Nihilist.
I’m still worried that deep down, under all your philosophy and that attractive sort of mania you wear like a fresh flower in your buttonhole, you a true, heartbreaking sort of romantic.
Where the hell would that leave me?
I took you at your hedonistic words…please don’t go making an honest woman out of me. You could still make things terribly difficult for me, and what scares me most is, I think I’d let you.
Dandy.
All the girls wanted you and all the boys wanted to be you. On second though, most of the boys wanted you, too.
And I had you. Stole you away from the poor slut you were toying with. I didn’t mean to do that, really. It just happened.
I still haven’t met anyone who could make a scene like you. You threw the best parties. You pulled the best stunts. You were a one-man traveling show. I imagine you still are. Can’t wait to be on your side again. But for all your romance you were better able to handle my trespasses as a friend than as a lover. You’re the only one who’s been able to remain the former, even from far away. Thank you for that.
Slut.
I admit it; I used you. You were an escape plan if there ever was one. I don’t think you minded. I think you knew. Thanks for reaching out that helping hand when I felt like I was drowning. Thanks for letting go when I couldn’t see I was ready to swim on my own. I hope you didn’t mind the way I strayed in the mean time.
You weren’t exactly honest with me either, but I never asked for that. You’re not bad, baby, you’re just drawn that way.
I wonder if you deserved what you got. Probably.
Junkie.
Things with you were always bitter sweet. They ended up just plain bitter. You were my nightmare breakup. You were my best friend. You were killing yourself. I know, you didn’t mind. But I did.
Don’t you want more than this?
Mystic.
To a keeper of the sacred feminine, seeker of lost souls,
The last time I saw you it felt like an electric shock, like finding a snake between your sheets. I was speechless. I wasn’t ready for you. I’m never ready for you, and I don’t think you’re ever ready for me either, no matter how you try. I love that.
Every conversation is a struggle with you. Neither of us can let the other just get away with it. We press and press and press.
You were broken when I met you. You are broken still. I’ll let you in on a little secret; everything wretched in you is in me, too. Sometime I wonder if we’re not just two broken mirrors set crosswise, reflecting shattered echoes of the same image over and over again.
One broken image, perpetually reminding itself of everything we need to repair but can’t. How do you unbreak a mirror?
You know me too well.
Story Teller.
To a certain Intellectual,
Your stories sucked me in and you silver tongue wouldn’t let me go. Yes, I know, you know. What girl can resist the poet, let alone the poet you can recite the classics from memory.
Dirty poet, all words and whispers, no substance. So pretentious. So vain.
But I still ask you for a story when I run into you on the street.
“We are all in the gutter. But some of us are looking at the stars.” -Oscar Wilde
Jealous Lover.
Anxiety is love’s greatest killer. It makes others feel as you might when a drowning man holds on to you. You want to save him, but you know he will strangle you with his panic.
Anais Nin, The Diary of Anais Nin, volume 4, 1944-1947
They warned me about you.
Some sweetheart who was just trying to look out for me said “He’ll take and take and take and then wonder why there’s nothing left.” He wasn’t wrong.
But it was too late, and I didn’t listen, couldn’t stop myself. I could never be right for you, too wild, too fey, and too stubborn. You wanted a love on a tight leash, and I couldn’t help but stray. Not your fault, lover, just the way it is. But we had some wonderful fights, and those delight me still. You were worth the trouble.
I love the way you could never be satisfied. I loved you for your hunger. I loved your anger, your hotheadedness, your pervasive passion, your sweetness, your arms. Your idiosyncrasies, bachelor habits, the way you drank, the way you cooked, the way you held me in even in your sleep. The color of your eyes. The smell of you. The set of you chin when you were intent on something. The child in you, always innocently wanting more. I loved it all.
You knew it wouldn’t last. I’m not sorry.
Lost Boy.
Little Lost Boy…
My gutter punk, my hero.
You died in my arms, but I forgive you. It’s taken me a long time, but I do. And when you rose from the dead it was as a good American citizen. Now isn’t that ironic, don’t you think? (It’s like rain on your wedding day).
I thought you might have been Peter Pan, but you really wanted to go back home and get a job, a wife, a picket fence. And when we get right down to the bare bones of it, I never was the Wendy type, was I? But you woke up the Peter in me, and you fed my fire for a while. And now maybe you’re the Captain Hook I play against. Baby doll, you’ve become the Man. You’re the martyr that reminds me not to succumb to the societal anodyne, to the cubicle, to the daily grind. I let you teach me more than you will probably ever know.
I promise not to let my soul die. I’ll blow up the dams you never could, paint the graffiti you dreamed about, I’ll think of you when we fight the good fight with out you.
Thanks babe, good luck with your next wife.
Method Acting – Pretending this is what I do.
Can we take the time
To get it right?
Are you a wolf like me?
Things are bubbling up, greenly.
They come from some-
Where in the underworld.
They burble.
Some of them, they glow.
Safety is sweet,
And chains are sweeter.
Freedom is a bitter root
That doesn’t come up when you pull
But spreads, and hides
And plays dead
For days and weeks and months
For years.
It seeps and moulders and waits
Until the rains come and flood
Until the forest fires sweep through
Then it mushrooms, sudden
Morels on the burns,
A thousand overnight sprung
From some
Vast invisible network
Unstoppable,
Unpredictable,
Unstable.
