This thing, the words and all?  I was trying on a new skin.
It was made of the old -the familiar, too, but transformed.
Something added that could take root,
Take me out from the norm.
Take on a new identity.
Perform.
Squinting at a light, held at arm’s length:
My own spotlight.
So you could watch me act it all out,
Over and over, forever on the page.
but nothing ends as it began.
My troubles, my worries, my lust, my greed,
All fictionalized and petty.

Disgust and shame.
Anger and fear,
Are not advisable
Unless they bring about change.
Even those, now left behind.
Moulted.
Shedding my old skin.
Toughening up the new.

Pour one under the table for those who walk outside.  In memory of Spalding Gray, for what he meant to me...
    Thanks, “Spuddy”, for sharing your inner life.   Thanks for having the courage to bring so many troubles into the light.  You laughed at your troubles and allowed us a way to laugh at our own.  You put a voice to carrying an unbearable shyness or an excess of fear along with us as we go through life.  You strived to care when caring was out of fashion and in short supply.  Thanks for reminding us that life is the journey, and not only the destination.  You wrote a book.  You played a minor role in a feature film.  Those were some of your destinations.  When you shared your journey, you did it with humor, humility, and with love.  Thanks for reminding me that storytelling is all around us.  Thanks for reminding me that it need not be complex.  You were merely observant during your journey,  and you shared it through the lens of your own perception.
    I learned this January that life became unbearable for you.  If only we, your audience, could have comforted you or somehow stemmed the river; the flood that carried you to leave so early.  I would like to believe that, once you died, you might be able to hear our collective voice.  I imagine that you are able to see the people affected by your work, some inspired thus to create works of their own; tell their own awkward stories, sharing them as you shared yours.  I am far back in the line, and I eventually arrive at your table.  You flip a page in your spiral-bound notebook and take a sip of water before glancing up inquiringly.  I only have one thing to say, really.  “Thanks, Spalding.  Thanks for sharing”.

His body floats on the surface,
Limbs spread wide and bound to the water,
An "X" marks his place on the planet.
Ankles and wrists between water and air,
He submits to a force of nature,
An "X", half submerged in the waves.
It says, "You are here",
but the ocean has more "there".
The water is a woman.
The sea is terrifying,
But he won't ever fear her.
A force of nature does nothing for spite,
Nothing for greed,
Nothing for personal gain.
His death would be clean.  
Honest.
Absorbed, even, thoroughly, back to the source,
The waters from which we all came.

You think you have me figured out already,
don't you, Carol Lynn?
Well, I hope not, because it would mean the chances are good,
That you actually have.  This would be sad because it means,
there may be no intrigue remaining,
nothing new to discover,
and you might go away,
bored with me and the evil,
you must, inevitably find,
buried in my side like a stone.

There may come a day when you finally see,
Where this tension, releasing, comes from.
You said I was wound, unbound, like a spring.
The watch of my appeal always did have a short run.

So, a relationship moves toward it's end, right from the start.
Interest can wane, obscenities uncovered, doubt can enter,
and set up shop like it always does.  

What we should hope for instead is a slow burning ember,
nurtured each breath with whispers, with mindfulness,
and contentedly, casually, delay it's demise for just one more day.

Back at the shore, at the interface, I tried, once, to be free.
I found a human animal there, hidden beneath the sea.
It stared, defiant, back at me, perplexed to be observed.
It had no need for company,
It had no need for words.

I felt unable to understand,
Understanding all too well.
The pain within the heart of man,
The pain they buy and sell.

I spoke aloud, though, anyway,
I thought I knew those eyes,
Believed my voice could make a change,
In other creature's lives.

"You're hurt", I said, to the ocean waves,
"Why hide beneath the sea?"
"You're a fool", it said, "presuming that",
"There's something wrong with me"

"Go back to where it's warm and dry,"
"Just walk away from here."
"The water gives me all I need."
"Spare me your hope and fear".

Perhaps", I said, "We all are broken,"
"To some extent, in body; soul..."
I saw my own, afraid but happy,
So unbroken as to seem whole.

It shouted at me once I had left,
We would never meet again.
Then whispered an unheard, but felt,
Admission to the pain.

I found myself, once, longing,
To be hated by you.
To feel the burning shame of guilt,

I won't say any more about feelings,
Because that place,
I'd occupy without them,
To see this nonsense through.

So few people seem to really give a ****.
And you actually do.
You really do.
Maybe if I wished too much for you
To love and respect me,
To see me as as a friend,
then maybe I risk the capacity to be hated by you, as well.
but I tend to see you as a force of nature.

If you ever began to love me, as I hope,
Then I have to realize,
Your capacity to hate me would also materialize.
And, like a force of nature, I know,
You would spare me: Nothing.
Help me: Not.
Trust me: Never.
but you would do nothing to me
Out of malice or for ego or for personal gain.
And I would have to trust,
With a child's trust, happily,
even to my death,

That it was better to be loved
    by a force of nature,
Regardless of pleasure or pain,
Beyond reproach or false intent.

Here was a human animal, most kind,
With a sword for the heart of kindness,
Any that came from a place of deceit.
Are you true to yourself?  
Say, or no, and be quick.

If she told you she cared, or not at all,
Then you had good cause to believe,
That she meant it- every word unspoken,
Or none, as the case may be...

The world built a challenge,
In pretense and sloth.
She gave it the finger and
Bang-  Took the day.
If the night was a struggle, she never did show it,
She made it look easy anyway.

She appeared in the masks we all have to wear.
A voice from behind spoke at last.
Speaking grace through atrocity, reliance on self,
And she never once spoke of the past.

This most human animal, in touch with the world,
Most kind in the offing, decay for the wood,
Preserving a cycle, flesh beetles contented,
That life destroys, as well, to create.

So the life that relentlessly comes, now must go.
I can’t tell you a thing,
You don’t already know.