Let It Kill You

Title: Let It Kill You

You Actor’s: Kevin and Joel Staging: Kevin lite in a spotlight sitting on left side of stage.

Joel lite in a spotlight on the right side of stage. 3:07 am phone rings. (Clock on bedstead shows the time)

Kevin, “How did this happen?”

Joel, “What time is it? How did what happen?”

Kevin, Ya know, there’s something I just discovered. You can fall in love in the course of a second, in the blink of an eye. But falling out of love can take years. Little things start to imperceptibly build up, change, irritate—— aggravate——infuriate. Did I ever really love her? Where’s did it all go? Love? When did it go bad? Does love have a expiration date? Why the hell did this happen? I can hurt her or I can stay unhappy.”

Joel, “Dude, it’s three something in the morning.”

Kevin, “I don’t even hear what she’s saying anymore. It’s just background murmurings, like the drip of a leaky faucet’s. I’m constantly saying ‘What? What did you say?’ I don’t think she hears me either. We’ve tuned each other out. We’re sharing the same bed, but fighting different demons, chasing different dreams.”

Joel, “Have you been drinking? I told you not to call me when you’ve been drinking. Morning will be here soon. Take some deep breaths, take an Ambien. Turn on the TV and watch some infomercials or the Fox channel, that will put you ass to sleep.”

“Kevin,“I feel the darkness inside me. I wanna be happy again. What do I have to give up to feel alive again? A divorce will leave me flat ass broke. My daughters will side with their mother and I’ll probably never see them again.”

Joel, “As the saying goes——shit happens. Are you still chasing that young skirt at your office? How long have you been married?”

Kevin, “34 years.”

Joel, “Now listen to me. Everybody is struggling with their existential crises. Life is a grind with its meaningless jobs, empty marriages, pretend love, endless bills, too little passion, to many petty arguments over petty shit, relationship betrayals, people unexpectedly die. This life is thwarted with the ‘what once was, what is now and worries about about what will tomorrow bring. Life is a tangle of knots that we all struggle to untie. After 34 years there’s a lot of tangles to undo. Some just cut the rope in the hopes of starting over again. There is no starting over again, you can’t separate yourself from your past selves, or your past choices. You drag all your shit along with you. Life just keeps happening with or without your consent. If you can’t sleep try counting sheep, pray to your god, take an Ambien and call me in the morning.”

(The phone call ends and then the sound of a dial tone).

The phone rings. Bedstead clock reads 6:13am

Joel, “Hello, are you there?” Kevin, “Who the hell is this?” Joel, “It’s me, Joel.” Kevin, “Do you know what time it is?”

Joel, “Yeah, it’s early. Pay back is a bitch. If you can call me in the middle of the night, then I can call you back at the crack of dawn. You asked me about how things happen. Things happen because we forget what matters. We waste our time. We let worries consume us. We stop having fun. How’s that saying go? ‘We don’t stop playing because we get old. We get old because we stop playing.’ We end up playing parts that no longer fit. Now listen to me. We’re all gonna die. All of us. And you’d think that would make us want to be kinder and honest with one another. But it doesn’t. We become selfish bastards wanting more. More this, more that. More stuff and things to plug the holes in our lives. We go out there looking for love and happiness—— but—-life becomes a train wreck happening in slow motion. Love is riddled with compromises and sacrifices. Love is no good unless it’s tested now and again. Maybe nothing lasts forever. But when that magic feeling hits you, it’s as if you’re the only one who’s ever experienced that sweet madness. Pussy can make a man do some crazy shit. Careful not to confuse sex with love.

” Kevin, “I try, I really try. But the love I want no longer exists in my marriage. I wanna feel real love again. I need a connection with someone. I got to have this. If mortality has taught me anything, it’s that this life is too short to waste it trying to bring back to life to something that’s dead and gone. When I’m with Katlin we talk about life and love. We laugh, we get each other. And there’s no substitute for that feeling of being understood. So many people are imprisoned by the mundane. Boring people talking about boring shit. All their time spent rattling on about nothing. I don’t wanna talk about politics or the weather, I just wanna take a drive with her in the country with the windows down and good music playing on the radio. And, for a few minutes I can forget about the cruel world out there waiting for me. Something as simple as that makes me happy. But nothings gonna change unless I change.”

“How did this happen? We get forced into a corner, doing the same things day in and day out. The same arguments, the lonely nights lying in bed next to someone who no longer knows me, and doesn’t even try to understand me. And I’ve tried to understand her, but I don’t. We’re speaking different languages. I just wanna feel free and alive. Katlin has a way about her. She has that unexplainable sexual energy. Her touch is electric. It’s not just the sex, it’s an indescribable connection. If you’ve never had it, then you’ll never understand what I’m talking about.”

Joel, “34 years? It’s an unfair game with unfair rules. A sixty something wife can’t compete with a thirty something mistress. Be careful, be very careful. Love is boring——while infatuation may be exciting, but it’s often times fleeting. A true love should be like a fine bottle of wine, getting better with age.”

Kevin, “Nah, love is more like old cheese, it gets green, hard and smelly.” “I wanna be drunk on love. I wanna take my clothes off and dance naked in the kitchen kind of love. And Katlin would do crazy shit like that with me. I could wait another 34 years and that’s something Mary would see as stupid and ridiculous. She just does’t have it in her to be wild and crazy. To be fun. She’s always has to be in control. I fucking hate being controlled.”

Joel, “So, you’re saying this new girl is a nut like you? A naked dancing idiot? Give Katlin 34 years and she might tell you to put some clothes on and take the garbage out and stop acting a fool. Life is full of boring necessary chores. You have to be practical, responsible.”

Kevin, “Fuck being practical. I’d take 2 years of real love over 34 years of practical, predictable—-stale love. Marriage is impractical. It’s absurd to think two people can stay in love through an entire lifetime. People change. People grow apart. You can’t un-curdle sour milk. Once its gone bad, there’s no going back and making it good again.”

Joel, “So, now you wanna run off with this young chickadee and leave everything and everyone behind. Spend your days living on the beach and making a living selling conch shells to the tourists. God, you’re such a dreamer. You can’t sale off your past like pieces of junk at a garage sale.”

Kevin, “The heart wants what the heart wants.This emotion, this thing called love is powerful. It makes me believe in things again, it makes the colors brighter, the sound of birds singing sound louder. It opens up my chest and lets the fresh air in. Every breathe is a rebirth. Two hearts beating as one.”

Joel, “Dude, you got it bad. There’s a fine line between love and fantasy. Passion can turn out to be a passing fling. Love is a drug, it’s a mixture of chemicals in your brain. It’s addictive. It can save your life, or it might destroy you. Love is like Fentanyl, you never know if it’s going to kill you or give you that warm and fuzzy feeling in the pit of your belly. When it’s forbidden it’s at its strongest, the more dangerous the better. It can bring out the best in you, or it can bring out the worst in you. Beware, some willingly die for it, some vengefully kill for it.”

Kevin, “But In spite of it all, with its good and the bad, life without love isn’t worth living. Bro, I’m torn and twisted. This life is funny, once you’re woke 4 it hard to fall back to sleep, literary and figuratively, if ya know what I mean? This thing is driving me crazy. Thanks for listening to me. I owe ya one.”

Phone is hung up, then the sound of dial tone. (Phone rings) (Clock on bedstead reads 2:47am)

Joel, “Yeah, hello Kevin.”

Kevin, “How did you know it was me?”

Joel, “Uh, let me see now, is it because you’re the only person who calls me in the middle of the fucking night asking me to help them unravel the mysteries of love and life. Have you been drinking again?”

Kevin, ”Did I wake You?’

Joel, “Of course not. I was just rearranging my sock drawer at 3am in the morning.”

Kevin, “I’m gonna do it. I’m leaving her.”

Joel, “Dude, don’t say stuff like that unless you’re mind is clear and you’re sober. Drunken decisions lead to bad outcomes. Life is hard, but harder yet, when you’re drunk and stupid. You’d better remember, you’ve got a lot on the line.”

Kevin, “I don’t want a pretend love any more. I need something real. Do you think I’m doing the right thing?” Joel, “If you’re asking for answers, I don’t have any. You’re not looking for advice, you’re looking for someone to offer you their approval. When it’s your circus, it’s up to you to decide who’s the the clown. No, you’re more like the tight rope walker, the circus flyer. You’re in a no win situation. You’re walking that tight rope, with no net. You’re gonna fuck around and find out. And the more you fuck around the more you’re gonna find out.”

Kevin, ”Find out what?”

Joel, “You stay with your wife and you’ll be forever unhappy. All her little quirks and nuances that once were adorable will become annoyances. Her touch will make you recoil. You’ll forever be comparing her to that young little love tart. You’ll ache for that girls touch. You’ll imagine her in one of those short see through sun dresses. But, then again, If you go all in with this chick, then you’ll be starting all over again. And it ain’t easy starting over when you’re in your sixties. You’ll end up living in some shitty little apartment with her and her snotty nosed kid. This is where pretend love meets real life. She won’t be walking around the apartment complex in sexy skirts, she’ll be wearing three day old sweats. Someone will have to do the laundry, wash the dishes, sweep the floor, pay bills, get gas in the car, fix dinner and feed the kid. It’s that cliche, old man has an affair with pretty co-worker and loses everything. Broken vows lead to broken hearted old fools. And there ain’t no fool like an old fool. Is it worth it to lose your house, the respect of your children and break the heart of the woman who bore you children and who stood by you for 34 years. Old love doesn’t stay young and pretty, but it does remain tried and true. Brother, like I said, you’re in a no win situation. You are not going to be happy regardless of which choice you make. Have you ever tried marriage counseling?”

Kevin, “Marriage counseling at best will only clarify all the reasons I no longer want to stay married. You go there and they expect you to air all your raw personal ugly shit to a perfect stranger. You end up talking to some counselor who’s the age of my daughter, who thinks her psychobabble is going to mend the relationship between my wife and I. She doesn’t realize that we’re two old bumbling warriors with many years of treachery between us. What the hell does she know about life and love at her age. I need a counselor who’s ancient and gnarled, someone who’s seen enough to be suspicious of life and pessimistic about love. I want a counselor who looks as old as Clint Eastwood and wears that same angry sneer. I really don’t want to expose all my insecurities and vulnerabilities to somebody who keeps asking, ‘And how does that make you feel?’. It makes me feel like shit, how bout that for honesty and personal growth. And then having to explain why I can’t get a hard-on anymore cause fucking the same women for 34 years just doesn’t get me excited anymore. No thank you. Falling out of love isn’t a disease, it doesn’t require a cure. I don’t know how or why it happens or where it goes, it just happens. Falling out of love is like aging, little aches become unbearable pains.”

Joel, “Just be careful man. Co-workers can pick up on that sappy vibe between two love struck fools. You think it’s a secret, but it gradually becomes obvious to everyone else that you have goggly eyes for one another. Fishing off the company pier has its dangers. Then one day you’re called up to HR and given your walking papers. You’re playing with fire. I know you can’t see it, because you’re blind sided by love——-You’re deep into it. I’m worried about you man. I’d say have a good night, but I don’t think that’s in the cards. Love always has strings attached, ulterior motives and power struggles. Buenos noches mi amigo.”

Phone hangs up, and then just the sound of a dial tone. 6:00 am, phone rings: Kevin, (In a groggy voice)

Kevin “Oh hell no. You know I don’t do mornings.”

Joel, “Good morning sunshine?”

Kevin, “Sunshine my ass. You don’t seem to understand. I’m going crazy. This is my last chance to have my story end with a happily ever after. Am I asking to much, is it so wrong to want a sliver of happiness?”

Joel, “There’s fleeting happiness and then there’s lasting contentment. I wish I could help you, but I can’t. Contentment is something only you can give yourself. Contentment isn’t exciting, it isn’t skipping hand and hand through life. LIfe’s is fucking hard. It’s full of challenges, and thankless jobs and unrecognized sacrifices. And at the end of the day it’s you——-it’s just you that has to learn to live with yourself. Let you conscience be your pillow. Should you stay, should you leave, should you turn right, turn left? I don’t fucking know. Nobody knows. There’s no guarantees, no instruction manual. Most everyone is hanging on by their fingernails.”

Kevin, “Sometimes all I have left is the realization that I need to let go. To say fuck it. There’s no lonelier feeling than being with someone who makes you feel even lonelier. I want love to be fun. I want to be happy. I wanna feel alive. I don’t want every little thing to seem so serious, so freaking heavy, weighing me down and wearing my ass out. I don’t want to worry about saying the wrong thing, navigating my way through an emotional mine field, only to end up in another stupid argument.”

Joel, “Maybe you can’t go back to that feeling of falling in love, making out in the backseat of your daddies big ole Buick. Maybe love is something that morphs into different things at different stages of life.”

Kevin, “Yeah, and maybe love dies a slow painful death. And, once it’s gone, it’s never coming back. I doin’t want to end up like one of those old couples you see sitting across from one another at a restaurant wearing drawn blank stares. Sitting there in total silence, nothing left to say except pass the salt please.”

Joel, “Perhaps you’re mistaking silence as contempt, when its just being comfortable with having nothing to say or share.”

Kevin, “Or, maybe all that ever needed to be said or shared has already been said and shared. Spontaneity and romance is replaced by monotony. Shit, have I wasted the last 34 years with the wrong person?”

Joel, “You can’t ask someone to be something they’re not. You got to learn to love someone for who they are, not what you want them to be. That’s not reality.”

Kevin, “Fuck reality, I’m searching for the sublime and the magic that makes life worth living. I don’t know where this is all leading, but I’m going. Ya see, you can do everything right, eat good, exercise, go to church, pay your taxes and help old ladies across the street, but without inspiration, without adventure, it’s a life wasted. Waisted on waiting for things to change, that are never gonna change. Nothing changes until I change. There in lies the rub. No one can live my life for me. I woke up one day and realize I’ve been living a lie. Trapped in a meaningless job, marooned in a loveless marriage. Its grinding me down as one day bleeds into the next, until one day I just said, “fuck it” what do I have to lose?”

Joel, “I think you’ve listened to one to many love songs, watched to many chic flicks. Marriage is a job, it takes work.”

Kevin, “What the hell happened to you?. When did you become obliged to just settle for table scraps. You’ve become one of those people who turns love into a job, a chore, a drag. If love were a job——then what they’re paying surely ain’t enough. Cause, you don’t get paid overtime and you 8 don’t get to take weekends off, no holidays, no vacations. If love were a job, I’d go on strike.”

Joel, “Let me ask you this. Is your heart beating right now?”

Kevin, “Of course it’s beating.”

Joel, “How do you know? Are you hooked up to a heart monitor? Are you taking your own pulse right now? How do you know your heart is beating?”

Kevin, “Well, I haven’t killed over dead yet, have I?”

Joel, “You just take it for granted that your heart is beating. And you take it for granted that your wife loves you. You mumble some vows and promises about loving someone for better or worse, through sickness and health. But you’re just speculating that this person at the alter will be the same person in 34 years. It’s a lie. Love changes, moves, morphs, It’s a moving target.”

Kevin,“Yeah, is that why cupid shoots arrows into fluttering hearts? When do the reasons to leave out weight the reasons to stay? Jesus, why does love have to be so hard?”

Joel, “Love is complicated. It means different things to different people. For some it’s security, to others it’s great sex, for some financial security and for others someone to split the bills with. Sometimes it’s someones hand to hold in the darkest of nights. For some, it’s sharing meals, or simply the comfort of hearing someones footsteps coming down the hall in the morning. People expect to much out of love. At best we’re all needing someone to love and someone to love us back. That’s the secret to life. And that’s all there is. So, we forgive one another and carry on.”

Kevin, “Or, maybe people expect to little out of love. They settle, they do without, they no longer touch or kiss, they no longer hear the other persons voice or see their desperation. When does love become connivance, indifference——work? Maybe Thoreau was right when he said, ‘The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation, and go to the grave with the song still in them.’ Love should make you want to sing and not leave you mute.”

Joel, “There’s the old Chinese proverb that says, “A bit of fragrance clings to the hand that gives flowers. Maybe love is more about giving than taking?”

Kevin, “Maybe once the flower is picked, the bloom begins to wilt, the scent dissipates and the garden goes dormant. Is that a tad bit pessimistic or what? How do we keep love alive?”

“I’ve never been one to believe in soulmates and all that new age crap. But damn, there’s this feeling she gives me. I don’t want to lose it. I’ve known love, but nothing ever as strong as this. It’s as if she’s always known me and I’ve always known her. Regardless of the pain and misery this thing has brought me, I’m still glad it happened.”

Joel, “Shit happens. Sometimes you step in it. Love makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. It can’t be qualified, quantified, measured, weighed, seen or touched. It’s a fools game. Over fifty percent of the marriages will end in divorce. It’ll bring out the worst and the best in you. It will destroy you, it will give you wings. What is love? Is it only a case of hormones gone wild? Is love at first sight real? Is it a check list of things required to qualify as love? Is it finding someone with compatible Zodiac signs? Is it chemistry? Is it even real?”

Kevin, ”I suppose It’s like the Easter Bunny Santa and four leaf clovers. Believe in them for as long as you can. It doesn’t matter how it happens, or why it happens. All that matters in life, is that love does happen. And good luck if it unexpectedly happens to find you.”

Joel, “So, what are you going to do? Join the Foreign Legion, consult a witchdoctor, write a sad country song about the woes of love?”

Kevin, “Katlin once said to me, ‘don’t say you love me, treat me like what you think that word means. Cause, love is such an overused word, it’s meaning has lost its potency, it’s a cliche of a cliche.’”

“She could get away with saying shit like that because she’s deep, she’s smart—she’s authentic. She’s got a poet’s heart. She cuts through all the bullshit and puts her words together in a way that makes me shake my head and smile. She pierced my heart. I’ve never known anyone like her. And I’m sure I’ll never meet another person as real and transparent as her 10 ever again. My love for her has nothing to do with her looks, although I think she’s absolutely beautiful. It has nothing to do with sex, but she’s has a way of making loving fun. It has nothing to do with politics or religion. Calling this indescribable connection as love (whatever that means) is selling the emotion short.”

“She saved me, she ruined me. Before her, I thought I was content. But now I can’t un-feel what she made me feel. She makes me laugh, she makes me feel good, she makes me a better person. No one has ever been able to do that.”

Joel, “So, what are you going to do?”

Kevin, “Sometimes you don’t get closure, you just gotta decide to either carry on or to move on.”

Joel, “There’s never two loves that are the same. I guess you’re gonna have to decide which version of love is right for you. But, whatever you do, don’t go and get yourself a love tattoo. Cause, it’s a lot easier to have one inked into your skin, but much more painful and expensive to have it removed. Kind of like love, if ya know what I mean.”

Kevin, “It’s too late. I already got one on my arm.”

Joel, “What does it say?”

Kevin, It says ’Love’ followed by a question mark.” Joel, “Love is a freaking unexplainable mystery. I wish you good luck with your once dreamed of ‘Happily Ever After’ ending. With that said, I wish you a good night.”

Kevin, “Yeah, and the same back at you. I’ll leave you with a Bukowski quote, ‘Find what you love and let it kill you’’’

(The phone clicks, then the sound of a dial tone). 11 12 

Grand Canyon

Who knows why anyone ends up where they do? Or, how well they do, whatever they do, once they get there?—-that’s an odd sentence, but I like it for some strange unknown reason. Odd things and people have always been good friends to me.  Friends and family scatter, some are chasing something others are running away from something. But I suppose we’re all getting there—–wherever “there” may be? It’s hard for me to conceive that I’ve lived in Tahoe for 35 years—–and yes, where does the time go? Days go by like the raindrops that carved out the mighty Grand Canyon. Nature is patient, silent, unrelenting—-and unforgiving to those who might challenge her.
 
I noticed that I’ve used a lot of question marks in my prior sentences.  As I’ve gotten older, I realize that I have a lot more questions than answers. Time is such an abused but precious commodity. I have to remind myself of that. I’m feeling a bit nostalgic, sentimental or just kind of self conscious. Sorry if I’m not making much sense, but as you must know, that’s nothing new. 
 
The wind is howling outside my window, sometimes so hard that it shakes my house. It takes a lot to shake a house and even stronger forces to revive a love. I like the painting by Andrew Wyeth of the dog sleeping on the bed. I miss my old black Lab named Chase. Such a faithful friend. When all the world was too busy to go hiking, biking or whatever, I could always count on my Chasey-Boy to be ready and willing to go anywhere with me and I with him. Dogs are great practitioners of unconditional love. People should be more like dogs, but not pee on fire hydrants. 
 
 

Duct Tape And Hope

Life is fleeting, time can be cruel, money has wings——and in the end what matters most are the seemingly insignificant forgotten moments. It’s the ones who we surround ourselves with that matters, the ones who make us laugh at ourselves and help us to untether from this claustrophobic existence. Those honest ones, who in spite of ourselves cause us to wanna be a better person. But in the end we’re exposed as frauds and not what we had hoped to be.—- Hope is duct tape.

Unrealized dreams, fitful nights, trust betrayed, falling through that trapdoor in a used up life. Illogically, love is something that comes from nothing, like the meandering melancholy melodies of Chet Bakers trumpet on the tune “My Funny Valentine”. 

How can something so simple tie knots in tangled hearts. How many lives are wrapped within one life. Ends become beginnings. Promises and vows are watered down “what use to be’s”. Sadly, there are no second chances, only the impulsive choices we must now learn to live with. 

Loneliness makes its home in the heart of old loves that in time have become contrite.

Those Were The Days

Sorry I can’t make it to your mothers Celebration of Life event. This will be my final installment to Jeanne’s letter writing project. I hope she enjoyed the previous eight letters I sent to her while she was in the rest home. I hope they comforted her and made her laugh or perhaps cry—- my stories and words were intended to help her relive some of those good ole days we shared on Briar Lane. I can’t be there to tell my story in person, but if there is a place where pictures and such are being displayed, perhaps you can post this letter.

I’m going back, I’m going way back in time. Back to the 70’s. Back to when classic rock wasn’t something you now hear being played in the produce department of Safeway. There is something unsettling about listening to Van Halen “You Really Got Me” on the store sound-system as I watch an elderly woman examine the firmness of a zucchini. 

 No, I’m going back to when rock and roll was still rebellious and social networking was hollering out your car window at girls in their cars—I can still recall those hot summer Yuba City nights and that distinctive scent of rotten peaches lingering in the stale night air. It’s the end of August and another summer is slipping away. The sound of crickets, bullfrogs and a lone barking dog make up the evenings chorus. Thoughts of returning to school leaves me feeling flat and uninspired. This is the stuff that keeps a small agriculture town like Yuba City forever tucked away at the edges of my memories. We all carry pieces of our hometowns within us. Rainy days playing monopoly, making jokes to hide our insecurities, experiencing an awkward first kiss, playing baseball in a weed strewn field, climbing the levee for a swim in the the river——and coming to appreciate the value of being part of our Briar Lane gang——-where we made friendships to last us a life time.

Back then, on our block we played outside until it got dark or someone’s mom hollered “Supper time”. Yeah, “those were the days”. That’s what old farts use to say to me when I was a kid. I thought that was a bunch of nonsense, but now that I’m an old fart, I find myself muttering “Those were the days”. I suppose, ya don’t know somethings, until you’re ready to know them. Sometimes it’s too late——- and there’s nothing worse than being too late. Too late to share a morning walk, too late to share an evening sunset. Too late to share all those seemingly insignificant moments that comprise a lifetime. Too late to say the things you always intended to say. Things like, thanks for always being on my side, thanks for believing in me when no one else did——thanks for loving me—-cause that ain’t always such an easy thing to do——just ask my wife.

So there you lay and here I stand. Although you no longer inhabit your body and it no longer imprisons you——-I will always carry your voice and memory within me. Somethings are immortal. Somethings never die. 

Jeanne——mother, wife, friend, neighbor, teacher, counselor, life learner, strong and courages, gone but never forgotten.  And to you I proudly say—— “I love you”.

Victor S. Uriz II

Briar Lane Poet Laureate  

I’m Stuck with you, You’re Stuck with me

Tell me daddy, what makes the sun burn so bright

Who turns on the moon, when it gets dark at night

Oh Daddy, what makes the wind blow

Who turns on the rain, who freezes the snow

Tell me Daddy, why’s the ocean so blue

Who decorates the flowers, with morning dew

Someday my son, you’ll be a man

You’ll see, it’s all part of a plan

What you take, and what you give

Gonna come back to you, in this life you live

Love is all, we came here for

Nothing less, nothing more

One day son, you’ll leave home

You’ll find love, and have children of your own

You’ll teach them all, all ya know

You’ll wish them well, then ya gotta let-em go

You can choose your friends, but not your family

So I guess I’m stuck with you, I guess you’re stuck with me

Someday my son, you’ll be a man

You’ll see it’s all part of a plan

What you take, and what you give

Comes back to you, in this life you live

Love is all we came here for

Nothing less, nothing more

Things I Had To Find Out

I remember my first apartment. It never felt like home, it was sparse and empty. It smelled of stale cigarets and flat beer. But I needed to go there and find things out for myself. I had to rid myself of parents and daily routines of doing chores——that draining feeling of being someones child, being someones pride and burden. It’s an awful feeling of being young and realizing that you’re going nowhere fast. Failure is a brutal teacher. 

I thought it was going to be a lot different. I dreamt that there’d be girls, all kinds of girls. Girls dancing with me in the dark, spending their nights in my ramshackle pad. I thought there’d be late night parties, beer for breakfast and never having to make my bed or mow my dad’s lawn. But mainly, it ended up being me and a couple of buddies sitting on my broken down couch, smoking pot and drinking the cheapest beer we could find. 

We found out the hard way that the girls wanted boys with fancy cars and college bound incomes. They went for the boys who were going to Cabo for Spring Break and living off the money their parents gave to them freely. 

Me and my buddies spent long nights hanging out in my dimly lit apartment. Our big plans veiled the fear that our dreams were like all those pretty girls, untouchable, just out of reach. And it ached deep down to watch them walk by, hand in hand with their privileged preppies. They left a trail of republican stench in their wake. 

As for us, we were never going to comprises and end up working for “the man”. We were going to travel, see the world, have grand adventures and yes, we’d find carefree girls too. But we found out that everything had a price, everything cost money.  The fast-food jobs sucked, and the jobs working at the Canneries were tedious, heartless and grueling. We were constantly being fired for showing up late, or being hungover and not showing up at all. We were  expendable to “the man”. Our only refuge was the broken down apartment where we could exchange big ideas and plot out our untested futures. 

But, this world is designed to castrate young men and squeeze every last drop of life out of them. They wanted us to be content working at their mindless, meaningless, soul sucking jobs that were designed to make us feel insignificant, replicable. Replaceable like a worn out part or broken piece of machinery. They enjoyed watching us fight each other over the table scraps they tossed us. 

There would be a string of rundown apartments, quicksand jobs and that sound of silent screams of someone under water, someone suffocating. The American Dream was a con, a lost cause, a carrot dangling just out of reach, but close enough to keep us plodding along like dimwitted plow horses. 

So, one day I woke up and I stopped trying to be something or somebody. I stopped, shook my head and walked away from it all, from the city and its constant drone of nothingness. Along with its horde of brainwashed proletariat working stiffs, who’s only purpose was to make the rich richer. They worked at dreadful jobs to pay the mortgage on houses they left empty so that they could go to work and pay their mortgage. They got loans to buy cars that they drove from home to work and from work to home in a vicious circle. It all seemed so senseless to me. There was nothing there for me. I had no use for that world that once left me feeling insignificant. I moved to the mountains and never looked back. I found purpose hiking in the woods and sharing sunsets and sunrises with fellow pariahs.

Like I said “I had to find things out for myself”.

Two Ticks Of A Clock

Between two ticks of a clock

A baby inhales its first breath

Between two ticks of a clock

An old man exhales his last threats

Between two ticks of a clock

Lives may be changed, forever swallowed up

Between two ticks of a clock

Names and days may forever be forgotten 

Between two ticks a clock

Someone falls in love for the first time

Between two ticks of a clock

Someone falls out of love for the last time

Between two ticks of a clock

Entire lives pass by

Between two ticks of a clock

Entire lives slip and lose their grip

Between to ticks of a clock

Everything can change

Between two ticks of a clock

Everything dangles in an abyss 

Between two ticks of a clock

Anything and everything is possible

Between two ticks of a clock

Everything conspires into nothing

Scream-Breathe

There’s no reward for a life well lived

There’s only the conquering of midnight thoughts and defeating those loathed barbed days 

Inhale——-exhale——inhale——exhale——sigh

Time has sun baked our souls and left craters and wrinkles deep in our faces, that mirror like a river refuses to be damned or tamed——-inhale-exhale-sigh

Once young and untested she gave her body to me 

I took it and imagined it would always be this way

But I was wrong, now-a-days the destination is seldom worth the journey—exhale-exhale-sigh

Were we ever that young, that hopeful, so foolish and immortal inhale-exhale-sigh 

Love has a life of it’s own

It lives, it dies

No one knows its life span—exhale-exhale-sigh

It morphs into memories of sun kissed spring days

Time lays in-wait, slipping by, steadily unwinding

Self-doubt is contagious, and it will kill you

Just when you think you have it all figured out

It changes direction—inhale-exhale-sigh

No more listening to boring dweebs yammer on about their views, their values, their beliefs, their god—their rights 

Nobody gives a shit about your petty proclamations, I said nobody, nobody cares asshole!—exhale-inhale—sigh

STOP!  Stop blathering on about your politics, your Jesus, your conspiracy theories and the price of gas and how it was so much better back in the “good ole days”-inhale-exhale-scream!!!!!

God, Vaginas and Wieners

There should be a little bit of nothingness in all our lives
I’m talking about the nothingness that my lazy ass cat shamelessly flaunts  
She could care less about worries, victories or life goals
She’s at her best when doing absolutely nothing
She sleeps when she wants to sleep
She eats when she wants to eat
She yawns, stretches, then takes another nap in a sunbeam
What others may think of her, does not concern her
If you get on her nerves she’ll put her ass up in your face 
To remind ya who’s the boss
She squints her eyes like Clint Eastwood, as if to say “kiss my ass”

Woman are like cats, fickle, complacent, impossible to figure out and even harder to please
A pissed off woman is a frightening thing
There’s “mean” and then there’s “woman mean”
They’re more interested in being right, than being happy
You’ll never out-talk or out-argue a woman
They’ll always get the “last word”
They’ll smirk, pout and then vindictively proclaim “I told ya so”
They find contentment in the nothingness that fills their nothing-less day
It’s all too much, causing a man to mutter, stammer and cus under their defeated breath——sheeeet!

But when a man needs a woman, he’ll act a fool
You’ll see him heel at her side like an obedient dog on a short leash 
She’ll yank on that choker-chain every now and again to keep him in his place
Men will connive, lie and feign politeness in a futile attempt to get into a woman’s heart—or more importantly, their pants
So, ya buy them jewelry, take them out to dinner, comment on how beautiful their eyes are, how stunning their dress is
All the while, she'll absentmindedly stare into her compact mirror  

Women's personalities are hidden, just like their women parts
Men don’t understand how a woman’s body works
Everything about it is a mystery
It looks like a gapping wound that sometimes bleeds
Nipples, breasts, legs
The softness of their ass
Where to start? What to do?
It’s all to much for a simple man to grasp
But grasp, they shall try—-and try, AND TRY!

Women don’t have time for a man’s bullshit
They have more important things to do
They construct purpose out of life’s nothing-less—ness 
They fill every moment, of every hour, of each day with endless busyness
They fabricate grand schemes 
Things they're determined to make men orchestrate 
Life becomes one long laborious “To Do list”
To women, everything means something, especially the insignificant petty shit
Wipe your feet, take out the garbage, feed the cat, cut the lawn, bring me my tea, it’s too hot, it’s to cold—-did you hear me?

They somehow make babies out of their own flesh and blood
Their bellies swell up to accommodate a parasite living deep inside their womb——
Men only know about the fucking part of making babies

Men are happy in their nothingness
Men’s body parts, are like their personalities, right out there for the world to see, compare and giggle at
They grab at it to show dominance
They believe theirs is bigger and mightier than anyone else’s
They expect it to be worshiped and fawned over
In reality, it’s the goofiest looking thing you’ll ever see
And if they can’t find anyone to grab on it, they’ll jerk on it themselves

I guess this is the way god planned it
And what a sick sense of humor he must have