Stupid Haze of White

I've been in and out of the hospital, lately. Nothing conclusive, yet, but my symptoms are getting worse. Dammit, medical profession. You're supposed to wow me with your incredible care and intelligence, instead, you're just passing me around. Dammit!

Anyway, that's why I haven't made any witty posts, told any tales of love gone by, or worked on any fiction or anything.

Yeah.

"He tastes like you. But even sweeter."

"This is a town in which no one lives," She said, that little flicker of humor playing on her face as she flipped the lever on her steering column. The click-click of the turning signal punctuated the silence in her little car, drowning out the music playing out of the stereo. Volume low, as not to drown out conversation.

"...yeah?" His lame response.

"I always drive through here, but no one lives in these houses. People just stop by."

"...oh."

"These bananas are over-priced," She said, nodding at the advertisement as she pulled in to the drive-thru lane. "I think they buy them down the street for like a quarter of that. Good profits, I guess."

"I'm allergic."

"What?"

"To bananas. Viciously, even." Fumbling with a cigarette, he tapped her little radio. Trying to find a way to cut through this awkward moment that popped up after becoming lost on the country roads, an impromptu dance in the rain.

Later, she'd say to him---"This town's too small for you."

But he always felt so small.

---

Laying in bed, I was thinking about the time when my life would start. Then I realize it had started, that once I had graduated from high school, I was living 'real life'. That, even though I didn't have a real job or a car or a college education or a relationship that stood up against any form of resistance...that I was already living real life.

I start to think that this is how it always was--that I had died, and in the few last seconds of my brain functioning, it entered a viciously vivid flashback of every moment of my life. That I was reliving a life that had already expired. That all this deja vu--this constant, nauseating feeling that everything I was doing had already happened--was true. That I really was just following a path that I already lived before. So I try to force myself to change the moments as they happened, but all that feels so damned familiar, as well. Like I'm living a lie.

Like I'm wrapped up in a dream, but if I woke up from it, I'd die.

I think it's why I'm insomnic.

---

"Bros before Hoes." "She's not a hoe." "We're not really bros."

A humbling realization that that ridiculous lie we lived could be torn apart so easily. From something so small, from just a few days of misplaced affection and love. From just a single night of a mistake. Not a regret, mind you, which is probably why it caused so many problems. The realization that all that talk about having each other's back regardless of the outcome, all the fist bumping and the stupid grins and the oddly homoerotic intimate moments amounted to nothing more than so much boyhood fancy.

That when we reached adulthood the whole thing would slip through our fingers and we wouldn't really miss it. That we'd talk about our friendship to third-parties and they'd joke that they always expected us to have matching rings by now.

--remember, we were going to have matching rings?

That look if disbelief in a mutual friend's eyes when I say that we're not in contact anymore...that we wouldn't be showing up somewhere as a couple of friends, rather as mutual friends. That tilted head, that awkward hand gesture, that straining between saying one thing or an other. How so many people kinda thought of us as the same person.

...well, I guess we got too close to being the same person. EH. EEEHH?! That's funny.

- - -

Part of growing up is realizing all that shit they sold you on was a lie. That you'll never be a rock star or a CEO or a novelist. That you'll end up like every other Shmoe on the street. That 'true love' is an abstraction of 'settling'. That learning to 'trust' someone meant to rely on them--without actual trust.

That honor and binding words are always temporary. That you'll get burned so many times that you become callous, and cold. That you should hold back all those silly dramatic phrases and frantic text messages trying to salvage the best moments of your life.

Well, fuck that. I want to live--not constantly pretend I'm living. I want to reach out and grab it. I wanna explode. I wanna breathe smoke.

I want to fuckin' live and love--even if it's taboo and makes me look immature. Maybe it is immature--hell, I'm saying I know it's immature.

But I want to love.

http://www.asofterworld.com/index.php?id=486

I love you, but I don't love you enough to give up falling in love.

Yup.

I think I've found love, once--and I found it in someone I didn't expect. Someone, who, until that point, was just so much background noise to me. But it happened. And now that she's completely removed me from her life, I don't feel that sting like I do with...well, with every other relationship I lost. Like a breaking heart, or sorrow. Angst.

Instead, I put my hands in my pocket, lean my back against the wind, strike my face up towards the sun, and laugh my ass off.

Love is that kinda feeling. It's almost magical--even though she doesn't want anything to do with me, I'm still carrying all that joy she left me with. I think that's what real love is.

Framework for the Rest of Your Life

I want to write a book. I need my “All the world's a stage...” I need my singular, punching line that drives the message home at the very beginning yet drives you on to get the whole story. Instead, all I can manage is a few broken phrases and hope that it'll be enough to get you to finish the whole thing. Not that it's horribly important that you actually read the whole thing. Skimming it is fine, too. Besides, you can't really say you've gotten the full story unless you've read the book. Listened to the CD. Wore the T-Shirt. Talked about it with friends. Joined an Internet community and discussed it at detail. All that mercantile bullshit people shove down your throat so that you can pretend to be part of the experience.

In all honesty, just reading the Wikipedia should give you the story. Just getting a summary should be fine. But let's all pretend to be part of the experience for a moment and drive on through to the end. We can do it together, if you want. We can throw together a few good times and a few bad and laugh about it later. Hell, let's make up some parts as we go along and make it flow a bit better.

It doesn't even matter if we make up the whole damned thing. As long as the message stays the same. Which, honestly, isn't much. You won't pull a lot from this text or this story, it won't change your life, it won't become a feature film, it won't have some defining moment that gets plastered on t-shirts. It won't become an Internet joke or leave you with a feeling of fulfillment.

But don't let me tell you how to read a book, and don't let me fill you with pretentious bullshit before you even turn the first page. Let's just get this over with.

--

Let's start in high school. All great stories need to trace themselves back to the roots of the issues and bring you down to the very basics: And there's nothing more basic than a teenaged boy, striving for better music, better sex, and better understanding in why the hell everything is working out the way they are. It was pretty normal for me, on all counts. My mother died when I was in middle school, I was the only child, and my father took it understandably hard. He didn't turn to drinking, and this isn't a story about domestic abuse. In fact, it was quite the opposite. My father was my best friend, and to this day I think that I was his. We ate our meals together, we watched movies together, we found ourselves locked in a constant habit and a pretty standard routine every day.

We didn't have a lot of money. My father was a consultant or something equally generic, with one of those jobs that kinda fall from the sky and since it seems good and the pay's okay, you take it and you end up stuck with it for the large portion of your life. He made enough money for us to live in that big, empty house he refused to sell or move from when mom died, with the extra bedroom for the little brother that would never come, the garage with the tired old car and power tools that never got used, the bathroom down the hall we didn't use, since the master bedroom's bathroom had the shampoo and soap and tissue. He made enough money to pay medical bills, thankfully so, since our insurance didn't hold up much for my childhood allergies and asthma, my chronic pains, the insomnia, the dental work, and the various school-mandated therapy after Mom died in middle school and in high school when I attempted a simple suicide.

This isn't a story about suicide, either. Everyone feels down, everyone thinks about it, everyone wonders about what happens in the afterlife, so I decided to give it a shot. Freshman year of high school, a lot of pills in out-of-date prescription bottles, a lot of whisky stolen from my dad's dusty old alcohol cabinet, and a half-filled bathtub filled with lukewarm water, the tired sounds of an old man through the radio, selling the latest jazz and offering callers in flowers for that special loved one.

Needless to say, I found myself buzzed and lucid and out-of-body when my father came home from work, and looked for me when I wasn't laying on the couch, watching whatever our TV offered. He came to the bathroom, and found me laying there. In my stupid, drugged state, I rose the glass to him and asked if he wanted to join me. I didn't take it seriously when he said he wished he could, pulling my naked body from the tub, surprising me with his strength. Modesty is ever important, and I vaguely remember him dressing me on the bathroom floor, still wet, while he dialed emergency with his free hand. Or I think I remember, I at least remember him telling me the story a few days later, laying in that white room with the big windows, looking at a tree gently rolling in the wind with a absence of any birds or squirrels. I never apologized for the scare, he never yelled or grounded me. I went back to school the day after I was released and we never talked about it. When the school found out a day later, when they called my father to ask about my absence, they required that I seek help. So I did, every friday, for the final four months of the school year.

He asked me if I thought I could fly, if I thought I could lift a car, if I had any superpowers. He asked me if I thought about death to a large degree, if I had found God, if I had lost anyone important recently, if I had a stupid crush. I could only think how sad it must be to really want to help someone who zoned you out every week, mumbled responses and smiled a fake smile at you, so that you'd have to write okay responses and get paid for a job you felt like you weren't doing. The therapist who works with children who've tried to commit suicide or killed their parents or gotten into drugs, I wonder if they think about it off the job, or if it's a worry you can just turn off. I was fond of my therapist. We'd laugh at his bumbling attempts to catch the eye of a cashier at a coffee joint, we'd talk about books and movies instead of my mental health, we'd shake hands and he'd ask me to call him if I ever had the slightest worry. Told me to tell him about any regression or thoughts of a second attempt, to call him even I just needed to talk. I wasn't going to call someone off hours to do their job.

I attended graduation that year, wanting to understand if the four years of high school was really worth it. They laughed, they waved at parents, they accepted diplomas, they talked about college and work-study and how they had gotten a new car, and then they turned away to live their lives. Balloons danced in the air, fireworks crackled as the sun set, and a car crashed that night, drunkenly driven directly off the road into a tree. Two died after being in pain for weeks, one never could function correctly again. Smart people headed out to smart lives with high paying jobs, dead and ruined the night where it all started to actually mean something. Snuffed out, hearts broken, people crying openly at funerals I didn't care to attend, phone calls from people I hardly knew asking me if I had heard, if I even cared, if I was okay.

That summer I worked at a flower shop. I was being paid minimum wage to arrange flowers, keep stock, water and feed the things, and sell them. Summer months are depressingly slow for those kinda shops. It was a small business, and the largest order was for centerpieces for some veteran of war meeting. Weddings and funerals tended to pay top dollar for flowers, which seemed silly. We sold our flowers to local grocery stores, and they kept them in a refrigerated area for kids to buy for dates and for tired housekeeping wives to buy to add some color to their dull lives. They turned a better profit off their flowers than we did, and I guess that all comes down to convenience. You can't sell flowers without a date or canned food, apparently, and it must be too embarrassing to go to the pink and green shop and ask for just the right flower to say just the right thing to just the right girl. Easier to pick up the week-old flowers, already starting to wilt in the sterile grocery store and grab cigarettes and an energy drink, too. I blew all the earnings towards the end of the summer on nice restaurants and stale conversation about how exciting it was to be a sophomore in the next year, updated my aging computer, and made various other frivolous purchases on DVDs and rumble packs.

Midway towards winter, my apathy and dullness seemed to spread like a contagion to my father, who sunk into barely passable conversation and buying simple food to prepare and stopped offering to take me to the movies or out to buy new shirts. I refused to notice it, refused to give either of us the benefit of noticing our friendship was falling apart, and kept going to school and coming home to lay on the couch, watching the tail-end of daytime television before rolling over to opening cans and microwaves to showers to laying in bed. I broke promises, I failed to succeed, got average grades for an average lack of effort, sunk into a depression that I didn't have the direction to take out on myself. A relaxed depression, where I felt like if I just lived on like this forever, nothing would ever really sting. It was like being numb all over, all the time. Towards the next summer, I finally noticed that the house was always clean when I left for school, even when I left shoes on the carpet or dishes uncleaned. That we always had fresh towels, that everything felt spotless. My room was the only part of the house that showed any signs of being lived in at any point. Father had taken to keeping everything perfect, eerily and with that edge of madness. I felt guilty every time my wet feet dripped onto the bathroom tile, or I spilled something on my clothes, and did my best to keep up with his newfound cleaning, but it never seemed enough. He mopped the same floors twice a day, washed dishes that hadn't been used because they sat in the cabinets for a few days, threw out boxes and bags of food that had accidentally been left open.

I didn't work that summer. Friends would come by, or I'd go for walks, or I'd end up wondering into the unused parts of the house. The walk-in closet mom used for dresses, long since packed away, completely empty. The entire room for an other person, clean, always with fresh sheets, ready for a guest that hardly ever came. The bathroom that we never used that recently found itself stocked with tissue and soap and always had been recently wiped down. It was my house, and the unused parts suddenly felt alien. The kitchen looked like it was out of a magazine, and I almost always felt as if I had walked into a neighbors house. Dad started talking about moving, but we never did. He talked about switching jobs, but he never did. He talked about getting a new car, but he never did. And then, just before school started, he was gone. There where a few boxes, new clothes and school supplies, and an envelope with nothing but a thousand dollars in it. Bills never came in the mailbox, Dad never came back, but from time to time I'd get a new check from various parts of the world. And then, my third month into school, I got a letter.

He left the city, the state, the nation, working random jobs, dealing with his stocks, and apparently he was planning to keep himself busy that way for a while. Maybe a year. He'd keep supporting me, and even offered to fly me to him so we could travel together. He was in Egypt. I didn't want to miss school. So I never did. And to this point, I haven't seen him again. I don't know what happened to our house.

I graduated my senior year with no honors. The head of our class cried, we all cheered and threw caps into the air, we shared kisses secretly and got nice and drunk that night, but I knew that I'd likely never know these people again. I knew them well enough, my class of four years, but after this, it was all over. It took me a few months, but I responded to check with a letter, the check torn in half, for my father to stop sending money. I took up a job and had an apartment deeper in the city than our suburban house, and that was that. I had cut off connection with my father and the only person in my family I ever really knew. So there I was, alone in the world in my silly little apartment with my silly little job, selling cigarettes and magazines and gasoline.

No. 658 - Ono no Komachi

夢ぢには
あしもやすめず
かよへども
うつつにひとめ
見しごとはあらず

Though I go to you
ceaselessly along dream paths,
the sum of those trysts
is less than a single glimpse
granted in the waking world.

-=-

I go often to you in my dreams, but I never see you in the real world.

ユリ(Lily)

(example: recursive lying)
This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood.
Only a fool would take anything written here as fact.

I fell in love, one time. No, wait--that's not how I wanted to start this. Scratch that.

"Sex is like cigarettes, right?" He said it as if he didn't expect an answer, flipping his little unfiltered cancer around his fingers, eyes dropped with boredom--or his clinical, empty high from all those careful pills. He was 'trying to quit'. The kind of smoker who regretted every cigarette has he prepared to smoke it, regretted enjoying it, and regretted it after it was gone. The kinda guy who defined a 'guilty' smoke. Oh, those smokers, trying to quit, huddled outside in the wind so their co-workers or friends don't see them with the habit they supposedly quit for a while. The kinda guy who says--only half joking--not to tell anyone, when you catch him smoking. Like a kid with a secret.

"The first time, it's when you're too young, and you kinda only do it because it's a taboo. Because one party always tells you no, don't do it, wait for it, and the other party urges you on about how awesome it is. You see it all around you, it's so natural and casual, and not to worry about it." He fumbles with his lighter, a color so much brighter than you'd expect, at stark odds to everything else. Scratch that, he's wearing a bright neon green shirt with a tongue-in-cheek quote on it. It fits right in. Shiny. Manufactured. "So you light up--" And he does, an annoying pause as he has to inhale a few long drags to get it started, and then letting it burn for a second.

"So you light up, and you start doing it, and it's fun and great, and all. Then it's just a part of you, and you're always doing it, but it's no big deal. ...then you kinda start wishing maybe you took it a bit more seriously."

You start to protest, but he holds up his hand. Oddly bold, for him. "I'm not the only exception, but I'm an exception. For most people, it's how I've described."

He doesn't even talk this way, but you agree.

One time, a few months ago, I got drunk for the first time. It was a pretty magical experience, really. I was in New York City, the grand line itself, and was in the awkward personal space of a stranger, laughing at how 'this is what it's like, huh' the whole situation was, fumbling for a cigarette. He--the stranger--leaned over to me and lit me up, and we stood in silence for a while in the pouring rain on that little fire escape. Becoming a hazard. A statistic. An example they'd tell in high school. "This isn't working," He admits. So we stumbled inside, with giggling laughter and boyhood antics, trying to be quiet while we knew we made too much noise, tiptoeing over a sleeping guy (or two) and moving into an other room, where it was acceptable to smoke inside.

Of all the drugs I've tried, alcohol is my favorite. It's a warming drug, it fills you up, makes you feel good. At least for me.

Quoth the alcoholic.

He--the stranger--was a definitive starving artist. With his unpublished manuscript, his poet's heart, his scraggly beard and his apartment-for-two-with-far-more-than-two-in-it. And me? Just some country boy drunk on harsh bourbon.

But even then, with my southern drawl that felt so pronounced behind the caress of Lady Corn, I predicted it. I told him, too--about how my heart was breaking even before I fell in love. About how fucked up it was, yanno, that she kept reminding me she didn't know what to make of this, that she didn't want to think about the future. About how she hid behind that instead of just saying "I wanna play with you for a while", instead of just saying "Let's keep it casual," instead of just saying, "This is only until he comes back."

I cursed at myself a few times, and told him how amazing she was, yeah, how much I loved her, how much she meant to me. Not just as a girl to a boy, but as a woman. As a muse to my pen, as contrast to my color. All that crazy shit we writers say when we're drunk--when we accidentally start talking how we -want- to talk, instead of the easy vernacular that keeps us fluid in conversation and suave in society. Speaking like bards, mixed in with good and dirty slang and a few easy phrases. A special language, shared between two drunk men. A language that only existed for that one night.

I told him that my current chapter was a tragedy, and my tragic flaw was this damned screaming heart. Leaned against a wall that seemed to be moving, warm from the whiskey, cold from the chill of those spring months. Told him that she was so goddamned beautiful and I had never seen it before. That I used to pick on her just because that was my lot in life, what I was expected to do. That one time I whispered, 'oh, shit, Cameron, what are you doing?' as I waited for the coffee pot to finish it's cycle, our little cup of java in the morning, alone. This time she passed me a cigarette and it just felt so natural that my heart twisted a little protest, and instead of giving her the standard reply, I told her thanks--and she noticed the difference.

Told him how she lugged me around her town and I kept my distance and I sorta teased her--behind my violently ill stomach. How irrevokably obvious it was that she wanted at least a something from me. I told him then that she'd deny it later, of course she would, but it was obviously there.

She goddamned fed me with her fork in the little slice of the food court we hid away from the crowd with. She leaned into me as I hugged her from behind, looking over posters of this and that. Brushed her shoulder into me as we walked, asked me if it was okay if she held-my-god-damned hand. Gave me one of those real smiles--the kind with teeth--those shit-eating grins where you long since decided you'd not be hiding it. She pranced around on my arm and told me how cute it was that people looked at us as if we where a couple. I stopped to sincerely go talk to a girl that caught my eye and she---with playful offense--stopped me.

Of course, we all play games. Of course, it was nothing serious. Just two friends playing around town.

Except every fucking moment I spent with her before that was nothing like this, at all. Like it or not, she was being flirty. But I didn't let it affect me, oh no. I'm not that kinda guy. I really did want to go talk to that green-haired girl. I mean, fuck. I was stuck in town all day, I might as well meet a girl. 'cause she sure as hell didn't count.

I fucking hate bubbly girls.

She told me, bitterly, that I was giving her mixed signals, at the end of the night. Honestly, she really did, she was upset I was nice to her for a bit and mean to her the next. This girl who had been shamelessly flirting with me when I just wanted to burn some time until a ride came by.

I answered her without skipping a beat--do you really wanna know?

Of course, she said. She wants to know.

"You annoy the Hell out of me."

You'd have thought I had punched the girl. She got silent. Would not respond to me. Until I put my hands on her face and she moved into it so I could read her facial expression in the dark. The three of us--my ride had shown up by this time--sat in relative silence in her car until daybreak. She hugged me before she left and I figured that would be the end of it. I mean, why would I ever see her again?

Oh--I remembered to mention the only communication we had for the months prior where text messages. If I spent a dime on every text sent and recieved from her (like the old days), I would have spent more than---shit? I think it was 20,000 text messages, so you divide that by ten. She's 2000 dollars worth of phone bill. Although, at that time, it was closer to maybe 1000.

Anyway, I get back home and my room is nearly empty, all my stuff packed away, share a few beers with the bro.

And then she's coming to see me. And she brings a friend--the friend, the pivital fucking point in the story--this is when I reveal I'm talking about Susan, you know Keith's girl.

"Damn," He says.

So I brush passed her entirely. When she promised me a surprise, I figured I fuckin' forgot something and she thought she was being clever by 'finding' what I had lost, or cigarettes, or an other cheesecake.

I broke out into a grin, lighting my next smoke. "She made me a cheesecake, bro." Exhale. "I...fuckin' love cheesecake."

And so of course I brush passed her, to see my bro. Who's all too quick to hang out with me.

And the next thing I remember is her pressed into me in that bed the three of us shared, whispering something I'm too tired to understand--maybe just mumbling in her sleep. How she felt all tangled up in my arms. How I didn't turn away when I blinked awake and realized the situation. How I sat there in the dark and watched her lips move--how I brushed my thumb against her jaw.

Kinda firmly.

To stop her from grinding her teeth. A sound I thought I'd never really hear again, that night. This secret little embrace we accidently got ourselves in. He had promised me a smoke, so I helped myself to one. I didn't really think about it in the morning.

But at some point she's laying next to me, and he's playing his song in the other room. How she looked up from what she was doing and smiled at me and said 'going to bed'. And went to my room.

Mind you, he's sitting right there. She didn't announce that she was 'going to sleep', she didn't say night guys--she looked at me and told me she was going to bed. In that way that doesn't mean, "I'm terribly tired and must retire."

In that inviting way.

Well, you know, I tried to convey in my shrug that followed. You gotta do what you gotta do.

And the fuckin' big pivital moment right fuckin' there? He didn't even fuckin' try to stop me. I remember she talked to him about it and he said it was awesome, it was great, it was okay. I remember talking to him about it and it was cool and it was okay and he smiled at me and said he was glad. I remember this vividly.

But this is the part where sex happened.

I remember the first kiss. He's off, you know, doing god knows what with his parents, and she's fuckin' watching me smoke. I'm all reclined uncomfortably on all this junk of mine in the back of her car, with the window just cracked, having a smoke and she's just watching me. Sitting back from the wheel, hands clasped in her lap, watching me.

So I gesture beside me, and she shakes her head. So I pat next to me, and her head jerks towards the motion but she restrains herself. This continues with a 'cmon!' and so on and so forth until she scrambles back with much more enthusiasm that you'd expect, curling up next to me. Slipping in front of my arm. Being cradled by me.

She mirrors that earlier comment about holding my hand--"Is this okay?"

Of course, I tell her. My cigarette's gone. I go to nuzzle her in a playful manner and I'm kissing her cheek, so she's matching me on mine. And so I match her on hers--and foreheads and noses and stuff. Just being silly.

"Is this a game?" She's not being quizical. Hell, I don't even think she's being deep here--she's almost demanding me to--

One time via text message, she let something slip. This is maybe before anything ever happened at all. We did song lyrics, back and forth--'cause jeeze we texted constantly, a lot, practically no sleep, all texting, that sorta thing, and eventually you have to have something that amounts to almost nothing.

"But I know what I like! I know you like dancin' with me!" "And I know what you like! I know you like dancin' with me!"

"Kiss me. Once." "I've thought about it."

Well, that's not how it goes.

--so, you know, I tell her it's not a game. And we kissed. And she leaned into it, and I barely had to tilt my head, and Stump is screaming, "So, say, what are you waiting for? Kiss her, kiss her!"

The part that makes my heart drop, even know, is how she blushed. No, not 'got flushed' or 'flustered'. She blushed. Eyes half closed, a submissive body language, a chin tilted down, a charming, classic blush, and she murmered--in a voice crackling with a certain I don't know what about it: "Tumble."

One of our--as she dubbed it--'cute little in-things'--that she was so proud of . It's simple, you see--a Tumble is a tumbling heart, and Pang is 'I feel a pang of missing you'. And 'Box' is when the box of all the things I like about you has gotten so big you had to upgrade to the next size. We said these things so much we had to shrink them down. Sickening, yes, but it's true. It's honestly fucking true, that girl used to be so overcome with how much she--as she said--loved me, that her heart would tumble and she'd feel the pangs and her box for me would get bigger and she always fucking...made me look at this stupid lens on my webcam so she could spend a few minutes staring at her display into my eyes.

True fucking story. I am -not- making this shit up.

She used to fall asleep in front of that webcam. She'd thank me all the time for how carefully I was treating her feelings. She'd cuddle into the pocket of my chest and grin up at me.

And, yeah, the groaning and the moaning and the begging and the claw marks and the love bites and the thighs squeezing around my head and the trembling and the spasming, shaking, violent orgasms she'd have. The disability to speak, the increased heart rate, the way she'd hold onto me with an oddly violent grip so she could stare into my eyes until the last glowing embers of spasms died away, before she'd let me prop myself up next to her.

She used to text me all the time with little favors of her affection. She'd excitedly tell me that she was logging into Skype. That we could look at each other for a while.

I remember telling that drunk bard that I was falling madly in love with that girl, and that she'd fucking--take that---that guy. Over there. Take that guy back as soon as he got jealous and territorial.

Drink his bourbon, he said. And I fuckin' did.

Out of sheer spite. Most angry drink I've ever had.

Months later, he--the kid in that other room. Keith.--he'd tell me my opinion in the situation didn't matter. Since I was just some guy she was burning time with, that in her grand scheme of guys--her little list he liked to remind me she had--that I didn't even have a named place on it. That when she recounted her experiences, she'd never bring me up. That I was just a little blip on her radar, that she doesn't even remember the times I shared with her, because honestly, they meant nothing to her.

No, he's not being an ass--she told me the same things. That she felt nothing in that first kiss, that she didn't even know we had been listening to Fall Out Boy that entire time, that she can't remember any box joke, that she never said anything about wanting to kiss me, that she never shivered and trembled at my touch and told me how

oh

my

god

talking

can't--

god--

oh--

the--

fu-fu-fu-f-f-f-f-uck, cameron

get-

down--
there--

that--

tongue--

never happened at all. That all the tears were nothing, that all the love was nothing, that every time she texted me she was texting god-knows-how-many-others, that all the things I clung to and found amazing and beautiful and shiny that she felt nothing for. That I was background noise for her.

Keith would tell me that how hurt I felt in this suitation meant nothing to him, that he honestly didn't care.

Oh. Right. For purposes of plot, she ends up sleeping with him a day after she slept with me. It breaks my heart. It felt wrong, it felt bad, it felt---well, I couldn't really point it out.

She said -- and she'd deny this now, of course --but she said what had happened easily amounted to her 'cheating' on me.

Well, I couldn't put it any other way. So have it her way.

Anyway, so she'd fervantly deny that there was anything between her and me. That I was just some nameless guy, some faceless mook, some accident on her bumpy path. But I called it, that drunken night. I told that guy, that stranger, that I loved that girl. Like really, fucking, honestly loved that girl. And that that guy in there--that guy who stuffed her heart in his pocket? He knew he could have her whenever. So he didn't care. Sure, yeah, he might love her too. But in that way where you don't really respect the person you love. In that way where you know they'll come to you so you take advantage of that. In that way where you feel okay with sleeping around and going behind her back and leaving her alone for months on end to follow your own shallow little desires, because you know if you come back with enough made up sorrow, you'd be forgiven.

"Like those fuckin' Christians going to church and only feeling bad on Sunday," I said. "No offense."

He raised his glass to me.

Yeah, of course I don't fucking matter. He matters, because he's a selfish prick and only thinks about himself. She matters--this month--because he decided she's what he wants to smoke right now. But as soon as Australlia or Japan or fuckin' Arizona calls, he'll be gone. Just like that. And she'll be waiting for him to come back. Just as easily. But I love her, man.

I was crying, talking to a stranger. I love her, man. So much. And she feels it, man. In return. She looks at me and you just know--that longing in her eyes, that twisting pang, that tumbling heart--she loves me, too.

But she's gonna forget as soon as he decides she needs to.

And hey.

I fuckin' called it.

She doesn't even remember feeling anything for me. I'm just guilty sex to her.

An other fuckin' cigarette.

I fell in love, one time.


-

Oh. The title. See, Susan means lotus, right? Like lillies? And so--yeah. Names are...you know, that's what I do. Words and stuff. Names. Yeah.

I'm bad with words, but...

Dedicative works are the hardest for me. To write, I mean- you're not just writing for yourself, when you get to that point. You're writing specifically to say something to someone and suddenly all your words are like weapons. You don't want them going off at the wrong time, you don't want to lose control and end up getting a different end result than you planned. Despite years of writing, I've never found myself secure in my ability--so it's almost like trying to give someone something you know is poor. Still, sometimes, I find myself the easiest way to say something is through text, rather than words. In a situation where you have the time to form your thoughts, and carefully express them.

...but I always write in stream of conciousness, so it's not like it's any different. So instead, I'll ramble here instead of saying anything directly to the person that I want to, because this is my secret little blog and that's what it's here for.

I want to tell you about beauty.

(an outstanding example of its kind)

The kind of beauty I find in a person. Not just the beauty I see in that person, in their graces or their smile or their eyes--but the beauty I feel in that person. Of a gentleness, a kindness, a warmth. This isn't the kind of person that could be considered beautiful in a prudish sense of the term: A beautiful girl who wears the right dress and uses the proper social charms, who donates to charity and works in a stellar field.

But it is the kind of person that exemplifies raw passion. Unmanufactured passion. The type of passion that doesn't require practice or a proper ruleset, but a passion that's unbridled and unapologetic in it's sheer intensity. This beautiful person feels wholly representative of just what it means to live. It isn't readily apparent in action or words, either--it's not in the way she treats life or how she enjoys it. It's not a fast car or hard drugs or loud music. But it's completely, obviously there.

And I don't know to express it so I can commend it--I can only think in terms of metaphor. She's a faerie, dancing on the edge of reality like a starburst. Does that make sense? As if she merely toying with the reality she was experencing. Like a bard making witty wordplay, or a musician flicking out a quick series of notes, or an artist splashing paint at the wall. As if she could take up the whole of the world in her hands and shake it down to the core, but instead, she just dips her fingers in the clouds and the oceans and kisses the tops of the mountains.

She has a beauty about her that doesn't stop at the way her body is held together, or the way her hair falls down. Her beauty is the spark of laughter in her eyes, the timbre in the words she wants to stress,

She would sigh, "I love you", and the timbre of that 'love' seemed more important than all the epic poems and all the soft rock songs and all the cute images of poorly drawn characters that you can find on the internet. Maybe it's baised due to the subject, but...

the way she tilts her head, her way with words, her way with her hands, the simple passion she has for the simple things, the almost desperate passion she has for the important things, the...

I can't really express it in words. I'm positive it's expressible, but to make it honest, and short, and--well, as raw as I possibly can--she's positively charming.

Bard (For a DnD 3.5e game)

A sword is pointed at my throat. I'm riddled with slashes, gashes, bashes, and even some smashes. I've seen the color of my blood more times than I care to mention. My stupid instrument sitting in my hand, fingers trembling too much to fret the strings, the sound of confusion and battle around me in this dark, dank little cavern. 'Dungeon'. Whatever. I can't even see the guys around me, weaving and dodging and slashing into whatever the hell it is we've gotten ourselves into this time. I want to cry (out) and run (into battle) and a thousand other hypocritical, conflicted emotions. But it's that screaming, burning heart that lead me down here in the first place. It's the reason I sing. It's the reason I play. Gods be Damned, it's the reason I live.

...but how, in Nine Hells, did I end up here? Like a lot of things, recently, that's a story. It's not a particularly epic tale, it's not even what you'd call atypical, but it's my story. And it's about a stupid little girl with stupid little dreams in a stupid little city with stupid little tears on her stupid little arms as she—stupid as ever—screams at a man going out to work. It's about a stupid little girl with stupid free time and a stupid passion for the arts in a world too dangerous for her to explore on her own. A stupid girl with the dream of walking in all those places of lore, a stupid girl with the aspiration to come home one day and say, “Daddy, I found this for you.” A stupid little orphan girl with a tale that's been told so many times that you don't even care. A story that you've heard so many times that you have no pity for the little orphan girl without a Daddy to come home to anymore, but in the end, it's my story. And my Daddy who's dead. Of course you don't care. But I do. And that pain, and that loneliness, that hole that I keep stuffing gold pieces and alcohol and new songs, and my adventures in, that spark of a grin when I learn something new or that feeling of being lost flying away every time I realize I'm crowing up—those chaotic, mix-matched, happy-and-sad, hot-and-cold feelings twist and turn in my heart like the gears and belts in a giant machine. It's where I find the inspiration to do everything I do. Human existence is a tragic tale: Constantly beset by the fear of death, the feeling of failure, the constant staring down at your own mortality in everything you do. Constantly, constantly, realizing that everything you do might mean nothing because when you die—it was all for naught. That screaming, flailing, exploding existence of the human soul is why we live. And it's the fuel for my aching heart and my crying eyes. It's the reason that, one day, coming come from my poor girl's job in a poor girl's world, closing the door behind me in that little city 'apartment', leaning against my wall and realizing that I was getting used to not expecting to see my father there like always, realizing I was letting him go, that I picked up that little guitar.

And poured some emotions on those six strings.

And it's the reason I left town, with not much more than a cloak on my shoulders, a guitar on my back, and a thousand stories being written in my head, all ready to burst out at any second. This stupid little girl, completely beset by wonderlust and completely fueled by the desire to put something constant under her feet, like the ground of pathways and the winds of journeys at her back—this stupid little girl decided she'd learn what it was like to live. So I traveled. Alone, for the most part. From city to city, picking up stories, doing odd jobs, learning to fend for myself and how to use a weapon and how to sweet talk my way into all sorts of good things. I learned to drink and be merry, I learned to sit down with a couple of complete strangers and just play music with them. I learned how to break a heart and mend it with a few chords, I learned how to kiss a man and how to make him tremble like a child. I learned how to say good-bye to good people.

Eventually, I learned the horrors of our little world, populated by points of light. I learned to travel in a pack of others, even if the alliance only meant anything from Town A to Town B, on the importance of having someone watch you while you sleep, of completely trusting someone to die for you because you'd die for them. Of learning to move forward in the worst weather, with the sounds of monsters in the forest around you. Of experiencing the feeling you get in your heart when your foot goes down further than it should, when you realize the panel you stepped on has activated some ancient, insidious trap designed to slaughter you for trespassing on ancient treasure and burial. ...and I learned, perhaps the most important part, was celebrating life in a joyous dance you learned from the tribal peoples you saved, or picking up stories from other travelers, or getting to TELL stories, in the grandest of stages, foot on the table filled with ale, the others crowded around you and your little black dress, catching onto words as if it was the only form of expression that really mattered: Of seeing people's face react with the twisting tales you told.

This stupid little girl ran away from home. This stupid, stupid girl learned the meaning of celebrating our mayfly lifestyle. This stupid, idiotic girl who cries herself to sleep when she's alone, who makes up songs she won't play for anyone, that's so afraid of death—kisses the Reaper every day she goes out spelunking or swording or singing. This girl who does a constant dance with Death because she's terrified of it—this stupid girl who lives by pushing herself to the limits of what humanity amounts to. ...that stupid little girl, stuck down here in some 'dungeon', with the group she's affiliated to currently—maybe it'll last a few more weeks, maybe they'll call it quits next time they get drunk—with blood on her fingers, twisting the lyrical magic she calls her own...

...that stupid little girl is always, always running. And I don't think she'll ever stop.

i hate it here.

I've realized no one lives here. Not really. I'm in a house where no one lives, to keep theme. I'm only here until I have a car and a solid job, and the owners are only here until they can afford to live anywhere else. It's a beautiful little house on a beautiful piece of property. There's ducks and geese in the yard and a big, watery marsh, and fresh air all around. Sometimes, at night, you can hear the waves from the far off beach. More often than that, you can hear the sounds of cars rushing past in the road so far away, and pretend.

But there's no real love for this house. There's insurance on it in the vein hopes that a hurricane comes through and pushes it over, scrambles it across this pretty little yard and tosses every wood plank in a different direction. To get rid of it, to destroy it, to ruin it--for an easy pay off, so it's easier to move away. There's no sentimental value here, there's no worth in these walls. It's only a few decades old, hell, I don't even think it's older than I am, and this is a house that's destined to be destroyed before anyone honestly calls it a 'home'.

It's the 'house'. A building filled with our stuff. Hell, my clothing is all still packed, all my possessions ready to scoop in a bag. If given a sudden invitation, I'd be ready to walk out the door in just an hour or so...counting the time it took me to shower and brush my teeth. There's no love in a house like this. It's just a means to an end. It's a house in which nobody lives. They just sleep here. And, to be a bit silly, to personify the house...a lonely house, out in the woods, looking out at a beautiful backdrop it can't move to, surrounded by people who honestly don't care for it, to use it without appreciation.

I guess I feel guilty for not loving the place that has my bed. Not loving the people I love with. Not loving the location I point to at a map if someone asks where they can find me. The place I play guitar, or write, or smoke. The place that has me so far away from a familiar face, somehow stuck here without a solid job, or even solid health.

I hate this place, because it represents being stuck in a town too small for me. It represents being trapped in a place I don't want to be. It represents loneliness and desolation from the bigger world. I'm a kid who's supposed to be in the city. I should have the ability to by cigarettes with a two minute walk, not twenty. I should be able to sneak down into a jazz club, bum a smoke off the doorman, and sit close enough to listen without paying to get inside. I should be able to stumble into someone I didn't expect to meet, or be worried about being mugged or feel a flush of excitement when I hear music coming from a place I didn't expect. Young people should urge me to come inside their dirty little home for a few beers and music.

I shouldn't be out in the country with an acoustic guitar I can't get to scream out, out so far away from my people, writing folk songs that no one will listen to. I shouldn't be singing with my horrible voice or crying in the shower or having a heat stroke from physical labor. But I am. And I'm dying.

Not physically, but I can feel that beat and rhythm of my personality and my desire and my love slipping away every day I wake up here and realize, without a doubt

I'm alone.

Oops.

"Oh, this is it," He says, pointing up towards the little radio. "This is that song everyone says they like and I thought I've never heard before. ...I like it."

He admits it sheepishly, as if it were a bit silly for him to enjoy it, or something along those lines. He's holding a chipped coffee mug and drinking it slowly, walking through the empty house while he carries on the conversation. About a nightmare, about quitting smoking, about the irony in being awake this early yet--somehow--late for work. He discusses his problems and advances with the guitar, he flexes and drinks his coffee and looks up at the ceiling and suddenly realizes that he's rather quite alone and he's been having a conversation with himself.

deletemeinthemorning.

Despite better intentions, maybe it's best if it's difficult to understand. There's that same wonder I always come back to: A shuffled deck and not sure what to expect next. You can understand the game, you can understand the tricks, but you'll never, ever, ever understand a random pattern.

You can find this pattern anywhere - from a simple game of cards to the complexity between people's hearts, which gives us the topic that's been burning itself through my brain the last few days. Desperate twitter attempts to capture it while it's raw and prime go off in vain, because every time I think I have it down I find myself at a loss of words. To explain the awkwardness, the misunderstanding, the absolute beauty you can find in something as simple as how two people meet each other.

It's more complicated than a shuffled deck, at least--small slights building up enough to break a relationship to the largest things being shrugged off with a slight smile, you're never quite certain how someone will take something. And sometimes it's neither extreme and you're too worried about failure to actually embrace the time you have. Walking on eggshells for the smallest things, just in case.

Just in case.

I'm not sure what I'm trying to say. It's 1 in the morning and I've been up for almost 24 hours straight now. Two packs of cigarettes, malls, guitaring, and god knows what else separates me from my last bit of dreaming, and I'm so desperate to just write it down without saying it directly. So ready to say it without saying it. Too afraid to just type it out. Or admit it. Or deal with it.

It's a question of social taboo and affection and all those horrible things that keep you from saying what you want to say. The box you put yourself in. The letter stitched to your chest.

It's so much easier to play the fool.

I'll try to make sense of this later. All I know is I feel sick to my stomach without really having a reason to. Wishing I was anywhere but my own bed--the bodies filling it are the ones I want to be there...and it's making me realize that's the opposite of what I want. Or need.

It's so frustrating. Angst, angst, angst, angst.

This'll be deleted eventually. Sorry for the ranting. I guess.

This is just the only place where no one else will read it.

This isn't right. This isn't proper. This isn't cool.

This is the sort of thing that breaks it all.

I'm just waiting for it to break. Linebreak, sentence, linebreak, sentence. I fail at formatting and typing like a proper gentleman. Hell, I fail at almost all the stops when it comes to being a proper gentleman, hahah. But that's always suited me just fine--and here I am regretting it. Not regretting a lifestyle choice, not regretting a bad habit, not regretting the way I handled things. Regretting the man I am, the people I've met, the places I've been. Regretting myself down to the very core. Hating myself for how I've handled everything up to this point, hating that I can't change it all just by wanting to. Hating myself completely for the very same things that people love themselves for. I don't want my box to be the box I put myself in--I would like to be in a different box. A different place. A different time. Anything that could change I need ot have changed because now I can't even explain why it is the way I am or how it is the way things are or even why I've mae it this way. But here I am, living my life, and it's a failure of one. I'm not proud of the things I do, I'm not skilled at the things I do, but I do them because that's what I've made for myself. I realize that I'm at the bottom of human existance simply because I'm not fond of myself. People tell you

you can't love others until you love yourself

And I'm skipping out on that all important aspect of ego: Pride. I have none. No pride in my hobbies, my abilities, my talents, my experiences, my accomplishments. They're dull and undefined already and looking at them down seems to make them stretch so far away they don't even matter. As if I could pluck myself from this Earth riht now and there wouldn't be a hole left. As if I were to be unmissed and unloved for this moment in time. For the simple reason that I am who I am, I'd rather be gone from everything rather than look at myself.

For, objectively, I'm the type of person I hate. So much self-loathing here not for attention because I'm my only reader. Self-loathing here not for style because that's anything but what matters. Honest, pure, straight-forward self-loathing. And all in all I'm not really that horrible of a person. I'm just not what I should be, not what I want to be, not what I thought I was. Instead I'm just...

You shuffle the cards and get a shit hand. It happens. But you can fold out. You can walk away. In real life, though, I've delt my OWN cards along with the ones the deck gave me. and my hand is horrible and I've done nothing to improve it. I've made good plays for other people's hands, sure--but for my own hand, I've dug myself so deep into a hole that the game isn't even worth finshing.

But there's no way to walk away from the table, is there?

"So," muttered cynically with a bad taste in my mouth, "This is love."

it'd be okay

So, I'm dying for a cigarette.

A cover of a song from years before I was born is blasting through my speakers. I know all the words, second-hand. I'm laying down, reclined against a window, in my bed. It's built for two, but I'm the only one who uses it. Laundry fills the gaps between here and the walls, my two doors that don't close correctly, empty packs of cigarettes. I used my finger open all the packs I saw, in case I had forgotten a cigarette down in a crease. Of course I haven't, but I look anyway.

And I curse gas stations for not accepting large bills.

But it's been two days since I've had a smoke and I think I'll be fine. Maybe I should stretch it out and see how long I can last. If anything, I can take it slow. Maybe bum one occasionally when the want gets too bad. It seems I'm learning to give up all the things I care about, recently. Cigarettes, various media, games, my relationships. But it's a lot better to give it up than to have it yanked away from you, I think. Although, I don't really know what I'm talking about.

Maybe if I loved you a bit less, it'd be okay.

a thousand-thousand text messages

I think if I haven't already, I'm coming up on having met a thousand people. I can't remember all their names or faces, but looking at the numbers of students in the schools I've gone to, the friends lists on instant messengers and web forums, and what have you, I think I've met at least a thousand people.

A thousand different lives and close to a hundred thousand problems (assuming, of course, ninety-nine) with a thousand faces and two thousand hands and eight thousand fingers (and two thousand thumbs), or at least a close estimate. At least one of those thousand was born without thumbs. One thousand dreamers, one thousand dancers, one thousand artists and one thousand assholes with one thousand smirks and one thousand broken hearts.

One thousand heartbeat rhythms (and only one really matters).
One thousand faces smiling in the dark (and only one really matters).
One thousand see-yas, good-byes, and other expressions of farewell.
One thousand.