how's the weather?

sixty millimeter mortar shells fall like rain, to be descriptive - it'll pass, mate - there'll be swamp-soaked debris to pick over, later - i've learned to see through the smoke and fog, well enough to make out the contours of things i wouldn't want to name - painkillers won't help me read "already dead" - i can say that's relevant to the eternal now

i miss desiree - i miss wendy - that's old musty stuff, ancient history - it's unbecoming to mention them - it will come to no good - i say that not to reverse-jinx it - i say that knowing that saying that doesn't make it any better, or somehow absolve me from my failings - but i miss them, my former lovers who quit me, cold turkey - maybe that says something, me saying these things, says i need something - my bid for novelty, independence, fortitude, that didn't pan out - so, again, the eyes rolling back with nostalgia

i'm more resigned to the void than ever these days - i don't even want to see women anymore - i'd cover them all in veils - young girls are a delirium, they're too bright with dead-light reflection, being close to birth - it hurts to look - lately i appreciate women too, adults, more than i used to, closer to death, hedging their bets

but i don't deserve anyone - i'm fated to lament tonight, because my status has slipped - things aren't looking up - i'm living at "home" again, the place i loathe to admit i reside at - i'm working at that "niche" in the kitchen, that is, dishwashing and nothing else - i've done it for years now, because i can't stand the pressure of doing anything else - i don't want more responsibility - i won't endure the slightest disturbance from my grungy comfort zone - i've adapted to an equilibrium of mediocrity, wet aprons and rags are my security blanket - but it's getting to be a drag, that i still work here - i've put off even talking about this stuff, admitting it, in words, because it implies i should do something about it, and that makes me queasy - i don't know how to do things, and even when i can narrow it down to a heirarchy of most to least-worst options, i don't know how to keep my immediate neurotic hangups from aborting any venture

i'm fucking depressed - zoloft withdrawal maybe - but what happens when i finally get off the meds completely and still feel like this? that'll be pretty sad

nevertheless, never underestimate the power of serotonin - i never talk of will - not god's will, even less my own will, and never free will - i should do that some time - pretend to be the willful child i was, feel free in the childish exercise of ignorant will - yeah, there's a fucking item for my laundry list

honesty is my shtick, eh?

i can't write letters to people anymore - i can't reach who i want to reach - i've tried at times - desiree blocks me, ignores me, doesn't think of me, maybe doesn't remember me - i almost hope it's gone to an amnesiac extreme, just fuck it all, it's like when i feel that death as absence-of-consciousness would be right and good - and wendy, well... the other day i actually thought of buying her some trinket from a craft store, and writing a flowery letter, not gaudy flowers, no boquet, but some rare flora from my neurons that fire together, but never enough to wire together, cerebral arcana that's not intellectual, but not stupid either, like, it's from the heart, even if i talk in neurochemical metaphors - a present for wendy, a "let's be friends, i'm asking again" present - not a scheme - a heart palpitation - but i've decided not to do that - i've tried too many times to bang my head through some mad bugger's wall - after all this time, i've gotten it through my head that reaching out to ex-girlfriends doesn't work - maybe for some people, but it's not in my nature to be appealing even as a friend, i poisoned both relationships

what is the point of saying all this? what's special about it? plenty of people are in my fix, plenty of people appreciate women and feel torn to shreds by their beauty, and always estranged from it, and fetishize lost loves

the only thing special about this is i'm saying it straight out, even though i feel nervous about naming names and shames - i'd rather encode these thoughts, but the only purpose in going through with this is that there's some comfort in abandoning pretense, it feels lighter - i don't have to shroud everything, i can be plain spoken, i can sometimes attain a virtue of "normal people" (as i call them) and i think of it as a real virtue - i'd trade a lot of myself and my art to have a physical appearance i could be confident about, and a sense of strength, and something approaching sexual prowess, so i could write and talk about the joy of sex without every word feeling clenched, with envy and ignorance, and the pretense of libertinism, uninformed through experience - i'd trade a lot to be more of a normal person

normal people - "what is normal?" you ask, cause you're a normal person, and you'd say that, thinking it's profound - me, being more sophisticated, think "what is normal?" as a rhetorical question, is cheeseball and cliche and not in touch with the reality that normal people take for granted - how'd you like to be special, like me? sophisticated and sterile? what is normal? i'll tell you what it isn't: having sex for your first time at age 21 - having your first drink at 19 - never achieving orgasm with a woman - being terrified about being asked to run food from the freezer to the line, because you don't know where everything is, and would feel so mortified at having to ask that you'd consider quitting your job rather than dealing with the anxiety, so you pretend not to hear when the cooks need tossed salad or nacho cheese, even though you'd love to be more useful and help out

normal is statistical average - "stats, so what?" you say, "they're faceless, bloodless" - no, not to me - they matter - i can't get them out of my head

i guess it's not special that i crossed paths with desiree and wendy - a lot of other people would have done it for me just as well - they were THERE, that's all - but that's true of any relationship - so i'm going to defiantly say that it was special - and i feel that it was, actually - because, they actually liked me, they would have me, they would put up with me, they would not be embarrassed to be, ostensibly, with me, in that special sense - my god, it still seems so amazing, that it ever happened, so unlikely that it could happen again - i haven't learned much of any use, i'm not seasoned

maybe my lovely ex-lovers who i still think about, actually a lot more these days, now that i'm out of the drug haze - maybe they could never have felt valued and treasured enough because i could have treasured many others - but, i didn't treasure those others, because they didn't give me the chance - i treasured the ones who gave themselves to me, at least in moments - i didn't need a lot of trappings, i didn't need an orgasm every night, i didn't need a pledge, a vow, a ring, all that crap - it was the little things that did it for me - the touch - the minutia of belonging

but i don't know if i could ever really express it - sometimes my desire to express it would result in forced poetry, barely adequate after the morally-neutral verbal facility

i hope i never hook up with anyone out of desperation, or fear of loneliness - of course i wouldn't be a tyrant, and instruct my future self on what to do, or what not to do, in the face of fears and emotions - i have a hope, a pre-emptive approach that relates to potential challenges to my self-imposed standard of dignity - but i don't love myself with such a narrow vanity that i'd cling on to dignity and be forever after without those flowers, the many variations of girls i could groove on - i'd sooner hate myself and love a woman that would have me, someone real, something true

the bread tastes stale to me - i can't subsist on it alone anymore, my spirit will die, and my body shortly thereafter - i'd walk in front of a bus, my subconscious terminating a meaningless life - i need roses, too

i was fated to hate fate-haters - what am i waiting for? i'm not a complete nitwit, i can understand my potential, and the things that are blocking it - but i'm tired - i'd rather it just came to me - i'm willing to work, but i need to feel like there's a chance at success first, something to work for

there's a sweetheart out there who would motivate me - someone fresh and new, not tainted with old paradigm associations - in her company, my past troubles with women would be irrelevant - she would be patient with my neuroses, to a point - impatient when i get too mired in moping, someone to keep me in check - she would give me positive re-enforcement, she would motivate me to be better, the person i should be - i hope she will find me, because i can't find anyone - i won't try anymore

but you know what? this dignity thing is bullshit - i have to be more humble - i have to learn somehow to be more comfortable with awkwardness and embarrassment, and just shake it off, and go about my life - i can't be cutting all my options just to maintain my cool - i'm not that cool anyway, and this fucking facade isn't making me any cooler - okay, maybe stylish in a minimalist sense, strictly adhering to what my own aesthetic unit calls "good style" - and i wouldn't throw that under the train either, i still respect my style - but i can't be a slave to it