Monday, February 29, 2016

Diminished Returns

I could slick back my hair and shine my shoes and pick a name you only hear on television. I could send drink after drink down the bar, give a nod, and wait for you to come to me. Better yet, I could walk right up to you and say hello, say that I saw you from across the whatever, ask you a question about yourself. I could keep my name in my back pocket and reveal it only when you needed me to.

I could make these late nights mine. Return to the time when I slept three hours, drink more coffee, eat more protein, run more miles, find the energy in myself that's been hiding and dying all these years. Diminishing returns is a law, not a theory, and it's one I practice every day. And though by going against it I am attempting the improbable, it is an attempt.

There are dark lights, awful music, produce, watercolors, a place filled with trees and birds. There are words and phrases pinched from books and films, the name from television, a combination from my closet. We play our parts every day. We had to learn them sometime. Everything is at some point new, scary, it would not be the first time my breath was deep. And deep is where I must go, to get the ball bouncing high again, send it to the stratosphere, around the sun, and back to you.

Sunday, February 28, 2016

An Obligation

Kicking my slow way to a dusty death and all that. Underscore echo of my heels. It would be nice if there were someone following me home.

Temperature dropped, rubbing arms only does so much. Why's it got to be so cold? Why am I so cold all the time? Am I being too dramatic? Probably.

It's hard to say something. Hard to say what you want so you end up saying what's right. Tolerance can only get a man so far. An obliging smile, an obligation. I understand, of course I understand. I understand that that's what I'm supposed to say. And the whole life left I'll be wondering why.

It's going to get colder this week. Then it'll warm up again. Then the days get longer, and get shorter, and here I'll be, and there's everyone else, and we're all walking the same path.

Saturday, February 27, 2016

Thicker

She turned the heat on even though I said keep it off but I don't think she could hear me over all the words I was saying. Put on a sweater, I said, I already did, she said, put on a thicker one, I know you have thicker ones. And I don't remember exactly what came next but I know it had something to do with that word. Thick. And knowing me it was probably bad or at least not good. And I think what I meant to say was thicker skin, that she needs a thicker skin, and me too, that we all do. But in what I say and what I mean, I have a way of getting her cold when all I want to do is keep her warm.

Friday, February 26, 2016

Drunk Texts

It's a text from—what time is it?—it's from Scott, it's late. It's one month to the night exactly and I know he's hurting, I can feel it before I read. Hey, he writes, you're a good friend and I'm glad we're friends. Sometimes the truth's so nice you have to tell it twice. Thanks man, I say, or whatever, back at ya. We need to hang out sometime, get some girls, he says. Get over here, there's plenty, I say. Naw, he says, not tonight. But sometime. You're a good friend though and we should hang out more. Haven't talked to him since before it happened. It's nice that he thinks of me as a friend that he can turn to. Drunk texts in the middle of the night. Those are the ones you send to the people you are about when you're thinking of the people you care about. There's more I could do for him. There's probably more I could do for all m friends. There's more that they could do for me. First part I guess would be saying something. It's late though.

Thursday, February 25, 2016

Hand Me Down

A guitar, when you play it, it changes. No two guitars sound the same. The way you play, where it's kept, the conditions, the air, the weather, the weathering. It all plays a part in shaping it, growing it. If you took a room and filled it with used guitars and left them there for a very long time, each one would still sound just as different from every other.

But you wear a shirt. And let's say you wear it every week, every week for years. And you put that shirt in a room with other shirts, hundreds of other shirts, that have been worn hundreds of days over so much time. You leave them there together and they start to change. Any odors they've taken on, any trace of you, that vanishes. Their smells become one smell.

And so now I've got your old guitar, I'm wearing your old flannel, the one you wore all the time, even when it was warm. It sounds like you, smells like you. And the more I play the more I hear you. And the more I put it on the more you fade away. I want to be more than the sum of our parts. I want to be better. But as time goes on I can see myself forgetting. I can see myself here, staying exactly the same as I am now.

Wednesday, February 24, 2016

Ghost

When my phone makes that noise and I see your name come up all in white and I press that little red button I know just how you feel. The numbers piling up, the messages, one, two, six, ten, why won't you call, can't we talk, can't we just hash this out like adults. And what I think you don't get, or maybe you do, is that adulthood is different than what we always thought it would be. The people on TV, they weren't thirty, they weren't really doing those things. And what our parents did, the '70s, the '80s, that's not now. The world they've given us is a very different place. And they wonder why we act the way we do. And boiled down, very simply, it's because I can. I can press the red button and set my phone on silent and pretend that there is a world without you. And, strangely enough, it is an incredibly easy thing to do.

Tuesday, February 23, 2016

A Hundred Names

They named their son one thing for the express purpose of calling him something else. Why not just name him that, I asked. They didn't seem to understand. His name was one thing, but they wanted to call him another. Right, I said, so if you want to call him that, why is that not his name? A name is just a name, they explained to me, but what you call him is how you show your love. How you make him yours. And I said why don't they make him theirs by his name, give him a name that they will want to say. They said I didn't understand. They said I would when I had a son of my own. That one name wouldn't be enough for him. That I'd give him a hundred if I could. And that I understood. Or at least, I hope I will.

Monday, February 22, 2016

Homecoming

She comes down the stairs and she looks beautiful, her lips match her eyes match her dress. My shirt and tie are trying and although they look fine together they will clash with her but I don't care. I have her corsage and she has my boutonniere and we stick each other with pins. She's leaning her head back into mine as we smile, parent picture parent picture. It's the smell I always walked by in the hall, always noticed in class, and now it's all mine, she's put it on just for me. I borrowed one of my brother's colognes and wondering if she notices. Our parents are smiling and happy and probably remember their nights like this one. Keeping it to themselves that nights like this end and the people sharing them grow apart. These things don't last forever and the pain is all part of the process. It's not the happiness that makes us who we are, it's what comes after. Little by little we will learn from how we hurt and whom we hurt, and hopefully next time we do it a little better, a little less. Until this state of diminishing returns leads us to our grave, and the damage we've done is all behind us, and they're crowded around laughing and crying and singing songs. And they remember us fondly.

Sunday, February 21, 2016

The Chump

She was composing her thoughts, I could tell, I assumed, a regular Chopin after so much silence. "I never said it was a definite thing." Music for the ages.

"No," I said, "I know, and I never said you did." Still, that gut punch hits me all over despite its name. But I guess it's me's the chump for expecting a full night to hatch out of maybes.

I could tell she wanted to go. She didn't have to say it. I didn't so much want her to say things now. It was a half day too late, all I wanted was a confirmation yea or nay, I wasn't asking for a life or even day story, a lie would even do me.

I could tell a lot of things. I can tell a lot about people and might even tell a bit about myself. I keep it all on different levels, different walls of different layers. I can tell you what you hate to know about yourself and make you feel about as big as a man who'd fit right in my pants pocket. When it comes to the practice of making people feel small I've picked up a few things. Wish that means that I could say I've learned.

She didn't look at all too pleased with me. I realized I hadn't blinked in a while, that maybe I'd been looking at her too much. That maybe, after all these days and weeks, I'd been looking at her too much. Looking at this nice fine thing when all around me I could find some beauty. If I'd only stop, and blink, and move around once in a while.

Saturday, February 20, 2016

Rendezvous

She played it up like the seed you say on the front west end. She was stolen blame and gracefully shredding tolls. She paralleled completely and nastily and totaled something more than friendly, gained something less than nothing.

There was nothing in the black white winter of whatever wasn't between us anymore and so we each took to our own way the way ways go. And with a sky so made of stone it made our only sense to hide and run. It was back before the bad, top-heavy action masters, porcelain dolls that looked the way your mother wanted, cobwebs thick with stolen glances and half-hearted tries for late night rendezvous.

She weren't quick, took her time, like I had a wonder. She theoried that we'd see what we were all about a half dozen years down some road but never said just how cracked it'd be. Falling down bottles, plastic, glass, caps, labels, shaking, splashing, difference combinations leading me to put one and one and two and two together getting numbers only crazy celebrities can get. I'll wake up now in the middle of a night and jot these phrases, returning to them as if I mean something.

And this all happened so fast. She played it up like future. And me here wait, following a long door to a short answer. I am trouble in.

Friday, February 19, 2016

The Drink is Bad, Sam

No. Sam. I don't think you understood what I said. The drink is gross. It's gross. It is not a good drink. So when you drink the drink? I need to see that you think that the drinking you're drinking isn't good. Because right now I see nothing. I don't see anything. I see nothing. And I get what you've said, that maybe you hate enough things already and you don't want to hate any more things, and I get that, I hear you, and I understand it. But—just remember—the drink is bad. Like, it's really bad. Like, how could anyone like this? And, in fact, moving beyond that, she becomes bad. And gross. And disgusting. Because here's this woman who's made you this drink, and she's gone on and on about how much she loves it, and how it's her specialty, and so she's really built it up. She really got you thinking that, hey, I'm about to swallow something pretty tasty. And then she hands you the cup, and the cup is a nice cup. And inside the nice cup is a pretty looking liquid. Like, the liquid itself looks nice. No one's saying the drink doesn't look nice. In fact, if the taste of the drink matched how it looked, it would be pretty goddamn delicious. So just think about that. That's the before. That's the backstory of you and the cup and the drink. And so that's your state of mind, and you raise the cup to your lips, and you tip it—you tip the cup—and the liquid pours in. The drink I mean. And it. Is. Foul. I mean it is just not what you were expecting at all. Like, at all. And now you're upset! Now you're mad! You're mad at her! At the cup! At the drink! But mostly, Sam, you're mad at yourself. You're mad at the drink, you hate the drink, but really you hate yourself. So show me that next time.

Thursday, February 18, 2016

I Must Move

Started drinking flavored sparkling water. The last little glimmer of fun in my life being snuffed out by my better knowledge. I've done away with candy bars, the late night pizza, the early morning pizza come to think of it. If I sit around for too long I now start to notice it. My body tells my mind that I must move. Or maybe it's my mind that tells my body.

What's the relationship there? Who is in charge? Is it my body that wants its muscles to be used, the blood to pulse through. Is it my brain, ticking away, firing synapses that alert the rest of me as to what I want. Is it my own choices, what I've learned. Have I ever really learned anything. Perhaps I am knlb along for my own ride.

Wednesday, February 17, 2016

My Eyes the Eye

She asks me if my eyes are bloodshot in that statement kind of way. I say I don't know, I can't see them. Are they? She doesn't answer in the way that says it all. I'm rubbing my eyes a lot, she says. Maybe that's why they're red. Or maybe that's why they're rubbing. Either way I think she thinks I'm on something. I want to tell her I'm not, but that would only make it seem like I am. Or maybe that would help. It's just that kind of day.

Driving home the sun is doing what it does naturally. It's not drawing attention to itself, my eyes are doing that for it, they're real artists. I can feel the spots where the blood is pooling, if that's how it works. Frankly I don't care to know how it works, I don't need that information, I don't need to push anything out for that. What I need is sleep. Rest and relaxation. No more questions, comments, side-glances. No more giving my eyes the eye.

My roommate is screaming at his girlfriend on speakerphone and she's screaming back. It's a conversation held in his bedroom, the bathroom, the kitchen, the living room, every minute new surroundings. What is this nonsense? My closed door keeps out just enough sound to make the words sound normal. My blinds keep out just enough light to make it seem like later this afternoon. I'm told that if you don't fight then you know it's not working.

My mother asks me if my eyes are bloodshot. The corner picture of me is too small to tell. I say I've had a rough couple of days, but I'm coming out of it. One half of that statement is true, and even though I'm not sure which half that is, she seems satisfied.

Tuesday, February 16, 2016

Joke's on Me

I laughed so hard I fell down and scraped my knee and it started bleeding and I winced in pain and fell back on my ass onto a small piece of a broken bottle that lodged itself in me but I didn't realize it was there until I got home and took a shower and heard the small tink and turned around to see it sitting in a shallow pool of hot running water turned pink by the faint flow of my own blood. I can't even remember the joke.

Monday, February 15, 2016

Unraveled

I check on her from time to time. Not that I care or anything, not in the way I used to. I check on her like an old T-shirt you've crammed in the back of the drawer and forgotten about. The one that always causes the drawer to never fully close. And then every so often you reach back there, wear it around the house, close the drawer. It doesn't smell the way it used to. It smells like a drawer. It smells more and more like a shirt. And though it's something close to comfortable and even almost fits, you've outgrown it. It's wrinkled and seems to shrink around you. You begin to question if it's the color that's faded, or if your eyes are only keener, and what made you try it on in the first place, what made you buy it, why have you kept it for so long, and can't anything stop growing. She seems happy, she's lost weight, she looks worse, you feel judgmental, you remember the good times, the end, you go on what they call a "roller coaster." Maybe you turned the heat up, maybe you always sweat this much. But you look where the sleeve meets the body and you see a small hole, a pulled thread, unraveling. And it's enough of a reason to change. She's happy without you, she's living, she's growing, she's eating well apparently. There is a small sweat stain under each arm. You fold it up nicely, cram it in the back of the drawer, and forget again. It is cold outside. Days like these are made for layers.

Sunday, February 14, 2016

I've Thrown You Away

Eventually you keep too many things to keep. Papers and trinkets and photos and scraps get put into boxes, and the boxes, they have to go somewhere. Letting go is difficult until your shelves start collapsing. I woke in the middle of the night to a crashing down of memories. I spent until sunup throwing you away.

Saturday, February 13, 2016

Cuticle

I'm reminded of how I used to bite my nails. Mother put a stop to that. Put some sort of solution on them so when they went in my mouth it was sour, like turpentine, maybe that's what it was.

She would push the cuticles back. I would see my nails as little slivers, equal parts pink and white. Then with the pushing back of that skin suddenly the pink would grow. Like the scrunching down of a turtleneck, revealing what was underneath all along. And it hurt.

But it isn't skin. It's wax. It grows to protect and then we push it back. And it hurts when we push it back, it hurts. As if to say stop, stop what it is that you're doing. I have to protect these nails. Let me protect them. Let me do my job.

I noted my father's nails. Cracked, yes, but large. And that was the difference between boys and men. Large hands, large nails, somehow it all made sense. I can deal fine with the pain now, I wouldn't even call it that. So here I sit, the grime of this carpet floor undoing what my shower's done. The turpentine is gone, the clips miss the bin, the wax is pushed and trimmed. Revealing these things, these things made for digging into oranges, scratching my scalp, running along the inseam of your palm.

Friday, February 12, 2016

Bless Me

I take myself out to dinner and pretend I'm visiting from another city.

I kicked a bird on purpose once and it kicked me back.

I make up stories for people on the subway. Out loud.

I always have money in my wallet to give them.

I sneeze on strangers in the elevator.

I never got those tests.

I rarely use my name in public. I often use an accent.

I do like your sister.

I cannot stand your breath and I've tried to tell you about it and I'm all out of ideas.

I am out of ideas regarding most things.

I blamed the smells on the dog. Even when we didn't have one.

I fantasize about fighting you.

I want to hurt people for no reason.

I would completely abuse the ability to stop time. I would abuse most abilities.

I am afraid of what I'm capable of.

I stole that thing in my closet.

I broke into your house. I sat there for hours.

I keep mementos.

I will find you but I might never find myself.

Thursday, February 11, 2016

The Light

I don't sleep much, not since the clouds went away. Soon as the sun starts turning up again I'm all awake. The man who made this house, he must've known exactly what he was doing. Putting this window right where he put it. It's by design, I can tell. Nothing this perfect happens accidental. Sun comes up and strikes me in my face, I don't use an alarm. And it's there, and I'm there, and we sit there together for hours. Sun getting higher and higher in the sky as if to say, Get up, get up, I'm here and so are you. I try to glare at it as hard as it glares at me, but no luck. Every morning no luck. And before you bring it up, yes, I've thought about curtains. Thought about putting them up. But even though I hate it so, it seems wrong. Blocking out the light like that.

Wednesday, February 10, 2016

Hubcap

Right as I was about to cross the street the ambulance came racing by. Turned the corner, hit the curb, and the hubcap came flying off. Rolled right up to my feet, rolled tidily like a boy pushing a wheel with a stick in some olden time movie. I picked it up, saw it as an omen. It was my move-in day.

I walked into my new apartment. Studio. Room. The kitchen was designated with terrible linoleum, a fraction of a half a centimeter higher than my terrible wood floor. There was an oven, four small burners, one small door. Above it was nothing. No light, no microwave, no vent. Dust bits clung to the streaks of oil spattered up on the wall. I hung it there. Put a few holes in the drywall before I found one to my liking.

People ask me what it's doing there. I never know quite what to tell them. Something needed to go there. Something to catch the oil. But really, it came to me. I want to say it came to me, it needed to be with me, needed to be in my home. One person's trash... But that seems so silly.

Tuesday, February 9, 2016

Love Like an Eagle

You and me, girl, our love is like an eagle. Beautiful, majestic, profound. Until you look at it straight on, and you see its beady little eyes and its terrible little beak and its feathers are going every which way.

Monday, February 8, 2016

Weening

I remember the click my cell phone used to make. A little silver-grey box, pull-out antenna, screen half the size of a matchbox. There were two clicks actually. One when it opened, one when it closed. My thumb always punctuated it, a little flick of my hand, click, a little pause, ready for business. Closing it with my middle and ring fingers, one half hitting itself. I would sit there opening and closing my phone, opening and closing, opening and closing, opening and closing, click after click after click never getting old. Until it stopped working. Stopped opening the way it was supposed to. It was too much of a good thing. And of course my next phone, the click was hardly there at all, not very satisfying. And then this computer slab in my back pocket. I imagined the engineers knew what they were doing. Weening us. Now I take my phone out and there is no click, it doesn't make a noise, it doesn't do much of anything at all.

Sunday, February 7, 2016

Shots

In a normal mind you'd be out already, laid waste by song lyrics and small recipes. Did I use those coupons in time, what is the next important birthday, who else is out there? There is a certain satisfaction in lingering, in the back and forth. I can obscure fickleness and kid myself as much as you do. I'm better at it, I've had more practice. The cementing of something is never much fun anyway. The possibility of an adventure is always better than buying the equipment, packing, training, getting your shots. The moment when you arrive and realize it really isn't like the books, it really isn't all that beautiful. It is a real place.

Saturday, February 6, 2016

Levels

Maybe I'll text you later.

A million and one nights have been made, been broken, hinged on these words. The possibility of a day turning into a night into a late night into a morning into a relationship into a life. Put the period wherever it pleases you. And we always do. We put in the period, make it a certainty, make it a promise, and leave the resentment for later.

Out with friends. Bar hopping. Clear your schedule. Find things to do around the house. Find booze. Pace yourself. Wait for confirmation. Wait for information. Down a few quick shots. Get on their level. Never, not ever, be on a level all your own.

We've all spent nights hovering in that grey limbo, suspended in the uncertainty of an ellipsis, ready to pounce on a person or a bed. We've all fallen asleep and been fallen asleep on. We've all sat around in sweatpants and a nice shirt. Curbing every drink with water, hoping we haven't hydrated ourselves too much.

Friday, February 5, 2016

The Secret to Happiness

I asked a zen master to write down the secret to happiness, so that I could always carry it with me. He took a piece of parchment and wrote, "Grandfather dies. Father dies. Son dies. Girl you like texts you back promptly."

I look at him. "For true."

Thursday, February 4, 2016

Smile

OK, but, like, when I say "smile," like... Like what if she has a great smile, right? Like, is it such a bad thing to smile? I don't think I would get upset if someone told me to smile. That means they must like my smile right? Like, if a pretty girl asked me to smile I'd immediately think, "Oh shit, this pretty girl wants me to smile because she likes my smile so she must like me!" And I'm a handsome dude. I mean, I'm not Guy Pearce or anything, or whoever people like these days, but I'm an all right looking kind of guy. Not that she has to smile because I'm attractive or anything... But how many things have I done for attractive girls? How many drinks that I've bought and meals that I've bought and cabs that I've paid for? I don't think it's the worst thing in the world to ask for one person to smile at you. I'm not asking for a limb. I'm not asking for her fucking teeth. I mean, ha, if I did, then she really wouldn't smile.

Wednesday, February 3, 2016

Real in My Head

I had a list of things for us to do but I never asked you so I never did them. Music went unheard, art unseen, places un... Went? Gone? Places I didn't go to, they stayed there while I stayed here looking at your name etched into the underneath of my table. But in my mind we heard that music, we danced to it, we talked about what that art meant to us. The real thing could never be as real as what's real in my head. Like the they don't show you the murder in a horror movie. Only I can't think of when anyone's tried to do a good version of that.

Tuesday, February 2, 2016

Your Side

Nobody asked if it was her idea. They all assumed it was mine. What an asshole, they called me, what an animal. I didn't want the pictures to be taken at all. I had to be talked into all of this. I took my comfort zone and blew the thing to hell, I reinvented my idea of what it means to trust somebody. trust them in a way I'd never trusted anyone, a side of trust I never wanted to explore. So when those pictures made the rounds and every stood staring, laughing, pointing, calling names. And making statements. Without so much as a, Now what's your side of things? It hurt. And it hurt coming from them. But it hurt when she said nothing. When she realized she'd gone too far. And when she took me aside and said she was sorry, I said there's nothing to be sorry for, you did nothing wrong. We did nothing wrong. Still. It's just certain things you want private, and certain things you want public.

Monday, February 1, 2016

Living Room Revolution

He was lucky. He got to sit on his couch and watch the world do great things. He got to see the revolution and the revolution was televised and he even paid for it. He got crisp picture quality and had sound surround him. The colors were vibrant and the crowds were so real he could touch them. And he could have touched them if he'd wanted to. He could stand and walk and run and talk and shout and cry and sing and be a part of something. He saw the people and the people looked like him. He saw the people and the people looked like strangers. They looked like friends. They looked like people he thought were enemies, people he'd never thought of before. They looked the way he felt inside. They did the things he felt like doing. And he got to see them all, listen to them all, watch them all, and he didn't have to go anywhere.