two years ago, right around this time actually, i was arrested for drinking and driving. while my case was going through the courts, to be able to still drive back and forth to work, i had to sign up for a drinking and driving course, which i really was not looking forward to.
it was also during that time that we lost our second baby, before she was even born, at five months.
anyway, the course wasn’t all that bad, the instructor was nice enough, especially considering everything else that was going on. but one day, she made some point, the difference between a social drinker, a problem drinker and a flat out alcoholic.
“so waitaminute,” i interrupted, “because we’re all here, we’re Problem Drinkers?”
and she was beaming, nodding her head, as if some revelation should have dawned upon us.
what a crock of shit.
if i made myself vomit once, does that make me bulimic?
if i thought about suicide and hit the gas, does that make me suicidal?
if i beat someone senseless with my fists, does that make me a murderer?
if i cut myself, does that make me a masochist?
what utter shit. we’re so quick to put people in boxes, to categorize and label and fucking sanitize, keep in a corner, make safe, make fucking impotent and useless. so fucking quick to judge and dismiss, like we’ve got a full case load and no time at all to pay attention to the details.
it’s only the fucking details that matter, that makes us real to one another. without details we’re cardboard cut-outs, the kind you find at the 7-11, and just as trivial and disposable. we’re a fucking disposable society, we can’t wait to throw everything and anything away. god forbid the clutter, god fucking forbid we make a mess of anything. what a joke, what a waste.
no body fucking listens for the details anymore.
Category Archives: internals
thoughts, musings, life, etc
…
the crush of all-at-once
the all-at-once, breathing everywhere, where have i been, the all-at-once being, cannot make sense of it, breathing, remember to breathe, did you breathe before this, before taking this on, did you forget to breathe, where have you been breathing, stop breathing, stop breathing like this, pushing it down, push it down, the hand on the chest, holding it there, pushing, holding it there, hold it there, breathing, have you breathed today, hold that one breath, everywhere, the all-at-once, one last breath, one last hand pushing, push it down without breathing, crush it down, crush this last breath, without stopping, turning away, stop turning away, stop breathing, one last time, let it go, let it go all-at-once, never let it be all-at-once, just be all-at-once, at all sides, the swirl everywhere, where can i go, further than this, where further this breathing, how to breathe further than this, without stopping, how do i go on without stopping all-at-once?
what you’re good at
“the only real thing you are good at,” he says, sitting and swaying the chair back and forth on the rear two legs, ashtray overflowing, the table pock-marked and scarred.
“I mean the only real thing you have talent for,” he stops dead and straight, “is breaking things. that’s it. nothing else.”
false start
up in the night, she found pen and paper, asked for a clock with a second hand, she’s been going through contractions.
and at once i am fearful and jolted, excited and awash with how quickly, how immediate the future can slam into you. i get out of my sweats, wash up, put on a shirt and some jeans and my sneakers. ready to go.
she says, they’re irregular, most likely, as the doctor said, since the baby hasn’t dropped, it won’t be until next week. i tell her to get some rest, but she wants to keep track, just in case, so she leaves on the light. i go back downstairs.
i sleep in the living room instead of the basement just in case we need to leave in a hurry. she says, i don’t want to have the baby in this house.
and because we don’t have a couch in the living room and the loveseat is too short i sleep on the floor and toss and turn along the slats of wood and find comfort in each and every ache it brings.
it’s really gong to happen isn’t it?
a son any day now
closing the 37th week and he’s bound to arrive any day now. i am frightened and wound up. i am excited and filled with dread, everything will change yet again. the 1st week is the hardest, then the month eases out.
but still, i am more fearful now than i was with my daughter. we were different people then, it seems so long ago. and the comparisons between my own father and how i will be with my son. what lessons do i have for him about being a man?
i barely have a handle on what it means to be a boy.
there’s this huge monolith out there that puts pressure on us to behave as our bodies have defined us. expectations based on our sex. roles subtly shoved down our throats. taunts and threats should we tow the line or get out of character.
and there are my sins, the things i’ve done and seen in my life. the women i’ve used and intentionally hurt. the women that in turn abandoned me. the men whose teeth i’ve smashed with my elbows and fists or those i’ve stolen from. what do i tell my son of that?
with ioanna, there was hope in the difference between our genders. with my son, everything that makes me a man today is thrown into question.
let’s play a tune
and every time he plays with her body it’s a new kind of tune, like something climbing up out of the depths, ancient and old but utterly new and wonderful. he feels her skin across his own like some harmony that reverberates back and forth through time and shakes the cobwebs off his eyes. and when he reveals her pussy the scent of her fills him up, hardens him and urges him, demands of him to inspect this fruit even closer, to ripen it, to open it, to taste it, to quell his hunger and sate her own. and when she takes his prick and massages it he feels an excitement that is at once illicit and natural, as if they were always meant to be like this, hand and mouth on cock, hand and mouth on cunt, eternally. and the chords strike even harder, sharper when she eases his dick inside her, where the sound gets lost in her throat but just escapes and the music plays havoc with him as he becomes lost to their rhythm. until he cums or she cums or they cum, it doesn’t matter, something gets lost in the translation, some thing gets translated between them, some satisfaction that is primal and comforting, staying within her, her staying with him, their bodies still close, breathing in one another. and it isn’t as if he can ever have enough of her, the ghost echoes of desire shoot through him in the night, in his sleep when he believed he already had his fill, finds himself wanting again, wanting to play again a tune that starts from within him and all too soon ends within her.
all liquor conversations
all conversations with the liquor are good ones.
inner dialogs run amok settle down for peace treaties with the liquor.
the liquor lays out lateral logic and associative desire and sets things straight.
all demons are negotiated with, hidden children are brought to light and glorified, unreasonable memories are let loose and forgotten, no one is left out.
the liquor brokers and sorts through real and imagined pain and allots each moment its proper place.
a troubled soul comes to the liquor and finds a way out, be it through violence, tears or laughter, it finds release and the liquor is proud of it.
how about this
how about this? he said and he cut open the inside of his forearm and teased out the tendons with the edge of the knife. when he was done with that, he placed the knife down and pulled the skin open a little more, the edges tearing a bit, there’s so much blood, and he works his fingers inbetween the muscles that drape over the bones. it’s warm and clammy and familiar. of course when he flinches the muscles twitch, and he coughs a bit to keep from vomiting. when he can finally see the space just between the ulna and the radius, he takes the cigarette from his mouth and puts it out in there, inside his arm, the cigarette gasping, him wincing, him laughing, him weeping, because it doesn’t even come close to what’s already inside his head.
her weapon
and in my dream she comes to me, naked and pristine, one side of her ribs cracked open, a shattered window, a gaping hole where her heart would have been and she smiles brilliantly like happiness and i break into a million pieces because i am holding her heart in my own hand and the blood is thick and slick in my fingers and i have to grip it even harder lest it escape, restless, hot and wild, this magnificent muscle, and there she was bleeding out of her heart and out of the wound and i walk up to her and with my other hand, to try to to stem the flow and suddenly she touches my chin and brings my mouth to hers, her kiss, tongue and teeth and lip, and i falter, i ask,
“am i your weapon?”
and i fall to my knees with my head against the concrete and i slam against it but it isn’t hard enough, i cannot beat my skull in fast enough to match the beat of her heart, just this pathetic wet sound of skin having been broken but the bone too stubborn to break and she kneels beside me and caresses my hair and does not ask me to yield, i turn to her and shove her heart back into the wound, scraping it, damaging it yet again but i can not hold it anymore, i skin my knuckles with the effort, bite off the sides of my tongue, but shards of ribs trap my hand, slicing around my wrist as i twist and tug and find myself relieved to see i am spilling open into her, i can see the marrow, i see myself laughing and she touches my cheek and i am not afraid, i am so utterly lost and hopeless, and she whispers,
“no. i am yours.”