A laureate once wrote of how earth's pale history runs,
Equated it to "the trouble of ants in the gleam
Of a million million suns."

Frankl lived the **** curse, abused and almost killed;
Yet spoke of his countrymen's sins
As a father scolds food spilled.

I'll neither justify or condemn actions, many or the few;
My righteous judgement is saved for me,
What holiness have you?

Have you walked the steps of the Austrian man who took
Power to avoid abuse? Lived to love the torture
For which your fragile childhood shook?

What god or demon lifted you from the despair you only knew,
That you'd blindly follow - just for thanks -
Upon the corpses your hand slew?

Ideally, pundits and anchors both are true in what is spoken,
Yet only the blind, the deaf, and fools
Blame the builder for what is broken.

Instead of pallid horror...instead of prophesying to the doomed,
Maybe we can pause a second, take stock of all that's blessed,
And expend a little effort to leave callousness entombed.

Ophelia, in her sorrow,
   Gone mad by love's own sin,
Felt oppressed and closely dressed,
   Clothed weightily in din.
She cried aloud, she wrung her hands,
   She cursed the thoughts she had.
She died inside as her own heart lied
   Telling her, "Be glad!"

What of gladness? Where's it put?
   When all you've wanted...lost.
What of smiles? What of joy?
   When scraps are all you're tossed?

No, my friends...onlookers, all;
   Safe within your crowd,
Look on again, I say, look on!
   And find what she's endowed.

She's taken the good path, my friends.
   She's done what all she could;
Met all her strife, and loss, and ends
   With all the maddened sorrow she would.

Envy her, my dearest ones;
   Envy her escape.
With all the madness that we wreak,
   Who'd scoff at madness' shape?

(c) Sam Winter, 2015

Anesthetized and scoured clean, my mind reflects these halls
Of almost-forgotten ***** spills and madness within these walls.

Artificial sleep,
Restless, blood-shot pits;
Reflections, dark and hollow,
Echo visions in raving fits.

This place is said to heal - return sanity from whom it's fled:
Ammend the twisted, save the wretch, cauterize what's bled.

Chaotic, I may seem; but you've witnessed all my game.
Yet, for all of my monotony, I never seem the same.
I shift within a void that slips between your thoughts,
Shifting voidless, namelessness; what you've tried to hide, I've sought.

I interrogate electrons skipping neuronic paths:
Unhinged and broken walls and doors that kept livid fear at bay.
Dripping Holy Water on evil dreams, giving steel acid baths,
Tinker, toy, explore, destroy; I'll find your "hidden away."

Disguised and masked, though they may be, the habits always show.
Through twist and turn your shadows burn, recoiling from the glow
Of a searching heart and reckless eye and selflessness below.
I've found you once, I swear to you; I'll hind again, I know.

Despise me all you want, retreat from ling'ring words,
In this knowing - of my doing - I've seen the truth behind the lies.
Flit about as you may, controlling thought like wild birds,
Someone taught a treacherous thing; and I'll break those ephemeral ties.

D**id you know that when Ceres formed the moon, and hung it in the sky, it shone for you? That Apollo races his chariot across the skies because he wakes to see your face? When the seers see beauty in the bones and rocks, they see your eyes shine back at them. When the witch-men in the darkest, deepest parts of the jungle wish to bestow beauty on their callers, they invoke your name! When the Delphinewhi Oracle rocks her body, possessed with the wisdom of gods, she smiles savagely, and thanks Olympus for fashioning her in your image. When the roses blossom, and the honeysuckle blooms; when the violets show their beautiful dress, and the magnolia flaunts in the sun, they mimic you! When the lilies swim their graceful circles, and the snapdragon ushers forth it's sweet scent; when the lilac spreads its musk through my nostrils, or the dogwood dances in the wind, they devote their lives and beauty that it might stand in the shadow of your presence! Rocks crumble, and sands shift because they know you will need soft ground to tread upon. Thunders clap, and wild things wail because they envy any other that looks upon you but them! The stars themselves cast forth their light and burn themselves out because they know you will see their long-dead light, and appreciate their token of praise to you alone.

     Did you? Did you know that when Shakespeare wrote about his beautiful, mysterious woman, he thought of you? Did you know that when Horatio sung of woman's beauty, he had your face and figure upon his eyes? Did you know that when Beowulf slew the seven serpents, he fought them in your name? That Helen of Troy, and Cleopatra are your ancestors? That when Cockney resolved to fix the language he spoke, he did it in the endeavor to accurately describe your beauty?

     Alas, my littless, there is no man, nor beast, nor god that can comprehend your beauty. Save those you smile upon, all are lost in life, trying in vain to grasp the extent--the breadth and height and depth--of your immaculate form. Oh, if one could describe your smile, the earth would narry need the sun again! If man could describe the pools of color in thine eyes, man would be happy to look at a grey world to keep the memory of those prisms of light. If only one could touch you, caress the silk you wear for skin, he would be happy to never feel again....

U**nder this gleaming metropolis of glistening soot and dusk-wrought neon where the glint of warped metals meshes with the matte stone of forgotten monoliths, alone among the smoking alleys at the feet of the colossi, where the refuse of life struggles to cling to its short existence – dug into the niche of mortar and debris…dies the man.

     Through blistered, twisted lips; across a swollen and useless tongue rushes the smog and ash of a moribund city. Among the remnants of plenty and bounty, surrounded by the epitaphs of hopes and dreams sags the flesh of a forlorn and desolate being. Behind the cold, grey lens – worn long thin by atrocity and anguish – falls the gaze of the wise embittered soul.

     Across the winding paths of debris and twisted shapes, stretched thin by lives too quickly used, that infinite, tired stare falls. Upon the familiar and torturous vista of rubble and decay and struggle, recognition bids its due; and acknowledgement greets this truth: “All I see before me – this dull, and sorrowful struggle – all I see will meet its end. What looms before my eyes and hides beyond…all will perish.

     “As my brother bloodies his nails against the façade and spills his passion upon false altars, he will seal his fate and his soul will know no rest. And my sister will cry alone amidst the vastness at the expanse she has yet to cross; and she will cross it still, until her bones crack and grate against the pavement…and yet, she will crawl until her life, too, is spilled to mark her passing. And I will stand where they have stood, and bear witness to the crimson testament of their stubbornness. And I will not grieve.

     “For I have left my warmth to false gods. I have marched upon the zenith. I have bore witness, and bathed in the sorrows of my fellows, and cried at the torment I have found, and stood among the jagged peaks – these headstones of steel and strife – and there have I known my purpose.”

     There amidst the cold, hallowed edges of night and eternal sleep, the man lies alone. Atop the bones of his life and his companions rests the weary traveller, where strength has no hold and pain has lost its fangs; where the zenith meets the twilight and the wound bleeds no more. For the march will end, and the worshipper will fall, and the ash and the light will mix with the hum and stench and all will be lost to the frail, last glimpse. And give way they shall as the man removes his sight from his dark and dreary life and looks upon the stars as they dance through the whisps and ghosts and whisper his name and beckon his soul, and usher his life from the stones.

How high and mighty can I think I am?
How much more hurt must I feel to think?
How far I’ll fall to learn I am a man….
My head is wading, my heart’s begun to sink.

I’m optimistic before the cheery best,
I take every chance to laugh at the mundane,
I sing in joyous chorus for the rest,
And endeavor to assist my fellow’s gain.

My heart and will are stronger every way,
My mind and body are sound, and one,
But my heart is sore and aching every day
To keep a companion; not many as was done.

I know my youth is with me, still;
I fear no death nor strife.
But yearn no more for chaff and till,
I want myself a wife!

I want a friend to talk with,
I want to listen well,
I want to be admired,
Not ridiculed to hell.

I want a hand to hold,
Shoulders to wrap my arms around.
I want to babble onward, bold.
I want to touch without a sound.

I want companionship, not a friend,
I want passion, not puppy-love,
I want truth to never end,
And blessings from above.

Why’s it so hard to find a woman I can trust?
I’m going out of my mind with loneliness and lust!
I want to give away my heart, and never have to take it back;
But finding love seems like an art, and my supplies begin to lack….

In fits of rage and fury, with fists bruised and broke,
We clashed in thund’rous lightning, but forgot what we spoke.
I tried to be the big man, to be better than the rest,
But “better” isn’t what you wanted…you already liked me best.

I said, and said, and said; but you saw what wasn’t spoken.
Now my heart is bruised and ******; my soul is spent and broken.
Now I bleed upon this page, in inky fits of rage and sorrow;
And scare away the security I put into tomorrow.

What good is life to live, when those things you crave are rotted?
How well can man behave when his life is blacked and spotted?
What fate is overcome from picking just the best?
What gives us rights to toss aside…abandon…all the rest?

A touch, a glimpse into the feel.

Not bound by physics and math,

But made of something more real.
A barb, a hook, a skewer. A snare

That catches that lump in your heart

And pulls it onto your shoulders, to bare.
Something caught in your eye?

“I remember him, but never met him.”

Clear your throat, straighten your tie.
Or maybe, you met him but never knew;

And the writer showed his face.

Now that lump isn’t so new,

Isn’t so out of place.

O*ne-thirty in the morning, I'm creeping, ever-so-swiftly, to the entrance to my favorite public sculpture park. I don't like the sculptures, but I like their shadows. There's so much hidden meaning in what you see when you look at a shadow.... Thousands of years ago, the sun was worshiped as a life-giver - the ultimate source of everything man needs to survive: food, water, shelter, companionship.

     Shadows are the only thing that light will never reach.

     I don’t have an MP3 player, but I have music. Tonight, my playlist starts with Yellowcard’s *Lights and Sounds…I sing it lowly to myself as I approach the darkened rebar fence that acts as sentry, guard, arbiter, and jailer to the inanimate zoo they contain. Rebar is always rusty. My hands wrap themselves around two of the bars as I ready myself for the heave overboard.

     I’m over the motor gate, now, and I’m free. The police don’t patrol the park, and there are other cars populating the lot I parked in. Too many people work too late. A girl I know told me that the quality of one’s life is multiplied by two for every three hours of sleep one gets – she told me this at three a.m. after we’d painted the town red. Someone else told me that for every eight hours of sleep one loses in a week subtracts, roughly, a week from one’s life expectancy. If that’s true, and I was supposed to die at seventy, I’ll be dead at sixty. But, honestly? I don’t care how long I live. I’m ready to die now. I mean, I don’t want to die now – it isn’t my preference of events – but, I’m at peace with how I’ve lived my life; so if I do die, I’ll die happy…. What was I talking about? Right, “Too many people…” So, why, if they’re going to die (because even if we distract ourselves, like Mr. Ivan Ilyich, we will die), do they seek these self destructive courses through life? Staying up to finish the quarterly report; dying of hunger to lose some weight; falling asleep at work, and getting assigned more late-night work as punishment; buying things no one will see; dressing up to impress those that don’t matter; dying for that promotion; dying for that car; dying for that girl; dying for that guy….dying.

     I look at my hands as I walk into the shadows of trees and gazebos. Rebar is always rusty…and rust is always red. Now I look as though I’ve killed. My hands are the evidence that I’ve wrung the life out of an innocent metal gate-post. I’d like to plead insanity. I’ll take the ten years in solitary confinement, please.

     I pull a left, then a right, then a left, then a right, then a left, then a right…actually, I’m wandering – no, meandering – through the park, with Hans Zimmer’s Davey Jones Movement roaring in my head; I meander in time with the music. My feet take me to the places I like best. Places where the night looks back at you; where you have to force yourself to set your gaze. Try staring into pitch blackness sometime. It’s not a comfortable feeling. I’ve heard that darkness is where evil resides. I think darkness is misunderstood…like the nature of “evil.” Sit opposite a weird, 20th-century abstract three-dimensional art piece, and stare, hard, into the darkness at its heart. There are stories there. So many unanswered questions can be answered when you ask those things that can’t give you a tangible answer.

     I’ve counseled with the shadows; now for therapy: interpretive dance accompanied by a healthy dose of therapeutic screaming. I sing a lot. You never notice how quietly you have to sing in public until you really need to sing. That’s why there are shadows. They listen very intently, don’t think you’re strange, and soak all pain, pleasure, anger and fear you might sing to release. Something by Vampire Weekend is jamming in my head, and this time, I’m singing along….

     To the shadows.

     Snippets of opera pieces start fluttering through my head. Accompanied by Ugandan chants, and Pawnee ritual songs. And I’m dancing around the shadow of a fire.

     If you never felt pain, how would you know what pleasure felt like? So I celebrate it; by exhaling it in a chorus meant only for the stars, and shadows, and ghosts. I celebrate, dancing in the darkness, waving my arms at the veil of clouds and the stars behind them; I hop to one foot, and wobble in step with the music in my head, and the words on my lips. I hop to the other, and jump at the crescendo of sounds in my mind, those sounds flushing me clean of the hurt, and pain, and grief that plague every creature that may consider why he’s been hurt. In mid flight, I feel the brief weightlessness of flight, hovering in the heavens. Caught between the clouds and the shadows, I close my eyes, and leave my time of arrival a mystery to myself; the last of my cares escapes me, and as I touch the soft, dewed earth, I am delivered.

     Now I can commune, freely, with these dark places. Don’t Let Me Down, by the Stereophonics comes to mind. Have you ever been let down? Of course you have. You are every day. Every hour. I am. Every day, every hour. It’s life. I think we expect too much of ourselves…of others. That animal desire to improve ourselves and our conditions drives us to expect the impossible. And the animal desire to improve our chances of success in life tell us we’ve failed when we, well…fail. The pits of our souls know better, though. They see the whole instead of those precious few real failures. They’re as dark as night, herself. She’s listened to our hearts tear themselves apart. The weight of failure is overwhelming, but the shadows lend shoulders to bear the weight with us…to lighten the load. I’ve told them how it feels to be human, now they show me how it feels to not care.

      “Don’t Let Me Down”, they plead. The bluesy, wailing lyrics fit the moment: all of the emotion of celebration and sorrow wrapped into one tangled poem. My arms climb above my head, wrapping around themselves, snaking through the air, as I dance with the absence of light…as I embrace the objectivity that knows how to evade the sun.

      Wisdom, is wisdom, is wisdom; truth on the lips of the devil is still truth. And I’ve listened.

     Now those great, and wise shadows bear my weight effortlessly, and I can relax. I find myself exhausted, and legs give way to putty; I find myself flat on my back. Now I lie upon the grass, touched by the places where light never will.

      The color black is said to be so because it absorbs all the colors of the spectrum. That it takes, and never gives. Like Salt Lake. It’s said that anything that never gives, dies. Like Salt Lake. But can death die twice? How much more can shadows absorb than colors? What else can shadows absorb? I think black is a wonderful color. Like shadows. And they both give. To give by taking; what a wonderful idea…. They’ve filled a very hard niche to fill in this world.

      My legs and lungs compete in me, burning, exhausted, and happy. I let the veil slip from my face, and the shadows watch me smile; my big, goofy, elated grin thanking them for listening. There’s no fear in my gut, no depression crushing my chest. The doubt and loneliness and helplessness cannot touch me.

     I am the shadow of pain. The shadow of fear. The shadow of the pull and push of life.

     They will never reach me.

     The world would be a better place if we sung to the shadows instead of running from them. You can’t touch one, like you can people; but they can’t hurt you, either – like people can. Someone told me that you can’t depend on people, because they will always let you down. I think I’ll keep trusting, and sing when they do.

A darkened heart in golden
     trim billows 'cross the sky,
Carried in its misted chest
     mem'ries too new to dry.

Lofted over, put from mind,
     sent to shadowed halls;
Kept at bay, kept from thought,
     stifled Sorrow calls....

Invite me in, lead me on,
     Force me to live without;
Done it before, do it again:
Conquer the shame,
     and guilt and doubt.

I'll be a martyr no more,
     A chess-piece no more.
This game you play?
     I've played it before.

There is a place she used to occupy; physically, emotionally...spiritually....

I've learned what it means to be in true pain.
I know, again, the ache of true loss.
It nips at my heels where I run,
And surrounds me close as I lie awake in the haunted hours of night.

My fingers remember the soft curve of her hip,
My cheek remembers the warmth of her skin against mine,
My arms remember the need to pull her ever closer;
My heart remembers molding to hers....

Now that reassurance is a ghost, a haunted memory.
Let me count the ways...shes's left a gap between myself, and myself.

I cared more than you understood.
I sacrificed more than you ever saw.
I bled more than I ever told you.
I wept more than you ever heard.

But now I'm just a memory; the action of the reaction doesn't add
Up to the sum of my failures when "broken's" not easily fixed....

You'll always fill that hole; physically, spiritually...emotionally.

That black heart beats within that painted chest,
Writhing and coiling inside its pithy cage.
Sensing that there's more than the sorrows of life's test;
Knowing a salve exists for the pain, and fear, and rage.

That death inside that soul? It comes only from inside.
And what will make it whole? You'll never know...you always hide.

That heart is black not for its nature,
It isn't sadistic, callous, or harsh.
The problem isn't what it'll do, or endure,
This sickness lies in its apathetic march.

"Drive on," it says; "Endure the pain; someday they'll understand."
Yet what's to give...what's to get, when you won't extend your hand?

"Strength in numbers" is more than quip,
Masks, more than disguise.
Peace and comfort are given, when asked;
There's no benefit to lies.

The scales have tipped from empathy to apathy.
Another deep conversation that results in no gain.
Feel better; feel like you're helping. Give me good advice.
I'm glad you feel better.
I'll fall asleep, again, racked by an aching heart and soul.

This gothica doesn't suit me. You'll never walk by me thinking, "That boy needs to be happier."
You'll never see the pain behind my eyes; I hide too well.
Masters of Disguise: a brotherhood with no members.
How about I come at this more directly?

The guilt and remorse at having broken the only thing I cared about: Her.
The pain that seeps from my chest because I won't just let it out.
The anger and despise that I'm the only one being blamed for any of it.
These are my most familiar emotions; and they have no place except on this page.

How do people do this? How do you feel better? Where do you hide your pain, and who the **** cares? When I bare my soul, it's abused; when I hide it away, I'm abused. There's no escape. "Do it the way I did it." I'm not you. I'm me. Care without understanding. Don't fix me, congratulate that I want to fix myself.

Don't be an apathetic *******.

A hundred thousand times I've sworn I will not mope.
A million million suns still remind me I'm the ant;
And all I'll do? is wake...again...and cope
With my first thought: you; but know I can't.

Can't hold your attention for more than that
Couple of hours you let me hold you hostage here.
I can't convince you to admit what you know: at
Any given moment: I, alone, calm you through the year.

When the sun has hid his face, and the storm crosses your brow,
I have been the stone that has anchored you somehow.

And yet, through all the proof,
Though my body shields your soul;
Your heart is still aloof....
You refuse to complete the whole.

In the calamity of my unfeigned grace
Where my body has broken and bled,
Your heart has given mine no place
To rest my weary head.

Look to your friends, who've pulled you down; find a drink to sorrows drown.
I will not be the stone you crushed to reach your thorny crown.

To the harbingers of day, in a day of ceaseless night;
To the arbiters of wisdom, when knowledge turns in flight:

Give thy friends thy peace, and console our weary souls;
Preserve our honor, saints, as we wander the pit's bowels....

Hang naught a lamp in vain, but guide our faith, bound blind;
For we have yet to find the savior of heart or mind.

Great masses that we are; all blind, and lame, and dumb:
Find that hand within the fog, from which that lamp is hung!

We are not all lost, brothers! We are not all forgotten!
We are brothers in life and death: we die, and are begotten!

There is a string that ties our noose; yet binds us, all the same:
Seek, and ye shall find; walk, thou art not lame!

As our friends preserve our sanity, we too, preserve theirs,
As we stand as siblings in life, our numbers dismiss our errors!

At this moment, going home to empty arms, I wonder at the transitory nature of “love.”
To strive, and seek, and never find that I have hoped for…it is…crushing.
How many times I can think, “This is what I have sought. This is what makes me happy.” And how many times I can be prey to cold hearts, and silent tongues.
And I wonder how many more before me have there been? I am tracing someone’s steps, but whose?
I have idealized my life, made it to a quest for kings of the heart, and my treasure beyond measure. And, always, I fall short.
And I wonder at the goal. What have I striven for, but an idea? What lies in wait at my quest’s end but another idea?
I am no sojourner, travelling towards that great city. I am no seeker with a guide and a legend. I am a lost soul, hungering after incorporeal meats.
I have read of great love, and I have known of truth and honor. I have known that sweet moment where all troubles are washed away. I have been looked upon with loving eyes and returned that gaze, in turn. And I have lied to myself and told this hollow shell that this is eternal. I have spun my webs, and stories; I have written my sonnets and songs. And another will come after me, and I will give him my ideas, and my hopes, and he will hunger, and be no better off than I.
So I will end this cycle of contempt. I will attest, now, to the nature of “love.” In my trials and tribulations, I have found no love from another. No emotion that will stand the sands of time and gleam. There is no hope for a romantic, only hopeless romantics, and we are doomed and hopeless. I…we…will spill our hearts to an open ear, and those notions will captivate a mind, for a minute. We will share our desires and our fears, and we will be used to reflect the desires and fears of others.
In our minds we hold high the great movers: Love and Fear. And we understand and embrace them. But this ignorant world, and the fools that roam it, will see what we know and will not understand. For in our travels, and in our lives, we have understood the deepest emotions, and know – for a certainty – that they do exist, and do strive on. But the power has been twisted and used and is feared for all the hurt it can cause.
So we are feared and twisted for the hurt we see, and know, in others.
Look into my eyes and tell me you cannot see a lifetime in them. Listen to my voice and tell me you do not hear the universe move behind my lips. Wrap yourself in my arms and tell me I cannot guard you against all you’ve ever feared.
But you will doubt. And you will fear. And you will tell yourself it cannot be.
And you will cheat me out of my nirvana because you will not admit that I can love beyond what you can. And you will cheat yourself out of your nirvana because you will not – ever – let another get as close to your heart as the one that hurt you.
I am not a hopeless romantic because I hope for a romance that will never come. I am a hopeless romantic because I hope for a romance that only I understand.

So, this was written to an unnamed ex a while ago. I ran across it the other day, and I might publish it in the collection I'm currently working on. To me, this is more than just a letter, it's a piece of prose. It's a pouring out of the soul in a way that few people take the time to do. Obviously written at a very rocky time in a previous relationship, I enjoy the clarity of thought that's displayed (not as an egotist, but as a stylist), and I enjoy the allusions and illustration. I'm proud of it, if not for the source or the outcome, then for the product of my turmoil. If I were to classify it? I'd label it, now, as a study of the mind. Enjoy it, and, as always, I welcome your comments and criticisms!

-###-

                Before I say anything else, I want you to know that I love you deeply, and truly. I would give anything to make you happy, and I'd do anything you ever asked me to. I don't ever want to hurt you, and I don't ever want you to be unhappy.
                But I am unhappy. I sleep next to a woman I can't touch until she won't notice, who won't - or can't, I still can't figure out which - show me the affection I crave; and when I try to explain to her the physical and mental stress this puts me through, she doesn't understand or doesn't care (still can't pin that one, either).
                I once took a "Psychology of Affection" class. Evidently, the emotion we call "love" is a conglomeration of a number of different, smaller emotions. Chiefly among them are attention and affection. Attention was always defined by my professor as "the willingness of one to give their focus in degrees, and the blatantness with which they are willing to display that focus." He went on to explain that when one is willing to give their focus but not to display it, or willing to make a display but not to give it, then an imbalance is affected, and either one or both members of a relationship become unhappy. And degrees of happiness become apparent when degrees of willingness are shown.
                In our case, I think, I am both willing to give you my attention, and unafraid to do it regardless of place or time; therefore, I think I give you a very high degree of attention. How do you think you score? How do you think I'd score you?
                Affection works on the same principle: willingness to give, and the ability to do so in a way that is apparent to the other party. Along with these two, though, Affection has a third variable: frequency. The combination of these three and the balance that must be kept determines the amount of affection given, and received at an intellectual level.
                I am entirely certain that I have been willing to show you ample affection in any venue, I am quite capable of showing you my affection in a plethora of ways, and I have done so (in innumerable combinations) with staggering frequency, despite the lack of reciprocation that should have left me hopeless.
                Well, right about now, I'm starting to feel hopeless. Any relationship requires two very basic things, hon: cerebral and physical interaction. An intimate relationship, therefore, requires an amount of intimacy in both cerebral and physical interactions. In addition, any relationship, intimate or otherwise, requires equal participation in all areas to continue over any extended period of time.
                I have been trying for God knows how long, to make this explicitly clear to you: I do not receive enough affection or attention from you for me to stay happy.
                I've laid a foundation in a universal truth for you; you have the science of our interaction at your fingertips, now. You understand what I understand, so I'm going to be as forward as I can in addressing this situation.
                In order for me to stay satisfied with our relationship, the amount of affection and attention I get HAS to change. I am, currently, both mentally and physically distressed, and I am at a breaking point. I have tried multiple times to get you to change: I've tried being subtle and hinting at things I like you to do - things I'd like to see more frequently from you; I've tried being abrasive, being a **** - telling you what I don't like, and why; I've tried being manipulative - guilt-tripping you into thinking or acting differently; I've tried (God, have I tried!) to be truthful and sweet and kind - to tell you, up front, what pleases me and what doesn't in the un-charged air of plain discussion. Any, and all (!), of these methods have been met with selfish stubbornness. I have tried, very hard, to convince myself that it's just been me. That it's something I have, or haven't, been doing. That me flipping out so often is just me freaking out. That none of my state of mind has anything to do with you. I dread putting any of the blame on you because...I worship you, I don't want your flawless image tainted by these things! But, at this point, I've done so much, and tried so hard to get you to change, to open up to me, to act (just act!) like you want me in your head and heart and *****. But you've been stubborn and you refuse to change...and it is driving me away.
                I don't want you to drive me away. I know you love me; I'm convinced you think I improve your life. And I'm convinced you improve mine in so many ways. But there is an imbalance.... I've done as much as any man can be asked: I have been kind, gentle, sweet, gracious, caring, selfless, and loving; but I cannot be these things when you will neither receive them nor give them back. My emotion, my spirit, and my love are being swallowed up in a void, and I can feel the light in this relationship fading. I can't stay in this if I'm the only one showing how I feel. If you don't love me, anymore, tell me. But I can't stay here and not know. I can't give you so much of my heart, and not get anything in return. It's my turn to be selfish.
                I am banking on the hope that you want this to work, honey. I am praying to God, Almighty that you would rather change how you act than give me up.
                I have never given anyone I've been in a relationship with an ultimatum before. Maybe that's why I've been hurt so badly before. But I'm not going to sink this ship myself. I'm giving you an honest chance. I want this, more than anything. I want you more than anything! I don't care that we don't earn enough for food, yet. I don't care that you spend oodles of time with your friends; I don't care about anything you do with your life except this. This one thing will solve so many of our problems, you don't even realize!
                My peace...my serenity with our relationship and with you as my partner in life, depends, solely, on how you behave towards me. There aren't enough Josephine Collective concerts or pills, or parties in all the world that will make me feel like you love me more than you showing me your **** self. I NEED this. It is essential to my functioning as your lover and your friend; I can't love a stone. And I can guarantee you, right now, that if you can put aside your insecurities, put aside your "awkwardness" argument, put aside your doubt that I would ever, EVER, turn you away or leave you alone, and just show me every minute of every day that you love me, I would never worry again. Reassure me with a kiss. Say "hello" with a kiss. Warm up by scooting closer. Cool down by throwing off a blanket - not pushing me away. Act like you can't keep your hands off me. There will be no nights where I ask you distressing questions; there won't be times when I'm offended by your going somewhere without me; I will not get upset when plans get upset. If I knew in my heart of hearts that you loved me and you'd make sure I knew it when you saw me, then there wouldn't be room for doubt.
                But right now...I don't know whether you love me or whether you're just going through the motions. My thinking is "if she loved me, she'd show me." But you don't show me. You know this as well as I do! One passionate kiss every couple of weeks is not showing me. A wag of the hips a couple times a month doesn't show me. Part of the psychological validation for committing to a relationship is the fact that your partner's body is yours to use. And it should be a willing use! I am a male. Three-fourths of my interaction with society is conducted physically, or visually. I need to see and feel that you love me. And that's not very much to ask from you, is it? And it's not awkwardness. You've shown me plenty of times that you're not abnormally awkward. And it's not shyness; you've been perfectly happy to make a scene in front of others before. It's not ***, either. *** isn't what trips me up. I'm fine without *** as long as I know you'd give it if you could. If I was confident that you'd jump my bones before I ever suggested it, then it wouldn't be an issue. But I'm not confident. Hell, I could go another three months if I got a BJ now and then.... I'm tempted to say it's pure selfish stubbornness, but I know that's not true. I think you're afraid of something. Maybe of opening up - spilling your guts - for me. Maybe you've been hurt a lot worse than I realize? There are so many possibilities. But you're the only one that can let me in, baby.
                I know it's not your way. That's evident enough from all my failures. But this is beyond "my way versus your way," now. This is essential to our being together. I love you, selflessly and shamelessly; but if I am going to be happy with you, I need to know you love me back. This isn't an option, anymore, dearest. You have to change. I need to know on a daily, hourly, moment-to-moment basis that you prefer me over anything else...period. My heart is breaking because I can't tell if you love me back. So, I'm going to make this easy on you. I've brought this up to you before - multiple times, actually. Each one just as memorable as the next. Each one serious enough to tell you that something has to change. But you don't seem to get it. You don't understand that this is paramount to my happiness...essential to my functioning; and you don't get that yet. You've asked me to do multiple things differently; I have changed how I act - who I am - to cater to your peace and happiness, and I am happy to do so. I have asked this one thing of you and you won't do it? I have asked this one thing because it is the one thing that I need to change. I've told you that. But the day after, and the week after, and the month after I bring this up, nothing changes. I can't handle that. I can't handle that I can be so willing to make you happy...to change my thoughts and actions through my own will to make your life simpler, less worrisome, happier and easier; yet you are so unwilling to grab your own mind and make it behave as you choose to ease my mind and my heart and give me that little validation I need from you so I can tell myself that I am your whole world the way you're mine!
                I will always love you. Always.
                But I can't be with someone who can't show me they love me.
                This is your ultimatum: Change. Put me in your mind. Think about the things you do that make me happy, and do them. Physically connect with me. Touch me on a regular basis. Visually connect with me. Get my attention, and hold it every day. Act like you are my woman the way I try to be your man. And do it now. You do not get a week or a month or a year. I am out of time. I can't wait on this any longer. If you want me here, hold me here with your own two arms.
                If you can't hold me, then I won't stay.

-###-

T*hree seventy-five. At my current muscle weight, that’s the amount of force, in pounds, with which my fist smashes into my opponent’s face. Flesh molds against my knuckles, vessels rupture under the impact; I am that unstoppable object, that destruction you can only watch. I am that confused, hurt, angry child. I channel it through my arms, conduct it through my knuckles, watch it spark and jump from fist to cheekbone. This is the therapy I so wantonly crave, so needed. The only place I can vent the full wrath of my frustration upon the world; or…at least, a single member of it….

Jump back three days.

     *Why can’t I see you more? I text her. Because I don’t want a relationship. She says. I don’t need a relationship. I just want to see more of you. I tell her. I’m afraid I’ll invest too much. She says. I don’t understand. Is that a bad thing? Seven years of friendship, two of off-on dates and rendezvous. How could you get more invested? What else can you spill after your hearts in a pool at my feet?
I drank a lot that night.

Jump back four days.

     I’m coming out that way. What are you doing tonight? I always initiate…everything. Always the first question, the first proposal, the first, the first, the first. Am I that threatening? Going out with friends. Homework and going out is all this woman seems to do. Maybe one less night with friends, one more with me wouldn’t hurt? Cool. Celebrating a birthday with friends, we’ll be out and about. Maybe we should meet up? If I’m here, she’s got no reason to refuse me…right? I thought distance was our only problem. Maybe it isn’t. I don’t know. I don’t want you to see me stupid drunk. What a stupid excuse. I actually want to see you stupid drunk. I will at some point if we keep things up.

     Long story short, a guy she sometimes ***** is going to be wherever it is they’re going, and she doesn’t want to have two guys she’s seeing in the same vicinity. What does that make me? I’m getting frustrated with all this confusion and sideways talking. My group incidentally ends up at the same place they are. I don’t even talk to her face-to-face. I’m such a sporting guy. She goes home...alone, to my relief. I get stupid drunk with friends. But never forget to message her back and act like everything’s cool.

Jump ahead a week.

     More conversations to clear up why I fill only one void in her life lead to more confusion. I’m frothing with it. It’ll be in my mouth soon. Wait…I taste it already.

     “Let’s drink and pick fights,” I say to a couple buds. Two hours out, we’re sloshed and trading licks in a back alley. The guy that had taunted and jostled me in the bar follows us out and picks a fight. Says I’m too drunk. Not worth it. I hide a smile, raise my arms, “Let’s see.”

     Shirts are off. Left hook to my ribs, I pivot an elbow, deflect with forearm. This leaves his side open. I duck his wild right-hand and drive a straight hit into his open spleen. He hits the alley wall. “Still want to take a drunk?” I taunt from my knee. He comes back, still sure of himself. I’ll show you what confidence does to us, my friend. He puts up a boxer’s guard and comes back, more cautious. Friends and enemies cheer and joan around me. I don’t hear a thing. There are thoughts. Dark, confused, smashed together, waiting to be dealt with. I focus on all of it. I focus on his face. I listen to the conversations that leave me more hurt and alone than they should. I lean into a false waltz stance, he doesn’t notice the feet. I notice his. He’s more drunk, on less, than I. Every time you breathe, I hope you think of me. The mass in my mind flows through my arms and legs. I charge and he punches straight where my head should go. I dodge right, grab his wrist, snap in and pull out, stringing him in an invisible flaying bed; my left elbow crosses his solar plexus, throwing him to the ground. Knees pin his arms. The hate, and anger, and confusion, and helplessness dissolve between fist and flesh, arc across the pain in my heart and the bruises and blood flowing freely from a fool....

Never entice a man with a need to portray his problems upon a heedless world.

     His friend steps in and plants a well-thought-out fist against my jaw. The one on the ground is down for the count. My friends don’t step in. They know me. I roll off him before his friend’***** can follow through. Now I have physical pain to channel, too. I grin and my assailant isn’t comforted. This is the release I need. This is my way out. This is what will help. *******, world. ******* girl. **** all of you for your games and your feelings and your mysteries. To hell with why you think you need to hide your heart. Wear it on your ******* sleeves. **** your dishonesty and your insincerity. **** your exes. May you all drowned in your lies and guilt and shame. **** you for assuming I’d ever judge any of you, for not taking my love at face-value, for thinking I had anywhere near the ulterior motives you all harbored. My left hand grabs his left elbow, simultaneously blocking a right jab and flipping his arm out of the way for the full force of my right arm into his ribs. A cacophony of bone and flesh giving way to my wrath meets my ears. He yelps. Never yelp when you’re trying to be strong for a friend. Keep your ****** lips closed, *******. He recovers only slightly before my right meets his face. My arc is perfect: the momentum of muscle as it curves the natural twist of a muscled arm, the darkness of my life gathering on knuckle-tips like obsidian gems glinting in the ***** hallway between worlds of vice and vindication, the cording muscle releasing the pent-up rage of a thousand lives gathered in one body.

     Connection shatters worlds. The horror of life bleeds across his broken window to the world. The reflection of my jeweled nirvana winks across his eyes. See the world I live in, failed rescuer. See the hopeless honor I hold in my *****. Sleep with the knowledge that even when you try, someone will always be there to flash the dark, jaded realities across your eyes…and bring you to my level.

     The other friends won’t budge ‘till I’ve stepped past. They part like the Red Sea for me. My ark is empty until I interact with the world tomorrow.

Brief peace is better than none.

-###-

The giant’s ruminations could once demand
Salvation, the order of the universe in hand.
Now, all His awe and glory’s come to naught
And man cries madly, distraught.
In black and white, His word and song is made,
And in this darkened night will never fade.
Who are you to say we must submit?
Who are we to give our spirit and quit?
Great Lords, and Pope, alike, have written what men think,
So who am I to tell you when to sup and drink?
Millions upon millions, the critics ponder fate by wit,
But hasn’t it all been said, hasn’t it been writ?
I tell you no certainty, give you only proof,
You must read those great volumes to which so many are aloof.
I sing praises like as David, a song that Solomon would want,
Of everlasting truth, without a philosophic taunt.
Salvation is not my message, repentance not my ploy;
I wish to give you knowledge: teach your mind it’s not a toy!
There is no great illusion of the means of life on Earth,
There is no puzzling mystery in death and life and birth.
Whether God is at your side, or rejected wholly through,
The only one to chose your fate is overwhelmingly, singly, you.
Gloriously glorified, stained no more with sin,
To live a life of Glory, is glory given Him.
Whether purpose given, or purpose thrown aside,
Whether admit he’s risen, or deny he did abide;
Travel the less-trampled track—the path less trodden down,
For the destination matter less when the road is filled with crowns.

O, guardian of man, sweet Mistress of the times!
Wise Muse of all before us, imbue upon these lines:
A sacred pact to move, to invoke in every note
A stirring will to prove the hearts of them were wrote.

Soft Keeper of the Language, please give my hand thy guide.
That the beauty of my thoughts upon my pen's grip ride.

Strings plucked by cold fingers on cold hands.
The hand-bone's connected to the heart-string....
Sinew rasps against brazen cords, etching orchestral symphonies on the stone in my chest.
Riding the waves of screams, cries, songs...time.
Upon that crest I ride, ever away from that distant shore;
     Ever away from that distant hope.
Ever away.

Caught in the tide of cold spring air.
Cool air sifted through fiberglass filters. Menthol kissing lips, freezing the air across my teeth.
Welcome, Nicotine.
Welcome to my body; lift me on your crest, carry my inhibition.
Invoke your calm upon my weary mind and let me forget I am alone.

Alone? Or...alone...?

Faces will be forgotten.
Sand covers cracks...sand covers much....
Time covers much, but not all.
Who will you remember best? Whom will I never forget? Who won't I have to?
The sand will fill the gaps, but...my house is clean....

Clockwise from the front, right: chap stick, lighter, change; nothing; wallet, gang-ties; pump; phone's in the jacket.
This is my identity, always with me - my companions. But none are company.
None can give what I seek. None, it seems.
Desolation is a feeling. And feelings console.
At least you can be certain of their purpose, at least you know who they are.

Who are you?
How will I know?
When will I see that wry smile and be certain of it?
Give me that stone heart, that I may etch my symphony upon it.
Let my sinew warm those brazen strings.
Ride upon my crest.
Be my Nicotine, my sand...my certainty.