Where warheads bloomed one day...

The first time

2008-09-04T22:39:00.000-07:00

I remember the first time...

I didn't know it at the time but I was painfully sliding out of my most sophamoric year in university. I was in my third year and was finally being granted license of thought over mere regurgitation of fact (disputable as it may have been).

I lived with my roommate and his dog, in between his prized antique purchases. His cluttered Americana softened to the eye by smatterings of caustic throw-pillows and the odd-burmese mountain dog; slick with slober. I can't recall living in such a warm austerity at any other time. Ray, my room mate could add a gentle comfort to any room he occupied and his home reflected all of this. I think it just happened that his period of choice favored wooden benches.

I would study in his, in our home for hours on end. I was in that AA/BA overlap when I actually cared about 80% of what I was contending with. It has been the only time, on those wooden benches that I have been afforded a complete consumption of what I was passionate about. I was justified in pursuing only that which I wanted to disappear forever in.

it was nearing finals. It was winter I think, though this is only because I remember most of all my love at that moment for his wooden stove, which i fed at every pause.

I couldn't study in my room. It was basically a bed made by my grandfather and a sea of dirty clothes over which I had to jump in order to sleep. In retrospect I probably would have slept in the living room had Americans popularized plush couches prior to the 20th century. Honestly I can't remember if the house sported a washer and dryer... just Ray, his giant, slobbering dogs and hard, woodend furniture.

Finals aggressively challenging my ability to procrastinate but I had managed to procure what meager source material my university could supply on short notice. The internet, at the time for me, was basically a set of hubs linking universities and dot-matrix printers. Not much literature was compiled on many of the more luxurious subject matters, so the throw pillows had to move aside for 10-20 obscure books on the 'low-renaissance', the Reformation and some more modern distractions.

My challenge was great. I could find little documentation written about the subject of my thesis, which was exactly why it intrigued me. "Hieronymous Bosche; the first Reformist..." or something of the nature. It was my first real foray into practical critical thinking. I savored writing my bibliography.

I settled in amongst my throw-pillows, afghan rugs, candle-light, wood-burning fire and sticky-notes (not the electronic kind), notebook and yes; a mechanical pencil to begin builing my protestant case.

Something was missing from the equation, I realized after about an hour or so. Data? No... I was having a blast watching my theorum begin to take shape - and realizing that the evidence I was procuring was not that far-fetched - and more importantly - was not being fed to me by some other historian.

But something was missing none the less.

Music. Music goes with history, candle-light, wood burning fires and dried giant-dog slobber very well. That was it.

I carefully unstacked all the books and [with sticky notes] tried to keep my train of thought. I ran back to the tiled-coldness of the kitchen and groped the old radio we used for entertainment. The only TV was in Ray's room which was impossible to watch as his bed filled the entire room... upon which the two slobbering beasts usually resided. We had no cable, so the price of showering after every episode of mST3000 really the only worthwhile foray into tv land. just as well.

I rapidly spun the dial away from Ray's 'Sound of the 60's', which reminded him fondly for some reason of his otherwise very painful childhood to my station of choice - 'All Classical - All the time", or something of that nature.

I spun the only other analog dial up to three-quarter volume and upon hearing that 1970's "Old-Spice-infused" voice at the proper dog-safe volume, i leapt back towards the warmth of my books.

About 10 minutes later, while trying to cross reference dates of the few recordings of my favored artist with known Reformist activism, I realized the radio was and had been silent for some time.

VEXATION! I wish I had a jesuit handy to go remedy this radio's blasphemy.

Bouncing back in a flurry of thumping books on wooden-benches I head to tweak the analog.

Something grabs me mid-stride and slows me half way across the room. It is a sound, but a sound that hits me first in the stomache. A vibration. My legs stop before I realize anything is wrong.

A harmonic series being slowly pulled up my legs and my chest at the same time... something vibrating in my stomache. I can't hear it so I stop, feet cold on the polished, American wood.

waves of Anti-nausua start to roll up and down me just short of my ears. I can feel the BPMS... I don't remember for certain, but i believe i was in full crouch trying to figure out where this crimson-vibrato was coming from.

Bass pulled like slow-roasted pork. Juicy, deep and guilty smearing what soul i had left exposed.

A vibration being rubbed into you by fat, greasy and careless hands. Beethoven's subtle irony.

Double Bass not caring if it was heard because he knew how deeply you had to feel him.

So breathy and slow I could feel the blue being torn from the red.

It was there. That open fifth. repeating.

repeating.

again.

up.

down.

left.

right

1st.

diminished 5th.

Caressing you the way some lover does that first time...

...When you know you could fall in love.

Very Deeply...

Confusing...

And real...

black tuesday dawning... (early draft, est. metre)

2008-08-07T10:41:00.000-07:00

black tuesday blooms
In ecstasies womb.

snakes all black and ivy
between breaths
so warm and winding.

black Tuesday dawns
a slow musky dusk

licks you fat and happy;
rolling brothy,
silent,
dirty

As Sabbath drools,
on fevered brow...

Rejection, Albatross - 1st (19.5.08)

2008-05-19T11:34:00.000-07:00

"Hello, I'm sorry that I won't be able to use your submission to ALBATROSS.

Thank you for your submission, and good luck placing them elsewhere. This applies to the other two poems submitted on the same day: "How to Destroy Angels" and "We Obsidian Tragedy."

Please make one submission of three poems (all in the same email message) rather than three separate submissions of one poem in each message.

Best, Richard p.s. I started a blog for the journal, in case you are interested.

You can find it here: http://albatrosspoetryjournal.wordpress.com/"

I should probably go read it - for all i know i was submitting adult-oriented poetry to a children's magazine...

We Obsidian Tragedy

2008-04-20T11:33:00.000-07:00

the last of you stains the air.
smeared careless and colorless.
left withered and heaving.
flavored gifts of you on the floor.

the fairytale failing,
red and lacqured and entombed.
a lifeless ornament of our abandoned holiday,
where wounds were celebrated with a kiss.

oiled and perfumed of dying dreams,
dangling stiff and bitter from
places we will never go and,
stuffed songless into the tiniest grave.

we obsidian tragedy,
hardened and smoothed by remorse.
sick with error,
slick as wonder.

to concieve
a misconception.
produce a mistake.
to misunderstand and become,
undone, miscarried.

to misdirect and mislead.

to spin bright lies with,
your real blood,
your beautiful flesh,
from the rest of our lives.

mistakes live as kings here,
as our giants and heroes.

missing you now as always,
or mistaking you still for always,
maybe what was always missing,
was never you at all.

just me now as always,
always missing something,
for a while it will be you,
my giant, my hero and king.

Sorrow's last breath...

2008-03-25T14:23:00.000-07:00

hard to breathe- sad.
hard to sleep- sad.

the kind that makes your muscles heavy from the inside-out.
the kind that makes you mutter ’so what’ to yourself.

the kind you know will pass eventually.
a sorrow leaking from those recent cracks
deep inside you.

trickling through you and pooling in your soft recesses.

taking with it those memories that make burn
and softening the edges of your weary bones.

a sorrow winding through you,
pulling you along with it
and sometimes succeeding.

the kind you know will pass eventually.
you know it will.

it has to.
there is no more room left for it inside you.

Notes from the Whorl...

2008-03-13T17:44:00.000-07:00

Take my pain and I will spin it into something lovely... - m4w - 32 (bellevue)

Very attractive and professional male - just coming out of an emotional vivisection I wouldn't wish on anyone.

Looking for someone to take the pain away... a feminine distraction... at least for the moment. I'm not in full frontal fetal - but I would like someone to hold... someone upon whom to transform this energy into something more beautiful for a time.

I had only recently moved prior to my psychological disembowelment and really don't know many people. Regardless I am here and would love to turn this into poetry at least for a time.

I'm looking for someone's touch - or to touch someone. I'm hardly in the space for the abject intimacy of sex.... but am extremely sensual and would rather make someone else feel good than continually make myself feel bad.

I doubt this forum would produce such a muse - but even in typing this I am occupied with something better...

Notes from the Whorl...

2008-02-16T13:35:00.000-08:00

Since one in four gummybears don't have brains,
Does that mean that they never knew how much
We enjoyed them?

That it didn't matter what color or flavor they were to be,
Or that it didn't matter they were brainless.
For we enjoyed them just as much
As the other three.

Notes from the Whorl...

2008-02-16T13:15:00.000-08:00

OFFLINE CHAT

23.35 Can you talk?
I mean buona sera cara.

23.36 I didn't deserve you any way.

23.37 I saw my married lover's family today downtown. I ran away.
You are my confessor. I'm not catholic.
But you are sort of a priest to me.

23.38 He looked at me.
I checked out his wife. She is fat.
and ugly.
And I am beautiful and not fat and he is with her.

23.39 And I am the one he fucks til he comes.
And no one must know this at all.

23.40 So I sort of feel safe with you and that is a great compliment.
I only wish you felt safe with me.
As I am lonely and need to talk.

23.41 You are offline.... yada yada.
I am a crazy drunk incapable of meeting friends to
talk to about her personal problems with her lover.

23.43 He is a mormon priest.

23.44 I told him in my email he must end it. Because I won't.
I won't.
I know he feels bad. He ended it twice already.

23.45 And the third time he said just give him a couple months.
and I did
And he feels very guilty about me.
But I don't feel guilty at all.
mea culpa
God, answer.

23.46 So, you are god-like in your response, which is nothing....
:)
already you made me smile.

23.47 Come over tonight and make love to me and I'll give you money.

23.49 I'll sing for you.

How to Destroy Angels

2008-02-11T00:52:00.000-08:00

Respect him as you would a man.
Don't avert your eyes or,
From them let tears of joy.
Hold and only smile slightly,
Bring doubt to his glory.

Clip his bright wings then,
With the earthiest stare.
Do not give yourself freely,
Teach him the trade of your favor.

Do not accept his love,
Without questioning his worth.
Ask him how you can live,
On his love alone.
Ask him for proof.

Slip then his halo down,
Passed furrowed and golden brow.
Squeeze until you feel,
His breathy chorus of sighs,
Tighten around your finger.

His wings he has traded,
For your salvation, hurry-
Before they wither so,
Polish his feathers gently.

Now look before you.
Gaze upon your Angel.
Who believes himself to be,
Now simply a Man.

How to Kill a Man?

Remind him simply,
Of when he was beautiful.

(1/24/2008 3rd Draft)

"...Seeking a Softer Nothing. w4m, 28. Seattle, downtown"

2008-01-28T02:24:00.000-08:00

Snatch me from sleepless tumble.
Shake and distract me.
Notice me.
Slaughter me or save me.

Catch the dead in me,
All the real left in me.
Touch but don't feel.
Taste but don't swallow.
Smell me and think of dust.

Push inside me.
Crush me with that wild indifference,
That only men produce.
That only a man could mistake for love.

Forget me or use me.

Make me again.
Make me something else.
Some other girl in,
Some other story.

Whisper her name.
Dress me in her forgotten things.
Cut the parts of me away,
Lose me somewhere.

Orphan me and seduce me.

Spare only your laziest lies.
Undress me without a kiss.
Caress me dry and saltless,
Kindless and cold.

Trespass upon this strange inheritance.
Where warheads bloomed one day,
Upon a frightened child.
My tits and ass.
My open mouth, silenced.

My cunt bared to you,
Bare for you.
My object d'art.
My Plan A and B.
I didn't make them.
They are making me.

They are the least of me.
They are the worst of me.
They are all you see,
Smell and taste of me.

Blame me.

You grope, you claw,
Passed clothes you won't see.
You pull and grasp,
At each salmon-flecked flash.
You lick, spit and bite at
My softest of surpluss.

Hurt me carelessly,
And mistake my swelling breathes,
For adoration or desire.
Hurt me faster and harder for it.

Listen but hear only that rush,
Of enraged blood pumping.
Smother me in sloppy arousal.
Suck the salt from my skin,
And coax from me perfumed approval.

My incense of rape and consent,
Smell the same.
My betrayal and deceit.
My shame.
Make me yield now.
Make me helpless.

Once again blameless.

Make me cry if you can.
Just make me something.

Turn on baby.
Soul-fuck me.
My perfect machine.
Dumb fucking machine.

You have only one reason.

To Lend me some purpose.
Convince me at least.
Tell me more lies.
Spill and splash and,
Spit and Grind then.

Make me wet with them.

Turn on baby.
Soul-fuck me.
Displace me.
Replace me.
Bare me out on the backs of my tears.

Fill me with a softer nothing.

Turn on now, baby.
Soul-Fucker!
My Perfect fuck machine.
Lost before me and,
Lost again inside me.

We are a tangled disenchantment,
Sightless and choiceless in it.
Blinded and pumping through it.
Assaulting deeply and,
Completely,

Replacing me.

Renew my lingering sorrows.
Remind me I'm lonely.
Teach me that prayer about Angels,
Just touch me please.

Tell me that last little lie.
Waste one more breath on me.
Waste yourself upon me..
On my tits and ass.
Make me swallow your pride.

Fill me with your softer nothing.

Waste yourself away and
Sleep between chemical-bursts.
Dream the things of men;
Of things that make you,
Meaningless now.

Reasonless except for me.

So Turn on again, baby.
And tell me I'm pretty.

My perfect fuck-machine.
My foolproof distraction.
My relentless mistake.
My anesthesia and,
My sweetest hate.
My greatest excuse,
Let me fail forever.

Just call me please.

11th Rewrite

- children

2007-12-30T13:36:00.000-08:00

They are running now...outside fast...against inside walls...

Hopped up on homemade brownies laced with boneless marshallows and seedless chocolate chips; the white and brown kinds respectively.

They toss and kick and tease the world through our narrow hallways. Taking turns they wade through the nearest galaxy barefoot with painted and chilled toes.

A present never considered they grind into historic paths of beige shag never to be remembered and rewritten eternally. Laughter shatters to giggles and caught in butter flavored reflections like bored laser beams bouncing through crazed clutter.

Notes from the Whorl...

2007-11-03T13:39:00.000-07:00

Nerves

"The fabric of dreams is ripped apart
As you feel the twist of the shadow dagger
In your pumping heart.

Nerves."

I used to work, or rather brush by the paranoid schizophrenics at the last county sponsored psych ward in California. My cousin was moved to stab a prison gaurd in the eyeball with a pencil on one of his bad days in Prison. They in turn were moved to transfer him to they psychiatric penetentiary in Vacaville (near the jellybelly factory).

I had glimpsed the monsters' in thier eyes I thought. They're fear and rage was always real enough- even more condensed and pressurized perhaps than our own.

Liquid fear, seething and bubbling through thier gums and pours. Swelling their lips and drying thier mouths in acrid washes. Adrenalyn boom inside their skull poisoning thier blood with furious survival. Pumping the will to live at high speed through their bodies from the top down. Their hands would swell and thier feet would numb. And all at once the world was against them. All at once they found they loved life more than they ever had. They're animal took over then. Everyone became an enemy bent on thier destruction. Those they trusted most were the worst and the craftiest equally involved in this private conspiracy.

Everything had meaning then. Everything was connected in this web of shadows at which they were the center spinning. Every glance or movement they observed, every object was now poised to hurt them. It was uncontrollable. The thoughts kept coming no matter how far fetched. They are boxing you in. They are signalling somone around the corner or someone behind you. When she coughed he glanced to the left. I saw them.

*

Your Frayed, Denim Daisies

2007-08-10T02:29:00.000-07:00

Because i'm awake and
Because i'm alone now.

Because of the way
your denim snags
sway astride your form

relaxed now they seem
exausted from some onslought
razor-soft and sparkling-plush
they rest now. Long and aged.
Teased and pulled. Against you.
Sometimes damp against you.
Sticky and curled.
Clawed, pulled and frayed.

Loved.

Draping you in violent whimsy.
Static dance on electric flesh
Impotent spikes blending flesh to blue.
Form to Function.
Lazy dandelion gaurds.

To pluck just one from it's winding grave.
Kill it on its spiraled branch
To tear the white into blue
Blue into flesh.
Your barbed- wire halo
Tracing you up up up.
Dissolving your azure haze.

Coaxing the sky to peal itself from the heavens.
and tickle the sun
tracing that soft part of the moon
through this abbrasive and peeling blue
taking Venus and then Mars
gently between my teeth
coaxing them.

Conspiring then.

I whisper in soft circles
Until they sing that throaty moan.
The heavens quit breathing.
The sky condemned.
Celestial suicide
And welcoming retracts
Recoiling
Unveiling
The poison mists
just above hell
hang loose now

The Devil leers at a Swollen God
And God leers right back.

All the Demons I can muster
Slick and sweet and smooth
cling to my lips and take hold
of my tongue
As it moves toward your blushing infinty

Sliding between the horizon
and just behind the sea.
The softest piece of my perversion
slips between your desire and humility
Between your whore and Virgin
Between child and your rapist

Between what you are and
what you think you ought to be

That space that lasts for a second.
Before you lose yourself to eternity
Or wish you could have let go
entirely.

But I have a passport for heaven and hell
I will be the reason for secrets you'll tell.
I am your serpent.
No tricks.
I'm a key.

I have no sacred knowledge of the apple I bear.
That is all within you.
Eve found it there.

I am your instrument,
though it seems that I play

Your strings are your sighs
heavy breaths
closing eyes
rolling eyes
rocking heads
finger nails leave bloody trails
spasms born of hips
The sticky sweet
Your legs that wrap
Your sharp, staccato coos
Our names upon your lips if we are lucky
A shiver
A curse
A cry

Something unexpected entirely.
Something Godlike.
Something that makes a man matter.
Something that won't simply wash away in the shower.

That I could be that denim snag.
An open wound bloodless
That I could be that frozen whorl
Bound to slowly travel the lengths of you
Bound to ever reveal more of you
With each piece of me you tear away.

09 Aug 2007 -6th Rewrite

"On ones jealousy over another’s history."

2007-08-09T02:30:00.000-07:00

Recipe for Jealousy
Using organic emotion only
3 pt Fear
2 pt Anger
1 pt Sorrow

Why does one's past forever threaten another's future? How are two concepts which are both intangeable and arguably unreal altogther allowed to so frequently corrupt the most truthful aspect of our existence?

A deadly way to approach your present happiness with maximum collatoral damage

Isn't the present built upon and therefore absolutely dependant upon even the most infinatesimal detail of it's history? Would the same present exist at all with even the smallest modification to any event which lead up to it?

Is your lover not but what all his past lovers created and what you now decide to behold? Would he be the same lover gazing at you now if you removed but one piece of that history which conspired so sweetly to craft him? And you? Would you be able to recognize his beauty if he were to pluck those you loved before him from your experience and memories?

Would you respect him if he allowed you to erase even a single piece of him? Would you trust him if he chose to remove a piece of you? Would you feel as honored by his touch if he could only love a bit of you? Could you expect him to feel as warm in your embrace knowing that you would not wrap your arms around all of him to keep him from the cold? Could you expect him to stay if you warmed only those parts of him useful to you and left the rest of him to lie still and dark and out of view?

If he is a project with things still unacceptable to you, with things left to change then don't claim to love him now. Claim only that you could one day love him. Don't claim to love him wholly, but rather that you love only that thing your mind has created for you.

Now. Do you love him? Even all that which is beyond you? Doesn't it follow then that if you love this person now, then you must love all of those things which contributed to him? Which made him that perfect thing which you wouldn't change for the world? Aren't those things more responsible for his perfection than you are?

Didn't they break him in? Didn't they let him loose his awkward teenage lust upon them? Didn't they let him rant and rave and run and hide and return and apologize only to run and rant and rage again? Didn't they strengthen him rather than diminish him? Didn't they cry for him and teach him he mattered? Didn't they open their legs for him to teach him the tender trust of a woman? Didn't the let him batter his unbaptized and frenzied hips against thiers and whisper more love in his ear so he learned to trust? Didn't they want to die when he moved on to show him he mattered to someone?

He will not wound you quite as deeply because of them. He will trust you more willingly and more eagerly seek your trust. He will hold you more tightly because of them. He will caress you in the right places more quickly. He will read your soft breaths and notice the slightest change in your breath more readily because of them. He will know when to treat you gently and when to treat you savagely as a result of them.

He is perfect only because of them. You feel safer with him because of them. You feel loved and trusted and honored and special because of them. You are that much more correct in choosing him because of them.

And you love him now only because of them.

Because you love him you will be inclined to see the beauty he sees. To see your own beauty he reflects back upon you. To see others through his eyes. Perhaps he will show you beauty that you wouldn't otherwise have seen. And you might even love him more for this. For the way he speaks passionately about those things you didn't know you cared about until just then. Just then when he cared enough about you to share them with you.

And so he loved them once too. Can they be so ugly if he had loved them once? Can they be so vile if they too had recognized that deep and smokey quality of his soul that burns your nostrils when you wake against his flesh?

Do you fear that perhaps he once found them as beautiful as he now finds you?

Does the thought of him having shared his passions and visions with another somehow diminish the beauty of their ring in your ears? That he as seen beauty in others diminish that which he sees in you?

Does it diminish the beauty you see in yourself?

Does not your beauty sit aloft the multitude of others he has cherished? Aren't his tastes more refined, his eyes more keen and his heart less likely to engage in trifling matters now? Aren't you by definition the greater for all of his past? Aren't you by definition the most perfect person he has ever laid eyes upon?

He has built a bed and stacked mattress upon mattress for each and every one he cared for. You lay now with him at the very topmost of this edifice.

But you yourself have placed that pea beneath your back and blame him when it gauges at your flesh.

Perhaps knowing that you sit at the top upon all those past tears and sighs and quiet moments and breakthroughs and experiences indicates that you may not be the topmost rung for eternity. Maybe you dread a day when you might lie beneath another in his life's history. You will perhaps fade to him among his many and lose sight of that unique luster only he is able to remind you of.

That luster. That spark, that explosive genesis. That thing about him that makes your stomach hurt and heart pound and face flush at once. That thing that the other boys don't have which makes them toys. The only thing on earth which can truly remind you that you may not matter at all. If not to him, then to what? A toy?

That luster will surely die regardless of you or him.

They say that the luster will evolve between two people into something much more deep and meaningful. Perhaps. But that deep and meaningful thing will remain consistant and dependable. It will remain. The luster die and never return no matter how 'healthy' or long your relationship lasts with this man.

You will always remember it if you were lucky and aware enough. If you were present. It will eventually become your past even though he remains your present and possibly your future. Eventually though both your future will cease to exist and your present will only become someone elses past. You will exist only to some survivor of you both and only for a while.

Your past will whither and die intact and honor you if you are lucky. It will contort and pervert in the hands of those who choose to remember you in all likely hood. You will not own your past. You will exist only as that which is convenient to another. This is the bargain. You are remembered but only at the whim and to the advantage of those who choose too.

The future is an illusion and you do not own this either. It does not exist, cannot be proven beyond exaggeration of the past and will never actually be. When it arrives at your door and steps through your threshold it disappears into the present as surely as the sun is drown by the sea in that brilliant autumn fire as i gaze out of my window on this cool night.

The only thing that is real is that split second when he gazes only into your eyes. That seemingly infinate string of microseconds as you gaze back and recognize how in awe he is of your very existance. As thousands of muscles in his face shift together in the most subtle and uncontrollable way - a dance impossible to practice or perfect by design - a pure and honest orchestra of love reflecting back upon you. Love on motor reflex.

Be careful.

You might miss it.

A NOTE: I wrote this as a response to a close friend's blog who was enduring a brief exchange between two lovers regarding one's transgression via telephone with an x-girlfriend. A far less rambling or prosaic attempt at an explanation of my thoughts on the matter will either appear in a postscript edit to this blog entry or a future blog post.

Drunken Instant Message exchange with an X...

2007-07-23T02:34:00.000-07:00

you are so so beautiful.

it makes me hurt inside seeing you there...

wondering...

makes me wonder.

and then the hurt because I have nowhere to put the wondering.

makes me wonder all the 'what-ifs'.

seeing you there.

like that.

you like that-

just you

that you-

despite you.

despite what you say or think.

that breath-taking.

that thing that makes me cry.

right now.

crying because I saw you again.

fuck.

mis-spelling because i can't read while crying with my right eye closed....

beautiful bitch.

always walking away from me as beautiful as that.

In your white sneakers.

your dirty-less white

fucking

sneakers.

my god.

i'm appalled at my spelling.

please read it in the way you know i meant it.

and never share my ignorance.

with

anyone.

please.

Sticks and Stones and Skin and Bones

2007-07-19T11:58:00.000-07:00

I started my skull collection there. I remember one Xmas when I was 19...I bought my girlfriend a coyote skull and had one of the guys from the store do wood-burning on it. It was amazing...he was so talented....but when i came back a few months later to commission another piece his coworker told me he was gone...and that 'The Demons took him'... I took that to mean that the slight 'offishness' I had detected was in fact a large and crippling gap between he and at least someone with no sense of humor and the willingness to call 911. Waste of an artist.....

And of a skull collection. These are NOT mine. Mine are lost due to compramise, neglect and soul-decay.

Anyway - that particular skull, the last one he made before the Demons got him...I wrapped meticulously in beautiful glossy black and way too expensive for my salary - wrapping paper. My mother accused me of 'Blasphemy' for the wrapping paper and kicked me out of the house after hitting me with a box of breakfast cereal...which I was also forced to clean up. Needless to say it was the best gift i remember giving anyone.

So...my point?

I recently made a new friend who invited me over to "Help her with a Strange Artistic Block" she had.

So...I got there and low and behold she had the COOLEST STUFF EVER!!! Her apartment was filled with little interesting objects...large chests of collections....quite possibly the most organized pack-rat I've ever encountered.

I had brought my camera and a couple of sketch books along just in case her invitation was literal (good move). It was as it turns out - quite happily.

Things just started moving. We exchanged ideas...talked about past projects...future ideas...and soon i was picking things up from around the apartment and arranging them.

Below is the result of a couple of hours of just playing. We took turns building the basic sculptures and then adding on to each others.

It as the most fun I've had in a while....

Notes from the Whorl...

2007-06-12T11:54:00.000-07:00

Partial Letter to a sister...

"...After all, 'Shock' is so much less electrifying without the breathy 'Awe' released at it's conclusion.

Black is so much deeper when pasted onto a white wall...

Pain becomes tolerable and even ignored perhaps if it is persists beyond our memory solice.

Love is nothing without remembering when you were not loved.

Ugly faces would melt into one another so that you could not tell anyone apart. Add a single, symmetrical soul into the crowd and watch the drab gray plates upon which most of our senses are nailed too heave and contort into their monstrous true forms.

Watch them as they hate that which forces them into their own, unique semblance. They will hate themselves more than the light that finally exposed them but will not fully realize thier self loathing until after they have killed all illumination (and most likely turned upon and greedily murdered many of their own numbers as the momentum of their rage grinds against some opposing friction).

And then there will be nothing to remind them of their own, unique ugliness but a history. And all histories are the worst possible type of lie. They will return to their homogenous, gray ocean and jiggle fearfully and as quietly as they can.

The historic truths they write for the success of their future survival are all lies - they enjoy feeding poison to their own young and even celebrate their dishonor and deceit with monuments and mementos made as permanent and at the greatest expenses possible.

They kill their babies as they slide from the womb and call it art. Their still-born generations will pour out and tumble ceaslessy forward; an endless (and equally pointless) row of neatly packed dominos.

Ever forward to only God knows where. And God could care less.

They race and tumble between the self-aggrandizing and genocidal monuments of their murderous ancestors. They bump and fall blindly and struggle against some force they imagine they might employ. They each protest for a tiny millisecond as they tumble. Without fail they see their own graves hungrily approach. They glance for a fraction of that tiny millisecond to one side or another looking for something to save them. Something to catch them. They see thousands of artifacts around them which scream offers of salvation. Things perfectly carved for them, for which they might gain purchase. The see thousands of lies stacked neatly or chaotically according that year's fashionable deception mandated (lies are always the most fashionable, immaculate and groomed with the greatest attention.

Lies get more pussy than truths. Pussy, and this is a very observable truth, much prefers to eat lies. It will always eat a lie over the truth. Lies made to order, offer an incomparable burst of flavor and go down much easier.

Lies tend to have a rather nasty after taste...and sometimes cause sickness, nausea, irritability, fear, panic, terror, remorse, regret, jealousy. anger, rage, murder, self-loathing or low self esteem, suicide, fratricide, all types of cides in fact; especially to those you love the most (or those that happened to be tumbling to their deaths the closes to you as you were murdered sliding into this fate

....but, not understanding love (for it has already choked on a lie and been 'cided') you smelled the fear of those closest too you, related to it, joyfully (although only for the tiniest of nanoseconds) were comforted by the fact that you were not alone. You were comforted by everyone else's stark-raving terror because it was not your own. You even imagined that yours was less and you were therefore different and stronger than they. That you revel in other's pain and suffering because it makes yours less is the first lie you make.

And you call this lie "love". This pain and death is what allows you the fleeting illusion of life. You are the white paper on their black souls and simultaneously you provide the black-terror-backdrop which allows the mindless fucking domino being murdered just behind you to rejoice in your suffering and love you as a brother. You are safe from that knowledge most likely.

If you were to realize that all these beautiful monuments and ideologues and reasons and logics and truths and histories and distractions which create everything you perceive to give you purpose in that tiny fraction of a millisecond you happen to notice them as you are falling to your death were all false and will never catch you, or save you or even create the illusion that you are safe. If you realized in that fraction of second where your 'soul' was elevated accidentally from contemptuous and vile for loving the suffering of your loved ones to merely selfish and egotistical because you are too busy trying to save your own ass. If you realized for that piece of the closest thing to a 'life' that you will ever know. If you realized that in this last second is your only chance because you will spend the rest of the descent staring into that dark earth that has no contrasting backdrop to give it meaning. You will be there in a few seconds and perhaps you will find nothing at all (which shouldn't be too different from what you have now?).

After that one second of chance you have to notice life through all the lies which reach out save you, so close they suffocate you and choke you but always crumble out of your way (Some even give you a nice shove to speed up your fall). But. If in that second as you are reaching out with no arms and trying to catch yourself with no legs, and scream with no mouth, or cry with no eyes, or hear the calming and reassuring screams of those you love with no ears. If you somehow manage to swim through that thick, burning, swirling panic crushing your being as you realize you are surely going to die alone. If you somehow see, hear, smell, touch, taste, feel, without your eyes, ears, nose etc...

If you swallow down the panic and you come to the realization that your entire world is entirely conceived to deceive you. That nothing outside of you exists truly as it presents itself or entirely unreal all together. If you realize that whatever is there is most certainly not thinking or caring about you.

Only then are you close to life. You are still falling just as rapidly to your death. You may then stand out. You may then be that single, simple and truthful symmetry that exists among all the other screaming, thrashing frightened masses. You will stand out and they will see you, and see themselves in your contrast. Your beauty will make them despise you. Will make them forget to revel in the pain of their loved ones and forget to wallow in the premonition of their selfish deaths.

They will forever mistake love for proximity and enjoyment of others' pain. But they will never miss their chance to hate. You don't suffer through the lies as they do. They cannot rest in their biggest comfort as long as you exist.

So you have found life now. You can see their eternal distraction and pointlessness. You may even pity them and be moved to help them. Don't bother.

They will kill you faster and with more relish. Don't reach out to these tumbling, jiggling miserable fools. Live your fleeting life and enjoy the wonderment of a world empty of things which need explanation or understanding. You are that rare, tumbling and shimmering thing bobbing in the vast black pool of vile and despair. You are the only thing to remind us that there really is nothing out there. Without an occasional glimpse of you as you float to the surface, we would see only an imperceptible blackness and we might mistake nothing for nothing.

The subtle genius beauty would be lost utterly and drowned finally within this sickening, ever-twisting violent insanity we call our normal state of affairs.

Love ya! See you soon,

Alex

Portland Busses...

2007-04-24T12:13:00.000-07:00

I misread my return home ticket...the 1 in 2:30 was obscured by the stamp. So I was two hours late. Next train doesn't leave until 6. At least I think that's what he said.

After playing mobile phone Yahtzee amidst cigarette pirates I decided to shuffle on up to find an internet caf or [preferably] bar. A cab driver pointed me up Broadway with the caveat that he didn't know anything about the internet.

The first two blocks had only a few people strewn about on various flat surfaces. Passing conversations about jailed husbands emanating from a gaggle of mid-40s who looked in their 60s I crossed onto 8th street.

A bus stop ahead with several shiny busses stopping to spill their contents out onto the brick and paved streets before quickly melting away again. One of these shiny, vintage looking busses didn't drive away at all though and it's spilled contents bobbed outside its windows. The bus driver, trapped in the cab was turned around, half hiding behind the wall at his seat. "I'm calling the police" he yelled and a young girl outside squeezed her boyfriends arm and relayed the message in 3rd Person. "He's calling the police." she said excitedly. "ya" he muttered back. Theyre eyes all watched something towards the middle of the bus, still inside, but I could not see what the driver had locked himself on the bus with.

As I approached the bus a shriek from its center drowned out the noise of the crowd outside. From behind the shady reflection of the street and crowd outside I could barely make out the image of a girl pacing back and forth in the aisle. In front of her, pressed up against the glass were two bodies grappling with each other violently. Hair was being pulled, wrists grasped and fists, when freed, hammering down or up in short spasms before being grasped again. No leverage for a lethal blow. More like the frustrated pounding of a fist on the hood of a car that will not start.

One figure rolled off the next and I could see the face of an older man, white hair and pink, sweaty cheeks pressed against the moist glass. His arms raised in defense, his eyes lacked the fury and fear which an actor might use if asked to reenact this scene. Instead they held instead the cool and alert calm necessary for survival. For him, at that moment, there were not spectators or shrieking girls. There were no bus drivers with cell phones or apathetic passers by. There was only a younger man trying to kill him.

This younger man would have been called a 'punk' several years ago, but I don't know what they are called now. The young, violent, white pseudo-intellectuals who ride that edge that exists between simple-style and 'fuck-you!, making them both attractive and dangerous simultaneously. They don't have jobs, or if they do they are outwardly bored and hostile to the bourgeois concept. The only thing that separates this 'punk' from the street trash are his youth and his ability to speak passionately about something. And that a young shrieking woman found him attractive.

At this particular moment the young black-haired man was yelling passionately at the cowering old man while his girlfriend shrieked on. I couldn't actually tell if she was goading her boyfriend on or trying to make him stop.

In the beginning there wasn't much difference between the punk and the old man I thought. They had most likely both contributed to the escalation and as the boiling point was reached, they were both locked together, oblivious to all but each other. Rage is like that. It's called a black-out rage not because it's alcohol-induced, but because your mind is so intensely focused on the task at hand that you can remember nothing, save some details about that which you are focused on. Sometimes you remember nothing.

But the punk got the upper hand and that's when things changed. He was now in the position of giving mercy, justice or cruelty - he was in control. He had won. The crowd outside came back into focus, as did the shrieking girl and the bus driver's threats. They all returned from the dark periphery. He then got to weigh all the evidence and decide which was to administer.

As the figures in the window faded farther into the reflection of their spectators and the shrieks of the girl became just another distant city noise the young man still stood challenging and the old man still slouched, heat moistening the glass and arms reaching skyward.

I turned and continued my walk, leaving the image of the pristine, 50's era bus parked neatly near the garbage less white curb cooling in the shade of the prestigious maple trees flanking this lazy drive. From the country-style brick houses could have easily emerged a brightly colored family on their way for a sunny picnic.

The bus doors had been closed, which I thought was odd. Wouldn't the driver have opened all the doors and windows if possible to let them out as one does when a giant, angry wasp is locked inside? Allow the older one to escape and the younger one to follow him outside, the girl shrieking all the way. Shrieking off the bus instead of on. Shrieking outside at the brightly colored families beneath the cooling maple trees.

But the doors were closed and the windows up and the wild-passenger tamer cowering half behind his seat, but ready to open the door and spring out should the ruckus migrate forward. Was he trained to do this? Was he trained to protect the shady maple and sparkling stone pavement from the in-transit violence contained within it's doors? If the explosion had happened a few blocks back, where the bricks are made of cheap cement and the only shadows cast are those of decaying buildings and cars with no headlights; would he have opened the doors and helped them tumble out onto the sickly steet?

I turned and kept walking up the street. No biggie I told the other gawking spectators. I've seen much worse than this and shame on you for gawking so! Pedestrians!

I realized as I crossed the street that I already knew what happened. What caused the girl to scream and the young man to assail and elder. I thought I knew. Without conscious effort I knew that the old man had some how offended the girl and the young man was defending her honor. She shrieked at the old man who had abused her in some perceived manner. She shrieked for his blood.

It next occurred to me that I had absolutely no idea why they were fighting. It could have been a million things, mathematically speaking. It could have been an overt, socially definable (and punishable) infraction on any of the threes' part. It could have been an altercation stemming from a quirk or peeve of one individual. It could be that one or all of them were insane or were perhaps staging planned or impromptu performance art piece depicting the over-throw of the current American regime by the young, angry youth.

What do we expect when we cross so frequently and intimately with so many strangers? Such sophisticated and often broken personas overlapping and filling such a closed space such as a bus. If neighborhoods tend to define, attract and collect 'like-minded' individuals, then the busses ferrying these people from neighborhood to neighborhood are very unique places, and possibly one of the only places which mix these polarized citizens together. Like neutral platforms or mobile churches making their way from tribe to tribe.

The bus is it's own sovereign neutrality, existing not beside ours or anyone's nation as Belgium lies next to France, but is rather a great nation in and of itself stretched apart and pulled across a country like the taffy veins of a varicose and aging beast. The bus has it's own language and it's own economics and currency. It has it's own geography as well; it's own ghettos and it's own beach-front properties. It has it's privileged areas and it's own suburbs which devalue as they move closer to the poor areas. And everyone, upon entrance to the bus moves directly to the bus-neighborhood which most closely resembles their own.

The street people enter from the back of bus to populate the U shaped seats where you are forced face each other. Where everyone's back is against the wall and no one is behind you. The elderly and frail occupy the front of the bus, in the same fashion, but so they may freely converse with the driver, and be made to feel more safe and protected in open dialogue with their guide.

Within the hind-quarters of the mini-country exists its own tribes; probably the most distinct and polarized than the others. Here the impoverished persist all the rules familiar to them at home on their streets. The blacks seek spaces near other blacks. The latinos sink more comfortably into their seats when next to another spanish speaker smelling of cheap beer. The white passengers divide themselves between foul-mouth youths wearing backwards baseball caps and rap-t-shirts and professional bums sporting pony-tails and white beards.

When lack of seating in the other sections forces a member of another group to the back of the bus, the decisions of where they sit follow a different set of rules. A set of rules understood and practiced by all passengers in all sections of the bus. A safe hierarchy which all, regardless of sex, race or class distinction fall upon. They are, in order: Economics, Gender and Relative Sanity. An economically sound and sane younger woman is the highest class on the bus and by far the most coveted by all others. Conversely, a younger, dirty, crazed male is at the bottom of this intermittent social class and passengers seek to avoid his proximity at all costs. I am sometimes this male. And I avoid the former class as much as they avoid me.

There are both written laws of the Transit Nation, as well as a plethora of unwritten customs passed on from generation to generation by example. From those not aware enough to find these rules out by oneself, they are happy to tutor you with cold stairs, crossed arms and moved seats.

The Third I Love You...

2006-04-24T02:37:00.000-07:00

getting home
fatigued
late

another night of worry replacing sleep
visible churn on the floor
near the bathroom
from a nervous stomach

evidence that I heard what you said
evidence that I can feel things
deeply
all the way down in my gut

I cant tell you how it feels

but you can see it there
on the brown and dirty carpet

the most honest vow of love
beneath your feet
stinking

and in a day its gone
or rather invisible
beneath our feet
on the brown, dirty carpet.

24 Apr 2006

The Second I Love You...

2006-03-24T12:16:00.001-08:00

"I finally love you." I said that night. "Or rather, I can finally say the words without panicking. I don't want to be with anyone else."

The rhythm of our bodies paused for a measure or two but continued in our breaths. I could see only her hair and the soft, moist slope of her neck disappearing into her curls. I felt her smiling.

My chest slid across hers as she tried to pull me even closer. She responded as I had over a year ago; silently and with her whole being. I however, knew that she loved me so her quiet response did not hurt as mine had that morning so long ago. My body had failed where hers now beautifully and sensually succeeded.

Slowly I answered her in kind. Our breaths synchronized; conducting our dance and we once again fell in time.

Slowly, she payed respect to the words spoken from my lips with the wet reciprocation of her flesh.

I inhaled her again. I had forgotten what love smelled like when not soured by fear. It smelled alive and strong, confident and graceful. It smelled like her. It always had.

I had rejected the scent - her scent - that morning, just as a child rejects a foriegn food. Survival. I was surviving. I couldn't survive another serving of that bitter dish and instead picked around the edges of the dish, touching a small forkfull to the tip of my tongue, setting it back down and almost feeding it to the dogs beneath the table.

But here I was now, kicking the dogs away and swallowing again for the first time, half expecting to choke, half expecting to be poisoned slowly over many years.

It was as salty and smooth as her shoulders which I kissed again. Silently.

And then the long after-embrace I have dreamed of this year. To feel your future embrace you tightly as the sticky-wet cools between you and glues you together. As the thunder subsides to gentle drumming; light as the last spring rain pools upon your window sill. Your future feeling safe because you finally admit your desire for it and your trust in it.

That's all your future needs.

And then the soft sleep of two lovers content because they know that they will awake still entwined. Know that the first sound to greet them when they wake will be same sound they now drift away upon.

The breath of your future gently rolling down your naked soul.

I remember her last waking breath as it slipped from between her lips, unfolded on her neck, and tumbled across her shoulder and onto mine. It paused there for a moment to meet my last breath. Then embracing so that I could not tell one from another they spiralled downwards to disappear beneath the covers. It was the last time our breaths would mingle so together.

When I awoke I was alone and chilled. The blanket and my lover with it, had gone. The sound of music tickled the crack beneath her closed bedroom door. In mild disappointment of being robbed of her I stirred, curling my knees to my chest to retain some of my own heat.

"I finally love you." I exhaled so the words born away on the back of my first waking breath . So that I could see what the words looked like. So I could feel thier tiny footsteps on my chest. But instead they dissipated quickly and vanished without a sound.

The door swung open and the music leapt into the room, pushing out the sound of my heartbeat and warming me. My lover stood there, dressed and staring at me. When I saw her face my heart jumped and it's beat fought back against the invading music.

The puddle on the window sill stirred from the center; sending a few lonely spirals outwards to disappear upon it's edge.

She stood there, staring at me, fidgeting with a curl on her neck. Her eyes were too wide to have just awoken from the same sleep I had. There was worry behind them pacing back and forth.

"Do you still love me?" She asked in that childlike way she does when she is speaking about her heart.

"Yes I still do love you."

"How much do you love me?"

"As much as you will let me."

She looked down and shuffled her feet, kicking at some imaginary dog.

Then, glancing up from beneath her tangled ringlets she asked; "Does your love forgive?"

Something darted behind her eyes and lay still; hiding somewhere in her darkness.

"It can only forgive as deeply as it can give."

"How deep is that?"

"I don't know, but I suppose you are about to throw a stone and find out."

"I guess I am."

The pool outside the window began ebbing - on its own as if agitated by invisible rain drops. Distracted or distracting myself I imagined my quickening heart beat was causing it.

I took a deep breath, trying to draw back inside the one which had mingled with hers only an hour ago.

I sat up and reached for my shirt to cover my nakedness. A small piece of fabric; made in china. I felt silly for my sudden shyness, but a little safer.

She moved across the room, now averting her eyes from me and sat on the opposite side of the couch.

"I have something I need to tell you." she paused. "It's something I haven't told anyone."

My heartbeat quit teasing the rain puddle outside and glanced up at me. Relief? Was this just a silly post-amorous confession? Would it all end in a giggle and a hug? A shy smile and a kiss from beneath those curls?

"Well...does it have to do with me?"

"Kinda."

"Okay...well you have my attention."

"I don't know if I can tell you. I don't know if I should tell you."

"Why don't you tell one of your girlfriends first and perhaps she can counsel you. I'm more gaurded with my empathy these days."

"I can't tell my friends."

"But you can tell me?"

"I don't know if I can, but I think I should now that you love me."

"Okay. Cast the stone."

tbc...

- Letter, March 24th, 2006

The Day of my Divorce

2005-05-10T14:29:00.000-07:00

we held hands until he told us to raise them.

Is this marriage irreconcilably broken?

...yes.

Tears were in my eyes and by the time I answered my last question my voice was cracking. In this silence between each question memories spun between us...interrupted by the rhythmic stamping of papers.

Have you both agreed up equal divisions of your assets?

...yes.

The judge never looked at us. Once. Not when we approached, nor when we answered, nor as we spun on our heals to depart. We were properly filled out signatures; a series of balances to quickly check, stamp and process.

Would you like copies of this divorce?

ummmm...yes?

Please have a seat outside and wait for the clerk to bring them to you.

I would never want a copy of this marriage, but I would love -- if necessary, to have a copy of this Divorce.

She picked me up outside my flat in her new sports car. She was typical Sarah. Large sunglasses framed by full, tinted hair crawling down the sides of her face, neck and shoulders like the hanging gardens. She had gained a little weight which at first soothed me. She was wearing clothes that were a bit too tight for her current stature...which at first made me feel superior, or that this was all somehow justified -- 'You are fatter than I, so you must be being punished'.

Those thoughts helped me get to the parking lot in front of the courthouse. We chatted, but it was all so much banter that escaped me as the only sense I employed was sight. As we stepped from the car and began walking to the court I got a better look at her. Yes she had gained weight, but I couldn't hide behind that anymore. She was still Sarah and I still love her -- and she is therefore immune to those petty little judgments I was trying to use to protect myself. I soon loved all of the changes in her as much as if she was not about to become un-Mrs. Alex Taylor -- it was more as if she had just gotten home from the beauty salon and I felt compelled to look her over and notice all the subtle changes.

So this is my wife. This is my wife not trying to please me anymore. I wanted to know more about her. And as I looked more closely, I realized that she looked like her mother. She was wearing clothes that I didn't understand, but she still had that bounce in her step that made me want to chase after her.

We had agreed to meet early as husband and wife for the last time. To try to get to know each other in that last hour before we would never see each other again. We went for coffee near the courthouse and talked about nothing...careful to avoid anything and everything. We talked about family and friends and not Joe. We talked about work and not people I had dated. We talked about Isabella and not our plans for the future. We talked about our cooking and not who we fed it too. We didn't talk about what happened. We talked about what time it was now.

As the time of the hearing drew closer she began asking me more personal question...things that I could not possible ask in kind. I guardedly answered...not wanting to add more awkwardness to the conversation by saying 'I'm not comfortable with that', or 'why could you possibly want to know that' or 'do you still love me?'. I knew the answers to all of those. She was trying and so was I, and that is more than we had done in a year.

Eventually I grew more silent. I was running out of things that I wanted to know...and to fill the void she asked things that she did want to know. She asked me more about the girls that I have known since her. I knew that this was safe. She is comfortable with the man she is with, at least comfortable in it with everything except for me. She was trying to be comfortable with him, in me. By knowing about my relationships, she would feel more relaxed -- that she wasn't the only one who had found someone. I wouldn't...or couldn't give that to her. She is the only one of the two of us who has found that...and perhaps the only one who really wanted that.

Things grew more silent and we headed to the courthouse. Metal Detectors and Elevators...bathrooms and benches...half hour, hour...and the hallway gradually filled until the locked doors finally opened. The clerks were surprised that we were both there, and in fact, out of the divorcees, we were the only 'couple' that showed. All the others had gotten signatures in absentia and were there with mothers, fathers, brothers and new boyfriends.

We got in line and I got one last hug...and the first of many tears from her today.

Would this day, though changing nothing practical in either of our lives, be as symbolic as when we were married -- having lived together already? Would some perceived feeling of Freedom, or Hope rise in me? There isn't even a ring involved in this. Not even taking off the ring you had put on one another. We both have long-since taken our rings off, though my thumb still ventures to find it absently from time to time.

I was more concerned with making it memorable...or mean something. The stale thump thump thump of the stamps...the rustling of paper...the monotone orders given by the judge...the endless last names called. My last name...Our last name called...for the last time. I wanted that last time to mean something. I wanted to make up for so many months of our last name having absolutely no meaning -- or at least extract what meaning it did have -- that we had ignored since she left me. I wanted to at least find out if it still meant something to the both of us, not let the moment pass without noticing it -- or brushing it away. Once brushed away, you can only look back and wonder if it did mean anything in those last moments.

Taylor!

We got up and I grabbed her hand. Her purse was in it and so it was an awkward grasp. I think it surprised her. She lifted a finger to allow an embrace of sorts, but let go as if it was but a transitory kiss of greeting. I kept hold, but as soon as we approached the bench the Judge told us to raise our hands. I did.

Is this the same god that married us I am swearing too now? I wanted to unbind our hands...unbind them from the vows that bound them one and a half years ago. We got ourselves into this together and I wanted as much love and understanding getting ourselves out of it. No. I wanted MORE understanding. That is something that was lacking. That was something that contributed to this bureaucratic unbinding. Understanding.

But this was an undoing factory. Geared only to undo with as little understanding as possible. This was pure, cold math for purely cold people. Tears and ceremony are appropriate for a promise, but in that promise's breaking one can find no honor; just process it as quickly as possible. Mistakes are like that.

I think that a divorce ceremony should equal the marriage ceremony. To get divorce you have to hire a divorce planner, invite all the people who came to your wedding, rent the same hall, get the same officient, give back all the gifts perfectly wrapped, spend as much time on reneging the vows as you did creating them, get drunk, pelt the bride with her bouquet, have a last dance and speed away in different cars. People would either stop getting divorced so quickly or they would start having much less extravagant weddings. But at least the finish would be as meaningful as the start.

And where better to fully express all the meaning? When you are getting married you don't know what the hell you are in for. But you think you have all the time in the world to find out. When you get divorced you have many things you would like to understand and only a small amount of time together to try to understand.

We got our copies at $8.00 each. I didn't know why I needed mine, but I had said 'yes', as I had to everything else. We got to the lobby and I wanted her to take our picture in front of the court's clock. She laughed and said she had never heard anything like that and that I was weird. "Well you should know that...you divorced me didn't you?", I responded.

We looked around and found somebody not in a big rush to go get a divorce and asked him.

"We just got divorce and would like our picture taken in front of the clock".
"Good Idea".

She laughed and handed him the camera.

foto missing

We made our way out of the metal detectors, onto the street and back to the car, now each officially with different lives and names.

"Would you like to have lunch? I'm starving." she asked me.

"I could use a Bloody Mary...we could go to Maximillians...Axel says he refuses to serve you and Joe" I laughed.

"Yeah right...he's a restauranteur...our money is as green as yours. There are lots of restaurants in the area that are ours though...where else?"

"Mercs' closed".

"Ha...!"

"It doesn't matter. You know despite what happened, the horrible things we did to each other...the horrible breakup...I love you and I am honored that I got to be your husband, even for such a brief time. I'm so, so sorry for the things I did to hurt you."

"I will always love you Alex. You will always be so special to me. I always wanted to wake up in another country with you...speaking another language...yelling at our kids in Italian...but in the end...when I had to choose between my family and a life with you -- and some people say I am horrible for my decision...I feel sometimes I am horrible for my decision -- I had to choose what I know."

"I know sweetie. I always knew that I think. I told Sanjay when you and I first met, that we would learn from each other for a time and then you would leave me. I never really could see us together forever. But when forever came I couldn't picture forever without you. But I guess it doesn't have to be completely without you."

"I love you Sarah and I always will."

The First I love You...

2005-02-26T12:19:00.000-08:00

You said..."I love you". And the most I could do was pull your body
tight against me and say it back with the warmth from my body and the caress of my fingers. My tongue tried to find an answer but still found the pursed phonetic of love too bitter to reply. My body instead spoke the sweet reply which my heart insisted.

Saying from the heart lives still in a hollow redoubt of insincerity. Doing from the heart finds worthy purchase upon fingertips and silent lips. A harried word burns the brittle, gasping tinder in a brilliant but momentary flash. Gentleness rolls upon the windswept grasses and reaches the soft peaks of the highest planes at a steady, willfull pace.

Is the peak jealous of it's outer most edges which first feel the soft breath of change? Or does it savor the first tickling glances of desire, knowing it will soon be enveloped entirely?

This is the dance. This is life, sex and death in folgers crystal. These tiny steps we take are only the first but they pave the way for our fate. They need to be soft, gentle and patient and most of all enjoyed. What comes will come but you and I are not in a place to predict. You and I cannot know the outcome nor can we hurry it. If we do, as both of us want to sp badly -- we will miss the most important and intimate times.

I will miss your blush when you become too comfortable with me to tint vermillion. I will miss the way your head tilts downward despite your eyes fighting to lift you, gazing submissively into mine.

I want to dance with you. I don't want to fuck you. I haven't fucked you and I can't imagine what it must be like to fuck you. Those boys. Lying on you. Being inside you yet not understanding where they are. Fucking ignorant of what kind of creature holds them, trusts them, uses them. Wandering off the next day believing they accomplished something but never being able to explain exactly what. Missing it. Missing you.

I'm not missing you.

I still feel every where you have touched me. Every spot your lips have sought, a slow burn still lingers. A stamp from the night before bursting with memories it cannot possibly contain. Proud knowing that it came from your will and your desire.

My neck. My face. My lips. My tongue. My cheak. My chest. My fingers. My stomach. My legs.

My cock.

They beg me for you again. They beg your touch, yes. But they desire the will behind your touch. Your deliberate desire that moves your body across mine searching for a way inside.

I am in awe of you. I am gutted before you.

You have already found a way in.

- Letter, February 26, 2005