Many fine things

I'm in the shade, its Thanksgiving day, im writing this on the stone patio set in the photo. wireless is working fine. Through doors and walls and glass. And im tapping on glass, getting used to it. Words.
My family is coming over for the big dinner, been cooking all morning. I don't eat meat so they bring the bird, my sister the drinks, my grandparents, cousins, aunt, uncle,, it's a lot of guests this time. They all called, they are all running late. It's okay, I watch some football, I read a little. I go on the treadmill and after i go swimming in the pool. I wish it were cooler out, but i don't mind that i can swim today either. One half the other. Where you are and where you end up its where you're supposed to be. At least for today.

There was a back breaking afternoon a few weeks back, getting this patio set from my parents backyard to here. The parents just sold the house i spent my middle and high school years. They were just going to leave it for the new buyers but I wanted to keep something from the house. It was originally used at a fifties style diner that my father was part owner of. It's all he ended up getting out of it. don't get into something you know nothing about is the lesson there. And that the set is a beast to move and that it will be here a long long time, or at least for today.



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

And when your fears subside And shadows still remain

1.     Ive been throwing things around more since August, less sleep, clenching my jaw, balling my fists. bad dreams. everything. anything. Since august. since my Dallas Cowboys took the field and started losing game after game after game, then injuries, and more losses. they fire the head coach, good. Win one. I'm elated this week. I'm different. I shouldn't care this much, i always say this. but i do,  and i know there is some sweetness in losing. feeling lost, feeling alone, feeling sunken. You cant touch me here, you cant reach me in this place.  The pain of losing, the feeling of being down, i have found it lasts far longer then the feeling of winning. the feeling you get from getting what you want-is never as good as you think and it never lasts. Its the journey from below..that is the sweetness.

I learned to lose, early. It was like learning to swim. At first its scary and you don't like it. But then, you kick and fight your way to the surface and breathe. Just fucking breathe.
I was 7 and on my first soccer team, Mcdonalds. we had a big corporate sponsor. (really, the coach owned a franchise) our colors are famous: golden arches yellow (over one billion served). we have knee high tube socks with three golden stripes. Under the South Florida sun we look like mini french fries running around kicking a ball. I loved soccer and hated it. which is the way I learned to love things. All things. When we won a game we were rewarded with a team trip to Mcdonalds after wards. A treat since my Mother always cooked, We rarely if ever ate out. I can count on one hand how many times we ate fast-food. which is a good thing, i guess. but seemed cruel when you're 7. So, i tried very hard to win. I hated to lose. but we almost always lost. I had a total of 3 cheeseburgers, 89 fries, 2 soft serve ice-cream cones- a large COKE the entire season. we received a trophy at the end of the year in a ceremony where every team in the league got one. win or lose. an "everyone wins!" booby prize. a losers prize.  a trophy for last place? I looked at it and on the ride home i was silent. I walked straight to my room, closed the door and  threw the trophy in my tin Dallas Cowboys trash can. I cried for 2 hours. It was the best i felt all year. 

2.   Be consistent. don't try to be perfect. just write. write more and write anything. be consistent. write because you have to, because you hate it and because you can't stop. bleed because there is no other way. this isn't what you love,  school isn't what you love, you're job it isn't what you love. what do you love? Stop writing with your heart. for just once, let this not be about her.

photos:
goodwinter
ohashleylove (flickr)

Penny Candy

     Not much here. the road - a few dirty pennies on the ground. leaves falling from trees. On the grass, a light morning dew, the pavement reflects a diamond mist, shards of glass in amounts endless. birds song over hum of a\c condenser. It shakes beneath the window. shades are open but the windows are fogged so badly - the room is cold. blankets.
she met me here, stayed the night. she's gone now , maybe to work, im not sure she has a job. maybe school? she says she's writing. im not sure. im a writer. ha ha ha. Im writing this on the back of a book of matches. the words are small, Ill light it on fire when im finished.
she left early this morning. It was still dark. It was the first time weve seen each other in a few years. It was the same but different. No, it was the same. it was whatever i told myself it would be. If i still wanted to love her i could. If i wanted her body, if i wanted to hate her. I could.  i only know one way to make love to her - hard. dirty. my body wont let me do anything else. it is difficult to be tender. i cant be anywhere but in the moment. like an animal. It's chemicals..she believes it too. Its why we follow each other. state to state, city to city. in dreams.  there are often no words and long distances and... no words. not before or after or now. we just sometimes fall together...cosmically by design. we say hi,  she asks would you?  just one more time. let's.  we should, we shouldn't. Shall we? Yes. say yes. just say yes.

  I didn't  find the bible but i prayed. It's usually in the top drawer of the night stand.  isnt it?  not that i would read it but it's the knowing its there. like you and I.  it makes me feel safe somehow. like it was worth it to drive all this way to make this mistake. - and it is a mistake as much as its not. It's something we know better than but do anyway. life is short and painful. all those excuses make it better and worse. Us. the flaw in us. in all of us who haven't overcome the attraction. 

When i finish, i immediately feel us slip away. I fall between that space of  anxiety and calm. the desire that drove me all those miles begins to rapidly fade. I put it all inside her. she has it now.. all my good words,  she has the books and maps and she has me...inside her. my life. and i have....nothing.  i turn on my side and give a thumbs up to the darkness. my small victory. i had her. I smile into an imaginary camera filming the movie of my life. I think this might be the last time and I wonder upon this grand closure. never enough, never satisfying. there is a candy on the night stand which i pick up and put in my mouth. It's ever so sweet. she left this to remind me of her. i light the match and watch the words burn.

How Our Lives Look with the Lights Off

pages torn from dirty magazines thrown along the path, stacks of them hidden under tree stumps. not the lame kind with articles but hard-core. filthy. Even as young as i was, i knew the difference.
the woods meant something dark and dirty, something exciting - alive.  once glossy pages, a bird trail of tits and ass. body parts rained on, weather beaten. I knew every inch of the woods. where knives were hidden. the secrets people thought they buried - I dug them up. after school and on weekends all i did was explore these woods, they made me feel safe, they made feel scared.

I could still hear the fighting and chaos in my head, the excessive talking to myself , but it was less here than home. It was in the distance. less here than at school or riding the bus to school . I listened for breaking twigs, foot-steps, noises, voices. I perched myself in trees or camouflaged within the brush. I saw things: kids smoking pot, drinking beer, peeing on trees, two teenagers fucked on top of wet pine needles and then against a tree. they fucked like how dogs do it. I saw a man bury a cat and another man attempt but fail to hang himself from a tree branch. I saw people bury things and days later dig them up. the girls who came into the woods only did bad things. in fact, most anyone who was there was doing or would do something bad. 

I stayed until dark or as long as i thought i could without being missed. If i went home my Dad would find something for me to do. Some work. He'd call me worthless or pick on something he deemed to effeminate about me: the way i walked or the clothes i wore,  anything to make me feel small. So I stayed in the woods  because i am lazy to work and  hate taking orders. I was to important,  i knew to many secrets.

Bad dreams. i had bad dreams, nightmares- tornadoes in a dark distant sky,  decomposition, the smell of it.  bad dreams about  bodies being buried and unburied. I'd wake with my heart beating fast, sweating, shaking. I couldn't remember,  were these things i really saw or something just made up? - just dreams. I felt as if i had done something wrong. just bad dreams.

when i got older,  I went from watching to doing. i took a girl i liked from school back there. i showed her the weapons id found. knives, arrows, rope,. she looked impressed.  i showed her how to hide, to make yourself disappear in the woods.
"Let's do something we have to keep a secret"  this usually involved pulling down our shorts,  pulling up shirts. this usually involved drinking beers and kissing. this usually involved the planning of murder of her Daddy.
He touched her and that made me angry. I touched her too. how casually she gave in to me - anything i wanted, she'd tell any lie, keep any secret.  

we remained friends. me and the woods. me and the girl. what we did or did not do. we keep in touch. the wounds have turned to scars. what we do or do not know. i can feel her, though she lives nowhere near down south. when we speak, I detect the slight drawl in her speech - and mine,  well  no one would notice.
"no more bad dreams? "  she asks.  " no more bad dreams?  " I ask. 

whereabouts unknown

there was one halloween i put on a cape and mask, i was batman. another halloween a pirate, a cowboy, a biker, the grim reaper. there was one,  a long time later where we carved pumpkins in the back yard, sitting on the deck next to the swimming pool. pumpkin guts and seeds, she made a mess of things. i made a mess of things. we fucked on the sofa and in my bed and she got up in the night and told me she just couldnt be there anymore. she left and went to him. 3:03 A.M.  I didnt know it at the time, but i thnk she saved my life.
 
another halloween a different girl and we were married that evening, at midnight we drove into the night. she asked me not to stop until we saw snow or at least changing colors of  leaves. I kept the music loud, i kept my foot on the gas and my heart was anywhere we ended up and called home. october soiled in blood and birthday candles. littered with memories and the veins of fallen leaves. sometimes I fall hard for the think-back and want back and take back. here we are, here I go again.