No Patience, No Judgment, No Sense of Proportion

I went downtown to find conversation and look at women. Conversation is now a nutrient to me, whereas for a long time it was an allergen.

I look at women, these days, for its own sake; tell me there is anything more artful than the walk of a confident, and athletic woman and you will need to bring proof. Show me something more beautiful than a she who feels right in her own skin, and lets that ease radiate. Show me...

Wait...that's not the point.

I ran into someone I though must have died ages ago. He was a perpetual shit storm before I went to Michigan, and he seemed determined to stay that way. He was certain that drink and drugs would fix his mood disorder, and make him sane.

On seeing he wasn't dead I half panicked. I didn't want to talk to him. I wanted to look at the young lady who looked like Scarlett Johansson's slighter cousin. I wanted to watch the Cylon Model 8 coming down the street. I wanted...

He recognized me. He had a look that said life had beaten on him, but he wasn't ready to be taken out with the trash. I ended up talking to him for quite a while because

He was in a nearly identical

spot to what I was when she and I started the split.

I could practically hear Murphy The Almighty saying "Right yeh selfish wee prick. Be of some feckin' use to someone. Listen, and feckin' advise. And above all LEARN."

And I did. Listening to someone newer to this whole self disassemblage thing, who's actively resisting still, was a trip. I felt a little embarrassed thinking about some of the responses I've gotten from people listening to me these past 2 months.

I also remembered hearing "Everything is happening for a reason, though you may not know now what it is." Grrr....but...

This guy was afraid of losing himself. He'd never had himself in the first place, though. He was nothing but a collection of interactions with others: lover to Her, enemy to Him, burden to Them.

He was nothing but what he did to, for, or with others.

And he realized that, having lost absolutely everything else that he valued in his life that now was the perfect time to be, and fix him. And it terrified him.

I knew it would; I am Jack's Complete Familiarity With That Terror.

He and I had begun talking before I went to Michigan because we had writing and mood disorders in common. He hadn't written ANYTHING in 5 years. I told him that words had kept me from offing myself during the worst of all this, a true thing I hadn't shared with anyone yet. I told him that, in my belief, not using a creative talent was, for a creative type, a self injury akin to suicide. He admitted the fear of confronting himself. I gave him a piece of paper with the words "Litany Against Fear from Dune By Frank Herbert" for him to refer to, and look up later. He asked for my pen, and wrote a page while I sat.

I gave him my number, and went on my way, knowing he knew more than he did before I saw him. And so did I.

I then went home, and reflected on where I am, mentally, and emotionally. I realized that I had seriously hoped to skip some of the worst parts of recovering from the end of my marriage. I had wanted (say it with me recovery people) An Easier, Softer Way. There isn't one. Which fucking sucks like a hole in a spacesuit, but there it is.

Two weeks ago today I found myself in the midst of what turned into a Category 5 Crush. Being one of the greatest highs known to humankind, even in the best of times, finding myself feeling that way in the midst of heartbreak was nothing but AWESOME. I mean like Northern Lights, evidence of the Divine AWESOME.

Having, but scant days before, been holding on to the will get through the night by my nails I suddenly felt...cured. Heartbreak has the same neuro-chemical activity as crack withdrawal. It doesn't suddenly get cured; it just goes into remission for a bit.

The danger with Crush-induced remission is the instinctual drive to get more of the high, like with any addictive behavior. People become addicted because they want to feel differently, and become dependent on one thing to provide that.

I'd like to say that I had the sense to change my behavior, but life intervened, details irrelevant. I also think I may have acted like a goon, but that's about my speed right now.

(My *facedesk moment is that, in other circumstances, I could totally fall for her, as she is just plain amazing. But circumstances are...not those. But if she kissed me...nevermind.)

Some dumbasses with totally distorted views of romance may be saying "But what if she's willing to be the drug for you?" If you thought this then please refer to the beginning of the previous sentence. If that's confusing then DUMBASS: Drugs are inanimate objects that you can use to change some feeling, either mental or physical, in yourself BY CONSUMING THE DRUG TOTALLY. Human beings need reciprocal action of some sort, not to be devoured whole.

I tried to escape this truth, but it's a Juggernaut. I'm all fuckered up, and will be for a while. But I remember what it's like to not feel that way, and I don't think I could have survived without that.

So I have a memory to use in casting my Patronus on the dark nights, when the Dementors are trying to suck my soul out, a simple, perfect good feeling, of being worthwhile in the eyes of someone wonderful, with no poison, work or obligation attached to it. Good stuff. Works very well, even better with snob chocolate.










(Now if I could only sort out whether my Patronus takes the form of a cat, a horse or a rooster I could stop snickering in my own head.)

On the Lyrics to "Romantic" songs.

I was just reading the lyrics to Depeche Mode’s “Enjoy The Silence. “

Hang on. Let’s stop a second, and get something out of the way.

I like Depeche Mode. I sing their stuff to warm up my voice. I have a similar voice to Dave Gahan, and this used to benefit me greatly with young black-clad females. Not only do I like DM, but I feel a certain gratitude to them as well.

I like Depeche Mode. Are we going to have a problem? No? Good.

So I was reading the lyrics to Enjoy the Silence, because I always get some of the second verse wrong, and in 20 years I’ve never bothered to correct it. I always got the first two lines, and fumbled the rest. This was usually because I no longer had to sing the song, having achieved my objective in trying in the first place. Later it became general boredom.

“Vows are spoken

To be broken

Feelings are intense

Words are trivial

Pleasures remain

So does the pain

Words are meaningless

And forgettable”

That bit about vows is kind of obvious: “Yes, we’re married to other people. I DON’T CARE.”

The rest of the verse is just him throwing words at her in a poetic fashion to get her into bed. And laughing at her about it: “Words are trivial” “Words are meaningless And forgettable”. Trivial? Forgettable? Oh my god, he thinks she’s an idiot. And she probably is/was. He's getting her panties off using words, but words are...yeah.

The point of the song, like so many others, is “I’ll Pay You In Pretty Words If You Let Me Put It In You.” Seriously. There’s no other reading for it.

It got me thinking about other “romantic” songs, and how many have been exactly the same. There’s hundreds. I won’t bother with R&B or soul music; after the 70s, in those two genres, if a song wasn’t a blatant attempt at fucking then it was the exception.

One of the first examples I recall getting a chuckle at was Extreme’s “More Than Words”. The whole point of the song is summed up in the first verse and chorus:

“Saying "I love you"
Is not the words I want to hear from you
It's not that I want you
Not to say, but if you only knew how easy
It would be to show me how you feel

More than words
Is all you have to do to make it real
Then you wouldn't have to say that you love me
'Cause I'd already know”

He wants a blowjob. Or to put it in her ass. He wants some action from her that she has previously been unwilling to perform. All the rest of the lyrics are window dressing to make the cited point: “We’ve Talked About This, Now Pick A Hole.”

I can spot this kind of crap because I used to do it to with my early writing. I tried to be as vocabulistically gymnastic as ee cummings, while pretending to be as profound as T.S. Eliot, all to obscure the fact that all I had to say was “I Want To Put It In You, I Don’t Care Where.” This was because I didn’t have the courage to be as blatant as Prince. On reflection, if I had, I probably would have had more fun, and fewer headaches.

One of the worst offenders I’ve ever heard is “Say Goodbye” by Dave Matthews. I used to like the guy’s work until I heard this shit. And my girlfriend of the time fell for it, dropping far down the evolutionary ladder, in my estimation, coming to rest just above a skink. She obviously lacked the ability to reason past some base-animal instincts.

“So here we are tonight
You and me together
The storm outside, the fire is bright”

The first thing I wonder is how much effort he expended arranging this scene, getting someone he knows is attached trapped in what seems to be a cozy little cabin. Without her significant other.

It probably just took money.

“And in your eyes I see
What's on my mind
You've got me wild
Turned around inside
And then desire, see, is creeping
Up heavy inside here ”

Well, yeah. Cozy fire. Storm outside. There’s probably wine flowing. He admits they’re already friends, so there’s a connection there. But that’s not good enough for him:

“Now let's make this an evening
Lovers for a night, lovers for tonight”

Let’s translate this accurately, instead of in the manner that flatters the ego of the weak-minded: “I Want To Put It In You.”

I’ll skip to the point of the song:

“But tomorrow go back to your man
I'm back to my world
And we're back to being friends”

Really? She cheats on her man with you, and you’re supposed to just be friends after that? Really? I don’t know anyone who could actually do that. Either she would feel guilty and tell, ending the relationship, or as a condition of her man not leaving she’d have to stop talking to Dave. Or she’d leave her man, and hope for something more with Dave, which wasn’t Dave’s plan in the first place; attached women are preferable because you get the fun, but none of the responsibility. (Or she’d never tell her man, and just keep her cheating ass a secret, robbing him of the choice of real relationship, but we don’t believe gentle Dave Matthews would fuck a sociopath, do we?) Whatever happened next her life is permanently altered, but at least Dave got some.

He didn’t want a girlfriend: he wanted a warm, wet place to store his Willy in for a night. He wanted her to go back to her man, while Dave went off to his “world”. (See, she’s got a man, Dave has a whole world; sucks to be her.)

This song is more obnoxious to me than most others because the words are well rendered. They are also something I would have said when I went after attached women regularly, not just in content, but style. It makes me angry that I have to identify with Dave Matthews, but I could have written this song 20 years ago; so I see it for what it is. A bunch of pretty words designed to flatter an otherwise intelligent woman into bed. That’s it. It’s more artful than say, some 80s hair metal ballad, and has better grammar than “More Than Words”, but it has the exact same point: “I’m Glad You Think My Words Are Pretty. I Want To Put It In You Now.”

A Kitten in the Mouse Cage.

This may be vastly more than you want to know about me. I'm hoping this will be more than just babble, but we'll see. I may post it, and take it down. Who knows. If I've gone too far please tell me.

Haven't had sex in a month. I'm starting to get weird. Even for me.


I haven't had but a couple of poorly conceived kisses from my wife in a month. She and I will not be having sex anytime soon, possibly ever again...but I'm not going there. She is irrelevant right now.


I want to fuck. 

I want to make breathless wetness, and FUCK.

I want to throw down on a mattress, and FUCK. 
                     
I want sweat on skin making skin slide on skin, and to FUCK. 
                                                            

I want teeth, and nails, and screaming, and 'please FUCK...'.
                             

I want to make early Prince songs blush and to FUCK.
                          
I want to get in bed for a quicky with 
whichever her 
and have her call friends, family, work 
to cancel 
whatever 
the fuck
so we can continue 
to FUCK.
 

I want to release the best part of the beast, and FUCK.




Am I clear about what I want?
 

It's not just the fucking, of course. I want the validation of being found that attractive that I'm allowed inside someone I want to be in. 
           
This is not easy for me to achieve, and it should hardly be surprising, as strange and off-putting as me and my moods can be. Some problems for me getting laid:

• I'm not good with one night stands, because I have to actually like someone before I can get naked with them. That eliminates picking up women at a bar, aside from the fact that I'm sober and hate being around herds of drunks.
• Due to my neuro abnormalities I need to trust someone, because I usually have a post-coital ticsplosion, and to be made fun of in such a state of vulnerability would probably scar me for life. 
• One of the biggest problems I have, though, is that sex, especially if it's good, almost always causes me to attach to someone. There have been few exceptions. This would be fine if it was the beginning of a real relationship, but I've only experienced 10 days in the last 60 where I wasn't heartbroken, so there will be no real relationships for a while. Even if I consummated a crush (a feeling I've recently proven more than capable of) I wouldn't have anything sustainable to offer her, but I'd feel an obligation to try.
• This also makes it difficult to bed a stranger because I get a glimmer of the attachment regardless, and it's kind of terrible to come out of a libidinous fog to find that I'm unable to stop thinking about someone who is, in fact, a total asshole. The cognitive dissonance then is painful.

I was downtown today, transmitting the WANT TO FUCK vibe. This is much different than the WANT COMFORT AND PRETEND LOVE vibe that I often have. This is predatory, but somehow less frightening, it seems. I normally have no shame in staring at women, even when I get caught. Today I caught several of them looking at me. WANT TO FUCK is an animal vibe, and helps identify other animals by who responds. 

I felt like a kitten in a mouse cage at a pet store. 
             
All of the women who were interested seemed to be attached, in a hurry, or too young for me to be okay with. The validation was nice; I would just like a dose of wherewithal to grab me one of them.
                  
I am actually so sexually ravenous right now that I could very well suspend my need for trust, to my detriment. 

But here's the final couple of problems I have with getting laid right now:
               

• I've been spoiled. I have the libido of a teenage boy. I've been with woman who has the libido of teenage boy for 5 years. Anything short of complete, near-porn madness may be weird, disappointing, and awkward. Of course to really take advantage of this aspect of me I need a bond, and trust, see above.
• And, in bedding someone new, on the outside chance that we're sexually compatible, I will probably fall apart after fucking. And with a stranger, or someone not prepared, that would be a level of strange, and vulnerable I can't even imagine.

I'm at the point, though, that I'll risk all of the emotional damage. I just hope for the following things: 

• That she be gorgeous (I am a guy).
• That she be clean. I've had a vasectomy; I'd like to take advantage of it.
• That we get along well enough that any meltdowns on my part won't end the night/day. Because I will get over it and resume the scheduled program.
• That I can talk to her. No seriously. There will be intervals of as much as 30 minutes when I'm useless for anything but talking. (What?)
• We can spend a whole night, and possibly the next day...practicing. 
• That she not mind being woken up in the middle of the night, possibly several times.
• That she has the sense, and self control, that if repeats are desired, not to get together too often, as I will become attached, possibly addicted if it's good.

So here's me, ravenous, and a danger to myself, in spite of my impossible demands on the universe for a new sex partner. 

But, even considering the possible consequences I find myself not caring. 


I 

WANT

TO

FUCK.



So that's what I want. What do I need, though?

The Gospel of Murphy-Book One

I describe myself as a Murphyist. For those who don't know Murphy is the true name of the Almighty, Creator of All. You may have been told otherwise, but I assure you that before some strange transliteration failure turned his name to 'Yahweh', The Greater Leveler of Conceit, the Lancer of the Engorged Ego, was, in fact, an Irishman. And here is the first of his gospels.


The Gospel of Murphy
Book One
How it all kicked off.

In the beginning there was fuckall. There was not a fuckin' thing, neither Heaven, nor Earth, nor any Superiority/Inferiority Complex Symbiosis, or any of that oul shite. There was nowt. Well, nowt but Murphy. And Murphy said, "I can't feckin' see shite!", and he fished an unfiltered fag from his pocket, struck a match with his thumbnail, and said "By me balls, we've to get somethin' going!"

Not knowing what to get going, there being nothing to provide the inspiration, Murphy tapped out his ash, spat on it, and rolled it into a ball. As will happen, unchanged for countless eons, a smoker with fuck all to do will amuse himself with his smoking materials, and bodily functions. As Murphy's pocket was ever full of fags and matches, there was much primordial puerile amusement to be had. The spit and ash ball was soon bloody gigantic. There was Murphy and his ash, just floating about.

Murphy realized that the sheer size of the thing was crushing it in on itself, until it was
1/1,000,000,000,000 the size, but still as heavy. Murphy tired of climbing it, and beating it, and attempting to break parts off of it, and of trying to light it on fire. He was so far past boredom that he had resumed experimenting with smoking materials and bodily functions. And thus was the first fart lit on fire.

That was all that had lacked in the attempts to crack the ash; an explosion. That mighty wind turned to fire, and shattered that dense rock into trillions of pieces, into the laws of gravity and relativity, and billions of proto-consciousness that came to believe themselves divine.

As this happened Murphy floated unconscious. He stayed so for eons. When he came to he couldn't decide if he was happy, or sad that none had seen his blunder, for on the one hand it had shamed him some proper to act the prick so totally, but had he seen another act so, by his hairy bollocks he'd have laughed. He kept that in mind for later.

The Gospel of Murphy
Thanks be to bollocks

Surprisingly good things

I had to get out of the house. Had to. I was going quite stupidly mad, mainly because I was trying to convince myself it was okay to not put forth the effort to leave, that being lazy was somehow forgivable, as the drizzle made my leg hurt.


After reaching my limit for aborted attempts at recording a song I left. My first surprise was when I put in my headphones, and tried to listen to Afghan Whigs' 'Gentlemen'. I couldn't. It was too perfect a rendering of some of my least favorite emotions.


So I put on 'The Great Cold Distance' by Swedish Metal band Katatonia because anything would be more soothing than how 'Gentlemen' made me feel. 

Before I go on let me say that I HATE Scandinavian Metal on spec. I don't care how talented the players are; they just seem so caught up in being METAL that they have no idea how to write SONGS. There's often this notion that they're the inheritors of Wagner that makes me giggle, and a pretension that they're continuing what Stravinsky started. 


They are Wankers, for the most part.


But this album by Katatonia is so BEAUTIFUL. My gods. The think about melody, and harmony, and conveying a message to anyone listening, not just those who dress like them. There's depth, and caring, real feeling. The aggressive guitars are used to emphasize mood, rather than destroy it, while the vocals tell emotional stories we all get: loss, love, anger, disappointment, and hope.


Good songs transcend genre. These are great songs. 


As I walked I let myself be moved by the beat, power-limping in time. I even started moving my hands, knowing what a spectacle the shaven-headed cane carrying dude must look to passers by, nearly rockin' out to the Metal.


I walked in front of a middle aged couple for a while, power-limping top speed. I had already accidentally intimidated several people, but I didn't care; I'm harmless, I know it, so it's their problem. They were behind me 1/4 mile, and then my leg cramped. I stopped and leaned on the rail near the Memorial Bridge. 


And the couple stopped to see if I was alright. 


They stopped


to see


if I was alright.


They weren't intimidated, or if they were it was secondary to seeing someone possibly in need. They were really concerned. I thanked them heartily and said it was just cramp. The man said I'd been going quite a clip. I replied that power-limp ought to be an Olympic sport, and they moved on.


It's always such a relief to be treated as a human being, especially when you've been questioning your own humanity regularly. My mood, which had been tenuously holding to good, was now solidly anchored in the positive.


I continued into town, went to BNG and saw guys I hadn't talked to in years. Last at a funeral. Was weird given last night's 'Hurt'...


But after that I had a long, in depth political discussion with Angry Mike. Turns out he and I agree on most things, arriving at the same points through different rationales. 


Also had a good conversation with Calvin, the young guy who lives in our attic. He'd showed up unexpectedly, and was outside drinking tea. He's going on a short tour with his band, supporting Angry Samoans. He's a good guy. 


We talked about Scandinavian Metal bands, and some of the things he told me about one he knew about reinforced my earlier point about the majority of them. I'll not mention them because they deserve no fame from me.


He left to walk, I went back in BNG to get some dessert to take home. Setting eyes on a piece of chocolate on chocolate on chocolate cake (who gives a damn what they call it) I finally got the attention of Angry Mike's impossibly beautiful girlfriend Tuya (sp?). "What'chu want?" she said with mock attitude. "Cake!" I replied ravenously. "Oh. How sad. This piece is broken. I'll have to give it to you for free."


She did (aside from the dollar tip). More Katatonia, more grooving with my cake in a box on the way home. 


In spite of the weekend's bobble (or narrowly averted faceplant), and having to talk to and about m...someone I don't want to today, I'm back to something akin to last weeks blissful mood, hovering around a 10 on my Hierarchy. Simple, good stuff. Small magics I haven't tried to manage, and didn't try to control.


Needs are almost all met. Life is quite good.


I still have wants, but I won't be greedy. But, if'n his Almighty Ironicness would be amenable to it I'd not turn down...well, later. If...

Hurt-Johnny Cash's cover of the Nine Inch Nails song; Mourning.

This was posted on Facebook earlier today. I love the song, consider Johnny Cash a hero. Today, though, this song had some secret map of me, snuck past whatever sentries I had watching my emotions, to tear me apart.


I hadn't thought of them today, my ghosts, my dead. I don't think of them often, and it sometimes makes me wonder if there isn't something lacking in me that doesn't let feel for people once they're gone.


I can say conclusively that isn't so. I've just been afraid to look at the spaces where they all used to be, the blank. For someone terrified of being abandoned death is too much to comprehend. Easier to believe you don't have feeling at all about it, rather than to look directly into absence, a permanent vacancy, the "what ifs" that are now "never knows", and "never wills", and to hear that childish thought of yours echoing in the void: They Left Me.


Someone walks away from you and you can chase them. If you stop getting along you can both change if you want. If there's life there's hope.


If someone puts themselves in a box...


All those selfish, self-absorbed juvenile thoughts are horrible, because you know it's not your fault, but you feel and think these things, and have to use your rational mind to stop them when your rational mind is in flight: What did I do to drive you away? I know I should have been a better friend. I didn't mean to. Come back.


I was talking with someone I've known for a long time, though the real friendship is new, about the death of someone we knew 20 years ago. I hadn't known in all this time that he'd closed his own story. He was ill, and infirm, and it was never going to get anything but worse, but I hadn't known.


She pointed out the place where he drowned himself right in the river. "We're surrounded by dead people", she said. We are. I've been thinking of all of them in the last couple of hours. I'm remembering them all, remembering them alive, remembering the things that made them matter enough to mourn.


I didn't know until now that I hadn't yet, because I couldn't admit they were really gone; some part needed to believe that they were coming back, so insulated me from feeling their loss.


Johnny Cash died not long after this video was made, and his voice warbling in age, and infirmity hints at that. This beautiful, perfect, painful, song rendered by a true artist on his way from this coil, opened that which kept me from feeling these losses, and put me screaming on the floor. Even now, trying to pin this feeling to a frame of words, to give it shape I can comprehend, my cheeks are tear chapped, and my nose blocked. And I dare not play the song again.

A Practical Man

 (Zombies. A Maine Lobsterman. Guns.)

A Practical Man

(Chris Walters 2002)

I’ll tell you one thing, I fuckin’ hate the state of the world. I didn’t have much use for people when they was alive, clutterin’ up the highways, buying up my town. Now they’re fuckin’ dead, and they still be in my way. Well, I got a solution for ‘em, in just about every fuckin’ caliber.

Call me Howie. I’m a lobsterman by trade, and a Mainer by birth. Spent my whole life in a town called York. My family was all there. Reckon my parents are dead now. They wouldn’t come with me when I went for the boat. I know they went down shootin’. My Ma was a hell of shot, even in the wintertime when arthritis curled her hands up like dead chicken feet.

My son took off with that friend of his, who always got conversion kits for new guns. I’d bet they’re all right, if anyone is.

See, I was home that February day when I finally found out what was worst than tourists and carpetbaggers: fuckin’ dead carpetbaggers without the goddam decency to stay dead. The weather was mild, but there was rough water out where I put my traps. I was takin’ er easy cleanin’ some guns, and putting a new muffler on my truck. (I’ll tell you what, if the head of Ford got ate by one of those things, I would not be upset). 

Anyway, ‘bout noon I hear screamin’ from the Goddam Yuppie housin’ development down the street from me. I figured they were just lettin’ those useless little leech kids of theirs run wild, like always. Never did discipline those little assholes, just gave “time outs”, like they was playin’ hockey. I swear those people only had kids to show ‘em off.

Well, the screamin’ got real loud for a bit, then it sort of trailed off. Then I heard sirens. The York PD were on their way. I figured whatever was wrong, those people’d do better to bribe their assailants, rather than depend on the fat stupid cops to save their bacon.

Being as I’m a practical man, I went inside, and loaded the guns I’d just cleaned. I called the wife downstairs and told her to check her rifle. She looked concerned, but she knows better than to argue when I start talking about guns.

I turned on the scanner. They changed the police frequency a few years ago, so you can’t listen in on the cops. They didn’t do nothin’ to the fire and ambulance frequencies, though. Those equally fat useless fucks at the York Volunteer Paramedic squad were on their way to scene. Seems there were a lot of seriously wounded Yuppies. If I wasn’t so close to those Yuppies, I might’a been right pleased.

When the first ambulance got to the scene, I heard one of the attendants puke out his window. From what they were saying, a mortar round may have gone off in a Yuppie’s yard. I felt like I’d dreamed that at some point. Anyway, the cops started putting rounds into somebody, and that somebody wasn’t impressed. The whole thing turned into the opening of “Saving Private Ryan”, blood, screaming, bullets, and craziness.

The wife turned on the TV, to see if there was any news about it (not likely in York), and found every station, including cable, talking about attacks by unknown assailants. The National Guard was called up everywhere. Jesus H. Christ.

I went down in the cellar, and got my prize weapon: an M60 machine gun. I had three crates of ammo, and gathered all that up and brought it out the truck. I told the wife to start loading all the guns into the truck, and to grab some food. We were going to the boat.

It’s been what they call an open secret ‘tween me and the cops; about the machine gun, I mean. They know I got it, I know they know. They know that if they ain’t got a warrant, and the National Guard, they are not to come on my property, or I’ll demonstrate the effective use of it. I didn’t care a turd about the secret right then, as I didn’t think there were gonna be any more cops in just a minute.

The wife got the supplies in the truck, got in. Right about then I saw the first of those things: a Yuppie, naked except for sandals (what kind of a man wears sandals?), and a toupee that was coming unglued.  In spite of the wounds (bite marks and bullet holes), I recognized him as the arrogant fucker who tried to buy my land two years ago.

Now, I had no idea that he was dead, so to be a law abidin’ citizen, I gave a warning.

“You sick bastard, stay the fuck off my land!”

He didn’t stop of course, so I shot him in the knees, smiling like a kid on Christmas. It cut him off at the legs, but the sonofabitch started crawling. I figured that was clear and present danger, so I cut him in half, lengthwise. That stopped him.

Then I saw three more of ‘em coming up the road. I threw my ’60 into the back of the truck, got in the cab, and ran those things over quick.

The wife had put my M16 in the cab of the truck, along with the .357 and her hunting rifle. I took the pistol, and she took the ’16. We made a beeline for my parents’ house.

We got there, and we had to shoot a couple of those things to get to the door. My parents were busy carefully loading their rifles. They were taking a goddam long time about it too. Well, when you’re eighty-five you just can’t move all that fast.

I tried to get them to come with us, but they were stubborn like a couple of granite bulls. They had too much medicine to carry, and besides, they said, it’ll blow over.

I tried to argue with ‘em, but you can’t argue with people that old. Ma kicked me out of her house. Me and the wife left. We saw some of the creatures making their way up the street. I hoped the parents had plenty of ammo.

There weren’t too many creatures yet, so we didn’t use up much ammo on the way. We got to the dock where my boat was. There weren’t any creatures there yet, so we got the guns on my boat quick.

I started the engine, and the wife ran back to the truck to get…some damn thing. We don’t have a lot of bums in York. Fuckin’ great luck the only one in town had been napping under the dock, when the cirrhosis got him. He crawled out, and started for my wife.

I grabbed my .30-06 and tried to take aim. The goddam boat was pitchin’ just enough to throw my aim. I fired off a couple a rounds, but best I hit was the bum’s shoulder. He just kept right on after my wife. I yelled to her, but she couldn’t hear so well at the best of times. I got onta the dock, but by this time a good shot to the bum would hit the wife.

It was then she turned to come back, with an armload a stuff, and she ran smack into ‘im. I was runnin’ to her at this point, but not fast enough. He took a big ol’ chunk of her face, got that whole too big nose I always had to forgive, and part of a cheek.

All the noise of her shriekin’, me yellin and me shootin’ had attracted a few more things. I recognized some of my competition from lobsterin’ wanderin’ hungry towards my wife.

I told ya, I’m a practical man. I couldn’t save my wife, so I did her a favor and blew her head off. Then I got in my boat and headed to open water.

It’s April now, and I been to dry land three times, for fuel, and some nets. Had to be able to catch fish. There ain’t a lobsterman I ever met who’d eat those fuckin’ things. Lobsters I mean. The shit they eat (and I mean that literal-like) you realize they’re just a walking sewer treatment plant.

I heard a couple a transmissions on the radio, somethin’ about a bunch a people holed up in Wal-mart. Fuck that. I don’t want to be where I can be snuck up on.

There’s a small group of islands, not too far off shore called the Isles of Shoals. I tie up there on occasion, when the sea gets too high; don’t get off the boat, though. It took me a while to clear the Isles of dead people, but I did it. Mostly, I keep on the water.

Just when I thought things couldn’t get worse, I ran into a Navy patrol. This fuckin’ destroyer hauls ass over the horizon one day, starts trying to get me on the radio. I ain’t fuckin’ answerin’ them.

Well, they pull up alongside, and the skipper get’s on his bullhorn, and starts yellin’ at me. This sonofabitch tells me that since I didn’t answer their hails, they consider me hostile.

Fuckin’ right I’m hostile, I says. I don’t like being told how to behave.

He tells me that martial law has been declared, and I’m obligated to obey his commands. He says they gonna draft me! At my age!

Simon says go fuck yourself, I says to him.

He is empowered to use deadly force to gain my compliance, he says.

Better shoot me then, I says.

I am the stubbornest sonofabitch he’s ever met, he says.

Thank you. Now fuck off, if you would, I says.

Blow him, he tells me.

We trade one-finger salutes, and they fuck off. And that’s the last contact with the living I had for a long time. I’ll go back to dry land eventually. At least there won’t be any more goddam tourists, carpetbaggers and Yuppies.

"Amusing" (another old piece)

This is another more adult themed piece, but it's humorous. Even I can say that past my own embarrassment on the day.





                                                           Amusing






    (let me first explain
        that my bedroom door
    opens onto the landing
for the whole apartment house,
    and that said house
        is just past aged,
    approaching venerable,
    so sometimes the frame
    swells
    when it rains
    and lets go of the woodglued door
    to let it play in the wind of my fan)


It’s a night
I think
in August
and no one I needed was at the bar
so I’m buzzed
and I’m home
and maybe I’ll write or maybe I’ll just
amuse myself
like I’ve done chronically
since age nine,
so much so
I should have died of laughter
many times,


And I’m thinking of the new neighbor upstairs,
how she moved in on the hottest day of the year,
and she was so FINE,
    tank topped
    Daisy Duked
    and a perfect little size
with no patience for my retro-actively adolescent eyes,


But it doesn’t matter
because I
am amusing
myself,
and I’m thinking
I could pick her up with one hand
so
by myself
I try;


And she sounds so
SWEET,
“ohmygod”
    her bliss,
        “OhmyGod”
        her rapture,
    “OhMyGod”
her epileptic
epiphanic
gratitude,
“OHMYGOD”
    her unbridled disgust;


waitasecond;
Disgust?
Why the hell did I fantasize that?


Then I hear the door upstairs slam
with the final authority of a fallout shelter lid
and the creak of my own
as it plays
in the wind
of my fan.


           Christopher Walters, 2000

Comet

One of my favorite old pieces. 

Comet

It was a strange and inexplicable rogue planet, unfettered by a star and its demands, possessed of the most rudimentary consciousness. It heated itself internally by some trick unknown to astro-physicists, and kept going its bizarre and nowhere course, motivated by a force astronomers would later term “gall”.

Then the gravity took it, and it suddenly knew it was a he. A proper star, formerly of many planets, perhaps even a binary system at one point, took the rogue in her orbital embrace, and bathed his surface in light and heat, and the majesty of storms swept through and over his shell. This produced in him the new and exhilarating sensation of life.

She was entranced by his receptiveness to her rays; her previous planets had been mere rocks, occasionally colliding with one another leaving nothing but asteroids, in several hazardous belts, spinning round her. This new one however had already started an evolution in the time it took her to reflect on the merits of old orbiters.

Eventually, evolution produced a thinking species, and they took to worshipping the star, rightly, as the source of all life. The hymns and poems and praise radiated back to the star, and she was flattered in a way she had never been.

Time passed however, and she began to take the adulation for granted as her due, and finally as the prattling of immature and uncivilized life forms. She began to try to change the planet; a flare here, a sunspot there, and parts of the planet were scorched. The people on his surface began to change. They became less kind, developed war, and envisioned a god to whom they plead not to destroy them. Very few kept the old religion or thanked the star for blessings any longer. Hunting those that did was a sport for the majority.

All of this horrified the planet. He shifted his most violent portions to the side least in the path of light, leaving them cold and uninviting, to no avail: the violence merely moved toward the light. Had he been able to find the language he would have told her to stop, but celestial bodies have little in the way of communication but dramatic action.

He grew miserable and missed being the rogue that he had been. However, he couldn’t do such a thing with all the life enveloping him now. He could not simply return to being such a simple and barren thing, universal debris taking up vacuum. He decided to wait it out, and see if it would all come back to simplicity and warmth.

Though she told herself that she was bored, no other planets were pulled into her orbit. The aeons passed matter of factly, with no more stellar violence.

The day finally came when the people of the planet had nearly destroyed his surface, most other life was gone, and they had found (by accident, warfare having improved their technology)the means to leave him. He encouraged them by letting his burning core burst his cool shell in many places, and allowing storms to cloud and distort his surface. Whoever failed to escape was burned away and taken back into him.

She was horrified by this change in him, this violence having never displayed itself before. She fired her flares with such force his orbit began to decay. He began to break apart and was happy. His orbital plane narrowed and became elliptical.

Finally, as a cloud of rocks and frozen air, he passed nearest to her he had ever been. As he slingshot away from her, the last burst of her heat reminded him of their beginning, and the closing of the circle eased the shattering. He sped for deep space, rogue once more, an occasional bright omen in the sky of some planet as he had once been.

And she in her rage had grown fiercer, and her storms burned through her system, evaporating the rocks of her past till she finally burst.

(Some of her planets surviving people, on a similar planet in a nearby system kept the tradition of their ancestors, incorporated her nova into their religious mythology: an omen of peace and change and of course wars later started because of it.)

She then contracted to a tiny, cold, and forbidding thing, lacking sufficient gravity to collect a system about herself, invisible from one star away.

                    Christopher Walters, 1999

Some crude humor about my wandering eye

(My eye wanders and never stops. I don't wander, and will not start.)


Seeing me,
like a cat
unable to not look at something of prey-interest


and looking at the third attractive woman in 10 seconds
of disparate appearance
(this one dark featured, diminutive and caramel brown,
the last tall, creamy and platinum trimmed,
the one before a nymphish Cylon Model 8)
with no ability to stop myself,


Wife says, drawing on heritage for humor
"your name in Navajo would translate to
Anything With a Pulse".


Having heard it before
And being unable to resist this either
I said, drawing on the smallest group of
my own ancestors for basis
and straight face
"actually that's a bad translation based on a poor transliteration from the
Western Cherokee
and when all the vowels are correct it really translates to
'It's All Pink On The Inside'";


That may have been the only time she ever hit me, and I have rarely laughed so hard in my life.

Piece from last Beat Night

ADULT CONTENT POETRY.

Velvet Red Calligraphy

I’d been avoiding arranging my stuff in the new place
Because I’d been afraid of finding more reminders

And I’d been screaming

In public

Alone

From sleep Too often.

But I was checking the content of a drawer for an inhaler for all the dust I’d kicked up

And I found an erotic letter written in velvet red calligraphy, and I almost fell apart, but my pieces are never together anymore with you away, so there was no further to fall.

I remembered…

Should I ever fuck anyone else (something I’m currently unable to imagine) they will be compared to the ease, and perfection of us, the mesh of flesh, fantasy and deed.

“Made for each other” used to be an empty’ phrase…

You said, before splitting, that sex was all we had, and I can’t really argue.

I just don’t think you understand why…

Do you remember those nights,

(The last of which happened in late spring, though I’m sure you’d prefer to believe it much less recent), I don’t just mean sex because that didn’t stop till we moved apart, but

those nights with a

little bit of sex

before

a little bit of sleep

Before…?

Those nights when, already naked bodily we’d drop the games, and fronts, and manipulations we clothed ourselves in and were just us?

You thought I’d wake up ready like a teenage boy, and just take advantage

Because we’re like that and I could

And you like it so I should

But that’s not all of it…

I’d look at you, marveling, at the beauty of your unburdened face, and the skin as dear to me as my own,

And I had to be part of you, to become something more than me, because at those moments I could remember clearly the belief in forever, and in love, and in us,

And I’d use my body to try and touch your soul,

So I’d fuck you from sleep and

you’d wake to me in you

And my hands pulling you tighter, roaming as though touch-memorizing every inch, pulling hips into me, holding breasts for kissing, cradling your head as a treasure I never believed I’d earned,

You’d call my name breathlessly in a voice as sweet, and girlish as when we were kids

And those nights it was the song of my soul you sang,

And sometimes you’d say

I love you

As you came

And I’d say it as I collapsed,

But the last of these nights,

With my eyes in yours,

hands cradling your face

As pulses

And bodies

Pounded to the coming

burst

Eyes wide open, heart wide open I said first

I love you wife

And we burst,

And you whispered back

I love you

And your voice had tears on it, so I kissed them from eyes and words and face

And slept with my wife in my arms, and woke a whole man for one of the last times.

That’s why it was all we had: no other time were we just us, souls unshielded,

agendas,

and fears crumpled by the bed.

For all the awful things we did or said by daylight I knew how I felt on those nights.

“I love you, wife.”

That was reality, and all we had were those nights.

Chris Walters 9-11-10

Acknowledgments: I read this at last Beat Night. I had encouragement before the fact from CE, Shauna M-B, and HL that the piece was good. It tore me to bits to write and think about; I needed reassurance that it was good enough to share or I wouldn't have. 

On the night the wait to actually take the mic I was once master of was agonizing, knowing that I would be totally vulnerable in front of the room, as though as naked as in the piece. The reception it received was nothing short of extraordinary.

I'd not felt good in weeks, and waited in fear and twitching for my turn. I received messages throughout from she who lived the poem with me, but as she text-tore the stitches from my heart, someone else put lean arms around me, and whispered "I think you're wonderful", and started me feeling something other than pain for the first time since it all began.

She shored up my belief and resolve to risk it, and made me feel worthy, and as beautiful as she.

I wouldn't have even brought that piece, and definitely would not have performed it if not for her.

Thanks, H. I heart ya. A lot. 

Arrogantly Believing My Wound Closed...

I had to go to the drug store tonight. The one by the old house. The foul, moldy place, with the too difficult to mow lawn, the place where we were going to have parties, and do things, and be a family.


The place where we were married, in the the aforementioned yard, two years ago in October. I can't, and don't want to remember the date.


Arrogantly I believed I'd be fine riding by, but should have realized by the way I was going too fast in the dark, telling cars to go fuck themselves, that I was not in my right mind, that something was altering my reactions, like I was summoning the scary stuff to...tell it to go fuck itself.


I got near the house and knew I should have gone the long way; I turned across the street with a car bearing down so I wouldn't have to wait where I could just look at it. In the parking lot next door the first tic hit, causing me to contract in half, nearly flipping me over my handlebars. I screamed, just an inarticulate syllable. Then another tic, with a "GODDAMMIT!" This is one of my Tourettic nightmares: being so overwhelmed by an emotion that the condition that rarely asserts itself in any major way suddenly makes me a spectacle, an object of pity.


Fortunately there were no other people out, unless some unseen tenants of the apartment building nearby were on balconies.


Proceeding to the drugstore I saw cops parked across the street. Cops don't know what to do with someone like me, especially the Southern Sheriff Stereotypes that Kittery Cops can be. I clamped down, rode on.


Getting there I locked my bike, and started to buckle. I was flooding with feeling and memories I stupidly believed myself immune to. The sensations said in a the voice of my internal thunder storm: foolish little twitch...it hasn't been enough time; you are not healed; you've merely felt good lately; you've been high on creativity, and blazing dark eyes; your heart is still stitched together. Here's your good news: your stitches finally held; you may not fall totally to pieces.


Sometimes the choice you're given is Tics or Tears. Sometimes that's no choice at all; one will be a release of emotion, but a humiliation as some people can't be allowed to see that vulnerability (anymore),  the other an explosion of errant neuro energy, and embarrassing and socially damaging.


I panicked, and texted my friend Heather. Yes, same name as...her. My friend has become very important to me through this scary fucked up time. Her friendship, caring, and wisdom has helped me believe I'm worth something in moments when I wouldn't otherwise. She's been utterly invaluable. I was under Dementor attack, and the memory I used for my Patronus was her (Yes, that's a Harry Potter reference; what of it?). She makes me smile a lot, you see.


I felt weak and stupid, though, for being needy, for putting myself through a needless trial, for asking for help. She of course obliged, and it was only a wobble of a mood; I didn't fall back to misery.


I spent the rest of the evening among friends downtown, watching women, making fun of the trend to look like streetwalkers that had taken over. I had a few moments when I thought I saw my wife and...someone. I ticced a lot for a bit.


Mostly I was alright, though. I hadn't expected to feel as good as I often do these days, or to be able to not fall to bits from such a frightening moment. The Dementor attack failed. I am healing. I have help. I'm weird about that, but am learning to just accept things that make life better.

Rules of Wrist to date 2010.

I realized that they could convey the impression of self-righteous moralizing on my part.

Far from the truth.

I am a Son of a Bitch. I know this; it has been so my whole life, though I try to be better than that. As such I have been on all sides of the moral equations addressed in the RoW. I am currently paying off the karma for a number of actions as far back as 18 years.

I post the RoW because I see them clearly now. Had I know at the time of the transgressions I committed...

Fie...I would have done it all anyway. I just wouldn't have had the illusion of rightness for as long as I did. Such illusions were always a greater impediment to my becoming the type of man I want to be than behaving selfishly; the justifications and rationalizations were, in some cases, worse than the crimes.

The RoW are just more of me owning my truth.

Murphy be merciful if any of them sting.

+++++++++++++++++

The reflexes developed from parenting are hard wired, and permanent, as long as the instinct was there to begin with.

Seeing someone younger, or less capable about to enter a problem you can help with will trigger these reflexes. If they are not a child, and especially not your child

YOU HAVE TO ASK FIRST

before helping. The presumption of superiority frequently makes ones' help totally unwelcome. But, if you ask, and they accept, help away BEING CONSCIOUS OF BOUNDARIES THE WHOLE TIME.

+++++++++++++++++++++

It is no one's sole job to take care of everyone else. Some people believe that it is, and deny themselves care, caring, comfort, kindness, honest compliments, or decent treatment because they believe it's their job to provide those for others.

But if your own supply isn't restocked from outside what have you to give?

You are just as deserving of decency, care, and good treatment as those you give those things to. No, not "But". Shush. I'm right.

+++++++++++++++++++++

You feel how they make you feel.

Wait. Rewrite.

You feel how YOU LET THEM make you feel.

Yes. That’s it.

If they try to make you feel bad DON’T LET THEM.

If they make you feel good LET THEM*.

While it's true that you feel how you feel, and can't decide otherwise, you can decide what stimuli you have in your life.

You have a say in what actions you accept towards yourself. If you’re upset because you read an email/letter/msg from someone whose communications regularly upset you, that’s not really them upsetting you; that’s you allowing yourself to be upset. Do you have a good reason for communicating with them, ie kids, business, property, family? No? DON’T DEAL WITH THEM.

Conversely, if someone regularly sends/says things that make you feel good accept them, and revel/bask. If it feels good to be around them do so.

+++++++++++++++++++++

Figure out what your brick wall is and stop fucking headbutting it, because it ain’t coming down. Doing the same thing hoping for different results is nuts.

+++++++++++++++++++++

Any conditioned reflex or compulsion can be retrained. Even instincts can be ignored. We are the only animal who can choose to act contrary to instincts. No matter what your life has taught you to do/think/feel you can choose to do differently.

Drunks can stop drinking.

Smokers can stop smoking.

Co-dependents can stop running to their side when they call.

You have a choice, even if that choice is to behave in a way completely foreign to yourself. Yes, doing something new and different is the unknown. Yes, the unknown is frightening. But it might not hurt. Hell, it might even feel good. What you’ve been doing hurts. Isn’t that a worthy gamble?

+++++++++++++++++++++

If he regularly buys you expensive gifts, and he’s not rich, he thinks you’re his future. Really. No, he’s not just generous. Dumbass. Seriously. Dumbass.

+++++++++++++++++++++

Informed consent is the key to anything working out. Accurate self-assessment is the key to informed consent. If someone is emotionally, or intellectually incapable of accurate self-assessment then their consent will never be fully informed. Two people similarly incapable will involve themselves in a mess.

+++++++++++++++++++++

Spending time with the Old, and the New does not synthesize one perfect partner. Your feelings, and motivations are very suspect if you do.

+++++++++++++++++++++

If you want them to move on LET THEM. If you say you want them to move on act like it.

+++++++++++++++++++++

If you want to move on, do that. Act contrary to feelings that may prevent that. See several rules above.

+++++++++++++++++++++

If you're comparing the new to the old constantly you haven't really moved on.

+++++++++++++++++++++

How you think of someone you are interested in must only be based on that person, not them in comparison to another.

+++++++++++++++++++++

~A way to tell someone really loves you: they know everything about you and love you in spite of it.

BUT

~Telling them everything doesn’t mean they know everything.

BECAUSE

~Some people decide to feel a certain way, and refuse to let their actions be influenced by reality at all. Sometimes they want it to be true so badly they don't actually hear anything anyone says. They may have fallen in a short time for a false image of you, and can't let go of it no matter what you have done in the past.

+++++++++++++++++++++

Someone who’s made up their mind to feel a certain way doesn’t really feel that way. They can act like they do, and sometimes feelings will adjust to the action. But more often the feeling doesn’t develop, and it leaves the person seeming desperate or crazy acting as though it has. There’s always a sense of trying to stay ahead of something. Sometimes this artificial decided-on feeling becomes ritualized, even dogmatic. But it isn't real.

The most tragic of these type of feelings is that which a person believes they should feel. He treats me well so I should love him. She treats me badly so I shouldn't love her. I was taught this in church so I should feel it's true. YOU FEEL HOW YOU FEEL. There is nothing you can do about that. You act counter to your feelings, but you can't make your feelings run counter to themselves.

Not acting on real feelings can be sensible, and kind. Acting on decided-on feelings is false, and can be terribly cruel.

+++++++++++++++++++++

It doesn’t matter someone’s chronological age, or their ability to hold a job. They can be a child regardless.

+++++++++++++++++++++

Being Dumbasses, Control Freaks mistake deciding when and how they hurt for controlling hurt. They write off whole possibilities, and allow real love to pass them by just to avoid being swept up in an unknown, and maybe get hurt in a way they didn't plan on.

What they don't realize is that in narrowing the scope of their actions they are not minimizing only the risk of damage, but joy as well. That vigilance against pain, that need to control outcomes doesn't allow for wild happiness; only tame, manufactured, safe contentment. In the final balance all the safe, predictable things a Control Freak actually does are dwarfed by the potential they have shut themselves off from. These people allow fear to rule their lives, and that's just sad.

So are the "What ifs" that will pop up in quiet moments forever: What If he meant every word? What If she was sorry? What If they really did forgive me? Etc, and so forth. Those are not good company in your old age.

The only thing Control Freak should ever try to control is the need to control outcomes. Then at least if they get hurt it's whole, real pain they can grow from, instead of managed, regulated, medicated half-pain that leaves them broken. Because in the end, the regret over not having honestly tried with someone hurts so much worse than the pain of them leaving. And there are no drugs, drinks, or rebounds that can dull that hurt.

+++++++++++++++++++++

Pisces actually rule the world; we're just really passive-aggressive about it.

+++++++++++++++++++++

If you are angry, upset, vexed or annoyed at

them

because they haven't forgiven

you

for hurting

their

feelings

you have none.

+++++++++++++++++++++

When getting advice on relationships it's good to consider whether the adviser has ever had a successful one. Consider: are they married, and for how long; if single, do they date anyone who isn't married; have they ever been involved with anyone who wasn't insane? If your adviser has had a long run of unhappy, unsuccessful relationships then take their advice with a grain of salt. Or a fifth of tequila. Because even if they say something you like that you believe leads to happiness it's meaningless; you can't use as a guide someone who's never been there.

+++++++++++++++++++++

Conversely, commiserating with someone who has fucked up in similar or identical ways will actually lead you to somewhere better, provided you want to not be the person who fucks up like that anymore. Knowing you're not alone makes a big difference.

+++++++++++++++++++++

Asking different people until you hear what you want is for teenagers. Adults know the real answer is the one they don't want to hear, but hear repeatedly.

+++++++++++++++++++++

All the rationalization in the world will not shield you from Karma.

+++++++++++++++++++++

Anything born of another's anguish is not worth the price.

+++++++++++++++++++++

After causing great harm to another some people say "I didn't mean to..." Or "That wasn't my intention..." to which the Universe replies "Karma's in the mail".

(The wronged party is entitled to "Go to hell", or "Go fornicate yourself with an iron stick".)

+++++++++++++++++++++

Once you find yourself saying things like “I don’t want you to hate me” you have probably surrendered the moral high-ground so totally the French Army would be embarrassed over your retreat.

+++++++++++++++++++++

You have NO say in how they feel. If they don’t feel the way you want them to TOO BAD.

If you want them to feel differently then act in a way that earns it.

+++++++++++++++++++++

Two mirrors facing each other will only reflect an object placed between them, and that, endlessly. Without that object they reflect empty refection. Endlessly.

+++++++++++++++++++++

Boundaries define us, like lines define the end of one object and the beginning of another. When someone has clearly stated their boundaries, and you purposefully ignore them you are saying to that person “I’m more important than what defines you. You don’t matter.” Don’t get mad at them for being offended; figure out what’s lacking in you that makes you seek that kind of inappropriate validation. Because this is all your problem, not theirs.

+++++++++++++++++++++

You want to understand them? Then you don’t matter when analyzing them. You have to be able to eliminate all trace of your wants, wishes, and hurts to be able to understand them. Otherwise you’re just looking at them as some kind of extension of you, and that’s not really them.

+++++++++++++++++++++

Suddenly feeling good is often mistaken for happiness.

By control freaks who discover that drinking lets them relax,

by the shy having a line of cocaine and being suddenly confident,

by someone confused dropping acid and being able to clearly articulate what was in them finally,

by a bi-polar who, after months of depression triggers a manic and can finally do something useful again.

None of these states are happiness; they are highs. Highs always level off. Sometimes, when a person thinks that happiness truly depends on the substance/person/condition they end up dependent, even after no more good feeling comes from it.

+++++++++++++++++++++

It's never all one person's doing.

*As long as you, or they aren’t going behind someone else’s back, or breaking vows to spend time together. Your commitments have to come first, for the sake of your integrity, conscience, and trust. Only teenagers can rationalize past that.