Abilify, Valium, Xanax,  Vicodin. You get the idea. Now, you think you know her a little better: She's crazy? depressed. the girl...has problems. what's that thing about crazy girls fucking good?
but there is that slim chance you might not  leave with your life. (or worse you might have to hear the entire story of hers)   So what?  she wants some fun, kick an old habit by discovering a new one. depression. insanity. me.
 and  I wonder about my own. the power of attraction. Before this, what i knew of her was gathered from the tiny icon photo  of her floating in space. I think  in the right light and if i squint, she even looks remotely like it. 
 
She probably wonders whats taking me so long. I take the cap off the bottle of Vicodin. I pop one in my mouth. this will help the tooth ache i feel coming on. When i get excited my teeth hurt.  it feels like cotton candy inside my head.  I am hard. I want to hurry up and get this over with. She had me come over for one thing. lets be clear on that 
I turn the tap , cup my hand under the water and wash down the shame.  She's cute enough. desperate enough and i want to get off before the Vicodin kicks in. i want the release and  the numbness of pleasure and nothingness

Now Its like i know this secret about her, she kisses me with intense needy desire and i am so turned on. I somehow  feel superior because i don't need drugs or  to talk with someone about my pathetic problems. I'm not weak. I slip inside her. no condom. nothing between us. sickness. desire. i notice the scars along her arm. like train rails. perfectly spaced apart. i am riding this train. I am the conductor. I am starting to slip into the velvet. im not weak. im not broken. she tells me it's okay.  she wants it harder. she wants my hand around her throat. Her words breathless and convincing. I am a kid on Christmas. she is sinking into my skin. what does anyone know of each other? Secrets told and untold. 

Submarine

 DNA

It's clear we wouldn't last the year. but taken from an outsiders perspective. young love was tragic love and we were all kinds of that. young. tragic. ghostly.
I stared at her from across the class-room. the only class we had together. Marine biology.  Fish swimming in the salty sea. some such nonsense like tides, rip currents, aquaculture. my sperm still trying to swim inside her from late Saturday night. Jelly-fish slow and drifting. poison. slow and drifting. 
 I  turned in slightly above average grades. She was good at math, a quality i found sexually attractive. that and knee socks. that and her love for sad dreamy music. that and the fact she'd have me any way i wanted.
 I sat and thought about my future. but couldn't see past the tip of my pen. graduation in 5 months. slightly above average grades. no real effort. no going above and beyond. mild obsessions distract me to easily. like music, like death, like the girl across the room. 

before you're gone

 

before i knew it, i had misplaced summer. your hand in my back pocket, a  tourist in my own town. beach towels and a pirates map. i was never your prude. always wine. always gold. always above. always under.
 I have a good mix for this, i have certain songs in my head. life is moving within a sound track. numbers, patterns. collisions. near misses. beats that make you melt and sway.  there was the holiday party. drunk kisses under garnish. before you go, before you sleep. frost on our lips. a hug so tight. it's obscene. before you close your car door and head home to him.   

before the end of this something- something - or anything and then winter. I drove my truck to the grocery where they sell Christmas trees out front. the cool air and smell of pine. i fall in love with pretty faces, pretty words. pretty sunshine. with blood on the snow, anything, everyone. you.  I made you hot chocolate and we sat by the fire pit in the back-yard. I hate everything about endings. the last moment. the last kiss.
the last
word.