i'll let you know when i get there

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...

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....

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 mounta...

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. ...

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. ...