Heat

The heat soaks in, pain riding the edge of pleasure, all thought fades only sensation as it sinks deep to bone

From the depths rises a dull ache, a desire birthed in remembrance
The visceral touch, the need

The body floats, burns
Need
A surface tension

The ephemeral touch of slivered light

Ghost, and your gone
The casual cruelty of cowardice
The delusion
It’s not over

3 AM comes each day and each day takes a bit of my soul in its passing

I never allowed for the possibility that I’d fall in love with someone who didn’t love me back. Who has said she doesn’t see me that way. I thought that friendship would be enough. That some contact, some laughter, some shared experience would be enough.

And when I’m with her, it is. I can delude myself that these crumbs, these small morsels can sustain me. But then, hanging out is over. She’s home and I’m alone again. For a little while I’m OK. But then I’ll see something, something stupid that will remind me of her.

Sometimes, contact with other people can mitigate the longing. Fill me up with something other than false hope. And I’ll think I’m being smart. Some time with her is better than nothing, some words with her will illuminate my heart and everything else will recede.

But here I am at 3 in the morning, sleep is no longer a refuge because she’s there. In my dreams, she’s by my side. She walks with me in the world and the world is brighter for it. We’re stronger together than apart. Then I’ll wake, alone. And I’ll know that even in dreaming, I knew it wasn’t real. Because my heart aches so.

Where does that leave me? The rational part says to deal with this. That to leave this as an open wound can only end in poorly. But I can’t bring myself to stop the delusion that maybe. Maybe if she sees my heart, maybe if she sees me in verse and story. Maybe the weight of experience will accumulate and like a light turning on she’ll love me. Maybe she loves me now and is denying it.

It’s a treacherous thing, hope. It can sustain us through horrors, drag us into a better future. Or it can bury its blade deep into our heart, pulsing the possible while slowly ripping us to shreds.

I wish I had it in me to hide from the truth. I wish I could just be happy with what I have. But hope has buried the blade deep.

Why 7

It’s inevitable. The people that got away. The ones who are trying to forget; the ones convincing themselves that they drank too much. That it was a hallucination. Those people aren’t prepared for what is hunting them now.

I wish I could tell you that there is some kind of group that watches for this kind of thing, but the so called Age of Reason, the inquisition brought on by a misinterpretation of a single line in the Christian Bible, and that same inquisition used to eradicate rivals.

Fuck it… Suffice it to say that humanity, for a bunch of idiotic reasons killed off most knowledgeable practitioners. So now we have these newbs with a smidge of ability and a bunch of youth summoning up demons and ghosts. Me, I’d let it run its course. It’s a damn shame but they brought it on themselves.

Sounds harsh, right. I’ve tried teaching, I’ve tried intervening but nothing teaches these kids. Their lives are too easy. Sounds like sour grapes and maybe it is. Maybe I should have found these kids before they started the ritual, before they got it into their heads that it would be a hoot. But then what, watch them every minute? Take them on as apprentices? What if they choose to walk? Then what they do is my responsibility, after all I could have stopped it…

Screw it, enough of this pity party. Somewhere there’s a barstool and a Jack Blue waiting for me.

Not that modern

I’m into commitment. I don’t mean that in some sort of modern wishy-washy kind of way. I’ll dip my toe in the waters, but once I make the decision, I’m all in. I don’t do half measures or halfway and from the people I date I expect the same.

I’m intense and serious. A friend once said that I’m 90 percent serious, and that’s true. I commit to my friends just as hard, but I don’t expect them to. I’m a hard man to know if only because I’ll share most of my secrets and that can obscure what I’m not saying.

All of this being said, there are still people that shine like black Opal in a sea of milk. People who I’ll break my heart for, break my rules for. To them I’ll say, I am more than I seem, I am not one thing but many. But maybe that’s my heart talking, my heart falls in love a little bit and never falls out.

Startle the snakes

I’m tired of trying, of beating the grass hoping you’ll show yourself.  Maybe we only get one, maybe giving up, giving in is the only choice left. 

Talking with you is like cutting myself.  It’s cathartic, pleasurable and never comes to anything.  When it’s over, you don’t initiate contact, I always must.  It’s leaving scars, without the accompanying good memories.

And I can’t stop feeling that there is some connection and you won’t talk to me, won’t tell me.  Leaving me dangling over the ledge, yelling for someone to come but they never do.

There comes a point where the pain of without you is less than the hope of with you and that point is fast approaching.

Why 6

I wipe the phone down after calling the local precinct. Caution is more useful than bullets. Hopefully, they’ll get the girl buried. Bring a little peace to her parents.
The bartender slips me a ounce of weed. It’s nice to see commerce is alive and well. It’s not for me, too mild a high, but now he’s complicit in a crime and less likely to describe the guy who used the phone.

I swing out of the parking lot and drive down the road, lots of medical clinics in this area. I drop the weed off at a friend’s shop, she is provides hospice to cancer patients. While I idle in the parking lot waiting for her to send someone to collect, I clear out the clingers and remora. Bottom feeders of the spirit world. The look like mouths with razor sharp teeth and long eel bodies. She’s paid up to the end of the month, it’s all part of the service.

Most successful recovery rate in the area, you’d think they’d be pounding on my door but I’m not theatrical enough, not enough chanting and sage smudging. That shit is either window dressing or a focus for a lazy mind.

Maybe I’ve just been doing this too long, or maybe I don’t want to think about the next dead kid.

Dream

I dreamed that I was sitting in my room doing laundry by hand, not sure why. While I was doing that a drunk drove his Oldsmobile cutlass through the window or my sisters bedroom. She was unfazed and kept watching TV. The guy tried to climb out the window of his car.

I handcuffed him and waited for the police. Then his brother showed up and I fought him to a standstill, that’s a little blurry but I think I jabbed him with a bamboo Bo.

We ended up talking over drinks at a bar 200 feet from my house through an stone archway that opens into a kind of open air mall. We have a few drinks and he is trying to help his brother out of a sense of duty, which I totally get. Plus, it turns out he works in the same circles I do.

He Works for the government. I do Work for a quasi-goverment intelligence agency. Work is a euphemism for paid assassin. My family, in whose house I was, doesn’t know what I do.

I meet a woman at the bar, while we’re drinking. Turns out I knew her in high school, but we didn’t hang. We have sex almost immediately. I remember it being good and urgent, full of need and desire.

We start dating. Meanwhile, I engineer the release of my colleague’s brother, though to my family, it looks like he was arrested. Me and the young lady, slip deeper into love. At a party, after a successful mission, I’m riding the high of a well executed job and invite my friend/boss to review the after action report. Both the execution and the results of the action will be especially good for us, I feel like I’ve reached a new level.

My love comes by to celebrate with me, we slow dance, but end up stopping in the middle of the dance floor. We kiss, soft with just enough pressure. The need for each other is still there but backed now with the firmer emotional background. She says, “That’s the first time we’ve kissed where I felt as a part of something greater.” I look deep into her eyes and say “I love you.” I wait a beat then say, with a grin “and I think we should get out of here, I’m pretty sure that dancing implies movement, not that standing here holding you isn’t great.”

She takes my hand and I follow her up some stairs and into a market, the same market from before. Time skips forward, she knows I do something secretive and that I have money, we are getting a drink, fireball whiskey, a couple of shots.

She is buying something at a booth and I’m waiting to order an ice cream sandwich. Ice Cream and booze is always good. While I’m waiting, the counter clerk calls out my name, someone else orders the same thing I would. The clerk delivers it to me, and the someone, a handsome man, he asks can he share.

He is clearly flirting and I raise my voice and ask my girlfriend if we want a third to join us, half joking, she says no and I smirk and tell him, better luck next time. I go to my girlfriend and we walk hand in hand to my loft.

She runs in through the wrong door, into my neighbors place, it is light and airy, full of plants and simple pleasures. She needed the sink, I apologize to them but they are just concerned about her, they are nice people.

She recovers and we go up to my apartment. The decor is modern, all metal surface and soft eggshell white.

Someone is waiting for us, tries to kill me, I fight and kill him instead, with a garrote that is in my collar lining. She is in shock.

I get us out of there to a safe house with a organized crime outfit that owes me some favors. She refuses to talk to me, she feels betrayed, but I need to make sure we’re safe. I’m talking with my contact about who could have placed the hit, then I wake.

Dream

I had a dream that I was the third person in a poly relationship. I was living in their house in Flagstaff. She was intelligent and cute. She loved the little things, strawberries with cream. He was a creative type, he came from money and was a little awkward with having a third in his bed but I never felt unwelcome.

My weight wasn’t an issue and they liked that I liked the darker things. We didn’t just have sex. We had long rambling conversations and genuinely enjoyed each other’s company. I was on a extended vacation and trying to figure out how to go to work and stay with them.

They had lived here their whole lives and while they took trips and lived other places they always came back here.

The dream transitioned into a harvest festival, she was a baker and made some pies, he spoke some memories that had people laughing and crying. They were pillars of their community and I didn’t want to embarrass them so I sat apart, but she insisted I sit with them. I did and received a strong kiss from each. There was some muttering but they held high.

I’ve never felt so accepted or loved. After the party broke up I went exploring, this was Flagstaff and not Flagstaff, the University was shutdown for years and it was traditional to go exploring in there after festival.

I went and quickly got lost. But I never despaired. I knew that I had a reason to keep going. I had to get back to them. I can’t remember why I left. Some foolish whim. Some towns folk played a prank where they dressed like monsters and hunted the people in the place. It was scary but it was a game and no one got hurt.

I hooked up with a larger group and led them to safety out of the buildings. They said it was the first time so many people weren’t turned into zombies by the end of the night. And I went home, triumphant, and into their arms. Then I woke.