struck

Full brimming full.  Moved with the pulls of a thousand magnets, a thousand crests all beating to that same tide, graceful swings between delight and desire- sex and solitude.  The same streets, a year later- the same squalor sans the desperation.  Streets are directions, not deserts, and faces are curiosities, no longer lethal.  (Sometimes they even glow.)

Old men remain old men.  I'm afraid there is no cure.  They were once young, just as desperate but less pathetic.  To find, after all the experience, that the most you can hope for is pity.  Maybe a kind look or a lucky gust of wind.  But to find yourself in that state with the same mad desires of youth.  Burning without fodder.  (I accepted the gift, a necklace, out of confusion and naivete.  The idea that he had bought it with intention,  for me.  The idea.)

I saw her ex last night.  Thin.  Haunted.  Tortured like he was from the start. Balding Poe in a beanie.  I never liked him much at all, but in my middle school yearning for acceptance from people I don't even like, I tried to make good and to focus on his redeeming qualities.  Or fabricate them... it's hard to tell. When I talked to him, he couldn't hold a sentence together.  It was like talking to the aftermath of a man.  And when I wished him well and walked way, I couldn't believe how removed I felt.  A shrand from a laughable past.  Walking away from the pyre... not one ember plume spoiling the sky.  (His trove is what broke any desire or attempt at respect.  Misogynist to the core.  You go ahead and wear those heels, beautiful.  You go on.)

All in the state of waiting.  The next bell. The next check.  The next encounter.  The next tragedy.  The next lover.  The next quiet hour.  Fall is a soft sobbing wrestle with the hunger.  No one hears, but plenty know.  Don't make me say it.  The longing for chamber music.  A fire in my belly and every word aflame. (But it gets so dark so early.  I've said goodbye before I knew I was leaving.  I am a step ahead of you.  Of myself.  A glass of water before the hunger pangs. Anticipation rich.)

known

We knew so many couples over the years through shared ceilings or floors or walls.  It seemed that some never made love, others never fought at all. At times we would bring the balance with carelessly loud love and sobbing, urgent arguments. Over time, we quieted too. Love became quieter, fighting gave way to silence. Careful acts of keeping words back.

I saw - last night with a new passenger. Probably going somewhere that I wouldn't even want to be. But regardless, it left me feeling vulnerable. Replaceable. Uncomfortably human.

Replaceable, despite my knowing better. But also, too, in truth.

Anxious dreams. Undone deeds. Unspoken words. Unknown ends. Uncontrollable others.

"so nothing's changed," - would say. maybe. probably. i'm losing that voice now.

"come on, i'm not that bad. i'm not as callused as all that," - might say. maybe.  perhaps.

I am losing my arm mass.  I suppose there is strength in definition.

define me sometimes.

to know true terror:  face a series of empty calendar days
with a conflicted and yearning heart.

all of the moment.  give me a month.  give me a minute or two.  temporary flashes of grief.  laid to rest.  limbo.  seeing myself through that open window, those first days that felt so impossibly free.  - is going, again, somewhere I don't want to be.  old thoughts.  old stories.  old bricks for familiar walls.

but can't I say, "good for - and company.  good for - and good for me."

?

all of it, so temporary.

in grey

break a man by filling him up.

a quiet mind and an absence of comparison

talk to me talk to me talk to me

this changes everything
changes nothing

heart handles
& novelty

men men men men men men men men men men men men men men men men men men men men men men men men men men men men men men men men men men men men men men men man

(maybe it's too late to say goodbye. can i try again?  another chance to say the end?)

let's talk about leagues.  leagues and degrees of separation.

talk to me talk to me talk to me
(& a quiet mind)

the truth is a moving target

resist or qualify superlatives.  you are my favorite (right now).  you are the best (in that one particular way and in my limited experience).  the most and the least and never forever always will take on a grey state with a few years' blur.  most less most.  least more than least.  never retracted.  reversed.  the whole pedestal aflame.  the whole mountain now cavernous and ringing with echoes.  the exhaustion from the excavation will be staggering.  you could sleep for weeks just to (attempt) to forget entirley.  you will deem it a shared blame- maybe out of clarity, or perhaps extreme fear.

and in the end, clarity in the grey.
clarity for today
& a moving target.

adulthood

A few weeks ago when I walked up to my car and realized someone had dented the side without leaving a note, I was surprised at how quickly I reached acceptance.  It was almost instant.  There was nothing I could do to undo it, and no one to blame.  I patted myself on the back for such perspective with special satisfaction.

It's getting harder, though.

I dropped my phone and cracked the screen a few weeks ago.  Got it replaced for $80.  Then a week later, I dropped it again. It's less shattered, but it wrecked whatever's below the glass.  The color fades in and out as weird lines appear at random. It'll cost close to $200 to replace.

Sherman got into his second (and last) fight requiring a VET visit.  $500 later... He's back to ok.

Bought a $400 ac unit and leave it on constantly out of necessity.  The bill is $200 a month and it's still 90 degrees in the middle of the day.

Pour $400 into the car at the start of summer to keep it going.  Check engine light on the way home today is going to cost me $700.

I just don't know how it's ever possible to get ahead.  Ever.  I fantasize about a life where money is no issue.  Where setbacks can occur without breaking me.  Where I don't always have to be nervous about the next disaster.

I work hard.  Even with the extra income from photography, I haven't been able to put any money whatsoever into savings. None.

Did I miss something?  Am I living too lavishly?  Should I stop being social and joining friends for dinner and events until I can get back to a stable financial place?  Should I stop investing in myself and my business?  It just makes me so sad.

Sitting here in a bar full of old men waiting for the loner car to come in with a tear running down my face because I just don't understand where I could do better.  Or more.  I don't know what I'm doing wrong in adult living to constantly feel like a 12 year old waiting for allowance.

skinsink

And to think that after all that time and concern, that they were lessons I didn't really need.  To think that experience would amount to the same ennui.  To think that, even at finest offering, it would be revealed as even more secondary than I already knew it to be.

 It's not the skin that stays. Sometimes some other magnetism remains. But the skin, the skin is all the same. A temporary escape. A moment of drowning. A panic and a relief.  Seeing, in an instant, the entire story play out. Anticipating the end even at the inception.  Your face full of disgust when it's me at your door (the last time). The regularity of a back turned toward me (i looked for you, but could not find you). All bound up in the same moment when you're pulling me in for those first times.  The deep taking in of scent.  The words we say in the beginning that feel new every time (they are all the same).  The calculated energy required to remain aloof and yet immersed.  A nascent yearning, fulfilling and fulfilled.  A wild thrashing of waves,

but the same emergence back to shore.

It's not the skin that stays. The skin is wrapped up in habit and decay.  Maybe some new way to die.  Some new generosity.  Some new delightful pain, but the act is unchanged.

Sometimes
Only
Sometimes strange magnetism remains.