Tag Archives: passion

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They are the two most relatable and utterly contagious human afflictions: love and hatred. And passion is the the most ironic impetus behind both, which quite often causes these two emotions to be synonymous. It’s why we keep coming back to the ones that hurt us the most. Its criminals always return to the scene of the crime. Why the feeder rat runs over to sniff the snake.
I woke up outside and searched desperately in hopes that last night was a dream. But, scratches, bruises, bite marks…..These are all binding contracts that can not be refuted. I caught a glimpse of myself in an old dirty mirror and noticed my eyes resembled an old, worn photograph from the 1800s. The meloncholly it brought numbed me a little, just enough to go back to sleep for another hour or so. The animals sleep outside…..

She keeps me here because the thinks I’m good for her. As if i am the one that’s gonna save her, and that makes me the worst type of hero. The ones that lead you out to the fires under the guise of an innocent and loyal companion who doesn’t know better. I am the canine that destroys all her favorite things and she keeps letting sleep in her bed because I am warm at night. I am the wolf she mistakes for her shepard. And that alone must be enough because there’s nothing else. No comfort, No compassion. Just bent fences and torn dresses. Picked locks and talking our way out of handcuffs. Hours later, applying them myself.
Hours later talking myself into leaving.
Hours later waking up outside.
We are all the most terrible when we are alone. We are all the most unforgivable when the doors are locked. Ive seen it all and talked them into most of it. Because I’m terribly afraid to admit that love and hatred are the same thing. It’s why I choke her when I kiss her. Comfort is the warm room where the greatest obscenities occur. It’s the parasite in my chest and the dreams tearing me limb from limb at night. It’s why I refuse to take you home, because I still haven’t found one. It’s why i sleep outside with the other animals.

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I sat on my back porch this morning and watched as the blackening clouds above began to create a tempestuous atmosphere – scattering my notebooks around on the table. I saw two small butterflies mating in the midst of all this dismay and watched as they were thrown about in violent wind gusts and torrential rain. Torn apart, then hurtling towards each other again in order to finish despite every type of disorder imaginable. Gripping onto one another regardless of the fact that neither creature could provide any reasonable argument of what is it they expect to accomplish through all this insanity.  Driven solely by subconscious requirements, and a complete disregard of any reasonable voice within telling them to go home alone where it is safe.

I snickered to myself, because I as watched these frail insects endanger themselves and each other repeatedly, I was aware that it was merely due to some type of instinctual desire. Nothing more than sex and survival. A mindless act embedded deep within their DNA.
However, if I was ever asked to give the definition of “love” in humans,  I would describe this very scenario before me.

Love is very capable of becoming a type of institutionalized abandonment of all rational thought.
It is the wings that continually push us towards each other, unaware of the pitch black around us ripping us apart.
Love is collecting every type of type of madness and yet smiling each morning – the way the mentally ill stare off in the corners of dirty asylums, oblivious to anything else.

And sex and survival are merely just an excuse.

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I don’t remember the drive,  but I remember the feeling of being driven somewhere.

I dont remember looking out across the river, but I remember her smashing my head against the rocks.

I remember being dragged towards the black water.

And I remember waking up with her arms wrapped around my waist. My dried blood strategically burried underneath her fingernails.
Crying and apologizing.
Not for what happened, but sorry that she couldn’t finish.
And I spattered an apology through my torn lips as well.
For the latter.

Fuck you, (name removed)
Now I have to start all over.

What a tedious task it is to find such women that lack just the right amount of chemical compounds in their pretty little minds.

Because any less of a lover would be much too unimpressive, and not as horribly alluring.  And anything beyond this type of psychosis would be too far gone.

What a strange burden is it when you have the unfortunate capacity to intelectualize such a thing.
But I truely find it hard to conceive a more passionate type of rapture than to fall victim to one another’s relentless talons. The same ones that retract and bring you great warmth you by day, rip you limb from limb at night.

These are the singular types of encounters that could only happen once in a lifetime since, through their insufferable dismantling, either one of us dies, or all essential pieces needed to ever properly comprehend such endeavors again die along with it.

And then we are too far gone.

But tonight we both know exactly what it is we’re doing.

She arrives at 7p.m.
And I know she brings a knife.

…and my mouth waters.

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Is longing only achievable with knowledge of a target for it? I wonder if a small bird kept in a childs room instinctively dreams of open skys even through its ignorance of them?
Yes. There must be something burried in the soul of all creatures which makes them feel unbearably culpable of thier disguarded fate, even when unaware of it. The same instinct that causes me to be crushed by the weight of places I’ll never go. The longing that makes my heart ache for passion and love, which I certainly know nothing of. Perhaps I’ve kept myself intentionally bereft all this for so many years that my daydreams have become deep-rooted and habitual. I wonder if maybe it is not a matter of instinct, but of compulsions born from continuously running from everything I secretly desire. Perhaps it is all my doing. Suppression is, after all, the main culprit behind all compulsions. So here is whats left; Twenty-nine years without fascinating journeys abroad or whirling, singular love stories. Twenty-nine years of self-inflicted disillusionment.

Outside my window, I can hear the rhythmic juxtaposition between the scraping sound of the wind against the top of the lake out back and the grinding of cars on the highway pavement about a half-mile down the road. Car alarms and birds chirp flirtingly back and forth to one another and burrow themselves into my subconscious – to be used in dreams at a later time. My desires and fears tangle into one another like the most insufferable fabric that separates life, awaiting just past my windowsill, and my all my years of abandoning it to pursue an existence compiled of nothing more than vivid daydreams with images taken from books I’ve read and pictures I’ve seen. Yes, even my fantasies are stolen.

I thought about writing her today,  but my body would certainly cripple and my fingers would snap in all cardinal directions. This is one of the many inconveniences Ive collected through life. How could I write her as such a tangled, broken mess? And what, anyway, would I ask of her? ‘I cant have you back, but please dont go away?’ The foolishness bubbles up beneath my skin and I may as well just smash my face endlessly against the blank page in front of me and have whoever finds me – snapped and splattered – mail it to her, still dripping dark red with my insecurities.

The inconveniences I’ve collected through life drape fittingly about my limbs.
I wear a hideous fabric that only she would adore.

I rummaged through my head for memories to live in.
     It was 5am the other night that I found her standing at my door. Im still not entirely sure how she got here. A strong current must have ripped her from her life and the undertow must have dragged her towards me, down to the bottom of the world where I make my home.
       I watched as she took a drag of her cigarette. The dull light from its end revealed her eyeliner, diluted and pooling grey beneath her eyes. I wished she wouldnt cry but it makes my heart ache for her. The only thing more lovely than her misery was her happiness and I felt greedy for wanting it all. It was her curse that she would have such a wonderful glow, even under duress.  The whole ‘rest-of-the-world’ surrounding her was pitch black and meaningless to me. Im amazed that shes here. Im amazed at her tangled, wet blonde hair and I’m amazed at the new cuts on her hands.  We sat on the dock over the lake and talked about the futility of modern romance, the deaths of our fathers and the dismantling of whats left of our sanity. 

These are the memories that allow me to live here alone. 29 years of nothing else suits me just fine. These daydreams – and my garment of inconveniences draped over me to keep me warm.

She spoke about a crooked, old, wooden house in the dark that visits her at night. A reacurring dream she had or, perhaps its a coping mechanism that allows her to participate in this world, but as she rests her head at night, she wakes up frantic in that terrible place.
The house represents a rusty safety-deposit box in the back of her mind and its inhabitants were thousands of traumas and tragities she suffered through life pieced together to compose scowling, putrid creatures that live in the attic and, at night, slither thier raw bodies down the steps to tangle themselves in her blonde hair.

I feel as if that is where I first met her, in the den of that creeking, old house.
That den was the eye of a great storm that streched the expanse of her entire life. We lived there – so temporarily – among the dusty books on the shelves, and we traded them as if what we couldn’t express through tongues or our bodies pressed against one another could be effectively spoken through those pieces of literature. But I knew I had to leave soon. I did not belong in her dreams no more than she belonged in the home I’ve made for myself at the bottom of the world.

That is the curse of a disobedient mind like mine. The drive that constantly lures me to her – To a life I know nothing of and a love that finds me unsuitable. Is the same drive that pulls me away, trembling and guilt-ridden. What was I doing in that old house? How did I find the key? What brought me to that den burried deep in her mind? Did I come there to dangle the illusion of safety in front of her?

I am irrefutably driven by the bleakness of this life and cannot help but to call out to her, endlessly, from below. From the bottom of the world where I made my home. I sing to her like a caged bird in a small childs room and what could I bother to expect?  Of course I could not expect her to stand outside of this terrible cage of mine and be content. And what would happen if she awakes in that forsaken old house at night?  My arms would fall short desperately reaching out to her through my rusted bars.
They would cripple and my fingers would snap trying to hold her and keep her safe.

29 years of disguarded fates and barren fields. 29 years of waiting in that den holding an old skeleton key and calling out to something I instinctively know awaits, yet am still unable to bare. Something that I somehow know of, but still couldn’t possibly fathom.

I threw the blank paper away and went back to the windowsill.

I still sing to her from my cage. Even through my ignorance.

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I felt a rapid presence inside me.
Dire one – winged hummingbirds dreaming of thier nectar. 
They all cry out  “I am what’s lovely about you!”
Indeed, the parts of me still alive with passion. The parts that know not of all my shortcomings. And they flap about on cold tile floors with sturdy dreams and certain prevail in thier bellies. 
With thier eyes focused on the tall blossoms. Nothing is ever so clear.  Nothing glints so blindingly. 
No gold, No silver, No sunbeams bouncing off the sea.
They are parts of me consumed with deep hunger and naivety is the glands watering thier mouths. 
The birds cry out from the cold floor.
But I mustn’t feed them, nor lift them to their nectar for they are what’s lovely about me. They are my passion! Thier hunger is my muse, you see!

 

But, years go by and thier calls go quiet and they lay still.

 

How selfish am I to be such a masochist! To suffer my physical body to such proportions merely in order to feel so alive internally. How naive am I! For now I see the two go hand-in-hand and here I sit with neither.

 

Just dead hummingbirds and dried, crumbled old flowers.

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The best of our days consisted of me watching her take drugs and staring off like she was a wolf that heard a small creature off in the distance.  She waits to piece together it’s location for the hunt, but it never shows any promise. At times I feel like she could quit the chemicals if she wanted but it’s that promise of a good hunt she can’t seem to shake for the life of her. The problem here is that she will never realize that she is the one being hunted.
The sun pulls itself up over the horizon, back from the end of the world, and I hold onto her like a small child holds a red balloon. But the drugs were wild gusts of wind and on certain days, I felt as if I’d “accidentally” let go of her string. It grows tiresome and I am not such a small child anymore.  I guess you could say that was my addiction: my inner child had passed long ago and following on her little “hunts” made me feel as if I was visiting it’s grave site. Filling her needles for her was as if I was giving it flowers and holding her hand while she nods off was like a little prayer uttered.

It’s crazy how my body and mind simply refuse to work together. Sometimes she repulsed me and I only loved her with my mind. Like the way she took the breath right out of my chest the day I saw her standing so awkwardly in the bookstore seeking out a novel she had been talking about for weeks. It was the strangest thing and I couldn’t fathom how her body could even naturally assemble like that. Her legs were crossed and she stood on her toes with her back arched and twisted. Her arms were straight in front of her but clasped inside out and tangled. Like an ancient statue with a million small pieces knocked out, barely holding itself together. Like any day now she would crumble into dust and thousands of years of history would dissolve into a pile of dust. How funny the mind works that I could fall so hopelessly for a mere stance.

Other days, I loved her with only my body and I felt nothing more. It would remain that way for weeks until I caught another glimpse of something that made me come to my senses. She was a helpless old toy and the memories of my youth threw her around as if I had never grown. She couldn’t stray very far.

But I made up my mind one night while we headed back over the bridge towards her place. The passenger seat was pushed back and she was curled into a little ball. She was so small I could barely keep my eyes off the road. How does something so lovely wander so far off and land here with me? I wasn’t even sure if she was still breathing,  it had been a long night and she certainly pushed her limits. I couldn’t concentrate,  I would look away from the road and stare at her sleeping until I felt the tires meet the grass, then I would correct the vehicle and stare at her some more until it happened again and I did this almost the entire way home.  I wanted to keep her like that forever.  I decided I would leave that night and never come back. I couldn’t imagine things ever getting better than that exact moment and I wanted to make sure that no matter where I went from then on, no matter who I was with, I would always have her sleeping so beautiful in my head and I could find peace.
I carried her into her apartment and placed her on the sofa. She didn’t move a single muscle until I started to walk away and her little awkward fingers grabbed at my pant leg without even opening her eyes. She was so weak that her hand just fell right off as I walked away. She was a helpless little toy and I had grown old. I had realized tonight that the memories of things you once loved are much stronger than things you still have.  Love is like a loud roar and people grow so used to it over the years that it eventually blends into the background. The same way people that live near great waterfalls no longer hear it. I carefully created a situation and a woman that I could hear loudly and love forever. This was the only thing that made sense.

People these days naturally put up walls to protect themselves. You can’t blame them, the world is a cold place and “survival of the fittest” has never been so prominent. But sometimes,  its not the walls that you have to worry about. Sometimes they are placed there for your benefit. You could build a great mansion with all the walls me and her built from each other and the rest of the world. But all the items decaying in the crawlspaces behind her walls made this great palace uninhabitable. 

I locked the door behind me and tossed the key to that great home down a sewage drain.

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