There is a calm, creative air that my air breathes. And my best words are an approximation of this air. The wind blows harder occasionally, and it changes what I have to say. How about this? Know I love you. No matter what comes out of my mouth for 42 seconds. It’s going to be shitty. And it’s going to be true. And then it will be done.
Human nature
I don’t know how I know, but I know I know. That seems solipsistic, but, in fact, it is the opposite. I don’t know myself at all except looking backward. I constantly amaze myself with what I’m capable of doing. If my life were a movie, I would nudge you in the theater every three minutes, asking, ” What the fuck did he just do?”
Give me three minutes around you, though, and I will know exactly what you’re going to do next. I know human nature, I just don’t know mine.
Soft-boiled egg
She was slightly taller than me, 76 times better looking, and super age-inappropriate.
“Why do you like me?” I asked.
“I like smart.”
And so this weird thing began. She was smart, too. More street smart than me. Unfortunately, she had earned that. She was a soft-boiled egg—hard outside and soft in the middle.
The curse of knowing
How do you turn good into bad? How do you make things better when the easy always keep making things worse? Why is bad easier? Why is it bad? Most of us choose it soe of the time. Then we judge. We hate in others what we dislike in ourselves. This life is a crazy thing.
Sentience gave us rule of this world, but it also brought us inescapable suffering. Gazelles don’t fear death even when its neck is in a lion’s mouth. We got understanding. Loss became reality then we got fear. Knowing is fear.
Count
This is the new beginning. The new originals. The new today. This is not countable. It is impossible to count. Impossible to accurately measure. If the universe has a bookkeeper, then this is accounted for somewhere. But for all real purposes, there will be no count. It’s a thought exercise. Like wondering how many potentially fatal doses I’ve ingested, or how many times I’ve actually been close to death. No one is counting. But it is a set of integers greater than one and less than infinity.
Sociopath
Of course, we all have the ultimate responsibility for who we end up being. By the time that happens–is happening– blame has almost no real value anyway. And culpability is only recognized by the small subset of the guilty who possess insight and the ability to feel guilt.
Turning the dial
I do remember that night. We were on the patio, so you existed in half light. Coffee. SoCo. Late-night Austin. So beautiful and sad you were. You knew what your part was. I asked who you stayed with when you went home to Beaumont. “I don’t want to talk about that.” The internet churns. I already knew. I saw the pictures. I swallowed my tongue, and we laughed at Greg Giraldo. The implosion wasnʻt fast, but it was quick.
Everything is nothing
Peace seems like a silly word to use here. Which is weird because I’m a pacifist. My rage looks in the mirror and hates what it sees. The milieu is safe. I’m pretty sure I’ve never hit someone in anger on purpose. Your conspicuous rage baffles me. Which is weird because there is a storm in the center of me that will never quiet. It’s the sun and the moon and the stars, all at once, burning a fire that never stops.
Diaphragm
I wish to think that we’re not just slaves to dopamine and serotonin levels. The cynic in me recognizes chemicals and their resulting imbalances. The part of me still capable of tricking the rest cries, “Love!” I listen to songs or I read poems and the words shuck and jive, as they should, but sometimes one or three land a punch to the celiac plexus and still manage to draw my breath. Just like the literal and metaphoric heart, the diaphragm is a muscle that might work forever without your notice. Until something goes wrong.
Ambition kills
You don’t know me like I was. The me when I was corporate. It’s why I was always welcome and always rehired through my myriad proclivities. You never understood my value, and it’s why you wrongfully think I have no ambition. I am loyal. I am political to a fault. In that world, I only knew resilience and survival. I ate people I didn’t like or who I thought were unhelpful. I would sabotage your bungee cord and return your smile when you jumped. I’m much, much softer now. There are still teeth in my mouth and bile in my gut.