different at night

maybe the night and something different. i waited for her call, her laugh, her fall.  maybe because of the cool October air. so how about tonight?  black cats and candles. we laugh, we fuck , we get high. maybe i leave marks. maybe he'll ask how you got those bruises on your neck.
she says,  maybe it won't last.and why do you only say i love you when you're inside me?  but that's all elementary. like the beginning and end. like how its easy to groove to this song. the start and stop. maybe this time we meet behind our lovers back. or maybe we are those lovers.
I talk to much in the dark. I say the things i should keep secret...I've never believed as much as i do now,  anything is possible. and she says where did that sad boy i knew once, go? I was inside you. say yes....nothing ever really ends. the devil comes and gets what's due.  

swimming with sea bears

sea bears like warm salty water and the sun. hibernation is in the summer - the opposite of winter bears. sometimes they sleep, sometimes they stay up all night writing tall tales: buried treasure, sharks teeth, pirate hookers. eating, drinking, fucking, swimming, writing, sleeping, crashing waves. Yeah. that's our thing.

all my days by the beach and ive only ever found one single shark tooth. I was about 9 and it was on the West Coat of Florida. not even in my own back-yard. I bent thin wire around it and tried wearing it as a necklace but it fell off and i lost it. I looked for more but only found shells and sea glass.

why not stay home all day and make art? why not be rich with the reward of gifts? i dream of one of those treasure finding things that you wave over the sand. going out on the beach in the early morning looking for lost treasure. I listen for beeps and high tones. gold, silver?. memories someone lost. I'd hang out until the sun was just above the ocean, ready to fall. pages torn from my notebook; a sea-side adventure tale that takes place in a sun worn motel. thieves and liars and whores. it would be mostly fiction. mostly.

Casually Smashed to Pieces

road journal in no particular order:

june of july when summer starts. It used to be when school ends - is summer. simple enough. now we pack bags and load the truck for camping or some disney world bullshit. stock up on explosives; fire- crackers, mortar shells, bottle rockets - the 4th. charcoal for the grill, bright red cooler stocked with bagged ice .

I like the road at medium distances. the great lakes and oceans blue. I like mile high cliffs and smokey mountains the peaks and valleys and her curves. anywhere. anywhere with you. I try to count the orange trees. they fly by in a hazy blur, im doing 85 or 88 mph. bugs hit the windshield with a Thump.Thump. Splat. Florida presents one the most boring of drive. flat awful roads; the occasional road kill. skies can open and pour down on you in a blink of an eye. torture you with black and grey and wet. Yes, there is lightning, more strikes than any state in the union. As suddenly blue skies, birds singing. all in all the surroundings near and far are not much for recalling. drink your fluids, check your gauge for overheating.

high noon mind numb with motion and vibration. It's not long before the sun drops off a western horizon. keep the radio playing loud, keep driving, keep taking mental notes. Are those mountains or clouds up ahead? Is that the ocean im driving into.. the abyss? tricks and illusions. Im not cut out for long distance. she kisses me awake with sugary redbull kisses. Im vaguely aware of She & Him playing from the tiny dashboard speakers- it seems to fit my mood now, fit this road and hour, twang and whisper and zooey eyes. I start to fade again. Half asleep I pull into a small motel, single level maybe 15 rooms. serene, half cozy half dirty. neon pink screaming Vacancy and cold a\c. In the dawns early light the office window is fogged with condensation. a glow creepy and inviting.

------------

The gas light has been on for the last 30 miles. So now I m pumping gallons of fuel into the tank. road weary with a slight Red Bull buzz. I like motels with window shaker a\c's units. the soothing hum and glow of vending machines that for 2 dollars can dispense me ice cold Mountain Dew. A motel that suffers through the off season months, through the hard times. like these. a motel so rightly fucked in and fucked up. Over chlorinated pool that burns my eyes and tingles my skin. A hard pillow and hard cock and two fingers in her mouth. scream. moan. It's okay. We ain't from around here and we aint never coming back.

june of july how wonderful to be alive and able to write this. running out of ink and out time. she calls for me to hurry it up, there's a nasty storm coming from the South. Get back in the truck, get back in and just drive. drive. drive.

She & Him - Thieves (BBC)

I'm taking it all away from you

thought i'd spend the entire day reading. away from the phone. away from the t.v. and Internet. away from work and people and cars and falling leaves. locked down in a motel room with dirty sheets and pabst blue ribbon. stare at the ceiling and listen to the pounding in my skull for awhile. let it all settle here. settle me.

i thought i wouldn't have to write. what's it worth when I no longer have the words to make her
stay. she doesn't come here anyway.
no gifts. no kisses. no soft
refrain.
no more thoughts.


Do you know what i miss most about your skin?
it's things i can tell you but would rather feel. how it was against yours.
mine against yours. and me or you on top.
doesn't matter,
how much you don't move or how violently.
and if you're wondering.
I touch your hair and whisper yes, i still like you.

skin familiar
vanilla and clove with a touch of dew and sunshine.
fragile and bruised.
blood and saltwater.

she'd press her ear to my chest and if she can remember my heart beat. how it felt. the quiet sound, when it was still. She turns music off when we get tired. i like the cool darkness and silence of her room. breathing. her eyes closed, mine open. I watched her sleep.

so still like the moon in the sky. like the stars. But it only looks still, it's an illusion. it moves. we move. the earth, the dogs, the cats, you, me, the baby. everyone.


the record spins in the night.
and my mind is the needle stuck in the groove that is
you.

Change was needed but it will never be as magical as you

I arrived home just in time to vote for change. It's going to take time though. it takes time to sink in before you really feel it. I'm totally feeling it with you. do you feel it with me?

The wedding witch:
The witch figure pictured above is the only non-money gift received. The money, it's already going to good use. In fact at this very moment an over- haul of home improvements have begun at my home. (Glow Manor), I have a generous family and good friends to thank for that. I am grateful.

The witch.....I like it very much. It's from a neighbor (back when i used to live at home) My mother showed her my save the date announcement card and it inspired her to gift us with Halloween art.
Wow, what a home run. I'm certain she had no idea that i display several of my better halloween pieces year round. The witch is going to make a great addition. (striped socks!).

Like a kid on Halloween:
She wore mouse ears with attached veil and so everyone knew. I found out if you re just married and spend your day at Disney World, at the end of the night the fireworks display is for you. Did you know that? all for you.
Everyone is also telling you Congratulations. The cast members are supposed to, but I mean everyone. I didn't think Disney could get any more sugary sweet and happy. (it can)
I was first in line for everything, no waiting, I was prepared to wait - i always wait. This time no wait. I didn't get to spend the night at Cinderellas castle but a cast member happily handed me fast passes about 5 minutes after i walked into the park.
(cast member skipping over and seeing mouse ear veil) "How long have you two been married?"
" On Halloween, not even 24 hours, it's also my first time here "
"Well, congratulations, how would you guys like some fast passes on Mickey?"
"eeeeeeeeeeeeee"

the best luck i had was you

"The ladies that I used to know; And, well some they wish me well; and some became my enemies; and some I told to go to hell; and some still haunt me in my dreams…. some still haunt me in my dreams”


It's beautiful cool and blue and dusk and then night - today is to amazing to waste. I wanted to do something before everything starts. I'm married on Friday. Halloween and oh, by the way she believes in me just how i am, just how I'm going to be. how i write it and all the in between. just how- everything.
So, I do and she does and then when I may, I'm going to kiss her hard on the mouth because that's how i do it. when i say my wife, it could have never been anyone but her. the others ran from me, didn't understand me, never trusted me, actually believed id throw the blanket away that kept us warm. didn't i tell you i wouldn't throw anything i love away- ? it wasn't a test. I just wanted to know. I want to know the girl who lays beside me, the girl i live and die for, who has my name, who wears my ring, is as much a junkie for me as I am for her.


The room key- it's like a credit card only it has a Domino's pizza ad on it. I didn't come here and mean for it to remind me of her. I'm in a different time and place and yet things are similar. Maybe i don't know where i am or if this is me or why i bothered to come here at all.

I know why. I saw this motel while driving to work and thought it would be fun to get a room. I could open the windows and let the cool air inside, play music and jump on the bed alone. totally alone and never really alone.

we were in a room like this, the bed faces the same wall. It's noisy outside and there are cheap lamps on cheap night stands, and a bed spread pattern right out of the 70's. I hate thinking that's all we ever were. a chemical romance. fighting and sleep overs. but something like that spark - something about the fit - you can't blame me for wanting more. In my head it's always so much more. I've told myself more lies than anyone ever could.

I won't lie to you now, I've been here before. I come here to write sometimes. There is a court-yard and a pool. It's built next to the train-station. A Denny's out front, drug deals in the back.
There was a girl i used to meet here and she would lug her record player and speakers up a flight of stairs to the room. She brought The Smiths and some others. I hadn't heard vinyl since high school. she rode me to side-one of Louder Than Bombs. It's weird that she felt best on top. On top girl- that's how I remember her.
I just thought of something, how do you not write about sex when you're in a motel room?

I left the room and walked to the train station. I'm by the tracks waiting for trains. i love the sound of bells and whistles and the thunder shaking steel. people coming and going - leaving.
I'd say I'm leaving this all behind me, but I'm not.
my ink changed me and she changed me but not the ring. I'll still have my addictions and she'll still understand. the silence may be less deafening.

a train pulls in on the other side of the tracks. when it stops it hisses and people get off and some get on and some leave and never come back. I used to pick her up and take her back, she used to come and go and then one day she never came back. like you, she will never come back.


i hate waiting for anything alone. so I don't. there are some things i can't do: i could never sleep alone again. I could never not miss her, not her, but the feeling of that something out of reach. that unbalanced knowing she is somewhere out there. knowing I'll never feel the heat of her skin pressed to mine again. yet the existing possibility of such, however unreal is so fucking inspiring and keeps me word filled and teary eyed with emotion. now maybe you understand? there are no real stone walls keeping us away, just the slightest change of heart. How it feels loving her and hurting after. knowing all along i am for someone else.

a brisk wind cuts across the tracks into my face. The cold air makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck. (another ghost?) I have my hoody on over the shirt i wore when i first met her. my hand is starting to hurt from writing this. A few people are waiting on benches. I'm on the wrong side. I just figured out the train doesn't run on this side today. I could do what i always do and wait for something that will never arrive. Today is to amazing to waste. I do something, the something i came to do, I get up close my notebook and leave.

brighter lights

This was our honeymoon in Vegas. Even after a 6 1\2 hour flight she wasn't going to stay a hotel room for very long. She wore a pretty summer dress and matching panties underneath. colored hearts, same as the heart-shaped buttons on her dress.

we drank , played black jack and pulled slots into the night. Yes, there were neon lights, the bells and whistles, white tigers and Elvis's. There were brides and grooms and shrimp cocktails all over the place. If you threw up skittles on the gaudy casino rug you couldn't have telled. but that's what you stay for, not to sit in your room make slow love to your wife. You got all of forever to do that. At least that's what she told me.

You do it Vegas style baby.., she said slurring her words. So later on we made a made sex tape in the back of a cab. I tipped the driver\camera man 50 bucks, not just for his steady camera hand, but as compensation for having to put up with her shrill coyote howls and asking him to put fingers in her mouth while i was pounding her from behind. who knows where her mouth has been?

I lost her on the strip sometime in the night and she was married to someone else by early dawn. she said she was sorry and pretty sure it wasn't legal or it was, but only in Vegas.

i hit a thousand dollar triple jackpot on my way to the airport. I cashed out, left the casino and took one last drag on my cigarette. Inhaling with it the dry desert heat. I needed to get back to my own heat, the heat I'm familiar with, used to, back in South Florida. The way things work around here is we tell it like it is unless you tell me otherwise. we have no secrets.

So what?It's not like she was a serial killer. I felt the fat wad of crumpled money bulging in my front pocket. Was it a hard-on or the 3 g's that i won?. I reached inside and felt deep until i hit bottom. I pulled out a little heart shaped button.

Oh lordie, that girl look goooooood in that summer dress. Wow. 3 grand!. my little polygamist wife is gonna be so happy. I popped the button in my mouth and swallowed it like a red skittle. I called it a wash and boarded the plane.

sex in dirty water

This is Florida and the heat gets to you. In the summer, the humidity sticks to your skin, it chokes you so you can hardly breathe. Growing up, my parents rarely turned on the A\C. When my Mom couldn't stand it any longer my Dad would argue, curse and complain and then give in. Look how much these kids are costing him was what he'd say. He would flick the switch on the thermostat and then the rattle and hum from the side of the house. Under my window. But still, it never dropped to any real comfortable level.

I spent nights, hot, laying on top of my sheets. Ceiling fan turning fast above my head. It made this terrible sound as if it was would drop down from the sky at any moment. I was afraid to sleep. Afraid I'd wake up in the morning with a missing arm or leg. dismemberment seemed worse than being hot. So I turned it off. I think that's when my insomnia started.

I liked summer vacations. I couldn't wait for school to end. We took a family trip every summer. I didn't care where. I just wanted to get away and be someplace else. new people, new things to see, smell and taste.
hotels. I liked them- especially. I was allowed to turn the a\c down as low as I wanted. Jump on the bed, swim all day in the pool.
I'd get back from swimming and open the door, that rush of cold air in my face, all over my body. My parents left a note saying they were out site-seeing. I got into my bed and under the covers. My skin burned from the sun, still wet and smelling of chlorine. Everything seemed so perfect. 2 months off before school started again. The t.v. was on. I liked the sound of the air conditioner mixed with the voices on the T.V. It was peaceful. I pulled the covers over my head. touching myself. I thought about girls, cars, halloween, the fourth of july and what we might have for dinner. *


I make no
apologies
for how I choose
to repair
what you
broke

Her room. It was fragrant: somebody else's house. It reminded me of coming home from vacation and walking in the door of my own house, and smelling it as if i was a stranger entering for the first time. I felt like a ghost who had come back, not to haunt, but merely to remember the world as it once was.

credits:

art by: art and ghosts

photo 3: lefthandedsweat