i just remembered when it all began to fall apart i was in mid-thirties weary of taking advantage of women i wanted to change grow become better person more compassionate find loving respectful relationship maybe marriage i knew i needed to step away stop

chicago 1985 Odysseus is a stranger to himself living someone else’s life does he really want what Mom Dad Chris want? is he lying to everyone else or himself? he snorts another line of ******* moves on to next girl in dizzy way he is having time of his life so much occasion to waste doors to open slam rooms to pass through “In the room the women come and go, talking of Michelangelo, and time yet for a hundred indecisions, and for a hundred visions and revisions” thank you t.s. elliott his ****** liaisons carry on from several weeks to several months begin with him adoring some girl or she adoring him little fires that burn themselves out for his part infidelity is rarely in question instead typically he or she feels let down by some personal response or character trait and simply stops calling in actuality no girl ever bothers to stick around they follow his lead and evaporate his mind draws a blank he wonders what do girls want? Deep inside he knows nothing in life is greater than the love of a woman he would have liked all those girls to be just one girl but she is missing where is she? occasionally he will run into one of his ex-lovers on street she wears an expression that hints why didn’t you phone me back? why did you stop calling? he suspects she is playing victim in self-satisfying charade in fact Odysseus crosses into new territory it is difficult to go back he hones his edge no longer is he wonder-stuck child possessed by curiosity for girls he requires **** and kink longer buildups then urgent bursts of effort drawn out climaxes nameless girl wearing tight jeans cowboy boots braids whom he meets in drake hotel elevator pushes stop button she ***** him off he has **** *** with tan-skinned french-canadian female tourist in telephone booth on north avenue gorgeous longhaired creole girl from new orleans ***** him on fire escape stairs **** *** with skinny punk girl in dark alley dutch foreign exchange student gives him ******* between parked cars on clark street weird awkward *** with goth girl in graveyard ****** by older blond woman who positioning herself underneath table in ritzy restaurant he has *** with chatty college sorority girl in jet lavatory he goes down on nerd girl wearing thick glasses in criticism section of depaul’s library he gets ****** ****** by perfect stranger in lake michigan each evening before he goes out prowling he looks in mirror wonders what strange female he will have *** with tonight it always surprises him what a person might not admit to or accept but allow or give in to if the right moment or if the right person is there not that he is particularly the right person rather he stumbles onto an astonishing streak there is the paris/milantokyo fashion model with stylish french haircut who possesses astonishing beauty perfect ***** and haughty temper after night of too many ***** martinis and ******* she announces “you and your friends are going nowhere  you’re all second-rate artist losers! and your cousin and his group are obnoxious *******” she flips him the finger then shoves him he shoves back resulting in dual arrests and domestic violence charges there is the tall blond stripper who totally fulfills his ****** desires once she lets him insert garden hose up her **** laughs uproariously as stream of water shoots out on another occasion she requests he *** in her *** he begins to believe he will marry her she insists she is too low class for his family one night she drunkenly hurls champagne bottle gives him black eye drives away crashes her car there is blue-eyed sweetheart with divine ****** loving touch who after months of sleeping with Odysseus confesses she is ******* some other guy and swears she will be faithful in the future she begs for his forgiveness as he loses it pushes her out door throwing her clothes after her one girl lights candles gives him full body massage ******* another girl holds him tight cries pushes him away one girl writes confessions with permanent markers on walls of closet another girl slaps him yells why? why why why! one girl runs to toilet pukes passes out on floor another girl sits up all night talking teasing never relieving him another girl falls asleep snores while he is in conversation one girl makes fun of small left ******* later gossips to her girlfriends he meets girl who will do anything except allow him to enter her ****** he meets girl who is professional escort she offers to do him for free she has lots of toys videos he declines they mess around she gets him off with ******* he meets girl whose ***** hair grows to mid-thigh she incessantly calls for her dog Bertram! he meets girl who shivers moans furiously cries laughs when he climaxes he meets girl with self-inflicted scars on arms legs who only wants it up her **** he meets girl who likes gagging deep-******* him to skull-**** her harder the better he meets girl whose ******* are so fierce she loses complete control drenching him sheets with her fluids excrement he meets girl who wants ******* squeezed so tightly he fears he will draw blood he meets girl who likes to talk ***** slaps his face as he is reaching ****** he meets girl with gargantuan ***** ******* as large as thumb she gurgles hot breaths later tries to steal string of beads he meets girl who enjoys lactating on his thighs while she gives him head he meets girl who knows how to contract vaginal muscles so tightly all he does is sustain ******* inside her in order to reach ****** he meets girl who pees tiny squirts while he penetrates her **** she laughs wildly he meets girl with furry mound who requests he **** on her as she masturbates he declines she reproaches him accusing you’re not nearly as freethinking as you pretend to be in fact you’re full of ****! he meets girl who wants him to act out **** they struggle he meets girl who desires to be ******* whipped he is not into inflicting pain he meets large strong girl who forces him he never tells anyone about incident he becomes mindful many females are more depraved than him women remain puzzle to Odysseus he is repeatedly astounded shocked can never predict about girl what her ******* ****** will look like whether she has eager *** or what are her secret desires he is explorer women are vast mystery he wonders are females as sexually driven as males? are they as vulnerable? is their **** like tiny *****? he speculates if completely unknown attractive woman walks up to any average man grabs his crotch many possibly most men will willingly allow it are women that weak? more than anything what most excites Odysseus is female lust handjobs are test of adequacy distinguishing character having masturbated thousands of times he thrills in having girl do it he delights in watching her arousal just staring at his ******* is captivated by method of her fingers hands revitalized by degree of her determination throughout he needs to ****** her ******* ****** *** titillated as she licks lips after swallowing ***** he realizes if he were female he would be total nymphomaniac yet he finds it difficult to imagine desiring men are all so like him women are so strange fascinatingly different he craves their otherness Odysseus loves women more than they love themselves smell sight of them sends him into frenzy problem is he fears their power over him

it’s been 25 years since those days i live alone for many years in tucson arizona have not been with a woman for long long time last relationship 2001 with crack ***** i hang my head cry wish for love wonder do i deserve to be loved pray to be forgiven

Come over here and play with me.
I need to feel some ecstasy.
come over here and play with me.
I want you to make me scream.

Come over here and use me.
I need to feel adequacy.
Come over here and use me.
I want you to be extreme.

I want you to **** me up, **** me up.
I want you to shut me up, shut me up.
I want you to give me up, give me up.
I want you to **** me up, **** me up.

Come over here and abuse me.
I need to feel like you're supreme.
Come over here and abuse m.e
I want you to make me plead.

I want you to **** me up, **** me up.
I want you to shut me up, shut me up.
I want you to give me up, give me up.
I want you to **** me up, **** me up.

It's crazy
But I thought
You would like to see me

I think I
Know better now
Delusions of adequacy

zappa blows cartoon music
out of a cerulean blue kazoo
in my kitchen while i
eat greasy cold pizza
out of a crusty cardboard box
& marcus the kitten gnaws
on my sock ankle achilles
& it's in moments like this
that i'm a-ok with being alone
my **** could stay soft for the
rest of my life no problemo
i'm beautiful alone i tell myself
out loud & marcus stops chewing
acts like he understands me
but i know it's only
temporary this feeling of adequacy
& full-time fulfillment tomorrow
i'll wake up cold & lonely again
& pining for smooth thighs
& butterflies
& a girl whose best friend committed suicide

In the mornings I stayed in the blue, carpeted room.
My Cello played the best friend, while I played upon its bare back.
The halls sat silent there.
The walls, bear aside from the occasional music note half sticky-tacked to the white cement, only emphasized my isolation.
They hung yellowed from UV light, and their own forgotten presence.

After the day slipped by,
Through Stephen King book pages
And colored comics,
Through love notes scraped into wooden tables,
And the ring of my own repose draped upon me by scrambled, and passing conversation
I would make my way to the baseball field.

5’4” and nearing  200 pounds
My ardor was never withheld even in the face of exclusion.
I tried for the team
But when the roster ruffled in the fading sun behind the bleachers
I made myself a part of where I was not welcome.

I loved the team
Even as snide comments slithered
Through the teeth of passing players,
Even as the coach spat not a centimeter above the toe of my white, worn tennis shoes
I came day in and day out
If not to catch the practice ***** then the occasional smile of young girl—a pitying young girl, but a smile nonetheless.

The life bodes loneliness,
But to me it presents possibility.
Never doubt the adequacy of introversion.
The quiet mouth begets the much more boisterous mind.

“You ask too many questions and it makes you seem desperate”
Friends don’t really exist
But companionship persists
Every little competition is more
Than trying to only win
I have to win them all
Recreational soccer and tae-kwon-doe taught me adequacy derived from strength
Inner power makes it worthwhile
Things only matter when they’re worthwhile
It gets to the point where it becomes petty too, saying
I’m better, I have the most, the most, the more
“I’m taller,” or “I run faster,” “My life ***** more than yours,” “I’ve had more lovers,” “I’ve been to more countries” and “I will die youngest”
Compare and analyze
Texts reveal things
They don’t teach you that in public school, you have to pay for it
Money buys knowledge, mobey in exchange for truth, but neither really matter,
Years of life are wasted on propaganda and it makes me sick
Be like this, if nothing else, because you don’t know what else to be like
Control control when vulnerability strikes
But who really has more knives?
Let’s compare scars, inner and outer, to reveal who you are,
But some of these humans have their own tricks, scars on the outside to substitute the inner ones being washed away, like scratching a name into the sand with a stick, washed away, turned to steel, unafraid
Recycling elements and the nonsense of existing—learn this, be that, make money, reproduce, consume
Pretend pretend pretend
What for?
Who are you really? Really? How can you be a who? A specific person like every other,
Matter doesn’t matter matter matter matter I hear that word in my head so many times I feel like I could spend my life writing lines of it “matter matter matter matter”
Until the day I die from years of writing the same words over and over, only when the pencil drops, hits the floor and breaks, will nothing matter.

Plaridel

Plainclothes this Saturday under the brusque heat – trees burlesque from shedding,
ripping orchestra of motorcycle: this one – too blatant to perform, to shrunken to
notice. What if I never reach you?

1.1 Crossing

There is an unrelenting transaction of birds in the surest sky in the surest day.
I can hear the rumbling of thunder behind its natal. If when found, discard.
It is easier this way unless inclinations are definite: the trance is to come,
shorthanded. Consider this day your being spared from.

2. Toll

I remember the identical traverse. It was when I was unsure of my birth. My father
had recounted and numbered how many slopes and trundles along the way when homeward
is turbulent, angled at such pace which could have given me another face. I have always
found it impressive that a person can wait for too long and waste away in hours that seek
no relevance when the daily is diminished.

3. Balintawak

You said that behind the marketplace is a dense crowd scouring for loose change. You wanted to supply them all with your adequacy that was rife and deft for sure in the turn of your hand almost a finger-exercise: that is your skillset. It will rain soon but the heat refuses to decline. You thought of the cumbersome bodies washed away by flood, and how at times, you remember them being randomly stacked at your doorstep, eroded by some wave.

3.1 EDSA

Space we have no need for want under a terminal day fully etched like unwanted visage making you remember something that was your flagrant disregard when asked about how
your day went, about a miscarriage of justifications, at work when facing absurd hours wishing to break away from that was our common bond – the long and dreaded silence because it made us always question what are we doing? Who are you? What for? Knowing for sure when to being but to end, indeterminate.

4. Familiar curve underneath a vandalized lamppost

In the console you pressing, discarding gravity at some point, managing to draw your way into and submitting to not knowing how to get out of, sealing an immediate sepulcher. We borrowed minutes, ran like fugitives when asked. An external shadow an intrusion so we had to cease for a moment but in the depth of our silence, somehow continued.

5. Entry to your home

Perfumed your garage was with autumn, or vegetation you said was your aunt’s prized possession. That it was my fault I did not turn you off as a switch is meant to be killed from the moment of discovery to dislimn the image and leave everything to study as specimen is meant to be dissected.

6. To go backwards*

         The only way home to where you were and I, scattered

Maybe it's your eyes
Or maybe it's how I wish I could trace my lips down that perfect jawline
Maybe it's your smile that makes my heart speed up a little more
Maybe it's your humor and the way you put joy in my heart
Maybe it's your apologies when you've done nothing wrong
Maybe its the way I feel as if I could write you a thousand songs
Something about you is so enticing
I'm drawn to you like the current of electricity
I wish you could see yourself through my eyes because if you could you would envision the beauty I see and never again wonder about your adequacy

Too late in our efforts
to give love so adequately,
hoping to be loved back
do we realize
what was given back sufficiently
were mere lies
for they were more efficient
and the truth was,
we were never loved

All too quickly, the good enough
Was gone,
And the only adequacy we fostered
Was in the way we conversed
With our tongues.
Time after time,
Words failed to consecrate our
Understanding,
Left to dangle pathetically in the empty space
Where love should have been.

And so without fail,
The inky blackness of night returned
To overtake me.
I felt my way through the void,
Tripping over our skeletal remains,
Longing for the warm embrace of the familiar.
For hours,
I sat on the front steps of the morning,
Waiting for it to let me in.

I'd come to find that it was hardly ever lonely
In the place between the darkness
and the light.

I have to stop
looking into that mirror
I memorize lines that have never yet crossed my face
I agonize over every detail of what may come and what we may become
it creeps into your mind and it's all you can see at night
when you are wide awake
and it's gnawing away at the only thing that keeps you alive at times like this-
that feeling of adequacy that washes over your bad thoughts like an ocean will wash stones clean and smooth,
she falls in love with every man she cannot help
sometimes there are moments that are simply perfect
but he's interrupting me
he is talking over me
I can smell the alcohol on his breath over the phone he reeks so bad

New age blindly falling from grace, fighting a hidden enemy

Teen and anxious once the norm now a psych diagnosis, distress taken as some bad label

Faceless facts hard to retract, flashing light world in blight, Harum-scarum analysis isn't reality

Inner truth now given to a mental sleuth, hidden truth never seen, cause and effect does it mentally disable or inadvertently enable

Swallowing knowledge left us choking,  repetition offers no variation, life has no on or off switch, harder to remain stable when emotions are constantly displayed openly on the table so irrationally

Paranoid covered in a blanket of fear, selected target our mind now a part of the market, pointing at humans being inhumane part of the game, being playful becoming a lost fable

Why always recall when you're about to fall, simple shuffle of memory cards can show greener yards, following pre-plotted maps leads to another casualty

Not as bad as it appears, forget learning to simply survive, permanent pessimist, Impossible to relax when buried in facts, wasteful worry replacing meaningful ways to remain grateful

Instant diagnoses blown into multi tethered prognosis, finding middle ground when being told you're not normal or crazy leaves many lacking, losing leverage when searching for adequacy

Mass medias senseless sayings gather no moss to keep the blues ball rolling, taking fun from function,  new dog and pony show, subconsciously afraid, living life now seen as something fateful

Digging our own graves, personal pall bearers for basic thought, selling freedom for an unfulfilled diagnosis, words a magic elixir, removing ways to face fear rationally

Social wisdom masking the freedom of a child to walk through a puddle instead of a lifetime of insight finding knowledge to walk around them, remembering to smile gives strength to go the extra mile, life on life's terms need not be painful. R.C.

i will never be enough, but that is okay
because i will just never be enough for you.

i will be more than enough for someone else
and i am most definitely enough for myself.

Quiet whispering of anticipation
Like sweat covering the anxious thought
Tomorrow taking over present
What if the balance will never be found?
That other universe of mind
Unattainable vulnerability asking
For a slow dance on tip toes
Around and around and around once more
Averting the eyes not to step
On the soft spot void of essence
It is a chess game and at fault will be
The one who chose no role
Can't pave your way with honesty and kindness
Lost track of thought behind all the
Butterflies and bonfires in my stomach
The sudden heat of anger escaping
My face yet almost always unnoticed
The invisible rascal that tricks my thoughts
And escapes riding the words
Spilling off my tongue and then
Swallowed back like a cup of poison
Meant to be shared
The protector of the world from myself
Is always me in the afterthought
Erasing adequacy for the benefit of
Insecure spectator
Into forgotten chapter
Of samsara
The soothing forever
Of insight
At the end of repetition

the shame sits on the belly like the opposite of adequacy. in the yard, shirt open and tanning,  the last few years have done poorly in this respect. down- hill since the incident with the knee
and the subsequent dormancy of the legs that used to go
everywhere.
i think
burning here feels right.

Heated passion of childish hopes
Ice cold recognition of adult realities
Tepid normalcy
How do I reach beyond adequacy and wake myself from this nightmare?

I’ve internalised invisibility,
Learned to distrust my own adequacy.

Sometime after shedding acquired skin,
I started to scream;

Craving to feel seen eventually gets boring.

Designing for someone else
Wasn’t meant to bend yet felt;
Then I fell.

Into a shroud of contradiction,
Refused to flatten expectations -
Uncontrollably muting conformation.

Its color sat somewhere on the spectrum between brown and gray
(Such things being dependent on vagaries of the light,
And the perspective of the beholder)
And it served as a testament
To the muted benefits of near adequacy,
Being too thin for the portentous winds of December,
And too warm for the capricious sunshine of May,
Its threadbare functionality emblematic of its owner,
Whose relationship with those around him
(Indeed mankind and his universe in general)
Vacillated between an affronted indifference
And an implacable if somewhat muted contempt,
His commerce with his fellow man,
Excepting that required to provide him
With the basics of sustenance and shelter,
Carried on in an epistolary fashion,
Through letters he wrote,
Sometimes to those he encountered on a daily basis,
More often to mankind and the unheeding cosmos in general,
Which were stuffed higgledy-piggledy into his coat pockets.
These missives were not humdrum laundry lists
Of those slights and injuries, be they petty or mortal,
But rather soaring and high-flown in nature and tone,
More kin of the sermon than the scolding,
Celebrations of life’s splendors great and small,
More often than not those he knew little or nothing of first-hand.
He’d no intention of sharing these dispatches
With the world at large or anyone in particular;
He’d simply empty his pockets once they were full enough
To present an inconvenience,
And he’d laundered any number of them
On more than one occasion,
And when he’d passed behind this earthly veil,
All but unnoticed and unmourned,
His landlady had simply emptied the contents of the coat's pockets
And consigned them to the trash,
Believing the garment barely fit for charitable purposes
Washed and given a goodly airing out,
Let alone burdened with the detritus of another man’s life.

All I have to do

is look back and smile
I am not a thief, never stolen from anyone
never so damaged, criminal and undignified
rendered disgraceful enough to burgle my neighbour
a white in a whiteland without the adequacy to survive
due to wasted opportunities, lacking intelligence and drive
becoming a drunk with a hedonistic style while others make hay

All I have to do

is see the truth and smile
I made good use of my opportunities
used my mind and built enough to uphold my self-respect
never stole or misappropriate or wasted myself in a drunken haze
walk a straight path and paid my dues, worked hard and progressed
treated others as I would expect others to treat me fairly and on merit
no shame or guilt on me for I wronged no one and did no borrowing

All I have to do

is watch as envy and hate burn
from those with inadequate lives and feelings of inferiorities
weak pathetic losers whose shame and disgrace turns them toxic
consumed by the fire of envy and jealousy, in dire pain of insecurity
self-loathing turns them into maniacs, hating all that stands for good
mad with hot rage all their passions becomes to destroy and damage
to spread their miseries, project their pain, share their frustrations

All I have to do

is pray for their broken lives and spirits
in me they see the benefit of able education and good breeding
reminding them of their under-development, pettiness and ignorance
my strength and fortitude challenges them and flames their irrationalities
and without the balance and consciousness of guided maturity
they can only be what they are, mindless yobbos, hooligans and thugs
hate mobs baying and crying, immature ignorants and cheap bullies, a brainless rabble, toxic maladjusted cowards.