Twice I have wanted to call. So much to say, much already said. Lord only knows when you last looked at this, if you will ever again. Twice I wanted to call and refrained. Maybe this is a good thing. Not for us, but for me. You are my brother, not of blood, but of soul, of time. A thousand times we have picked up right where we left off. But today, I don’t want to pick up where we left off because we leave off where we left off the last time. And that seems like going backwards over and over again. I set too many rules when we entered this new land. At your request I abandoned them quickly. I can’t even remember what they were or why you hesitated. The one who hated the rules put upon him makes up his own at every turn. I have let this go misguided for too long and only now see the error of my ways. It matters not now. Many year have passed and I no longer care about yesterday, only tomorrow. Too many rules. Are you scared of the box that you have placed yourself in. Twice I wanted to call, to distract from the pain I feel. But you too are a source of pain these days. Twisted, all the parts that I thought were mine were yours. I can’t tell you that this will pass. This feels different than anything that has come before. Twice I wanted to call in the past 2 days. I reached for the phone and put it down.
We don’t really have any locks here, so it must have been the keys to the boat that I misplaced. How do you get to an island without a boat? Swim dare you say! What about the sharks? The sharks are always about. You are always keenly aware of the sharks and yet at the same time question their very existence. The sharks are always about. We are but chum. We are the fantasy. Allowed to drift long enough we create an island of what ever the rabble lets float away, and the rabble only holds whatever is in the moment, we are of tomorrow, not of today. I lost my fucking keys.
I find my self at a crossroads. Which is funny because I didn’t think we developed this place to have roads that crossed. That would require a lot of planning or none at all and we are not good at either. And yes, I know what I called my self. Damn it, I am sticking to it. It’s the only thing I have any control over, if you can call this control. The self is a rotten companion to rely up[on most days. Lies like a dog. Anyway, back the roads that cross. Looking both ways, hoping someone, well, you might be there. I wish I knew what I would say to you. But I do not. Our dialogue is always so dialed in. I am not quite sure what I am thinking lately. It is without hesitation that I move forward, but where I am going I do not know. I have been off the road for quite some time now. I gather resources on these little adventures. But I do find that I am gathering the same material over and over again. I do trim the fat from time to time, but I pack on the pounds right away and get back into my proper skin in due time. I do I do I do. I am not the same as the man I once was. He is dead and I have taken his skin. Who I fool is to my own desires, but I feel the skin is so much tighter than I had dreamed it to be, I flap my wings yet arms fall to my side. I scream at the stop of my lungs and laughter echoes. I look in the mirror and do not recognize the person before me. I will try again tomorrow, but tomorrow may find me lying on the ground. There is a hole with my name beside it. I will be in a million little pieces on the day I die, but the hole will be deep.
We have never minced words here. Garlic maybe, but not words. I am an asshole. To the marrow. I come by it honestly. It may be why I will never pass that gene on. This may be the most telling essay of who we are, if any of those who know us are trying to find us. But why would the be here? How? This land so far away from each other and all who think they matter. We have said everything to each other and yet we still have more to be said. Best not to be thought stupid, best to prove it, at least here. This is the year. What that means is yet to be found, but this is the year. Tomorrow could knock me off my feet, or it could throw me into the sky for a ride I have no preconceived impression of. I saw something this week. Something that made me think. I like thinking. Thinking makes me bleed, and bleeding lets me know I am alive. And I need to know I am alive. In my thinking, I got to thinking. You, until more recently, have always kept your eggs separate. Each one had their own basket and the baskets were not allowed to touch. For many years this was the case. Until the past few. When baskets spilled over into each other, and all was still right in the world. Except for one or two, but a rotten egg or a basket in a basket is hard to avoid sometimes. With this new position amongst your eggs, you have shown me how hard boiled I am. My eggs are all in my head. Poached, fried, scrambled or simply boiled, they each have their own basket in the same vessel. It’s time to make some room. Too many baskets. Maybe the eggs can exist together without the need for separation. It’s time to find out.
I know now that the pain is not what I hoped, or by chance, hoped it would be. It is still with me. I dread the coming week. I don’t know why. Maybe because it will pass as quickly as the last two, even more so if time works the way it normally does. Two weeks from now it will all be over. Just as it was last year. THe anxiety that happened in the middle is what I dread. How far will I travel before I don’t feel that way. I dread everything lately. Not some woeful sense of dread, but dread of not knowing if I will ever remember what happened. Dread of all the unknowns. Dread of repeating the same day day after day as I repeat the same day dreading the same day, day after day. I sit here, attached to this machine, as so many others are, not knowing where I begin and it ends. I long to use my hands again. I am alone with another int he room. I am alone with others all the time. THe conversation is killing me. I wait for the real me to step forward, but I keep tripping the fool who tries. I cut short all of the things that I have always wanted. I kill what is the life that I dreamed of. One year ago this very week I was in this same position with hope. Hope got off the jet at JFk and ventured elsewhere. I made my way home with less than I started the adventure with. I can’t see my future right now and it scares me. I can’t dream my days and worries me. I am almost lost of all feeling. What was it that I wanted this all for. what was it that I started this for.Alone and some is in the room. Alone and someone isn’t listening.
The sun is rising as I speak I stare into the light and the warmth covers my body. All I have I did on my terms, but I have not done all that I have wanted. The terms change today. Minor keys, minor steps, minor attempts, they have all been minor until now. It is yet to be known if the beast has been killed. Removed. Annihilated. The pain lingers. Four weeks is not time at all. Four weeks is an eternity. If the beast is still about, I will call him my friend and find a new sword to cut him down. The time has come to release the baggage and move on. I close the door on yesterday. But my bloated belly still hurts.
I can not count the times I have promised myself the new start that would change all the days that have come before. If I had a penny for every broken promise I betrayed myself with I wouldn’t need the nickel for each false start I cried myself to sleep on. I sit in a chair that I have not sat in in over  year. Somehow it is all the same and yet somehow it is all different. In just a few short minutes all of the reasons why I feared this very moment came flooding back. Rage filled my being. I let the sickness win today. Time is mine. At least I have always thought. A dear friends’ sister passed this morning. I have known her nearly as long as my friend. She was a comforting voice in a very foreign land nearly  20 years ago. Over the wall and on the other side of life we traveled together. Four strangers. A red headed mid-western girl turned NY designer., a Long Island curmudgeon photographer, an upstate blue collar boy, and the masters assistants sister. Two decades have passed and each of us have gone our separate ways. I rarely speak to any of them.  The masters assistant has become my partner and somehow her sister has woven in and out of my life at random moments. I have promised my life for so many before today my soul had better be a multi-tasker in hell. I was making plans just yesterday that included her. I can’t offer what is passed today. I should be mad. I should be sad. It should hit me somewhere below the surface. But I trust nothing, as nothing has gotten me anything thus far. It’s time for something else. RIPPL.
Conflickered to say the least. You have left twice, or rather I left you and you left me, once each, in the past 8 months. You arrival brings on so much at one moment. It always has. I am a better person when I am with ear shot. I want more. I want less. I keep looking for reason’s why this is happening. Nothing seems right. I know that tomorrow depends on me, but quite possibly my faith is lost. I am beginning to see how people give up, give in. Not that I would, I know what I have. But what about those who struggle every day of their lives and do not have a fraction of what I do. And yet I am still lost. Is it the desire for things too high. Is it the possible failure. Is it the possible success. I pull apart all the little moments to see what roots I can pull from the ground. Do I have anything to give? Do I have anything of desire? The warmth fades and flickers at every passing breeze.
In just the few minutes, if it was that long, I have forgotten what I was going to say. I am losing time constantly. Losing pieces of my mind. Forgetting who I am, who I was, what I wanted. I started this year off so differently. I was anticipating the next 10 months and the 2 previous. Not that a mark of time means anything to me. Not like I haven’t marked and missed each moment over the past 6 years with hopeful expectations. The world will be better if I start this on this date and it means something to me. I have forgotten what I wanted to write and yet I am still writing. Avoiding the work I need to do, in place of the work I want to do. Where do I start now? What do I pick up first? Will any of it mean anything again? Is it all downhill from here? I enjoy the climb but I am tired. Can I rest for a while?
I am writing to the cosmos, the great void where nothing is and everything begins. I have worried much lately of every little ailment that has afflicted me. I have (tried) to put down sugar at every turn in fear that the sweet disease will follow me way to soon. It is odd to watch after being so cautious for many months and realize that there is still so far to go. I must conquer that. Minor pains, brought on by acts of labor I am sure, spread within me as I lay my head to go to sleep. Is there disease in the very marrow of my bones? Will I find out in one ill fated day that mine are numbered. I immediately turn my mind to the three chidden that have so much left to learn and live, how can I miss this all. Who will they know if I don’t tell them my part of the story. Left in the hands of those who are close to me only part of the story would ever be known, and how would these very people tell  the tales if I am not there? You may be the only one who could cover the entire myth with a shroud of connection. And yet you too have complained about the secrets that I keep. I am waiting to start my life, I am waiting for the floors to dry, I am waiting to do the work that must be done before I can do the work that needs to be done. I am constantly waiting. I am constantly putting something before me that does not belong.  The past few months have been more than I can handle. I want to break down but I have no time. I want to cry but I have no emotion left for my life. I start to every once and a while and it shuts off quickly. No one is there to witness. My side is hurting again. Is it nerves or did the doctors miss some receded ails that will do me in. My early 50s never looked so soon as they do now. Thirteen years have blown by and nothing has changed on so many levels. I wake up each day and realize that the first 20 years are starting to fade and the second 20 years are coming into focus. I fear what I will see. I have long pushed those moments to the far corners. Maybe that is the mid-life crisis. Not so much what has or has not happened, but clearing away all that is important for the sake of pushing forward. I do not want to hold onto anything that is unimportant. I am waiting to get rid of all that does not fit. I am waiting for it all to change and the truth is that it need will