1987

The order of things,
and the things we've ordered.

More or less, he was something more for me.
I wasn't much more than less to him.

It was embarrassing to say the least. And the least said, the better.
He made money at airports.
His dog ran over cars.
His fake brother stole Words from me. Words I had not chosen to surrender.

He told me he loved me, once, by accident.
He had forgotten who he was with.

We went to a huge party at the Jersey shore for 3 days. I've never seen so much food and alcohol in my life. We swam, we barbecued, we had sex in every bedroom. We jammed. And we looked at other people's pictures. We talked and laughed. He wrote a song for me... sang it to me in front of everybody.

We laid on the back porch at sunset drinking margaritas, eating watermelon, and listening to Def Leppard Hysteria on my old Panasonic boombox.

Asbury Park was pretty that year.
He was cheating on me with somebody's girlfriend. He even had her picture in his wallet.

It was odd to me how he could have landed such great people as friends.
I was actually surprised when he ended it.

A couple years later I dated his guitarist for a short while. I'm still not sure why. A combination of piss poor reasons.
A couple years after that his management company hired me to write lyrics. Can you imagine.

Everyone knew. At the radio station, at the clubs, at that rag local newspaper. At band practice. Everyone knew. And he knew.

Then it faded away.

I heard he was in another band. Then another.
And that he married that girl.
And she divorced and destroyed him.
And in classic Axle Rose style, he couldn't stop living in the past, and became a caricature.

He was not the love of my life.
He wasn't a friend. He wasn't a good lover.
He was not a great talent.
He was not even a regret.
Just a mistake.

He was just my mistake.

can't imagine

Some people's insecurities propel them into self preservation, like cats clawing at each being that crosses infront of them, even before there is any confrontation. They can't imagine not being threatened.

It has to be hard to live like that, without even being able to imagine camaraderie.

Just like Seattle was, in 1992.

"And it breaks my heart to look around
and see the unimpressed
who can't believe the emperor is dressed."
-Fastball

What can't you imagine? What is just not fathomable?

The only thing I can not imagine, is having no Words.

Autograph

This was a first even for me.

It wasn't planned. That much I can promise. It was just happenstance. He was in the lobby of his editor's building, and so was I. Pure coincidence. I recognized him from the picture on the back cover of the book in my hands. I didn't hesitate. I walked up to him without thinking about it. I said, "would you?" and handed it to him. Figuratively and literally.

He had no idea who I was.

He didn't even blink. He appeared smug. he opened it and then patted his pocket for a pen. He didn't have one. I offered mine. I always have a pen. Maybe this should have been a clue.

"Who should I make this out to?"

I had several answers for that. But instead I just said, "Nobody special."

He shrugged and signed his name. Right there inside the front cover.

And then he handed the book and the pen back to me, and grinned trying to look down my shirt.

I have it on my coffee table. This signed copy of this book. He put his name on it as if it was as easy to do as breathing. Legally, it's his. It's all his. He signed his name on his property.

Maybe that's the key - maybe I could sign something, with my real name, if I didn't actually write it. Maybe that's the secret. Maybe I should hire a ghost writer.

I'm significant. And I am so very very small.

Something Regrettable

"It's not what you can put in. It's what you can take out. Less is more. I must have said that a hundred times tonight. You're gonna write this down, aren't you."
-Danny

In love we find all our strength.
In passion, all our weaknesses.

Peter and Wendy were so much more applicable then Romeo and Juliet.
And somehow Van Gogh all alone was a better couple then all of them.

I am tired of disabling my childhood fantasies with adult realizations.

I know better. I feel like a puppy about to pee on the carpet. I know better then to do this. I am going to regret this in the morning. But right now, this feels too damn good to resist.

The universe doesn't go cold turkey.
The cosmos has inertia.
And apparently, so do I.

Humble

Compromise is my scarecrow.
I can anticipate my Kansas here. And this tornado is long overdue.

It's such a victory to know the person inside, instead of the armor outside. And then, it's a nightmare to stop seeing it.
I mean, who could love you that much?

Your eyes are so confirming.

Never forget that I was the one, the first one, to see you in your proposed vision. In your own urine. In your nakedness. I saw even before you did, your delicate existence and where it would go. And at your crossroad, I loved you with every inch of my heart. Never forget that I watched you break down and cry, and I held you in my arms. Never forget that I was there when your nightmares consumed you, and you could not catch your breath, so I gave you mine. And I stayed with you, through your loneliness, when you had collapsed to your knees in confusion and convulsion. I accepted you, not only for who I believed you would become, but also for who you were right then, at that moment. I accepted you, and I took on the illness. I loved you completely for that one moment in time, when it hurt. When you hurt. I was there, when no one else was.

Resurrection does not entitle you to a range erase of your history. It doesn't lift your need for atonement.

Never forget that someone loved you through your darkest hour. Never forget that you owe that compassion back to the world now. You are obligated to show mercy. Your Karmic credit card is about to expire. You will only get so many opportunities to do this right.
So,
Do this right.

Blocking

His editor calls. He has writer's block. Again.

The road split. And I made a decision. And the life I do not lead keeps writing.

I listen to what he needs. Eight installments have been missed. Two will prevent breach of contract. He books me for the two.

I am laying flat on my back on my bed, staring at the nothing. "I can do all eight. Give me 48 hours."

I can hear him thinking. He still says "Wow" even though he's used to this. Then I hear the calculator in the background. It is booked. He is telling me the details, I am thinking about making coffee and wondering what the dogs are playing with. It turns out to be a sock. He tells me where to send the work, I cover my head with the sheets.

He says, "Veronica, have you ever had writer's block?"

I have been unable to eat. I have been unable to pay rent, unable to fight back, I have been unable to maintain a healthy relationship. I have been unable to find my car, unable to sleep, unable to hold it together, unable to get out of bed.

I remain, completely unable to sign my name.

But I have never in my life, not once, not even for a second, been unable to write.

"No," I tell him, "I have never experienced writer's block. I am always able to write. I don't know how to stop."

He laughs a little. "Maybe that's your problem."

Among other things.

It's been raining for days; outside, and inside. Everything is saturated and heavy. Ready for the mold. I'm lonely. I'm isolated again. I'm not complaining, I'm just stating. I do this. I am this.
This is me.

Excommunicate

"Maybe your theme music is making you dizzy."
-Howard Stern


Penetrated.
I was completely penetrated.
Every part of me.

Self preservation kicked in and I pulled away.
Propelled,
And unnoticed, like muzak in the elevator.
We all have the option to say.
We all have the right to go.
I drove home in the rain.
But every one else, every thing else,
continued to go on and on.

And then one day I wasn't on the guest list.
And I didn't get a Christmas card.
And I could not be surprised.

I left my copy of the keys to his house in a plant at Hoolihans.

I'd hear it on the radio, and have to pull over to cry.
I packed.
I moved.
And I danced at his wedding.

My date was that one chick he could never nail.
(Her invitation. Her idea, not mine.)
She asked me if hurt me to be there.

"Of course it hurts. It hurts so much that I can literally feel part of my soul withering and dying. Right here on this dance floor."

Then why, she asked, are you here.





I'm here for the fuel, babe.
I am here for the fuel.
.

So Far Away

We breathe life into places we decide it should be. The dead places. The places with no color, no flavor. The places that have died.

It's hard sometimes, to deal with the dead places. The physical tangible places, where we once were. Where we can never be again.

A house, where you grew up. A back screen door off the kitchen, that you pushed open at least a dozen times a day, for years. You let yourself in through that door. You belonged there, through that door. That was your door. It was a part of you. And now you stand in the street, years later, in front of this house, as a stranger. An unfamiliar face. You can't push that door open again. Another family lives there now. The house is not your home anymore. And although it will always be part of you, you are no longer a part of it.

A desk. In an office. In a building, in a town you called yours. A desk that used to be your desk, where you worked. A desk you sat at for years, eight hours a day, five days a week. A desk where you thought and laughed, and worked, and felt. A drawer in the desk, where you tossed your keys, every day. Now, this desk belongs to someone else. Someone else has this job, someone else is there now in your place. You can never again sit at that desk. You will never again toss your keys in that drawer.

A friend you used to talk to. A lover you used to hold. Places in people's hearts, in people's lives, where you made your home. Where you lived. These embraces you once knew, these places in time, where you can't be, anymore. No returning. No return. You can never go there again. Ever. You can never make a return.

You are gone forever.

Time passes, houses are sold, jobs are lost, lovers soured. Friends turned, family died.

There are places on the Earth, where you made your way. Where you made your home. Where you are not welcomed now. Where you can not go.

It should serve as a constant reminder that everything here is temporary. And you will not forever belong. You will one day be unable to reach the people and places where you make your home.

Eventually, you are a stranger.

Cushy Doo.

Or cushy. Or doo. It's still a fucking a pigeon.

Movies entail the talents and efforts of dozens of people; actors, writers, directors, boom operators, casting, effects, producers, make up, photography...

But the book is the Words. Just the Words. That's it.

"To learn as you grow old
The secrets of your soul."
-The Moody Blues

You know that thing, under your bed, in the dark? You know. That thing. That scares the shit out of you. That has no face, no definition. That thing that haunts you, knows you... owns you. The thing that can rip you in half and steal your breath away.

This is my thing.

Knopf Publishing House is my boogieman.

Don't eat that. It's not ripe. It will be better later.

And there has got to be more then one way to sign my name.

Brevity

He wants to know why.
Why?

Because I had hoped you wouldn't crack. Because I had hoped you wouldn't become a stalker. Because leave me the fuck alone.

Fear of extradition.

You can't take me there. Don't take this there. Leave it go.

It's not always about lifelongs and forevers. Sometimes it's just brevity; a moment, a weakness. A glimpse. Some things are so god damned black and white that the clarity is overwhelming. The simplicity of this should ground you. It was never in your control, because I had anticipated your failure.

I had anticipated your failure.

I chose to let you in, for one brief moment.
And now these frantic calls have got to stop, regardless of the three hour time difference. I am intense enough, thank you. I don't need your intensity uninvited. I didn't pack you up and mail you against your will to Los Angeles. All I did was drive you to the airport.

Now go. Go out into the world. Make your life.
Godspeed.
And erase me.

Therapy

I stayed up all night, which is not unusual. I don't go regularly anymore. So now when I do make an appointment, all that initial fear-of-judgment-and-asylums anxiety comes back. Two large black Quickiemart coffees and a half a Twinkie later, it's 8am and I'm sitting on that familiar taupe couch.

I tell her why I've made this appointment. I tell her what I need to talk about. It's not easy, but I've been rehearsing it all night, and I manage to get it almost all the way out.

She interrupts. She asks me about my love life. A series of questions. When was my last date, when was my last sexual encounter.

I answer impatiently, short answers. Trying to be open, trying to answer her politely, but anxious to plow through this and get back to what I made this appointment for. I repeat what I want to talk about. And, it was harder the second time. Now I'm choking back a little. Now I'm feeling emotional.

She looks away from me, and thumbs through her folder. She asks about my family. When was the last time I spoke to any of them.

I pause. Then I answer: three one Word sentences. And again I repeat, what I want to talk about. Why I made this appointment. What is eating me alive, again.

She turns to her desk and gestures towards something she's reading, that she feels has a ring of my sound.

I REPEAT WHY I AM FUCKING THERE. And then I launch. "What the fuck are you doing?! How many fucking times do I have to tell you why I'm here! Why won't you listen!"

She puts her pad down. She takes her glasses off and puts them down as well. She sits at the edge of her seat, leaning closer to me. Staring directly into me. And she answers me. "Because I can distract you when what you claim you want to talk about is really only a cover story."

I blink. I open my mouth. I, I listen.

"Often, you've come in here claiming to want to talk about something, so that you can avoid talking about what's really hurting you. I'm sorry Veronica, but I don't see you regularly enough anymore to let you waste a session on what you don't really want to talk about."

I do that? Do I really do that?
My god... I do. I really do that. I can think of examples. Shit, I've done that for years.

We don't breed insanity,
it breeds us.

Apparently I troubleshoot this out subconsciously. And I'm pretty good at it. Until she told me, I honestly had no idea. I remain no match for my own mind.

I pulled over some years ago while driving down Route 99 in California. It was about 1am, and I had the whole world all to myself. I remember sitting on the warm hood of my car in the stillness. The road felt so vast and open. The black sky was enormous. I was all alone with my thoughts. It felt somehow liberating to be there, in the warm desert night, in the silence, in the darkness, out in the open earth.

I laid back on the car and looked at a billion stars. The stillness was only barely disturbed by the sounds of the occasional car passing, casting a Doppler effect woosh over me. I felt like god was right there. I felt like the greatness of all the universe was laying before me, and welcoming me. I felt like I belonged.

There are powerful moments of total compliance,
when the earth lays down at your feet and lets you know it listens.
The cosmos is listening.
And you aren't alone.

The therapist nods to me. She acknowledges that what I claim I need to talk about is actually what I need to talk about. I felt like I did that night on Highway 99. She smiles gently and assures me, she's listening.

And I am heard.

No Blue

Did not exist.
There was no blue in biblical times.
Our eyes did not see that color yet.

And maybe this has been my problem all along. Synthestesia. Maybe I've been responding to stimuli with an inappropriate sense... Smelling music and seeing colors that aren't there.

Yellow is a chemical reaction; it has no retina existence.
I always seem to think about that when I am at the chiropractor, staring at the chart of parasympathetic nerves.
Because yellow is sympathetic.

I feel focused, though.
I feel like I'm staring through the sites of my Mossberg 410 of Life.
But I just can't go on squinting.
Maybe I should lower this gun.

I think I miss former lovers, and ex roommates, and passed neighbors, not unlike the Prisoner of Chillon missed the rats after his incarceration ended.
I confuse missing with remembering.

The Aramatic word for death translates as: "Not here, present elsewhere."
Like Bible blue, or sympathetic yellow.

And this is the world.
This is the Earth, breathing.
This is what it feels like.

Veronica

VERONICA: noun

1 - According to popular legend, an image of the face of Jesus as impressed on the handkerchief offered to him by Saint Veronica on the road to Calvary.

2 - The handkerchief itself.

[Medieval Latin, perhaps alteration of v ra conica, true image : Latin v ra, feminine of v rus, true; see very + Latin conica, feminine of conicus, of an image (from Greek eikonikos, from eik n, image. See icon).]

3 - A maneuver in bullfighting in which the matador stands with both feet fixed in position and swings the cape slowly away from the charging bull.

Veronica… a very true icon, a feminine image, that slowly and deliberately fucks with beasts.

Armor and Editors

He comes out of his office and looks at the clock over the desk. He looks at the Dell monitor. He looks me up and down as if he's ordered me from 976-MEAT, and he grins. Then he looks at his admin's empty chair. Then up the hall. Then back at me. It is obvious that this is his office. It's also obvious he's completely lost.

He says, "Are you here about the tiger?"

I decide not to ask. "No, I'm the writer. I'm here to get paid."

"You?" He looks me over again. "You wrote that?" He gestures towards the computer, where I can only assume it is. "Jesus Christ. You're not what I was expecting at all. You… you don't even look like a writer. Let alone someone who could write that."

I start picturing writers. Charles Bukowski. William Burroughs. Hmmm. I guess I don't look like a writer.

He isn't subtle. But I guess you don't get to where he is with subtlety. He politically incorrectly calls his admin his secretary, and informs me that she handles this stuff for him. When she resurfaces she will have me sign a contract and a release, and she will pay me. I'm still not over his thinking I don't look like a writer, but rather, I look more like someone that would be there about a tiger.

I tell him bluntly, my arrangement was to be paid in cash. He can make a check out to cash, that’s acceptable. And I will sign whatever he wants, as Veronica.

She'll be back any minute, he says. She will know what to do.

I can't wait. I need to go. Not that I have anywhere to be. I ask him to make an exception for me, and handle this himself, now. Please.

He opens the top desk drawer and opens a ledger. He begins to make out a check. To "Cash."

As he bends over the desk, he looks at me. His eyes start at my hips, and move up slowly. He looks over my body at another angle. He looks at my eyes, to see if I'm watching.

At this point, I wonder if I can love again. I wonder sometimes if I can open myself up like I once did, or if anyone will ever see me in truth. Ever again. It may be too late, I may be too tired. I don’t really know.

I have little crushes. Slava Brodinsky, who paints Tuscan landscapes and signs his name on everything he sees. A violinist I've seen a few times; she backs up a famous singer, and she holds her violin up to hide her face when she's not playing...

And that's what it is. Faceless artists, who expose a glimpse of their souls. And sometimes that makes me think …maybe… just maybe, I could do it again. If I can crush, maybe I can love, like I once did. Like I once could.

Or maybe not. Maybe it's just safer from here. In that pure paradise of anonymity. With someone faceless, that doesn't know my name.

The only real distance between any of us is the length of my arm.

I take power in my sexuality. Its awesome armor that hides a plethora of weaknesses. It is strength, like metal or ego, that protects my tenderness from sight.
He was looking at my hair. At my tits, and my "fuck me if you can" grin. At my high heels, and the way I stare. Pretty? I don’t know. Pretty is subjective. Attractive, yes. Sexual and empowered, yes. Yessss.
I told ya, its damn effective armor.
He was not looking at my war wounds. He was not able to see my fears or my swellings. My lies or my sins. He didn't look at my loneliness, or my trembling. Or the fire inside. Or the place where it all fell apart. He wasn't seeing me cry, or scream, or beg. Or crush. He wasn't seeing me ache. He couldn't see any of that. And he won't ever know my name.

When we ache, we ache alone.

He hands me the check, his finger lingering so it can brush mine. He smiles, quite sure of himself. "I have about an hour. We should go someplace."

He says it, directly. It's what he's thinking. It's how he's assessed my armor. And there is something deep within his animal honesty, that shows he believes he's dealing with a like minded wolf. He believes I will find the compliment in this, and bat one back of my own.

I take the check.

I did it again. I sold Words, again.

And now I can't look at him. I drop my eyes to my hands; suddenly the armor feels cracked and broken. I am reduced and diminished underneath the one thing that matters. The novel not published. The Words unread. I am the writer that can't figure out how to sign my own god damned name to anything I write. I look at the money, and slip it into my front pocket.

He repeats himself, as if it will matter. "Come on. I'd really love to fuck you."

With all due respect, Sir,
you already have.

(circa 1990)

Misogyny

"But listen carefully to the sound
Of your loneliness.
Like a heartbeat, drives you mad.
In the stillness of remembering what you had.
And what you lost.
What you had, and what you lost."
-Fleetwood Mac


It was at Starbucks. He asked me what pathology is.
It's a shame. That feeling that ignites your dead places, your sleeping soul, can suddenly stop cold and crippled, and blink.

He talked about his girlfriend. He used Words like gorgeous and dumb in the same sentence. He told me how they were waking up, when the door bell rang. It was a girl he had picked up over the weekend. He made sure I understood how big her tits were. He bragged to me, telling me how he managed to get rid of this girl, and convince his dumb gorgeous girlfriend that the bimbo was looking for a friend of his. He laughed, and shook his head at her stupidity. She was so upset that someone in his band was cheating on his girlfriend. It was all he could do to not laugh out loud.
Less then ten minutes later, he told me he's going to marry this girl.

Dumbfounded, I asked him why.

He looked at me as if I was crazy. As if I hadn't listened. "Why?? Because she's fucking hot!" He gulped his coffee and added, "Speaking of hot, what happened to that red head chick you were messing around with."

I stared at him with my mouth slightly opened. My mind suddenly far away. "Texas. She moved to Texas." I found myself staring at him. Kind of the way you stare at an accident on the side of the road. You just can't bring yourself to look away. I began to realize that I felt sorry for Dumb & Gorgeous; this girl that has hated me since she found naked pictures of me in his underwear drawer. This girl that had won, this girl that he cheated on, again and again. And he will marry her, and she will spend her life with this misogynist. It has to be misogyny. Only a straight man can hate a woman so much with his love.

He was kind to me in his own way. That was because he did not see me as a woman, he saw me as a life long comrade. And a long time ago, that was enough for me.

And then I just felt like I was done. It was just done. I didn't want to be there anymore. I wanted to get home to let my dogs out, and check email.

I raised my Starbucks coffee cup to him. "I will miss you."
He shrugged. "I'm not going anywhere."

Oh yes you are.

my first check

it was years ago. i was visiting for a birthday or holiday of some magnitude and importance to them. the first four or five minutes were ok, then they started in. i couldn’t take anyone looking at me anymore. every criticism mounting: too skinny, hair too long, holy jeans, how could my car have been repossessed, why didn't i ever finish school, did i ever plan to get a real job, and the disappointment because everyone expected great things from me and what happened what went wrong why fuck up suchafailure…

i walked outside, off the backporch. i walked under the orange tree. i leaned up against the tool shed, and lit a joint. i could hear the wizard of oz playing in someone else’s backyard, as if everything wasn't surreal enough already. i looked at the garage, and the garbage cans, and the next door neighbor's pool.
i was my worst when i lived there.
or maybe i was my worst in high school. who knows.

i've been pretty bad in at least 4 states.

anyway, that night i ate dinner someone else made, i slept on sheets someone else washed, and pretended it was purposeful, directed and intentional, instead of obligatory. i pretended i belonged.

i went to the bowling alley that night with carla, and i watched her watching me drink corona and shots of tequila. she was still there. a constant. living the same life i had left behind a decade before.
i felt pity and jealousy at the same time.
she equates my escape with success, and toasts my new life. then asks me why my eyes are sad.
she would always be sweet carla.

she asked whats wrong, why wasn't i happy. after all, i sold that story. after all, i was a working ghost writer. and she asked how it was possible that my car could have gotten repossessed. and to her, i told the truth.

i couldn’t cash the check.

and could she just please buy me another beer and shut up about this.
i borrowed her car so i could do a drive by or two. ex's, fires, vomit. scenes of crimes long ago forgiven. and by 4am i was sitting in the park listening to the radio alone.

"and i think its gonna be a long long time,
touch down brings me 'round again to find,
i'm not the man they think i am at all."
-elton john

Beyond Chaos

Depth is an achievement.
Sometimes it's a little inbred.
Closeness is tragically born in chaos and need, and dies when the chaos needs to be left behind.


He was my Vietnam.


He wasn't the product of my best judgment or finest conclusions.

I can't be close like that anymore. It reminds me too much of earth.

It is a burden in the civilized world to always know better. And some things are perfect just as they are. Like Jeff Beck's Blow By Blow.

It should be enough,
for anyone,
to just be included,
war wounds and all.

Fugue

Because I do this. I just run. I want to forget everything, and I just go. Hysterical amnesia with flight. I like to call it adventure in certain company. but anyone who knows me at all knows better.

In one way or another, I find a way to go. That way used to be physical.

A review. I read a really bad review. And I could have said hey, my name is not on that, it can't be me, that review is not about me.

And maybe I dodge the bullet, but the fact remains.
THEY WERE SHOOTING AT ME.
And it became time to run again.
So I keep my eyes open.

I'm looking around the airport. I have an hour to kill in Dallas-Fortworth before my connection. And I make one of those completely regrettable decisions. I walk out of the terminal.
OK, maybe I was running.
And I get into a cab. "Here's $150. Drive until the meter hits that."
And I lay low for a while, where no one knows me.
As if anyone anywhere actually knows me, the real me. That is such a fucking laugh.
I find a cheap motel, in the middle of no where.
I take a long bath.
Then I get out of the tub, and sit at the desk, to write.
I remain naked, and wet.
cold,
and shivering.
Forcing my body to go through this with my heart.
"Adolescent fury... pathetic drivel..."
The bullets of the review that drew the most blood now committed to memory.
Vampires in the shadows.

He won't take my call.

Well, I don't know that I blame him. No one wants to give you shelter, when you are continually something that refuses to be permanent. I hear a door closing. I do nothing to stop it.

Don't laugh - I can't handle it.
Don't leave - I may not do this again.
But don't reach out - I can't reach back.

There are two kinds of people in the world:
Life rafts
And drowners.

Some people manage to stay afloat.
And some people dive head first into the deep end every fucking time.
Another life raft just got away.
I don't know how long I can tread water. Especially now that the fine art of drowning has become my way of breathing.

"Drivel."

Wow. My whole world just got quiet.

Cold Cocked

If Luke's mother hadn't been killed, the whole thing wouldn't have happened. None of it would would have happened.

"You left me with open eyes."
-Cher

Complacency breeds incompetence.

The comfortable rut nullifies our hunger. There is a struggle and there are steps we take to insure motion. Stagnation is fatal. And when nothing propels us forward any longer, we will slide backward. Simple physics. Thermodynamics. You never created this energy. And you can't destroy it. But god help you when the inertia is expelled and all motion has diminished.

Mediocrity is toxic. Any member of this pack can tell you that.

Ok, maybe it is the same shit every day. Maybe it is a compromise, and it's all about perception. But I can take the same breath, in a completely different light. It's the way I choose to see. It's the eyes I have been given.

Last Friday his editor gave me $600 bucks, a deadline, and reminded me to flush my valium. It would be a working weekend.

Ya wanna watch me fuck myself?

Assume the position.

The Rain and The Radio

There was a chance that this would happen. I knew that going in. All things have a beginning, a middle, and an ending. My therapist used to say that. I wonder if she realized I was listening.

And we do, we run these ragged little circles in life, over and over again. Trying to some how not feel the pain. But all along, our greatest fear, is that one day we really won't.

I was driving. Listening to the radio, when I heard a line I sold like a hooker sells a ten dollar blow job. Out loud. for all to witness.
It had been something that was ripped out of me, while I was passionate and helpless, just waiting to be devoured...
I was nothing more then the vehicle in which The Words arrived. Nothing more then a piece of meat, raped, and served on god's banquet table.
My most private moment. My Soul. Without cover, integrity or armor. Written... because I don't know how to stop it. I don't know how to keep it buried. Taken out of me, by a force I do not understand.

I took a long hard look at the guard rail, and assessed the chances of my pick up truck plowing through it.
Honestly - the thought only lasted a few seconds.
Obviously - it passed. And never returned. And that was 17 years ago.
And here's the really fucked up part: all I could think about, was getting home to write about how that felt.

Give that one a moment's reflection. And it only took 4 years of therapy to admit that.

I did eventually get home that night, to write about how glamorous my fatalism was, and how it felt to hear my Words on the radio, credited to someone with a smile and a checkbook.

"I'm a little man, running little circles, in a little world."
-Henry Rollins

First Pen

You don't invent the Words. They invent you.

I just spent $56 on eBay, buying a pen that looks like a pen I had about 25 years ago. When it first started at the possessed level. I bought that pen. I returned to the fire.

This is where I live. This is where I make my home and this is how I breathe. This is it. And I keep returning like a dog to its vomit. It's something so basic, so instinctual, so natural. The drive-by - when you drive past your ex's house at 2am. All criminals return to the scene of the crime, eventually. We all go back to the fire. Even a dog can figure that out.

It is your most basic instinct: go back to where it all went wrong.
Go back to the first pen.

A dog can't tell you what happened, and he can't ask for help. But he can say HERE. Here, this is the place, this is where it all turned to shit. Even a dog can do that.

Here is my fire. Here it is.
I don't know what I'm asking, I don't know what I can expect. But I can point to this and tell you - This is where it happened.

Somewhere between the rain and the radio,
this is where i came apart.

Inappropriate

"You're innocent when you dream, when you dream."
-from the film: Smoke

I gotta believe God loves us all, even the freaks.

Sometimes you are who you are, and sometimes there isn't anything you can do but be yourself. Even the way I loved was inappropriate.

I really fucked up.

And here I am, once again, giving the boogieman another shot at me.

Venus is older then Christ

venus is older then christ.
and, probably a lot lonelier.


mankind has only one soul
we, all, are really only one.
with one heart, and one honest breath.
and some of us dare to peak inside
and witness the vile reflection of our shortcomings.
and when we do,
we describe the same supper.
the same infant ocean.

my infant ocean.
my baby sea.

this is my venus. right here. my first and only, my true love.

for one single moment sincere in its brevity
intense in its bullseye
i don't feel alone, because i can sink into the solitary sadness of an ee cummings poem and breath.
he could only have looked inward to know these secrets.
he had to Feel,
to parade these fears.
when he looked inside,
he had to see me.

it is with one mind we know.
with one mouth we kiss.
one ache.
one loneliness.
it is all of us one,
and it is a well kept confidence
betrayed only from one artist to another.
and only because of love.

venus is older then christ.
and, probably a lot lonelier.
you have to have been on fire in order to be burned.

i apologize to the ee cummings who successfully glanced inside and survived the poetry. i apologize to every lover who's failure was to follow this and die by comparison. i apologize to the other surfers who'd kill for the breaks i've blown. i apologize to god, for...
everything.

because i can't stop
i can't stop looking inside of myself.
i can't stop looking inside of myself, nside of us all
at the empty black hole
of venus descending.

July 3rd, 1985

"And if evil be the food of genius
there aren't many demons around." -Adam and the Ants

With dignity. Always with dignity.

And as it turns out I am not hallucinating after all. I am not even sure if I am alive. Not completely. But I'm riding it now. It's happening, and I am on it.

I see no angels.
It's just me out here, and the sound of my heartbeat, and the feeling of my blood leaving.

Right now this instant. This is it: the most spiritually strong I will ever be. It's simple isn't it. You make your own heaven. State of mind, baby. It's all state of mind.

Base. That’s it. It's base.
It's like I am on base. Just like playing tag when you're little, and you touch base, and you're safe. Nothing can touch you.
Nothing can fucking touch you…

I am on spiritual "base."

….No, no I can't feel my legs. Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhh I don't want to talk about my legs. stop it….

God is ringing the dinner bell. Can you hear it?

If my head weren't spinning so fast, I would be able to see the swirls of Words.
The swirls of Words in my head. Great Words.
Conjecture
Pundit
Elevate
Eradicate
Because this is how I will make my heaven.

Each idea, each desperate emotion shall be ridden to the end, until its critical mass is finally achieved. All emotion has critical mass. It's just a matter of riding it out 'til the end,
until it explodes
and ceases to be.
It’s the cerebral manifestation of vomiting.

Penance? Now? As if, our mistakes should be punished?
The wrong road taken - there is no such thing.

…He's trying to tell me I am going to be alright. He may even believe that is true.

(I keep interrupting him,)
Just promise me you're getting all this down. Promise me that someone is fucking writing this down!!

We're there? No. No wait, drive around the block one more time. I have more.

There's more….


- July 3rd, 1985
Dictated by me, as I lay in the back of an ambulance.

Written down/transcribed by an ambulance attendant, on a white polyester sheet that he gave me later in the hospital.

Motorcycle accident.

I broke 6 ribs, 2 vertebrae, a shoulder, my nose, my cheek bone, and both sides of my pelvis.

He asked me for my autograph.

The Least Common Denominator

I jump from 1st person journal to second person conversation to third person proper with mood swings.

You localize, you make things personal by giving yourself a sense of home. Especially if you've never really thought you had one. You find one, and you circle it… not unlike the chalk outline around the dead body.

I didn’t ask any questions, because I was afraid someone might answer me.
I have cleaned up some of my life.
But I suppose eventually the rest will spill over and mess it all up again.
It's not really a mistake,
it is simply an idea of a mistake.
And I am always shocked that all of these battles are connected to the same war.

I arrange and rearrange my extra curricular activities on the lazy Susan, to assure that I am always within reach. And so far,
everything is an exercise in Psyche,
because its all about Eros after all.

The least common denominator is me.



"Love is like oxygen
You get too much you get too high
Not enough and you're gonna die"
-Sweet