Decisions are kind of a funny concept. Some people believe that everything happens for a reason. Others believe that each decision has a domino effect on other parts of life. Have you heard of the butterfly effect? This idea believes that every decision leads to various outcomes, and that there are multiple paths a person can take. I like to agree with this statement.

Decisions are what make a person. At least, they're what show a person's character...

I observe ordinary character on a regular basis. I work at a liquor store in a town of roughly three-thousand people. I know the regulars by name, and I can tell who's had a rough day or who is excited for the weekend by what they purchase. I know when Barb is furious at her husband because she buys two liters of *** and the smokes he hates. I can tell when Dave is on good terms with his fiance because he skips the Fireball and heads straight for his 24-pack. Bob... is really just Bob. He comes in and buys a liter of coke, a liter of Bacardi, and a pack of Marlboro reds every day at 4:30 on the dot. Each of these regular's decisions display part of their character. Many of their purchases can be influenced by their emotions... but what part of life isn't?

You're probably wondering when I'm going to get to my point. That'll be a couple hundred words further. You of all people know how great I am at ranting.

How is my minimum-wage job connected to decisions and character? That's a good question. Each decision leads to a specific outcome. These decisions are based on the character of a customer. Their character is displayed in their decisions at my dead-end job. Anyway, back to your decisions.

Decision Making
Relationships are basically a hurdle of decisions. Deciding how to sleep together. Deciding the best way to kiss despite the height difference. Deciding what to say when meeting the in-laws. Deciding when to say "I love you". It's decision after decision after decision.

I like to think that each decision can lead to various outcomes. For example, if I would have never lost my virginity to a one-night-stand and cried about it to the girl living across from me, I would have never met you. So, if I waited to take off my clothes or if I cried about it to my roommate instead, this last year would have gone a lot differently.

I'm beginning to work my way to your decisions. First, let me state that you were the most indecisive person I have ever met. You were passive. You were lukewarm. You were flat. You were only certain on one thing: your admiration for college basketball.

I have to admit that you were decisive on your verdict to be with me... for a time. I guess I have to give you a little credit. You weren't all bad. There was a lot of good in you. But, there was a lot of rottenness underneath your tall, dark, and handsome physique.

The Beginning of the End
You decided to avoid a decision from the very beginning. Sure, it was me that you wanted. I mean, I was great. I still am. I may be biased, but I don't care. You wanted me... but you didn't want the price-tag I came with.

What did I tell you from the beginning? Let me refresh your memory. We were sitting on a lime green couch in the lobby of our college. It was close to midnight and I was exhausted but didn't want to be without you. I told you that I expected you to:

1. Be honest.
2. Be faithful.
3. Pursue me.
4. Make me a priority.

I didn't ask for much. I was searching for... Oh, I don't know, a relationship that sounded pretty standard in my terms. I wanted something serious, but that doesn't mean that I wasn't looking for fun or liveliness. These requests were normal, in my mind.

I then asked you if you would choose me over your mother. I knew you were close to her... and I hadn't met her yet. Also, for some reason, I already had a feeling that she despised the thought of me, and the idea of her little man bringing a girl home... (God forbid she have a brain on her head).

I didn't want to be tantalizing. I believe I am gentle in nature. But, if everything worked out, I wished to be the number one woman in your life... not your mother. I restated my question after a few beats and you continued to ponder the thought. After a few seconds you told me, "No, probably not. But I might change. I want you." That should have stopped me in my tracks.

But it didn't. We were together for about a year since that night. We kept things quiet for a few months before becoming "official" or whatever. Your decision or avoidance should have sent me running... and it did... to you.

I think part of myself knew that I deserved better. Also, part of myself believed that there was beauty in maltreatment. But, I saw potential in you. You were my best friend.

You were... I was in love with you.

I was willing to fight for us. I was willing to fight for you. I was willing to battle it out... and I saw myself coming out victorious, like the warrior I truly am... but, you were a battle lost from the very beginning.

Whatever "Fighting for Me" Looked like to You
Things got worse when confusion arose between your mother and I. She thought I was sleeping with you (when I wasn't). There was a lot of yelling... most of it was in Spanish. I was scared. I was petrified. She believed I was ******* up her perfect son. This put us on unsteady ground.

This was also the first time I saw you cry.

It was a battle between what she wanted and what I wanted. She wanted me out of the picture. I wanted you to stand up for me, and to stand up for us.

You chose me. This would be the one and only time I came out as the number one priority. I believe this was because you were over three hundred miles away from her piercing eyes and thin lips. It was easy to put us first when she wasn't there to "knock some sense" into her son.

Your mother didn't speak to you for months. She was furious. She was angry. Her dislike toward me grew with every passing day.

Letting the Bruises Heal
For the next six months, things seemed to get better. We fought but made up. We talked of the future while understanding that we were still young. We grew as lovers and as friends. We made promises and kept them.

But, the semester was ending. The snow was gone and the grass was nowhere near green. Three months of separation were just around the corner and I knew of the trials to come. I also knew that if we could make it through the summer, that we could last. That is, if we could make it with your bitter mother by your side.

Seperation Leads To...
Three months of fifteen minute phone calls every once in a while dragged on. I was patient with you. We were both working our tails off. I was taking summer classes. You spent any and all of your extra time off working for your dad or training for soccer preseason. Still, I was patient.

We saw each other twice during the summer. Those days were some of my happiest within this past year. Distance really does make the heart grow fonder. Those first moments of seeing you were like revelations. All of the time away made sense. The eight hour drive to see you made sense. We made sense.

It was during your stay at my house when I realized I didn't want to be with anyone else. Ever. It was the first time you told me you were in love with me. I felt the same. We didn't just love one another, we were in love.

It was during my stay at your house, a few months later, when I realized things were heading south.

Temptation
We fought. We fought a lot during the month before I drove to Wisconsin. It was almost daily. Somehow we made up... somehow. You were stressed and I was anxious. I was anxious and afraid.

But, I came down to see you, nonetheless. Most moments, I believed we were healed. We could conquer anything. Others... I knew your mind was elsewhere.

Although, when we said goodbye, I believed we were true. You made me a promise I was sure you would keep. Our goodbye was the second time I would see you cry.

Looking back, I think I know why. You were tempted. You were more than tempted.

Decisions and Indecisiveness
The day after I got back home, you said you "wanted to take your promise back".

Two days after that, you left home to go to a camp I knew nothing about. You "couldn't take your phone" but I knew better than that.

We went an entire week without talking. And I knew something was wrong. I had never felt so sick in my life.

You eventually returned home from camp. But, it took you two days to respond to me. Once you finally called me, you told me you "couldn't do this right now". Then you hung up. That's when I knew it was over.

I was furious. I was jealous. You were tagged in pictures on social media with a few girls in particular.

1. Phones were allowed.
2. You were awfully close to one girl.
3. You were lying through your teeth.

We met up on campus a few days later. I had a list of questions that just about vanished into thin air when I saw you. You were ruggedly handsome... And I was still in love with you.

You greeted me with a hug. I just about cried.

You explained to me that your parents gave you an ultimatum. It was me or college. Stay with me, and college was out of the funds for you. Break things off with me, and college would be paid for. You told me you chose college.

You explained how you "needed to do this for yourself".

You also told me you didn't love me anymore.

You decided against me.

The Entire Truth
I was confused. I was heartbroken. Nothing made sense. It was like you gave me a puzzle that was missing more than half of the pieces. I spent the next month trying put the thing together. I came up with one single solution... but I didn't want to believe it.

My hypothesis rang true through a friend. I believed you cheated on me. Yes, I was sure your parents pulled their big levers; but I believed you were hiding information from me. You were.

I can't go into the details because I don't know all of them. In fact, I probably never will. I've ran through every scenario a thousand times in my head, and I still come up short.

All I know are your decisions. Your decisions show your character. Your character is flawed. Your decisions broke a large part of me. I am still attempting to put myself back together.

Out of all of your indecision, out of months of tug-of-war, you were so decisive on leaving. You were set on cheating. If anything, I wish I could ask you why.

Why did I always seem to come up short? Why wasn't I good enough for you? Why did you choose money, college, and your family over me? Why did you choose her over me?

So many questions I will never get closure on.

Deciding to Decide
I have moved on... for the most part. There are still days (like today) when I miss you more than anything. But, I am stronger. I am certain that I was good enough for you, even if you couldn't see it. I am also certain that you were the first person I was truly meant to be with.

Remember when I mentioned the butterfly effect? I know that different decisions lead to various outcomes. We have the choice. We decide where our life goes (or we choose indecision).

Your decisions led to a different life. A life without me.

And I think, as of right now, I'm okay with that.

Morocco
some base camp
by a beach

in 19
70
a small bar

Miriam
sitting there
drinking her

Bacardi
and small coke
wearing that

very snug
bikini
coloured red

like her hair
of tight curls
up one end

a very old
Moroccan
was strumming

a guitar
him smoking
cannabis

happy guy
what's that stink?
Miriam

says to me
cannabis
I tell her

how'd you know?
A girlfriend
I once had

smoked the stuff
how could she?
Miriam

says to me
I don't know
she just did

I sip my
Bacardi
and smoke my

cigarette
she looks neat
in her snug

bikini
but neater
out of it.

Ever heard your voice take a trip mid sentence
And start scrambling eggs,
Ending sentences with verbs,
Mixing Soy sauce with Bacardi
And chasing the laughter down your throat with onions

Cuckolding in the middle of the afternoon
Where violet doesn’t recognize blue
As a hue worthy enough to frolic with the afternoon dew,
And then your brain smiles to your ******

And you choke on a giggle
And wiggle an index finger just a little
And remember black widows
Were once angels who bought into self fulfilling prophecies

Like wearing Armani suits barefoot
And breathing through your skin
Hoping life doesn’t die in your arms
And leave a beautiful corpse
With great stories suffocating inside

And make the subpar ambitions of an unborn child jealous.
Now ever heard a genius cry?
‘cause then you’ve heard an artist cry.
Ever ate pork fried rice on a Sunday afternoon?
‘cause if you have you’ve heard the words of Leviticus cry.

Ever read these written words?
‘cause if you have you’ve heard memories die
And pains scream in alphabets of pleasure—
The universal language of immaculate deception
That sweeps through every tongue in involuntary pneumonia

Like waltzing to the Amen’s of the devil
With oxygen choking your nostrils
And monoxide nodding your fingers to pull the trigger
Of death dancing on the tomb of your destiny

Like how a dose of metamorphosis
And a 1mg of juxtaposition
Is the repertoire of a king of curmudgeon.
But ever heard a musical note?  
Then you’ve heard the story of how joy lost the war of happiness to bitterness.

Ever heard the sound of silence?
Then you’ve heard the face of evil and the thoughts of serenity
Joined at the hip of rock of Gibraltar,
Nodding heads at the gospels of Gothic prophets
Spewing sermons of a perfecter way to word the meaning of love.

Ever heard a Mockingjay sing?
Then you’ve heard the lullabies of suicide,
Like falling from grace from the eyes of your one true love
And landing on the plastic bag made of her silence
Only to wake from the land of death and catch your voice breaking at mid sentence
And mend it with the lies of sunshine that you call your life.

I once loved a girl named Bacardi
She coaxed me in and made me feel free
She put her arm around me and treated me like a queen
I trusted her and did what she pleased
three solo cups and we were dancing on the bar
But this was her plan all along
to trick me once again with her sugar lies
once she had me too high to come down
she began her assault
she kicked me down the stairs
pulled out my hair
punched me in the stomach
put her fingers around my throat
and made me suffer till the morning light
oh Bacardi, fool me once shame on you
fool me twice,  I’ll stick with Jack

Social Network, droll and at times informative: keeping me in tune with out of tune people. Except, this time you did something different. This time you took a life from my web of friends a trend of late: One loss to cancer, one to a fatal accident, another to pneumonia, and the rest deceased from overdoses. It’s been so many that the track marks are beginning to show across my veiny webs, long black thin trails leading to round puncture wounds where the touch of cold steel kissed your skin, stroked your hair back, and slowly laid you to bed exactly where you sat. This network doesn't show me the nights you cry curled in the corner, it doesn't reveal the moment when the ocean came crashing into the Steel Pier you are, tearing away lumps of mangled frame work from beneath, soaking brine and rattling support beams that you depend on. A smile instead manages to froth along the pages scrolled like white curled lapping shorelines pushing foam further up the sandy coast with each eroding wave.  Now I stand in the wave of your wake; among seagulls flapping their dense thoughts and cretinous like minds and memories each vouching for the validity of their affirmations about the soul whose body is now center stage like a porcelain doll on a shelf to be displayed and examined exposed to all with each and every flaw highlighted so that they can have a chance at reciting her history, origins, funny moments, and fatal mistakes. The difference here is that there is no makers mark; there is no branded tag, no little black book of logs from which we can pull and decipher or recall every waking moment of your life. The reality is that for those of us who lost touch with you all that we know now is only history or what we thought we knew. It’s such *******, I’m not a historian, I really was your friend back then, but because of that I don’t remember ****, just the frame of the picture within, the shell of who you were, of what we did. I can tell you it was fun: the Bacardi filled Gatorade bottles, the sound of your laughter diluted in an intoxicating environment of rollerblades on the rink-floor, contemporary music and house beats reverberating against the circling congregation of equally happy and inebriated teenage youths. But how could I ever describe you today, who you were when you passed. That is not something I can claim as some of these birds squawk. Your social posts were a false facade. Obviously there was something I missed, what was it. Was it so subtle? So much like a light breeze fluttering at the thin frayed thread of a seam that I could have seen but didn't care enough to realize it was there. Were you just a tumbling leaf among a forest of fresh autumn arrivals lost in the vastness, one among millions? It pains me to admit that as much as I would have liked to have been a friend to you during your dark times, I too was in a dark place of my own and in turn was deaf and blind to the billowing smoke signals that tried to underline and emphasize the sorry plights of others. I wish you could have told your story yourself, could have left a memoir of the ****** up thoughts that zipped through behind your eyes while you filtered the layers of **** served in white paper bags that this world seems to dish up like a fast food chain of heartbreak and deep ruts, while every so often rewarding us with a mistakenly placed toy or salad to “make up” for the rest of the empty calories served. I've tried so long to be an optimist, to look at the glass half full, but that glass is shattered on the floor right now, I broke it. My life hasn't been easy, not many people’s lives are and that’s life, I understand that much. If it isn't raining it’s snowing, if it isn't snowing it’s hailing, and if there isn't any precipitation it’s either hot or cold as hell and you have to fight through it to make it to the next day. I’m taking the shoes I wear now off so I can step on that pile of excrement they call a glass half full, half empty. Give me the pain, it hurts and the tears burn as they roll down my cheeks while I stare at this half a cent card with your face on it and some mass produced poem on the back listening to the ******* eulogy mutterings of everyone around me, but I want that. I would take this shuttering pain, this volcano of discharged emotions erupting from the shaking core of my body. I would take it any day over the numbness that is ******. Wasn't your child a life raft? Wasn't he the duck it or **** it of your life? Had you not a fiancé to whom which you could have rested your beaten structure on? Did you not have an array of support, a field of pile driven beams to share the weight in it all? Or was it a mistake? Was it a fault of somebody else that provided you with the birthday batch of ******? When you blew out the candles and smiled behind the thin line of adumbrating smoke that sketched out the soul behind your eyes did you think to yourself, today will be the celebration and cessation of my birthday; a bitter sweet memory for all who know me: on this day she was both born and deceased. Today she began to live and learned of death. I will never have the answers for the many who continue to fade into the credits of their dismal painful lives, but I will never stop trying to understand and I will never learn to forget or let go. This blood in my veins detest the cold steel rush that so many of you have tasted, that so many of you ran to when no one was listening, when no one was looking, when no one could comprehend you anymore and the only languages you spoke were procured from endless nights on the cushioned wooden floor as you drifted off among the silver linen clouds, as you left this body on earth and spoke with angels perched over the smoke stack that overlooked the back-lit-keyboard of lights that was your city, your town, your home while the strand of rubber slowly fell from your arm. We couldn't hear you, and those **** angels seem to weave such a pretty tale sometimes when you forget that you are speaking to your own deceitful mind. I will learn that language, I will look for those signs, I will place a candle on the sill beckoning every friend of mine to come and share with me in person. Let me reach into that white bag and see what is inside, I’ll eat whatever you pull out whether they are empty calories or not, preservative filled fries cold or hot. You are my friends and Social Networks are a lie, just a wall to hide behind, an occasionally droll and informative medium, until you die and then there is nothing left to pretend to say or be.

I'm running on Bacardi
Drinking like a slob at this party
My heart reaches for her hand
But only on the bottle does it land
I pour another cup of drink
And into a mattress I sink
Thinking just of her
As the world around me blurs
My heart twists and turns
While my esophagus burns
My face goes numb
And now I am drunk

Alcohol in the air
Even more in our systems
Whole room spinnin
Whole room sippin
On that Bacardi Limón
Feel the bass in our bones
The lights turned down low
Hands to the sky
Music getting us high
Energy moving
From body to body
Infectious
Can’t help it
Can tell it’s
Time to let go
Of all moral control
Yolo
You only live once
So you might as well dance
This is your chance
Drink
Drank
Drunk
Tonight luck
Is on your side
As am I
It’s a **** good night.

Inject me,
Pierce the skin
And it let it merge
With blood cells and
Bacardi,
Press your lips against mine
And slip the pill onto my tongue,
Don't pull away until each grain
dissolves
Stacks of cash
From selling love in bottles,
Capsules,
IV drips,
Losing our minds as we
Become entangled in unconsciousness.

But when I wake up you're gone.
Sweaty palms,
Goosebumps,
The fear of relinquishing control,
Or even losing my mind?
We become addicted to the visions
In our head,
The dreams we steal from dark corners
Of the brain
When we are intoxicated,
Yet with each passing of time
We rely on what numbs the pain
Of what we lost.