I.          Unlikely Poems

 

 

A Good Enough Answer, I Suppose

 

Another one asks the question and

we freeze trying to gloss over a reply.

“Could it ever happen?”  We answer,

“Don’t start…”, then quickly become

busy at the counter or on the phone.

An hour passes and we are coworkers again,

forgetting touching hands that night over the table,

melting at each others’ silent gestures and

bursting eyes, forgetting that last hug,

how it seemed to last longer than previous ones,

setting aside for the moment that she was the one

I collapsed into for solace when the ground

was too far away to beat upon Nikki’s death.

It doesn’t alter the light of day that is has been

four years now and every other circle has broken.

It doesn’t matter the way she cried when I placed

states between us, even when she would join me

only months later.

None of the notes, none of the cards,

none of the days staying late after work

seem to make phone calls more frequent

or dinners more expensive, never cause us to

dress up and mingle over drinks at parties,

introducing each other to people we do not

care about, and dancing properly when expected.

We do not look at rings or wedding gowns,

or speak of our future together as

“when we decorate our house”.

We have not kissed (though, sometimes….),

and none of this causes us to drink or smoke,

or drive excessively fast on dark stretches of

road in the country while the moon laughs its

sinister laugh. We do not wish for more,

and ache and mope and trace our veins with

box cutters when no more comes.

Instead we laugh in unison at things only we share.

We are bound in unspoken security, resting content

in the knowledge that there will always be a tomorrow,

that it will shine and it will rain,

and we’ll throw each other in pools or splash

each other with puddles as we make our way

through parking lots to the cheese isle

of the grocery store.

There will always be a table to sit at,

or a hill to look out over a city from.

There will always be home and parents

and mutual friends and inside jokes,

always be new stories and long trips,

all saturated with melodrama.

We will never be perfect, but always

perfect for each other, always finding fortune

in emptiness, always savoring tears as gold,

finding every occasion in the absurdity of living

to laugh, to always see a light on the horizon,

and to race for it hand in hand.

 

I do not fancy myself your hero.

I will never happen to drive out to your place

late at night, and bang on your window,

and whisk you out onto a lake by torch light.

I will not wait four hours under a staircase

with flowers and perfume to say the most

charming things in known history.

The scenes will not cut back and forth like a

black and white film; I will never lose my color,

or change my wardrobe to only double-breasted

suits with a carnation pinned to the lapel.

Instead, I want nothing more than to read you

chapters at a time from books you’ve picked out,

while you stir fry vegetables in the kitchen,

then recline on the couch on an early evening,

with the television unplugged, and stream off

random thoughts, staring at the ceiling.

I want to walk past shops downtown, and stop in

an ice cream parlor to share a frozen cappuccino,

then sit on a bench for a while and mock

the Baptists passing by.

I want to run into an ex-girlfriend on some

street corner or in some store, make small talk with

genuine interest, then continue on with you

without thinking it strange. I want to see plays,

and play games, and rummage through yard sales

and thrift stores without over-planning and

without anxiety. I want to open my eyes

every morning, and rush along my waking routine

to rejoin you in friendship, and pick up where

we left off the day before.

Just as these words could continue forever as if

I were writing a journal, the mundane things,

the unromantic things, the less than perfect,

short of ideal things, the side notes, the chores,

in short, those things which make me human…

share them with me.

And in return, I can only say with such humility,

and with such thanks and awe and sincerity…

you make my heart smile.

 

 

At Your Name

 

All beauty ignites at

the voicing of your name.

 

Your name is the articulation

of all intangible beauty,

lying dormant to ignite.

The suggestion of you

is volcanic in its activity.

 

 

Each Farewell

 

Treacherous night

of farewell,

remove your talons from my heart!

Tonight’s lover glides fluid

between the chambers

of my heart.

 

 

Tonight, In The Dark

 

Sex is truly unique among

these truly ubiquitous things;

freely I pledge my mischievous

nature to tasteful experimenting….

 

 

Syrup

 

Sugary sweet,

I smile with rash intentions,

pseudo-sociopathic elitist invention.

 

You put the bounce in my kick,

you put the spit in my hiss,

you liquid trounce with a lisp;

I take a head to your stick.

 

Honeycomb hive,

you keep me barely alive

with innuendo, regression, and obsession.

 

 

Shooting Stars

 

When we see a couple,

sweet together in any manner,

we curl in closer on each others’ arms.

When couples see us,

sweet together in every manner,

he thinks to himself,

“The poor fool…”

while she pulls in and thinks,

“Why can’t we be like that?”

 

 

Marci, My Treasure, My Princess

 

You deserve for the seasons themselves

to dive into bottles for your possession,

autumn with its crispness and soft reflection

to uncork when you are sentimental,

winter as a blast of draft

to cool your mouth with peppermint,

spring to splash flora over your neck and face,

to blossom fresh as if a bath of meadow,

and even summer to anoint your head

with babbling brooks and chirping birds

across the underbrush of shadowy weirs.

Beauty and vitality are mindful of you;

they utter your name wistfully and naturally.

There is simply no impurity in you,

nothing less than inexplicable,

abstract perfection.

 

 

The First Longing

 

Hearts pound in time to tears

soft padding across cheeks.

Breath, deep with nuances of

longing, sigh audibly, visibly,

that the pounding sometimes

fails to reach the depth

at which the soul is touched.

There are ties so far beneath

vocal cords that expression is

no more than salt drops from

a chin. In every way a first,

lips tremble and the whimpering

begins—it is uncontrollable when

the total thought comes streaming,

beaming through panes with

such intensity. I am blinded,

love, by what I find in you,

blinded to anything not in its light.

 

 

Frames

 

The soul rests in time as if all was memory.

Pages in scrap books rest pressed together,

as two lovers on a late morning, framed in

golden edges. Echoes throughout the still

white and cedar frame of housing lap at

walls, dripping down over picture frames,

ushering out the old, ushering in the new.

Time no longer passes; it is at a standstill,

caught in some eternal treaty between love

and years, allowing both to settle in like

painted clay for the shelves no onlooker will

ever pass. There is no pretense in the day,

no rush, no more than a sigh in the eyes of

a lifetime’s companion. These are the years

I have given you, the years of splendor,

multiplied by infinity, imprinted with

a single kiss, drawing together two lives

into one, so rich, so full, so perfect in harmony

that no man can find its parallel. I love you

now as a million years prior to history;

there are no bounds and only silence can speak it.

 

 

Sifted

 

The refreshing is purification by your words.

All truth is sifted through the filter of your grace

to find sanctity in your refinement.

I am polished and sharpened and melted

down and resculpted again by heed

of your gentle whisper in my ear.

Distractions fall as shackles

to the sure ground of your temple,

then vanish as spirits at the name of Christ.

All the wonder I had forgotten,

seeing things for a first time as a child,

all is restored under freshly preened wings,

healed of mortal wounds whose scars never set,

and gleaming as stars for wise men to follow.

I have found a beauty in the wisdom of Solomon,

raised up from dust and packaged tight

by the hand of God.

I have found a purity beyond estimation,

packed tight and in bodily form;

she is the woman to whom all else must bow.

 

 

I Know What She Is

 

You have always know, Father, her father,

that the little girl hands from frills and pigtails,

open wide and stretching out with arms,

would someday close in tight on the

little boy hands of some quiet romantic.

You have always known that it would be,

someday, the saddest and happiest and strangest

of days, to look deeply, with full soul and

quivering lip, into the wide, imploring eyes

of your most beautiful daughter,

and offer her up once more to her God,

with only then the full impact of that reality

tugging at your heart.

 

The little girl hands from frills and pigtails—

you have witnessed over the years how strong

and how tender little fingers become.

You have seen the tiny fist in your palm

grow into a woman’s hand.

You were there to be overwhelmed with joy

at every first—her first word, her first step,

her first thunderstorm—all the times children

look up with excitement for affirmation.

Your heart broke when she was sad;

your eyes silently laughed when youth

misunderstood such simple things—

how you delighted in her innocence,

and adored the spectacle of your child,

making up songs and stories to herself,

unaware of being watched. You sat back in

your chair and listened to her timeless voice.

 

In my life, I have known but three things:

There is no grief like a mother’s.

There is no joy like a father’s.

Love is the only measure of time.

 

You have always known, her father, my father,

that the little boy hands of some quiet romantic

would someday interlock with hers,

to guide her, to be led, to walk alongside her

until the duration of years turns golden,

lining the pages of her life with riches and age,

blessing after blessing at the hand of God’s grace.

There is a moment in a father’s life when

for the first time he sees his daughter’s reflection

fully in the eyes of her life’s companion,

and he understands that his role has changed,

and the mixture of emotions is the recipe for

the sweetest tears he will ever cry.

 

You have always prayed, Father, her father,

for her future husband to draw near to God,

that his path would be protected and sure,

that he would be raised with wisdom and patience,

that he would be willing and anxious to endure

through trials, that his body would be strong,

and his spirit gentle, and that he would guard

her purity with his life. You have petitioned the

Lord your God to bring your daughter a man of

upright ways, a defender, a brother, and a servant.

You have prayed that he would know her, truly,

as a man knows his own heart, that every attribute,

every wonderful quality would be met with

enthusiasm and appropriateness, that she could

curl up in his security and rest in his provision,

that her heart would be truly happy in love.

You have prayed also that she mature as

a woman of God.

 

Father, my father, as your brother

in his service, I speak; I speak to you as

your daughter’s future husband.

 

I have seen the little girl hands

from frills and pigtails.

I have interlocked the little boy hands of this

quiet romantic with her strong and tender fingers,

to guide her, to be led, to walk alongside her.

I have looked into her eyes and seen her heart,

I have looked into her heart and seen her soul,

and her mind is as simple and as complex as

the words you can still hear in her little girl voice;

 

“Jesus loves me, this I know,

for the Bible tells me so….”

 

She is so golden, so bright,

so appropriate and so pure.

I have seen her past and survived through

her fears; I have never tasted a tear

more like sweet wine than my beloved’s.

I am so overwhelmed that I can only whisper—

I cannot even formulate an intelligible thought!

In Christ I was complete before her,

but like an empty vessel;

now I spill over with abundance, with wellsprings

of love and joy that lift my surroundings to the

heavens and saturate every near thing!

I am enchanted in the most realistic of ways,

amazed at how naturally the details of daily life

submit to her. I keep nothing from her;

there is nothing I do not want to share.

I am committed, heart, mind, and soul to her,

to always love, honor, and cherish her with

everything I am, to lay my life at her feet,

and serve with her the one and only true God,

whom she and I both love.

 

It is in the perfection of His will that we were

brought together, and it is with that same will

in mind that we shall proceed, relying on Him

and on each other for the strength and courage

—and every ripening fruit of the spirit—

to be a brilliant, shining example to a dim

and hopeless world that, in the most

tangible way, there truly abides

faith, hope, and love,

and that the greatest of these

is, truly, love.

 

 

Virgin Form

 

Lie back, undressed, pressed in covers,

your perfect breasts, tested lovers,

reserve of beauty, well adorned;

I disappear in sheer virgin form.

 

 

Poison Reaching Upward

 

Heart in my throat,

sneer in my gloat;

wrench and convulse

goes the soul—

intangible, the unknown.

My heart bursts forth,

splattering verse;

terse the knots on my

arms purple with venom,

sickening the blood

in spurts.

 

 

Your Breathing

 

Life’s very perception has

altered to mirror you.

I cannot stand the daylight that shines

over ground unhugged by your shadow.

I cannot stand the nights

without you in my bed.

The intolerable things of passionless

inanity are not stilled tonight by

your leg across my body,

are not silenced by the taste of

your breathing against my chest.

 

 

Our Sculpted Bodies Entwined

 

Sheer glimmer and glow fall anxious over

regal draping tapestries rich.

Silence and poise steady nervous hands,

awaken love in renewed vigor;

            intentional, ravenous.

Fluid and slow, catlike with mischief,

from the corner fold covering our bed,

 

I begin at your toes.

 

Cool tickling digits slowly tongue warmed,

individually, each,

an upward glance between long closing eyes.

On the underside curve of graceful, hurried feet,

pressed tightly fitted to my own warm face,

rounding delicate heel for a quick mouthing

            of the ankle.

In all of ancient Greece, there was no

more perfect goddess than she of my affection.

Her statuesque calves, dotted exclamations,

growing like vines upward toward the sun,

tender leaves unfolding cup-like, offerings of dew;

morning songs, morning birds, distant relations.

 

I center at your hearth.

 

Warmth radiating, inward pull,

snug locks the hold of hands immersed in clay,

following attentively smooth curves spinning,

burrowing deeper into earth rich with life,

mouth open to bursting fullness from wet soil,

earth tilled by fingertips, handfuls of dirt.

Ornamented shimmers, ornate bulbs

spring forth from splashes of color and sunlight;

floral is our bed of greenery and petals.

 

And upward again, surging to your blossoms.

 

Up the corridor of climbing stalk,

nerve centers awake, he slithers serpentine

across her surface, closely and metallic,

polishing, gleaming the sheen, reflection in her

            curvature laid bare—

then a grin across licked lips and hungry teeth,

wider opened suckling mouth unfurls its tongue,

forcibly urges contracting muscle

upward in heaves and bears down with its weight.

A process in motion paces itself—slow, fast,

then slow again, building volcanic urges emerging;

pulse and breath quicken to abrupt,

excitable doses.

 

His head lifts.

 

Equal treatment lays outstretched upon cast iron

frames of petal tipped, perfume dripped stems

            moist and strong,

interlocking fingers carrying lapping waves

back to the stern, bobbing gently as driftwood

            salty and fresh upon immersion.

 

Back to the shore, my mixed metaphor,

to reengage in activity.

 

My own sapling twigs of branches sway inward,

catching breezes, brushing intentionally and

            light against her foliage.

Shadows move slow across valleys deep and peaks,

paths upward open in exploration,

blooming and plumage full;

then we rest and settle.

 

Then, finally, the kiss.

 

Suppressed impression’s impassioned lover

unleashes, the mouth fixes in place and engages,

            airtight its seal.

Golden sun streams over skies oceanic in original

stark contrast, bridge outcropping slightly from

soft countryside, rolling hills.

A road, empty and inviting, stretches subtly;

eager steps trace its course.

 

Our souls

in union

speak.

 

 

True Romance

 

Romance involves such things as

restocking bathroom tissue,

noticing that there is garbage

to be taken out,

and coming to bed before you

are necessarily tired.

And often even forgoing poetry.

 

I thought tonight to write

a song about lost loves,

even down to descriptions.

My heart grieved for

loss of all the dead weight

it used to carry.

I am no longer that man,

and so I sang only for my wife.

 

 

Embers

 

Reach down your hand

from the tempest of who you are

to stir up the simmering

embers of me.

 

 

At Home

 

Unhappy people gather habitually

under the genuine stench of unoriginality,

discussing lame and tired topics,

and how sad it is, me sitting at

home with my wife.

 

Yeah, such striking mundanity,

you absolute buffoons.

 

 

II.        Unlikely Entries

 

 

13^th Thursday, April 1995

 

          Well, here I go again.  Not even a month after burning everything I still treasured from Lana and sending her the bottled ashes, I find myself ready to obsess about someone else.  We have this rule at the café that girls need to be escorted to their cars, or brown vans or whatever.  Mancy being of school age tends to leave work rather early, so as we were tonight all lazing in the alley and she decided to leave, Pino asked me to walk her around the building.  Which I gladly did.  Which, truly, I might have done anyway.  This of course was an insignificant thing, something she might remember or shrug off as nothing.  But what she may not know is that after I walked away and she was unable to start the vehicle, I stood at the corner behind a column of bricks, watching her for a good five minutes before she drove away.

          At closing I suggested to Annie and Pino that I might like her more if she were not a singer.  And they suggested I might just plain like her, and Pino offered to talk to her for me if I would lose the teddy bear backpack.  I shook my head at such a ridiculous notion… while, I must admit, she does share certain essential characteristics with the owner of the ashes.

 

 

15^th Saturday, April 1995

 

          “That’s so annoying!” I began.  Annie read my mind, “To like someone?”  “That you have to like her!”  She knew who I meant.  I’d been working like mad all day to prepare for the Kevin Smith show that night.  In retrospect, I suppose I can admit that I only agreed to be there because Mancy was scheduled.  In fact, and please let this go no further, I really only work at all because she’s there; otherwise, I should be somewhere else.

          Without going into much unnecessary detail, let me tell you what affected me most this particular evening.  First, she often turned to look at me or speak to me; at one point she sat immediately by my side.  Then, of course, there were the joking attacks and other things, which swung my mood a bit to the more giddy, emotional side.

          As hour after hour passed, the concert ended, and nearly everyone else went home, I was pleased beyond measure that she was still around.  Carrying tables, at that!  Following her down the unlit sidewalk to the church light before us, I noticed with almost a thrill the young, but perfectly feminine figure showing through a somewhat transparent dress.

          Her admirable qualities find themselves sticking in my mind, reinforcing a positive sort of first impression I’d formed.  Driving home, entranced by “Dark Side…” I could think only of how desperately I would love to kiss her.

 

 

Early August 1996

 

          What is man in his twentieth year?  Or his fiftieth, or eightieth?  What is his burden, what is his grief that it is worthy to note?  Nay, only one has yet defied the grave, and he with the greatest suffering of all—that of undue suffering.  What thought, what talent, what act may I claim that might give merit to my misery?  I ache to the very blood that sustains me.  I curse this twisted assembly of bones and cartilage with every grating movement.  My heart is as wicked a cinder as has ever plotted against itself.

          Yet, do I complain?  Is even one of my prayers indulged?  And do I not, with no more than a sigh, respectfully bow to every discouragement thrust at me?  And why?  Because man in his rapid succession of years will end with no more to say about it than an insect on his preference of not being stepped on.

          Who am I to occupy your hearing with idle chatter and dead theories?  Who are you that death should hold her hand still while you prepare for your great purpose?  Surely, you will in the end find that there is no more useful wisdom than this:  Man’s purpose in being introduced to life is that he must befriend death.  And in so doing, he must acknowledge his insignificance and submit in humility to the one whom death could not hold.  In the meantime, do not speak harshly of what you find disagreeable; these things are only inconveniences, placed to point us toward that final invariable resolve.

 

 

Late August 1996

 

          Oh God, that I could sleep!  That these desert-burning eyes could only shut!  Of anyone I have ever known, I am truly alone.  Precious, absurd people claim immediate segments of my time, and I oblige because I’ve no better way to pass it.  Oh, that this could be my last night of torment!  I wish it constantly to end, but my health remains and my heart beats strong.  Oh, that the whole in my stomach would split me from the inside out!  That my pulse would only cease its repetitions!  But no such comfort am I allowed; no solace am I given.  How often must my spirit be broken before my body joins in the decay?  Death is more welcome than life; I have befriended solitude more than his treacherous associate called love.  They pain me equally, and I have no joy.

          I wish the knack for chronicling on no one.  I said it earlier today, and I wish to impress it upon you again; I would give up all fame, glory, and recognition to only resume a peaceful and serene stability.  All the publicity in the world cannot make right the absences in my life.  To myself I am nothing.

 

 

27^th Tuesday, August 1996, 1:32 AM

 

          So is the pattern I have etched for my days.  While sun or overcast rule—the latter I prefer—I am thoughtless and complacent.  Lacking noteworthy redemption, I feign contentment amid bookstore ambiance and sell a most earnest façade to backed-up lines of customers.  My telephone skills are saturated with over-sweetness.  Then off with the turn of a key, and I am born.  Evening births anew sudden depth and introspection.  I am again aware of the evils in the human heart.  I scorn and rage, and not infrequently then accept my allotment.  I am suddenly overflowing with romance.  I once more to my heart commit anticipation.  I am vibrant and alive.

          Then are the hours never-ending, then am I the more enamored with both pleasantries and cruelties.  Ah, and then is the estate of our father Adam comprehensible.  Then is this terrible weight enough to crush.  Ah humanity, the blessed creation!  I am complex and sophisticated, bestial and primate.  I am confounded by my facets and driven by extremes.  In a day, I am bitter, nonchalant, resentful, impartial, uncaring, insincere, saddened, glum, distrustful, in love, and—however scarcely, perhaps outweighing even the nastiest of combinations—occasionally content.  Whether this particularly is one of those moments, I am not able to discern.

 

 

3^rd Thursday, October 1996, 12:35 AM

 

          God, I am horrendous!  My flesh is vile and should crawl off at its own reflection.  There are great holes left in my skin.  I have not the smooth, fair cover of those around me, but a blemished and peeling sort of leprosy I would do well to burn off.  Infection is my dearest companion.  I would sooner gouge my eyes than be reminded of the sight.  I would be wiser even to scald the nerves with a clothes iron to no longer feel bacteria multiply under this blush of talc.  Given a choice of fates I would sooner choose mental slowness than skin that does not rejuvenate.  I am disfigured.  I am horrible.  I feel as though kin to Frankenstein or the elephant man.  Eyes bore into me.  I am cursed.  I am mocked.  Redemption I will find only in death.  Happiness will not greet me on this earth.  Of all people, I know what it is to be truly ugly.  The world should not have to look at me.  Father, come quickly.  Master and maker, do not deny me my end.  I am so easily overwhelmed.  I can speak no more.

 

 

Undated Entry

 

          I woke with too much stress—it would not let me peaceably sleep.  In my head were hundreds of customers whose faces I did not see, every line, one after the other ringing, people blurting out questions as if I were not tending to a hundred things already, my music shelves in shambles and disarray, the numbers off, and baskets to be unwrapped.  Elsewhere, in the same state of mind, my thoughts were with the only one I have loved.  Has she been slipping unnaturally, or is this a developmental phase?  Has my residence affected significant areas of her life enough to alter her behavior?  Has she drifted in a wrong direction?  And what can I do about it?  Am I growing spiritually enough to aid another toward the same end?

          I would explore these further, but to no avail.  My inquiries end sometimes in a resolve to action, but more frequently in only deeper questions.  I can see that some good in my day is done.  If only by my patience or my heart, I have seen an occasional kindred blessed.  I intend well.  I am no less an imbecile, but perhaps a kinder fool than some are used to seeing.  And I have grown tired of berating myself for not being more than I am.  Is God limited by my limitations?  Is he unable to elevate the lowest and most prone to failure to be the most influential in his leanings?  He is a God of wonder and of miracles.  Who am I to despair of my place?

 

 

26^th Thursday, December 1996, 2:43 AM

 

          If some poor fool shows himself to react to an instance with any degree of drama, if he is idealistic or eccentric to his close friends, he is thought to be mad.  Utilizing instinctive defense mechanisms is thought to be responding with emotion rather than intellect—and people consider this unhealthy.  I share no kind thought with my society… it does nothing for me, and I crave no part.  So then, let me be the maddest of them all!  Watch me realize my innate capacity to self-destruct.  I do not want to live.  It brings me no joy and I would be well served to avoid it.  Ah, relief… the ultimate selfishness to disturb you, staring blindly and uttering nonsense.  Let chemical reactions and gray matter erode… analyze me with long psychological terms.  Unhappiness drives me to disregard such balderdash.  I would rather dwell happily in my neurosis than struggle day to day with your monotonous pattern of constant and intensifying tragedies.  Ha!  Then mad I am—I’ve come to look on it as a blessing.

 

 

3^rd Friday, January 1997, 2:58 AM

 

          Come quickly for me Lord!  Send your servants, your angels, with white cloaks to adorn me, with the warm light of your grace in accepting me, escorting me up to the loftiest heights of your kingdom in heaven.  I have been already too long in this world, extended my stay centuries past its host’s favor.  For my sacrifice has been made; I have loved and I have lost, and I slump now in a broken disposition on the soil, which by your mercy will soon cover me.  Comfort me, that my purpose has been accomplished, then send out across the chasm of realms to claim my life.  I wait for you in suffering and melancholy, pleading with you to cut short my days of woe and remove me from this impossible planet.  It suffices for those to whom no questions seem pertinent, but it wears away at the selected few with that mixed blessing of your expanded consciousness and intellect.  In despairing moments such as this, it is a curse.  I thank you nonetheless, but petition you as readily to let it end soon.  Call to me, Lord, and force me no longer to endure such agony!  Relent, and relieve me of the burden of my life.

 

 

4^th Saturday, January 1997, 3:54 AM

 

          I have just spent several hours with someone more miserable even than I.  To share in the extent of such wretched loathsomeness, and yet to have not even that hope in Christ to turn to….  I cannot comprehend such an existence.  Indeed, nor can she.  For, admittedly, her constant wish is to stumble across a loaded gun and take it upon herself to end the mystery.  This has been her waking mindset for at least the half year since we last spoke.  She was noticeably uneasy until a quick joint loosened her terse demeanor.  I smoked half a pack of Camel Specials (I may as well have cancer cells surgically implanted into my gums, then yank out my teeth) and burned a hole in the bucket seat of her otherwise flawless Bug, as I listened to her stories and remarks become truly incoherent.  She will probably prove to be true greatness—I half expect her to become an unstoppable witness to the faith.  But now my stomach feels like blunt knives are being jabbed from inside, and so I close this book in hopes of a deep and painless slumber.

 

 

January 1997

 

          I lost the time telling plastic rodent Natalie gave me for my birthday.  It used to dangle on its thin silver chain and stick its tail out of my front pocket, so I could look at its little behind whenever I needed to see the time.  It was a stupid gift, but the girl’s kind of off anyway.  My brother gave me one of those silver pocket watches I’ve always thought were so cool, but that broke last week.  I haven’t known the hour since.  A couple days ago I wrote 1984 on a check.  Recently I saw somebody’s sister that I used to go to school with and she’d gotten drop-dead gorgeous.  Then I saw the alumni newsletter for the same school, and I think I’m the only shiftless loser who hasn’t done anything yet.  I feel old.

          Well, okay, I guess I haven’t been that stagnant.  There was that half year in West Palm Beach with Jay, Scotty and Paul, all those days working The Book Market in the morning and Inspiration House at night, then spending all my free time at the Promenade with Lana.  That was as close to college life as I needed.  Like when Scotty gashed his leg open on the iguana’s aquarium.  Or when we stole that giant inflatable… no wait, I can’t tell that story.

          Then Nashville.  And Rocketown.  Gosh, now that I think about it, I really miss everyone.  I miss Shawn and Julie, and the birds and Recee, and Chris and Susan, and coffee and poetry and gourmet cigarettes.  I miss Kathy Martha with the third earlobe, and Derek in some expensive sweater saying “do it a’gin!” to her Amy Grant impersonation.  I miss Toad and Jared and Drew, and ELF, and our late nights at Catacombs, smoking honey mead and writing songs—I miss my dank closet, and that musty smell Jared’s mom scrubbed away.  I miss Jackie Chan movies on Thursdays, and losing at chess to that dress-wearing freak.  I miss Drew’s passive attitude toward everything, and how he couldn’t tell if a chick was flirting with him, and how routine his days were.  I miss watching the boys “circle up” to lip sync New Kids songs.

          And the girls.  I miss Alana the model, and Lorraine with the home tattoo, playing Hip-Hop Scrabble with Courtney and that beautiful friend of hers.  I miss Glitter-Eyes, and Amy with the Celtic designs on her back, and all those open mics where Sarah would sing a praise song or read something about Mr. Right.

          I miss the old café.  I miss being there ‘til two or three in the morning with Annie, singing along with Chris Isaak or Sting while we finished up all the dishes and floors.  I miss Pino coming in after a bad night and playing his congas and smoking his pipe.  I miss walking around Franklin with Mancy, talking about our respective love lives—or lack thereof—the whole time thinking how adorable she looked.

          I miss people from everywhere I’ve stayed.  I miss Angel from New Jersey, and her sense of humor and her sense of morbidity, and one or the other of us crying while I held her finger.  I miss waking up to such a pale, pretty face, and I miss her painting my eyes.  I miss watching VBS classes at her church, and being her personal photographer at Disney.  I miss Shara, breathing the incense in her room and listening to “Watermark”.  I miss our long drives and longer phone calls, and having people tell me she was beautiful; I miss her nervous laugh and baby doll eyes.

          I miss the old Powerhouse mob—Kim, Sab, April, Jen, Candle, and sometimes my cute little friends from Holiday.  I miss retreats to Georgia or Pennsylvania.  I miss Claire and Julia and Mandy, and I miss seeing Tara for a photo session every year.  I miss Melissa in Maine, who used to live with us in Virginia when life was trivial.  I miss staying up all night with her, then watching the sunrise on the beach before anyone else woke up.

          There doesn’t seem to be a whole lot to do in this town.  I keep ending up at Wal-Mart or Denny’s, those being the only things open at three in the morning.  Maybe I’m just not looking hard enough.  Or maybe I just don’t like driving.  Ybor doesn’t count, because the people there try too hard (but that’s just my biased opinion).  Someone did finally take me to a coffee house in Clearwater, but I asked for a double latté and got a mocha.  Borders can’t seem to get that right either.  My only hope is to get to Barnes & Noble before eleven.  And I haven’t bothered to make friends, and the ones I do have keep entirely opposite schedules.  Call me crazy, but I think nighttime was meant for writing.  Daylight doesn’t do anything for me.  Well, unless it’s overcast and rainy.

          I’ve been meaning to go back to school, but I have the attention span of a two-year old, and can’t seem to sit myself down to fill out applications.  I’m staying with my parents for a while because I can’t afford to get locked into a lease right now—being unstable and flighty and all.  My cousin wanted me to move to North Carolina with him, but I have the opportunity of getting at least one store’s music department to what it should be, and I can’t pass up an opportunity like that.  After all, I moved down here because the music scene is so far behind Nashville’s (sad, isn’t it?), and I intend to do something about it before I move on.  Still, I mean to go back and get a formal education just as soon as possible.  I really don’t mean to become a useless vagrant, living off the kindness of others; this is not a lifetime pattern.  I just want to be young for a little while.  I just want to write.

          So here I am in Tampa, selling specialty Bibles and Christian pencils to avid supporters of churchdom.  And the weird thing is that I don’t mind it.  Two years ago I couldn’t walk into a religious store without a certain immediate feeling of nausea, but I guess I finally learned to accept the industry side of Christianity for what it is, and to step aside as it accomplishes what it was meant to.  I finally decided that the church world is not an entirely bad thing, it’s just that people sometimes tend to lose their focus and forget that Jesus was all about unconditional love and forgiveness and unselfishness.  But hey, we are fallen, aren’t we?  We’ve all got our crutches—some people just happen to misuse the body of Christ.  He forgives them just the same as he forgives me for being overly cynical about it all.

          So here I am, an insignificant, uneducated music buyer, spending my nights stringing together metaphors and analogies in an attempt to come up with some tangible way to express the dichotomous perplexity that is human existence.  Alongside my despairing melancholy and wretched darkness, I carry also a joy and a hope.  I share a kindredness with believers and a bond with the wise.  I would not trade this perspective for anything.  I am content in my misery and comforted in the toil of this treacherous world.  I hate with all intensity and love with fullest passion.  I am the grandest of contradictions, and it is the only thing that makes sense.  Praise God for his simple complexity!  Glory and honor to the giver of wisdom for his insights and revelations.

 

 

1^st Saturday, February 1997, 1:05 AM

 

          I suffer.  I truly, truly suffer.  But it is an internal anguish that no one in my circle comprehends.  It is not anything that can be quenched or subdued.  It is my cold and detached mistress, in whom I plant the seeds of worth, yet in depravity and misguided longing.  I have written it, that this succession of intermittent pains is treacherous, that I would be served well to bind it and toss it into the deepest of lakes.  But no such comfort am I awarded.

          Then let it come to pass, you savior of fallen creatures, that some poor fool makes a motto of that rare inspired line, formed from the very dregs of this mortal existence.  Taunt me only if some unknown onlooker may find salvation from this dreary mass.  With cries I entered the world, and they shall continue until all breath is squeezed from my unhealthy lungs.  I have not been spared and I cannot be saved; then turn to music my groaning for that far away convert, so I will not have agonized in vain.  I am deeply unhappy and utterly disconcerted; it is my service to be so.  Pray you, then, let me linger not one second past the hour needed to balm some great prophet’s lips.  It nears becoming too much.

 

 

4^th Tuesday, February 1997, 2:31 AM

 

          “I am unworthy—how can I reply to you?  I put my hand over my mouth.  I spoke once, but I have no answer—twice, but I will say no more.”

Job 40:4-5

 

          “My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you.  Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.”

Job 42:5-6

 

          Who am I?  Who am I to question the God of Job?  I get so caught up in my melancholy and gloom, and there reside.  No, the words are not mine, but they are the most touching balm my sinister depth has ever embraced.  I do not deserve even to elaborate.  Simply think on them.  No more need be said.  Tears and dust only… I become mud.

 

 

14^th Friday, February 1997, 12:39 AM

 

          Tonight I realized that I cannot be happy.  I used to think I would be someday.  I used to think that it would come with love, and with financial security and stability.  But I have already these things with Christ.  And it is not enough.  It will not come.  So again I reiterate my longing for the end.  I am a blight, an indelible blotch in the lives of those unfortunate enough to be close to me.  My only friends bring me no pleasure, as well as I offer none back.  I am the smallest and vilest of creatures.  My friends will momentarily weep when I pass, then will go about in the comfort of those they truly love.  Their joy will return and my misery will have ended.  I am truly alone in this world.  I look forward to nothing.  In my own eyes I am a failure.  Only in death will I be complete.

 

 

27^th Tuesday, May 1997

 

          I am silenced by my humanity.  I can neither know nor speak the mind of Christ.  There is balm, yes, but it is withheld.  There are answers, but they are kept silent.  The suffering continue to suffer and the pious go about foolishly and without wisdom, darkening congregations with words they do not comprehend.  I cannot answer but that my tainted heart does not understand the upright ways of justice, that it does not grasp the perfect purity of absolute holiness.  For all my human logic, I am proved to be a fool.  With this knowledge I am silenced.  But it is sufficient—not through blindness, but rather, quite the opposite—to be content with such.  I surrender myself because I find fault with humanity.  I give myself over to a Spirit beyond knowing, because there is a simple fulfillment in humility that surpasses any I could otherwise hope to find.  I mind the Scriptures, and ask that their meanings be revealed to me.  There is a process that cannot be sidestepped, and it is that faith rewarded with divine wisdom and true understanding.  This is what the Word says, and there is just cause to believe it:

 

          “For the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength….  We speak of God’s secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began….  This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words.  The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from it, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.”

 

          “I know that you can do all things; no plan of yours can be thwarted.  You asked, ‘Who is this that obscures my counsel without knowledge?’  Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know.”

 

 

5^th Friday, September 1997, 12:28 AM

 

          Lyrics and songs swim through my nights like beer through the blood of college students.  I am en route from Tampa to my second stint in Nashville, holding over this first night in Gainesville.  I had hoped to spend an afternoon with Natalie.  I am a fool.

 

 

20^th Saturday, September 1997, 11:45 AM

 

          At work early these days.  Have to take lunch and park on the roof, working hours salaried people schedule.  Getting along well.  Been in Nashville about two weeks now.  Chris and Todd have both visited to sit and smoke and drink beer.  Met Mancy for coffee and a movie yesterday.  Mary was there too, but I left early so as not to suffer a public breakdown.  Called Heather, Sarah, and Natalie so far, convincing each they’re the most important thing on earth.  Must say I’m quite vocal and intentional with what I feel.  Have comp tickets to a festival tonight, but probably won’t go.

          Seem to fit right in here; like I’ve known everyone since before time.  Lots of familiar faces.  Living with a measure of grace and salt now.  Funny part is how it all came so natural.  Smile a lot.  Everything is found to be somehow perpetually amusing.  Nothing really draining anymore.  Still, hope to be completed someday.  Getting there….

 

 

21^st Sunday, September 1997, 10:56 PM

 

          Went to Belmont Church this morning.  Remembered just how to get there.  Saw only Jason and Lynn that I recognized.  Leaned standing over a balcony rail through the service.  The whole charismatic praise and worship thing going on made me sad… I’m hoping it’s just because this is a town of artists and melodrama, and not the new face of the church.  A few things in the short message impressed me… like how they don’t talk about being Christian anymore so much as being of Christ, united in spirit.  Angie and Debbie Winans sang.

          I very much love my brothers and sisters in Christ, but I know God’s work with me is in a different direction.  I just hope they understand and can accept his method with me.  It is very different than the dancing around and laying on of hands and out-of-time clapping I saw today.  I do feel part of it though, in a way only the spirit quite understands.  I’ve learned that God can use whatever he wants to his end, and that he does in fact move in ways that I am not to be a part of.  Which doesn’t concern me in the least, because I have his peace about my place in his hands, and I praise him for it in my own reserved and solemn way.  I no longer feel condemned for it.

 

 

30^th Tuesday, December 1997, 11:27 PM

 

          My teeth are clenched tighter than vice grips as I scream moans and wailing and harsh growls, hissing in pain, cursing into my pillow.  I force down as many gel caps as I can with a quick gulp of brown tap water from the bathroom sink, then return to my bed to lie belly down and clutch at the organs and tissue and nerves I wish so desperately I could rip out through what feels like a gaping spear hole at the most tender part of my backside.  It’s what I imagine it’s like to be bludgeoned by the broken handle of a broom, having it lodged in tight and left for the slow creeping blood to clot to.

          I glare at the two intrusive alarm clocks for the excruciating waves to pass, unable to find any remotely soothing position that wouldn’t first involve a succession of quick, deep slashes from the nearby razor.  I look at my relentless work schedule taped to the wall and wonder when it will finally get so bad that I’ll have to be carried out of the building to a waiting van just to be looked over by a doctor.

          I feel in turn the remainder of my body throb with precise stabs… my head, my chest, my toe, my stomach caving in on itself.  Two girls left an hour ago and I have to drive down tomorrow to Atlanta with them—the same girls who were over all this week when we sometimes ended up at Waffle House or Huddle House, or some lame empty dance club downtown.

          Moments like this I’m glad I smoke, and wish my cigs and my tarnished Zippo weren’t in the other room, as much as I wish I hadn’t shared my beer, so that I had some right now to smash myself silly and pass out.  But I don’t do that sort of thing because I’m a Christian.  Yeah, well f-ck it when you feel this bad!  Moments like this you wish someone would take a pewter candlestick holder to the back of your neck, get in a few good whacks and leave you in a bloody pool so you could finally get some rest.

          The phones were cut off again, so the only one who ever made any of it bearable… well, no one really knows, eh?  She’s not here.  No one is.  Nothing here but me and this unthinkable pain drilling into me.  The pain inherent in suicide’s method is no longer an obstacle—the only factor now is speed and permanency; how quickly, how thoroughly can I be rid of this slow, intense dying that incapacitates any rational line of thinking in moments like this!

          I beg and I beg and I plead and I beg again for it to be over.  Yet somehow I go on living this way.  And people guess as to the cause of my distress, never being able to understand it, save for a very few exceptions.  Finally the medicine begins to work.

 

 

2^nd Friday, January 1998, 12:17 AM

 

          Amy and Molly stopped by for a few hours to tell me of the trip I missed to Atlanta.  I’m rather glad I got out of it.  I slept late and don’t quite know where the time went… to my lungs, I suppose, and to my stomach.  I finally resolved to finish my books up to this point, and to start fresh and hopefully more chronological now than thematic.  I called Natalie once and she called back twice.  I love her and think about her more than I ever have anyone else.  But I can’t even begin to know quite where she is with me these days.  Perhaps I’m simply the most wonderful male friend a girl can have; it often seems that way, that I’m no more than moral support and spiritual guidance.  Think of it, me… a counselor!

          At any rate, I mean to put a good deal into my work over the coming months; and Natalie and Sarah, and Molly and Amy, Angel, Heather—whoever my heart may break for next—well, they’ll all make fine raw material for projects yet to come.  Save for my continuing to enjoy cigarettes and imported beer, I’ve put a special emphasis of late on my physical health.  I’ve been in some particularly unbearable pain for nearly two months, and finally became alarmed when I began bleeding again this past week.  But I seem to be doing better.  And now I’ll allow myself to sleep as well.  After all, the body requires a good bit of maintenance, almost as much as the spirit does.  With a little care, I’m expecting something of a successful year.  We’ll see then, eh?

 

 

4^th Sunday, January 1998, 12:49 AM

 

          Woke up tired and carried it through the day.  For the most part, feeling much better… until that hour in the car trying to find Shawn’s house—that I could have done without.  Stamped down hard on the pedal and didn’t much look at the road, not really caring if someone slammed into me; I really would have preferred that.

          Molly brought over some antique knick-knacks for the candle table, and also a box of turn-of-the-century photos, perfect for album art.  Greg showed me a few ideas he’s working on for the band, left me with a chorus to flesh out.  All of them were simpleton, here-it-is-with-no-need-to-think-in-any-depth-about-it, youth group evangelist lyrics.  Working to catchy pop song formulas like that might be worse than I thought; it’s been so long since I had to say something basic that wasn’t mere self-expression.  I think it can still be done artfully, but I’ll be far less impressed with the result.

          Had a good discussion with Amy and Phil about pornography and its effect on character.  A youth group scoured the music section at the store for about an hour after lunch.  I’d forgotten what that was like… how easily you get quick crushes in tight groups like that.  One or two customers had drop-dead amazing bodies, and it made me want to go home and just sleep off the returning waves of depression.  Yeah, that’s right… life is just fine, and I hate everything about it.

 

2:18

 

          Natalie called late.  She’s been at home in Tampa on holiday, so she’s had a lot of comparisons and a lot of time to think.  I know now that we’ll always have this same relationship.  It has an intimacy far past what I can ever hope to experience with anyone other—and I certainly never would hope it.  She is truly the dearest person on earth to me.  I will support her with the fullest scope of my soul’s depth in anything she should think to go after.  Our love in Christ is limitless, surpassing even the boundaries of life itself.

          She called to see if I would answer deep questions as to what I’ve been thinking lately… what I petitioned her to ask two days ago, and she never did.  I didn’t answer at first, until I realized that I had not, and that I committed to always be as open and humbly honest as even the most eloquent bridegroom to his young lover.  The answer then, was (and is, and ever shall be) that I’ve been scared of how unselfish my love for her is, that I would certainly stand by even her decision to be yoked to someone else, which she doesn’t believe will ever happen; but after all, she is the one with a new boyfriend, while I find myself with more and more close “special” friends like Sarah.

          Truly I am scared.  But even more so, I trust her to know our God’s will and to follow it unconditionally, and I trust my king and savior to work it out, as he said, to the ultimate glory of God, for the good of his children.  Absence makes the heart grow fonder—yes, not fonder than in the company of the focus of my affections, but fonder than when the relationship began, unable to sway the mind to no further long for that presence.  Indeed, perhaps the proper statement would be:

          “In absence, as in company, hearts once bound can only but tighten. They can never be separated.”

 

          My commitment to you is guaranteed.  My love for you is unconditional.  I am in the deepest sense yours, and you mirror the sentiment.  Always and all ways.

 

 

5^th Monday, January 1998, 12:16 AM

 

          Sitting in a Saab with the hood up and doors open, listening to “Angel”.  Tired and awake, and hopeful and hopeless, all at once.  A car with no lights drives by the Texaco where we’re parked.  A refreshing wind blows new air over recycled concrete.  I can no longer smoke my cigarettes without getting sick, thanks to the medicine I’ve been taking for the last week.  I got by with only two Tylenol today, although I slept through until around five.  I wanted to claw the walls when I woke up to football on the TV.  My roommate is the black hole of all life.  I hate living.

 

12:48

 

          Now at Waffle House for coffee and apple pie.  Was at Elliston earlier trying not to make eye contact with Kevin Smith, embarrassed that I know who he is, remembering how many times I’ve seen him around.  Molly is talking.  I’m spinning my coffee cup on the table.  She talks and I think about growing up, the past, memories, random falling trees.  She talks endlessly about nothing even as I write in this journal.  She asks what I’m writing and gets annoyed, and laughs as I chronicle the whole thing.  I’m listening, I promise.  The clock fast-forwards to 2:00.

 

 

7^th Wednesday, January 1998, 9:39 PM

 

          There’s a car on fire down the street.  It’s too hot in the café, but I drink a double latté because it’s been two weeks now that I’ve been drinking tea.  A three-piece jazz band plays to itself as people beg for coins at the payphone.  Just around the corner outside, a man in ragged jeans and plaid holds a sign saying he needs beer.  Two sad girls joke about being lesbians and I wonder what Angel would say to them if she were here.  I get up for a cranberry juice and cram down the last two pills from my bag.  I’m tempted to try a smoke, but I know it hasn’t been long enough, and I would still gag halfway through.  Molly’s eyes are as tired as any I’ve seen, but she refuses to sleep.  I couldn’t stand to sit at Weathertop another night.  This whole era is pointless.  Drew mentioned band practice on Friday and I just glanced over at him, feeling too sick about it to respond.

 

10:19

 

          Molly goes to call Chris and I’m still in a bit of pain.  He’s not there, which I can’t say I mind, because I don’t particularly want to be out that late.  I hear endless stories about how messed up everyone is, and how everyone hates everyone else, when everything thrown at them is the last thing they need.  At work today I switched all the in-store play to instrumental Celtic and smooth jazz to make myself feel like I was living in a movie.  I still feel that way, only it’s a grittier script now than the gospel film I was in earlier.  I can’t tell if the girl in the armchair across the way has blue hair or if it’s the light.  I think about everything all at once, and sum it all up with, “I’d rather not think about it.”  The windows are steamed up a little and the same low-key people have been sitting here for an hour straight, as I pause to look around between every line.  There is never an actual stopping point when you write, only a short or a very long pause until you think of the next thing to say.

 

11:14

 

          Now Elf sits with us after I finally recognized him sitting alone there behind Molly.  He’s high from something he took twenty-five minutes ago.  He’s cool enough, and I don’t mind that he showed up—him and his long, black leather trench and sizeable top hat.  They talk about the café where they get unfavorable comment cards for washing dishes—how these old crabs really need more to do.  Two new characters, friends of Elf, wander in from the seventies, hair puffed out like bushes, and the three of them take off into the evening.  We fiddle with random items on the table—twist ties, cigarette ashes, empty cups—and talk about how airports make us cry.  I look at the clock and decide to sit a while without writing.

 

11:36

 

          One more thought.  Fifteen feet away a guy sits with his pen and a pad out—sitting at intervals, then writing the off-beats—and I wonder if he writes the same pointless drivel as me.  If so, what an interesting mirror it would prove to someday stumble across a sketch of myself in print.  And eh, if he stumbles across this… keep it up, pal.

 

11:42

 

          The workers are well into their closing duties.

 

 

9^th Friday, January 1998, 12:14 AM

 

          Molly called around 11:00 from Sherlock Holmes.  I was about to go to bed, just cleaned my room and hooked up Drew’s amp to Greg’s keyboard, and set out my work clothes for the morning.  She just said, “Are you busy?  Come to Sherlock Holmes.”  I asked why and got, “Don’t ask me right now.”  So here I am over an hour later after a Harp and a clove, and the wait staff are pushing and clanking around clearing tables.  Some drunk BMI exec sat with us for the length of our drinks, trying to remember what he was saying about the Baptist Mafia or the bottom-feeding industry types.  Molly is still a little drunk, so she can’t drive yet.  I write fast so we can walk over to Elliston.

 

1:14

 

          Molly’s hanging all over the small round table, talking partial stories and nonsense and trailing off into laughter.  I burst out every now and then at how she keeps talking, even as my eyes stay focused in my book.  We’re in the nonsmoking room at the front of Elliston, so we won’t stay long.  The place is fairly empty now that school is back in.  The art on the walls this time around is different sorts of quilted tapestries—reminds me of my baby blanket.  The middle track light just above the counter makes a visible beam down at the pastries, stopping just short of the breadbasket.  The walls are red and blue, but the poor lighting makes it inoffensive… almost comforting.  Earlier I sat at Weathertop listening to “Aqualung” and “Wish You Were Here” on vinyl.  Tonight’s overhead selection is a flute version of a Stevie Wonder tune, which I don’t think anyone notices in such subtlety.  The bar is made out of tin siding—I suppose it always has been.  Molly is all over the place.  Everyone in this town is some kind of celebrity.  Now she talks to some guys about Rocketown, the good old days just after I left, the hard times now that the staff has had to fire itself, not mentioning that my brother was the director of operations.  They leave and Molly tells me a story about each one.  Everyone just looks around at each other, occasionally someone laughs.  I want to be home.  I want to be asleep.

 

1:47

 

          Alright, this wears thin.  I’m watching some beaver-toothed, balding guy make an origami dragon from a dollar bill.  Molly cracks up and asks if she can have the dollar.  They talk about the guy Fazey who just walked out, how he’s the son of either Crosby, Stills, or Nash, and how he never talks about it.  Yeah, that’s Nashville.

 

2:24

 

          Six people left in the room now.  Molly steps out for a cig.  The beaver-toothed guy looks at his watch and takes off.  I’m hoping Mol has sobered up enough that I can go home.  She seems pretty coherent—started drinking around 7:30, so all she should need now is water and a bit of sleep.  “How do you feel?” I ask.  “Tired… and dizzy.”

 

 

9^th Friday, January 1998, 11:41 PM

 

          Finally my small square space heater is on and I lie in my bed about to sleep.  Marci lives in town now.  She stopped by the store this morning for a hug and hello.  My head was throbbing and I was delirious with exhaustion, but it was actually kind of fun.  I came home directly and fell asleep on the half sofa with a Guinness.  Greg came over around eight and we set up my room as the music room, then worked on a few songs.  But I’m too tired to think anymore.

 

 

10^th Saturday, January 1998, 1:59 AM

 

          Well, it was an effort at sleeping, but Natalie called an hour or so ago.  I called her back so the bill would be mine, and she talked mostly about whatever swayed her attention in the past week; how she can’t date Luke even though she likes him, how renowned her professors are this time around, how she laughed and cried harder than anyone else at As Good As It Gets.  There are so many sentiments, there is so much regard that I can never convey.  I could only smile and listen as she trailed off toward the end.

 

 

12^th Monday, January 1998, 12:25 AM

 

          Sitting at a Waffle House just outside Opryland.  Finally got some serious editing done while Drew watched his little Spanish porno and the second Godfather.  Molly and Amy came over to check email and slump on the floor before they could drag me out.  Marci and a friend stopped by just for the initial introduction, then left.  The girls went to check out the scene downtown at the Mix, but it was a Sunday night during the semester, and raining.  We stopped by Elliston for a couple minutes, then walked by the Pub, but it was closed.  We ended up at Opryland Hotel, walking around the fountains and bridged walkways under an enormous canopy of windows.  Molly got in a slump over Jared and kept wandering off, leaving me to entertain Amy, who I really like.  By the time we found the main fountain it was shut off, but I was in a mood so I danced around Broadway-style and sang “Dream A Little Dream”.  I got a few smiles and kept it up on the way out.  Now my stomach hurts again and I’m ready to be in my comfy little bed—the space heater on just for noise.

 

 

12^th Monday, January 1998, 11:00 PM

 

          How I could have slept all day!  But the alarm thrusts me into work with coins for the vending machine, a fresh box of tea, two frozen dinners, a V8, and a small cup of applesauce.  And such dreams I was having, of grand palaces and overgrown foliage on dark days of wind and with no one around but the focus of such dreams—I cannot say who!  But how quickly was I pulled from that and kicked out into the city at daytime.  Not to let my complaints overdramatize it, I do very much enjoy my work.  You have days when you’re just “on” and everything you touch turns to gold, and as long as I maintain my style the customers get the best service any one person can give.  I call it “service with an attitude”, and people have no legitimate complaints.

          While I’m on that, it reminds me how arrogant I really am.  Molly said I was yesterday, and today I have to agree.  But it certainly is not in a condescending way, so I can’t think it’s a bad thing.  More like confidence really.

          Anyway, I worked from 10-7, then came directly home to fall asleep on the sofa with a Harp.  Which was a fine nap until Drew started playing his Chicago record.  And he wasn’t even in the same room as the player… I was.  So I took a shower and retired to my room to screw around with Greg’s bass.  It’s only the second time I ever picked one up, and I lost interest after an hour, but I suspect if I kept at it for a couple of days I could play “Stand By Me” rather well.  If only I had the patience.  It seems I may get to bed now.

 

 

14^th Wednesday, January 1998, 4:21 PM

 

          I’m sitting in the waiting room to a walk-in clinic, praying they’ll be able to diagnose something, and that I’ll be able to pay for it.  I can’t keep going like I’ve been—pounding the walls and hunching over in chairs, every muscle tensed and a look of torture on my face.  I’m supposed to be at Jammin’ Java for Afterburn, but I’m trying to take care of things.

          Last night I met Marci at Bongo for a double latté, but Bongo was cold and trendy so we drove down to Owl’s Nest.  Owl’s Nest had some old blues man screaming at the top of his lungs, making it difficult to talk, so after another double we walked over to Elliston for yet another.  The Goths were in the backroom.

          (My name is called… rather, a name that by some stretch resembles mine.)

 

11:41

 

          So the doctor was this Indian lady that I hardly understood.  She gave the impression that I wasn’t really in pain.  I got to wear a cotton gown and lay on my side while Baywatch ran in the corner.  She couldn’t find anything external either, but I now have some more powerful medicine to try for a week.

 

 

15^th Thursday, January 1998, 1:48 AM

 

          I bought a new cane.  It rests in the corner of the Waffle House booth as the thick smell of cigarettes stuffs dirty socks down my throat.  Molly sits across from me and thinks about Jared and writes in her notebook.  Her dirty blonde hair is tied up as usual, and she props the pages against her knees where the red sweatshirt ends.  We’ve been here long enough to irritate the waitress that her booth is tied up, and the place is loud and crowded.  I still have to do laundry tonight, so I expect I’ll be in a mood tomorrow if they take Shelly to a different department again.

          Mancy is opening for Plumb tomorrow at Caffé Milano, but I’ve decided not to go, just to see if she notices—a little out of spite that we haven’t spoken in several months.  A guy named Stewart from a tobacco shop in Springfield is staying with us for a few days.  He does a few impressions and wears a sort of hunter’s cap, and smokes decent cigars, so he’s alright.  At this very moment I wish I could walk along a train track in the rain and in the occasional opening of light.  I’d just like to crouch down near some puddle, near some corner, under some bridge and sleep until the early morning sun ices over.

 

2:10

 

          The House is filled with groups on their way home, and sad old men, and fat couples, and lonely watchers who smile at people who never look back.

 

2:56

 

          I’ve managed to balance the plastic cup on top of the coffee cup, balancing crooked on its rim.  Molly’s been talking about her family and how psychotic and dangerous her brother is.  I’d love to punch them all in the face.  So much for laundry.  I’m back to who I used to be… only more me this time.  Listening for hours as people talk about how messed up everything is and why suicide looks so good.  She says she’ll go home and break something, and I really don’t blame her.