rather than make a resolution, why not choose a song, one that exemplifies the person you’d like to be this year, and every time you’re lost, listen to it.
i’m not sure if we had ever gone through her, or tried to, but we gave her 30 and she disappeared and it sucks to get ripped off when you’re buying drugs because even fifteen minutes can be a fucking eternity and when you wait for over an hour and that thought finally burrows its way into your plane of unwelcome acceptance you would have trouble focusing on a conversation with god himself, and when we finally gave up, or did we go looking for her, again I cant recall, we happened to drive by her walking the sidewalk, and we confronted her but we knew, because when it comes to junkies and drugs we know, we always know, that we were going to be sick that day and she wasn’t and so the confrontation wasn’t even half hearted because at that point in our lives even something half-hearted would have required at least half a stamp and we were broke and sick, broken, sick, so we simply drove home.
and remember hearing about her months later? her boyfriend snapped her neck, killing her after he caught her stealing drugs from him. it didn’t feel right or wrong, in fact it just felt like one less way to find drugs, and that feeling sucks.
but what really connected me to you was when you had a headache and you asked for an advil and i said ‘it says to take one, how many do you want?’ and you said ‘three’ I knew we were the same.
Visiting home once I ran into a kid I had met in middle school working at Subway. He was a real arrogant prick back then. But now, grown up, I could see it in his eyes, “help me, I’m stuck.” And I thought, wow, life is one hell of an equalizer. And then I thought, no it’s not, life fucks over good people and awards pricks all the time. Then it dawned on me, life does whatever the fuck it wants. Anyone that tries to pigeon hole it is an idiot.
Static, static, static… love Part 3
I watched the little girl wander, intermittently blind and cloudy until her flower of a mother realized her err and returned to the pathetic and adorably insignificant child. And it was that moment that I, as a spirit, acted. Because I saw every tiny, monumental, or contradictory change that encompassed Julia’s conscious shift from audible desperation to reclusive safety, all those foolish reversions reflected in detail on her already deepening eyes because she was not yet aware of where or even how to hide the reflection of her soul from her two big, dark opals. And I knew with the experience of a life lived that if she were to be permitted such an easy escape as the gentle and sudden reappearance of her warm place, her mother bent down, arms outstretched, smiling, eyes softened with the joy of being relied upon, if those wandering tears proved to be enough to quell the fear that had fully encapsulated her being, from birth to death, that Julia would be forever lost, that I would never fall in love.
So I spent what I had to take over her mother for just an instant. But this was an instant that had been eternally planned and efficiently decided and with minor viscosity I entered her carbon-based form and affected nanosecond alterations in selective ion channels and neuronal resting potentials, realizing a cascade that allowed the woman to inexplicably fail to recognize her adopted daughter. And when Julia did finally recognize her paternal protection and the tears abruptly hesitated at the tips of every eyelash, when she grabbed that pale waste that was still reverberating with my instantaneous curse, the woman’s acute and localized amnesia spread through limbic circuits and lower brain organs so that she was struck by an even more inexplicable sense of absolute revulsion and intrepid wickedness and that briefly insane woman quickly pushed the legitimately bewildered child from her waste. And as planned, the hormones diffused, with no more effort on my part, to their targets to elicit a shudder, an acute sensation of disgust and rage that forced an otherwise calm, loving, and weakening flower to spit on a human being for the first time in her life. And she cursed the child with words she hadn’t found even the suggestion of a need to use for her life, that she had only heard as a little girl herself while her own mother unraveled a tale from one of the books she had forgotten she ever knew,
“Don’t you touch me, imp!” Her voice rasped into what sounded like the crackling of a plastic wrapper and went to a place inside Julia that had been born only inside the deep mayhem of a supernova creating the first carbon atoms the universe would know, a place that existed in every creature composed of all carbons, a place that only the radiation of the universe’s birth still recognized.
What a gift. In the terrible places of the singular psyche, as one might imagine afloat suspended slowly in the depths of space, watching the shrinking ship that could never be unseen because it had no horizon to crest, carrying the broken tether that had failed its only intended purpose, to be thrust, to realize that one’s mind is the only mind, both animate and inanimate, that the closest you would ever find yourself to another human being is with yourself, and that the furthest could only be that same person again, a place that afforded such abstract treasures as to change Julia into an insecure, shy, tentative, empty, but not empty as a numb uselessness and impotent, but rather an emptiness that was factual, serene and equally threatening and fulfilling, an emptiness that she could rely upon, determined, hopeless, beautiful, fantastic, amazing, stunning, radiant, everything, everything, everything. In short, it was in that core of aggravated loneliness and loss that I discovered (created) the only girl that I would ever die for, that I would ever love more than myself.
Static, static, static… love Part 2
And in a dimension without me her adopted mother was that patient caregiver, simply someone to fuck her out of strength and will and self and to carry her gently amongst the thorns and dusted winds, stingingly vulnerable, stretching out her own selfish contentment of being needed, until the day foretold for all parents when her skeleton was too weak for the demands of a dependent and she simply cast Julia into that garden of weeds and ravenous insects to fight or to die.
But I am in this particular dimension, as well as infinite others that afford Julia the strength she deserves and on that afternoon the sun couldn’t be held by the clouds, not for lack of trying, as they continuously churned and multiplied, even thickened, and, in a desperate final attempt to reclaim the sky, darkened. Still unable speak over the jarring voice of that summer sun, the clouds were incapable of preventing the sun’s light from routinely blinding the adopted mother as she attempted to expose her child to the wonders of ancient wealth. And these moments of blindness allowed the little girl to wander deeper into the magnificent multi-tiered garden, awed by the vines and dangerously bright and rich fruit that lined the various stone fences. And Julia, who still had trouble simply pronouncing bulimia or masochism and far less comprehending the possibility that they might someday become two of her greatest escapes, peered into the still waters surrounding a churning fountain, fantastically not even minding her reflection but rather enjoying the way her intangible face shared the plane of light with the red, orange, and green koi swimming rhythmically beneath its surface. And I smiled, as a spirit, when she left the koi to enjoy that plane of light as their own. The moment Julia separated herself from the fantasy of a life underwater she became aware that her mother was gone, not simply in some unknown location as any mature mind might conclude but rather had completely departed the earth, ceased to exist. Any philosopher or metaphysical scientist need simply watch a child’s face as the realization slowly but forcibly grasps their entire consciousness that their guardian, the only sense of safety they had ever found, or ever would find, was no longer protecting them to finally conclude that there is no supernatural bond between a mother and child, that the security comes not from the physical presence but rather the imaged (correctly or incorrectly) presence, that a parent is not unlike any false form of security provided the adult. It is the convictions that keep one secure, not their physical or spiritual counterparts, as is made evident by the rapid change in a child’s demeanor when they find themselves no longer convinced that their parent is their protector, even if that fact is completely untrue. I smiled because I felt so physically, emotionally, religiously attracted to that look of insecurity that I knew what it meant to love all over again. And what exceeded that beauty was the simplicity, futility, of the response, the tears and the one stiffened arm she rhythmically swung up to shield her vision and then removed, the simple and feral and ancestrally infantile idea that the very act of closing one’s eyes and weeping audibly was so powerful a cure that it could overcome even the most acute crisis that threatened one’s existential safety.
Static, static, static… love Part 1
We could have flown anywhere. This is the seed, not the self-mutilation that initially attracted me to her, not the fact that she learned how to lose weight and preserve an image that might’ve saved the last mirror in her house had it arrived just a few months sooner, and it wasn’t the year she spent most mornings blindfolded or eyes simply taped against the light that reflected directly upwards from the figure she hated, the sick curse that is the human body: our existence, generations of builders, changes, the development, evolution of the frontal cortex into a center of planning, problem solving, endless theoretical figures, decisions, fantasies, manipulations, hatred, dictations, rules, laws, moralities, self-deception, yet resting atop all of this, crowning that which is the self, a physical manifestation that preceded it all and that could never be fundamentally altered except by financially demanding, physically painful, and emotionally blunting investments into intrusive forms of modern medicine that even then could sometimes relapse into the only thing besides time and death that man has failed to truly and permanently manipulate. And it wasn’t the Disney channel special where the threats were only tepid, like a simple shock from a weakened power cell, incapable of causing any true trauma but rather simply suggesting its possibility, and the show’s simple resolution that instructed her how to lose all that unwanted weight, tooth enamel, gastrointestinal stability.
The seed was the fact that we could have flown anywhere but we simply didn’t. If I had known her as a child I may have seen where that strength was born, what invisible, metaphysically non-existent place could keep her in her own fixed pursuits regardless of environment’s established “realities” or “truths” that fix the rest in predetermined corridors and limits that not only were powerless to deter her purpose or progress or even some antithesis of progress if that happened to be her current direction but didn’t even appear to her. It was as though the structure and institutions of reality were simply geists that appeared to everyone save her.
Had I been a spirit I would have followed her and whence I am a spirit I will and so allow me to write of the day her strength was born. And when I am the spirit that can be her father, son, brother, following the flesh’s ability to be her lover, I would ensure that this strength was birthed on that day, because without that strength my love isn’t even a work of fiction.
Perhaps had I written this the first time through her mother may have had some explanation and perhaps her night terrors may have blessedly taken a face, one that she could claw, or kiss, or caress, or bludgeon, or kick, or burn, destroy, embrace, lick, whichever thing one does to finally incorporate a nightmare into their own inner sepulture, not to overcome or to forget but rather, because it is the only way to make peace with a demon, to ensure any permanent armistice, permitted him to be a legal citizen within her own psyche.
As a small child, Julia (pronounced Yule-ee-ah so that the tongue remained free during enunciation, slapping singly against the roof of one’s mouth as though it were the passage of air that pronounced her name rather than any concerted muscular effort) followed her adopted mother, far too old and pale to suggest any possible natural conception or genetic influence, along the gardens of a past Prussian king’s palace rising in Feng Shui adherent brilliance over eastern Potsdam, sometimes deliberately staggering or stomping, skipping, faux-tripping, and scurrying, proud and safe because at five years old she was still youthful enough to find appreciation in a ball of cotton stuffed into the rough shape of an animal or a plastic figurine that looked nothing like a real infant but still spoke to her, whispered secrets, and gave her companionship, an appreciation that would eventually disregard such simple inanimate objects and subsequently find fulfillment only in the attention of other human beings and then, finding that source to be unreliable and sometimes slightly toxic, embrace the fulfillment of heroin and then finally me.
all i can ask for is that my last words be “well, I’ve had enough”
belief in a god is so popular because it’s so fucking convenient to have someone to flip off at a moment’s notice.
conversations with man.
The core of addiction has nothing to do with cravings, triggers, associations, people, places, things, or even relapse. The core of addiction is a single, unforgettable insight that changes everything. Because when you’ve gotten that real, real high, beyond experimenting, that high that puts you right back into the womb, it dwarfs any natural reward that life can offer. And from that day forth, no matter what you achieve or gain, sex, money, love, popularity, fame, success, at the end of the day you will always, undoubtedly have the sudden thought, “that was good, but I know there’s better.” Love feels good, success feels good, but you can add up every good feeling in a person’s life, multiply it by ten, and still not come within shouting distance of heroin. This is meant to no more glorify drugs than the statement “a dropped object will fall” is meant to glorify gravity.
It’s no wonder that we’re incapable of remembering what it was like before we were born. That, that would be a motherfucking curse like no other.
the guitarist
Soft, safe, sad, painful, but movie painful, safe danger, safe danger and pain, safe because it was manufactured, not by reality but rather through a human mind, soft and sad but safe was the musical theme at that open-mic. Amateur musicians crouched over stools, doing all they could to physically envelope an acoustic guitar while playing patient, safe, cradling chords. And through the lyrics emerged a longing that was a physical longing, like something that takes up volume in one’s chest, but not a real longing. The soft, sad, safe songs allowed us to imagine a heart-break. They gave us the one that got away and real undeniable love and as our hearts struggled with those soft, acoustic songs, we longed for someone who wasn’t. And some of us searched our memories for faces of the past, for someone to fill that space of the one, the one that we could direct these sad, yet clean, completely fascinating, and most importantly safe feelings. So those songs of love and loss sang quietly in a small room on a much smaller stage in front of a few found beauty and sometimes mature tears once one could finally attach a real face onto those feelings. On some level, most knew that those feelings were false, and perhaps some, on their way out the door, regretted, for reasons they consciously were incapable of realizing, and were ashamed. But the beauty in those sad, soft, and safe songs is not within the memories or truths that it could have established but rather it in the cleansing of the most illogical, destructive feelings one has. We were permitted to experience love and loss in a sterilized, rational, straightforward, tangible experience. Love was never jarring, morally compromising, self-destructive, frighteningly dangerous and threateningly insane in those soft safe songs. They allowed us all to feel what love should feel like, what loss should feel like. And love should be safe, and soft, sad. And loss should safe, and soft, and sad. It should be an acoustic song rather than a panic attack. It should be a welling tear rather than endless insomnia, nausea, even violence.
And amongst these peacefully fake songs came (erupted) an unnerving and unexpected reality that was possibly one of the most amazing and spiritually beautiful things I have ever seen. When this man (boy, really), barely old enough to attend that event, dressed in jeans and an old hoodie, his hair disheveled in such a way that it was impossible to tell if it had taken a great deal of effort or simply the lack of effort to accomplish, approached the stool and microphone, carrying his guitar by the throat, his real girlfriend, red hair, white dress, beautiful, soft, safe, painfully safe, destructively safe face, touched his wrist. She caressed it briefly, not even with enough force to be noticed by him, but she touched it as though she were sending something with him. That she knew he scowled because he was entering an arena he was not prepared for and she was willing to sacrifice a part of herself to protect him. She touched his wrist and he ignored her and glared at the floor and had no intention of writing let alone singing a song for her because they were truly in love. And perhaps a song about true love may be just a five minute howl of desperation, defeat, and absolute, unadulterated life.
The boy who was technically a man but still a boy because he was still in love and his songs were still unwritten because they were still about real love, and he still allowed his feelings the ruthlessness that they deserved, plugged his acoustic guitar into the amp and looked at his audience not with curiosity or fear or appreciation but rather with passionate disdain. And although the love of his life sat close to the focal point of that crowd, his eyes made no acknowledgment and his avarice no hesitation. It was that red haired, pale skinned, slender, safely slender, and soft, who had approached the club alongside him. Because she had ruffled his hair as he almost ignored her, both of them half naked, both of them comfortably in love and he only slightly annoyed at the way she clung to him after sex because when she walked with only his comforter draped over what could only be defined as a moving Roman statue he loved her in a ferocity that seized him, leaving him distant, almost grumpy. She had ruffled his hair, enjoying the way her fingers broke the incredibly subtle grip of hair gel, and she had glanced at the computer screen over his shoulder (something she knew he hated but also a part of her and so a part of their love and so it went complained about but accepted, even expected) and saw the advertisement for the open mic. And when he closed the window and turned to her, she knew that, like a little boy, he dreamed of finding the courage to perform, but had lived long enough to learn the pervasiveness of self-doubt.
She convinced him to attend. Not really convinced but only convinced because there was an argument that ensued and there were concessions and persuasion despite the fact that she knew and he knew that he would attend the moment she approached the subject. Standing beside him, he almost carried his bulky guitar case back to the car, and he hadn’t even said anything, hadn’t even signed up, but rather she had signed up. And as love instructed him to, he acted scorned, a bit irritated at her presumption and confidence in him even though he felt such gratitude that if he had handled as a person would have rendered him incapable of leaving the front of that line, but rather paralyzed with her hand in his hand and only an EMT’s sedative would have freed her (if she had wanted such freedom) because when she signed him up for the chance to perform she was physically entering his body. She was becoming him only briefly, reading his thoughts, sorting his thoughts, understanding his thoughts, forgiving his thoughts, and doing for him what he meant to do, intended to do, but would have jeopardized the stringent, austere, grimace that he felt saved him from the world. If he had signed up that night it might have shown a hint of hope, something that threatened his resolution, something that she loved but could never mention and so loved even more. So she added his name to the performers and walked through the sighs and angry doubts cast at her the rest of the evening.
So when the room quieted, and watched, and expected, made room for some manufactured, clean, simple feelings, the guitarist began to play a song that he had written for the safe red hair but had altered so as to be about something completely different. It remains unclear what technically happened at that moment. It might have been that he hadn’t tuned his guitar or it may have been feedback or that he forgot the words, the new words, and had caught himself just before singing what he wished he could sing to her. Something stopped him amidst the first bar of that song that I’m not sure he ever played again. And as reality once again took a belt to that little boy, he shouted,
“Fuck!” Then he did something that was unusual in its context but made every bit of sense in true love and manufactured love. He turned his back to every person in that room, faced the back wall, and began performing Bob Dylan’s Lay Lady Lay. A song that could provide manufactured love but not because the artist intended but rather because the message remained misinterpreted by the audience. But halfway into the chorus, he fumbled the strumming, forgot the chords, and abruptly stopped.
There wasn’t much uncomfortable silence after he yanked the chord from his guitar and walked out of the building, completely ignoring the beautiful red-head who chased after him. Rather the room was immediately filled with relieved chuckles. Just barely dodging that glimpse of reality in our evening of fantasy, the next performer was announced quickly and we were quickly assuaged with safety. And I wanted to follow the couple. I wanted to stay just a second longer in those real feelings, the feelings that allowed space for pain, jealousy, anger, fear, revenge, pride, and humiliation because it recognized that the only way to be real and to exist would be to accept and coexist with all that makes one human. Those feelings that would never need to be mentioned, would never demand a song, or a poem, or any material compensation because they were so real, so absolute and undeniable that they became a part of what was real, accepted or denied, embraced or rejected, comfortable or jarring, sensible or completely fucking insane. That guitarist would never thank her for getting him in front of us that night. She will be verbally chastised for it. But the angry words, names, emotional pain that he lambasted her with during that drive back to his apartment were only more a part of what she was willing to do for true love. Because by signing him up, by taking that responsibility, she knew that she was taking the blame as well. And she was willing to relieve him if only of that small burden were something to go wrong. They were in love.
