Depression
It’s waiting for me in a dark day
It will not pounce
It will simply let me into it’s mouth
1 month agoA Planned Meeting at The Bristol
Your beautiful naked body
A hotel bed
My body, less beautiful than yours
Together
This is the first time
Completely dark
No lights
There’s trust
No fears, worries,
Silly sexual expectations
We’re both out of practice
This is love
Seventeen Steps and Three Pulls
It was seventeen steps to the drawer. He knew the steps well, he paced between the desk and his recliner often. When he got to the drawer he was three pulls away from freedom. The pull of opening the drawer, the pull of getting the gun out, and then the pull of the trigger.
He took a shot of cheap vodka and thought about the seventeen steps and the three pulls. He was in his recliner. He wouldn’t say the vodka burned if someone asked, but it did. It had been awhile since he drank like this. He thought about the last time he was drunk and how he was the same now. He wouldn’t be thinking of the seventeen steps and the three pulls if he wasn’t different in between though. He had been sober. He had been working for longer than anyone would have bet and he hadn’t placed a bet until yesterday.
He was a man of symptoms. The gambling and drinking weren’t who he was. He was chasing highs and lows to balance himself. He thought about how different things would be if he was born later, or if there was somewhere he could go for the medicines he was told he needed. He’d rather be a drunk gambler than whatever he was, but things weren’t that simple. He was a character and like the characters he wrote he had dimensions, layers, and problems.
He had so many damn problems.
Seventeen steps and three pulls.
His phone rang and he picked it up.
It was a guy he called Hemingway even though he was more of a bitch like Fitzgerald. He had the taste for crazy women like F. Scott too. He had problems, instead of three pulls he took three bottles of pills and had ended up somewhere they take care of you. He ended up there because he was young and because his parents had money, but The Drunk Gambler couldn’t fault him for being lucky.
“How did you know I needed someone Hemingway?”
“We all need someone sometimes.”
What a bitch answer.
Hemingway asked, “What’s going on? Why do you need somebody, sir?”
“Seventeen steps and three pulls.”
Hemingway had heard this before. He heard it from The Drunk before, but he was sad to see that The Drunk was back.
“We all stumble.”
“I was doing so good. Doing good work and working.”
“We all stumble.”
What a bitch to think that he had to repeat himself.
The Drunk said nothing, so Hemingway repeated himself again.
“I’m tired of stumbling. I stumble too fucking much.”
The Drunk’s voice was raised and annoyed. Hemingway noticed, because he noticed everything. Bitch.
“Sir, life is a series of ups and downs. A life that plateaus is no life to live. It would be boring, how would we write in a boring world?”
“You’re a little bitch.”
“Dull words from a drunkard don’t hurt me. Sober up if you want to cut me.”
“You’re a fucking little bitch Hemingway.”
“If you mean that, you mean that, but it doesn’t matter to me either way. It doesn’t matter because I’m here for you, sir. I’m here and I’m not going away.”
“Bitch.”
There was silence on the phone. Then the sound of typing from The Drunk’s side.
“What are you writing, sir?”
The Drunk didn’t answer and Hemingway didn’t push it.
“Hemingway, tell them I was out of ink. It’s on the screen.”
“What’s on the screen?”
The computer was on the desk and that meant The Drunk already took the seventeen steps.
Hemingway asked again and then he heard the three pulls.
Hotel
It was a hotel that had three ways to my room, two of which were under renovation. I went through the construction zones more often than the way the hotel manager wanted me to go. I enjoyed telling the workers bonjour. It was almost all the French I knew, they didn’t know much more being immigrants.
I was there for her.
She was the daughter of immigrants. A girl of Turkish descent with a French accent. She found me. She found me while I was telling jokes on the internet. They weren’t as clever as I was, but some people liked them. I still don’t know if she was one of them. We talked a few times, but didn’t talk the way teenagers do until I saw her. I saw her and found her beautiful in a way I didn’t expect, which was in anyway since I found her smart, funny, and interesting. Maybe also because I met her online. Maybe because I thought she might have been a man.
I saw her and she was beautiful. A year later I saw her standing at the airport waiting for me. I saw her and she was so much more beautiful than I expected.
We hugged. We hugged and then we kissed. We hugged more. I thought we would never stop hugging. It almost annoyed me. It annoyed me because I wanted to kiss her and tell her that I loved her. I couldn’t do both at the same time, but that didn’t stop me from trying.
So, here I was in a French hotel with a beautiful French girl. We had stopped hugging. Not for any other reason than it would be impossible to walk that way practically. We had tried.
I knew I loved her before I went. She loved me too. It was the kind of love that scared us both. I think we both thought we might be filling in the distance between us physically with sweet untrue things. I know I was afraid of that, but after being with her for only a hug and a cab ride to this hotel; I knew my fear was wrong.
“Stop looking at me like that.”
Those words from her made me fall in love with her in real life just as they did in virtual life.
I knew how I was looking at her after she said it, but not before.
I was looking at her like I loved her. She wanted me to stop because it made her feel shy. I guess she felt that way sometimes because my love for her made her feel like a child again. Her love for me made me feel the same, but also made me feel like an adult. Feeling like an adult is something I’ve rarely felt before. I’ve felt it when my father threw me a set of keys and I caught them. I’ve felt it when I could pay to put gas in my own car. I’ve felt it when she kissed me after a flight that took half a day and every time she kissed me after that.
A Planned Meeting at The Bristol
Your beautiful naked body
A hotel bed
My body, less beautiful than yours
Together
This is the first time
Completely dark
No lights
There’s trust
No fears, worries,
Silly sexual expectations
We’re both out of practice
This is love
Depression
It’s waiting for me in a dark day
It will not pounce
It will simply let me into its mouth
Dry Lips
I was holding her hand. Her head was on my shoulder. My lips were on her head. I closed my eyes and saw her body as a map. After a week my lips had explored almost all of her. Dragons only lived in her eyes. How did I miss her eyes? I kissed them as slow as a man can do something he wants to do. She looked at me with a question and I answered her with a look. I kissed her and she kissed me back. It was a desperate kiss. A kiss that pleaded not to be the last. It wouldn’t be. I’d be damn stupid if it was. Yes, I was a fool, but not even a fool could ruin a love like this. A love like this controls you. Our love for each other owned us and most of the time, we were happy slaves.
Flight AF 688
The trip was over and I had to leave. I say I had to leave because it would be over soon if I stayed. I didn’t know the language and my only skill was language. God damn I wanted to stay. She wanted it too. She said she did when she was emotional. She’s been so emotional the last few days, but now she was numb. That what she said at least, but I knew she wasn’t. A river that’s been dammed isn’t numb. I knew I’d see that dam burst soon. I knew it would kill me and I was ready for death. I’d see her again. She would be five-thousand miles and five months away soon. I thought about the time and the distance, then I realized I was already dead.
Cafe Terrace at Night
I’ve been shown love behind glass
I’ve even, at times, been given samples
I’ve bought it by the pound
I’ve bought it by the dozen
I’ve bought it with Coach purses, Chi irons, and even a ring from Tiffany’s
I’ve bought it, brought it home to my mother and unwrapped it in front of her proudly
Rocks, magic beans, and a left ear
Nothing left but my words, my wit, and a god damn left ear
Still I went into your shop
Just hoping to see something nice behind the glass
I talked to you with my wit and words
You let me behind the counter and kissed me
I threw away the left ear
Faux-Vintage Necklace
Messy-haired liar
Trying to make your sexiness cute
And your cuteness sexy
I see how bored you are
When no one is looking
That’s not the face of someone
Thinking about indie music
You only chew that one fingernail
Let me take your headband off
And give it to someone quirky
The Best Time and The Worst Time
His favorite book started with the best of times and the worst of times. He tried to think of life that way; good and bad happening at the same time. He mostly focused on the good. He led a happy life.
He heard heels, all the men outside the café heard them. The heads that weren’t turned, did. Every man smiled. He kept his head forward. He wasn’t like these men, these men where animals. Evolved to attack their prey. He though, was a trained hunter.
In fact that was his name, Hunter. He didn’t take his name as destiny. He had never murdered an animal, but he had broken hearts.
Hunter wasn’t a womanizer, but he always did look for love. The idea he had of love was that of true, unconditional, ever growing love. He hadn’t found it, but he knew it was out there. It was an obsession for him. So, he hunted it.
It was half nature, half nurture. He was raised by a single father—a poet of some acclaim for his love poems. Poems about Hunter’s mother, who didn’t die, but was still mourned by his father for the rest of his life.
Hunter thought about none of this as the sound of the heels grew closer. They would pass him soon and that’s when he would get his look and when she would, of course, look to see the only head she hadn’t turned.
He waited with a relaxed face ready to smile in a much practiced natural looking way.
Her legs were the first thing he saw. Even being as trained as he was, his eyes stopped and focused on them for too long, but yet not long enough.
He had made a mistake and there was no recovery to be made, but Hunter did try.
His forced his eyes up her body and found her head already turned. Hunter was caught and he did something he hadn’t done since he walked into his father’s study and found him hanging from an exposed beam five years ago tomorrow. He panicked.
“Hello.”
The word came out of his mouth a little too loud and a little too fast, but they stopped her.
“Yes?”
She must have been hunted before. A reciprocated hello or even a do-I-know-you wouldn’t disarm someone the way the single raised syllable of a yes can.
Hunter pressed on out of panic and hope.
Hope is an odd thing. It’s so rarely found where people say it is. One does not find hope in a dying child. One finds hope in a new cure for the illness. Hunter found hope in a large book that she carried like a small one.
“Are you enjoying Dickens? I love A Tale of Two Cities.”
She was going down. A shot was sent straight into her heart, but she was too busy dying to notice her denial. She attacked.
“Oh, I thought you were looking at my ass.”
“No, your legs, your eyes, and then the book.”
The honesty was another bullet straight in her.
She smiled, approached, and Hunter was ready for another attack. He didn’t know what would be coming or how to keep her from charging him. He was still panicked, but he was now catching his breath.
She sat down. Opened the book and started reading aloud to him.
Hunter relaxed and when she stopped, he motioned for the book, flip through it, found one of his favorite parts and read it to her.
He could feel love already and he thought he had finally bagged it.
The conversation ended in her hotel room and started again in the shower.
The morning came and it was still the best of times.
She had to leave soon, she had a plane to catch after a breakfast that got cold while they said goodbye.
“Come with me.”
He thought it was a question, but it was an ultimatum.
“I can’t.”
She would have asked why, but she was not an animal. She was a huntress. Looking for the same game as he was.
They would have found it in each other, of course. They would have found it if she had asked why. They would have found it if he said yes. They would have found it if Hunter didn’t have to stay to place flowers and a pen on his fathers grave tomorrow.
This was the worst of times.
Shiver
It was winter and she wanted to find warmth in him. She wanted it, then didn’t. He was an avalanche. He couldn’t be stopped with the word no. His coldness covered her body and no one could find the girl she had been, even after the winter thawed.
A Seed Outside of her Soil
She deserved someone better. We both knew it, but she said she deserved what she wanted and she wanted me. I gave myself to her the best I could. I tried to change into the man I thought she needed me to be. I had a clear image of what a man was. I was taught it by my mother and grandfather. She didn’t need a man, not as I saw one. She needed me to stay a boy with dreams. She loved me for my passions. She loved me for my ignorance of how cruel the world was outside of heartbreak and death. My stories kept her happy. My imagination kept her satisfied. To her, I was the boy that knew everything, but I didn’t know how to stay myself. I didn’t know she wasn’t looking for a man. I wanted to take care of her when all she wanted was to be my soil. She wanted me to grow out of her.
I didn’t.
The Hurt, Exactly Again
I tell you to put something special on and you take everything off
You have a small scar where your neck becomes your shoulder
It’s from when you told me to bite hard
You stand there naked wishing you knew what to do with your arms
Even though you’re doing nothing wrong
My eyes find you beautiful
It’s not my eyes you’re looking at and you wait until I notice
There will be softness, but there will be another scar
Your flesh between my teeth
In Order of Consumption
Music, women, poems, and film
My ears, my mouth, and eyes
A hunger and perversion
My ideal education
I’m a spotty autodidact and polymath
Yet, I hate five dollar words
No need for me to buy a first impression
The first impression is always free
I know a little about music
A Robert became a Bob to become my favorite
His eight minutes songs remind me of Bach
A man I named my houseplant after
Women know a little about me
Their first thoughts are always different
The last one though is always the same
What were they thinking?
Only if I had dear Allen to guide me
Why did you depart sweet Allen?
“America”, “Howl”, and your work wasn’t done
Help me poet, with my novella
This is where my education is spotty
The theater was a place to kiss girls
Not somewhere to learn, I was wrong
Teach me how to tell stories
