pray your gods

who ask you for your blood


It has to end, at some point. Ultimately, everything that we do has to end. Everyone we know, everyone we love, everything you see will die or deconstruct or in some way...end. No matter how good or bad we think or know that we have it, it is not going to last.

Usually this is not something that I care to think about. The end of things. The end of my friends, the end of my children, the end of the trees that are just now tall enough to stand without stakes. But I know this is true, and sometimes it makes pretty things prettier and nice things nicer and goodness, well, better. Because you know that it will be gone, thus you take the best care of it while you can.

Other things. There are other things, because not all things are good or pretty or nice. Things are cruel. Things are bad. Things are ugly and you wonder how anyone could live through that, how anyone could put someone else through that, how anyone, anywhere, could allow something like that to happen to another human, another person. It is not always war. It is not always genocide or violence or the systematic destruction of a way of life. Sometimes it's so small and personal that you wouldn't even know it was happening if you did not walk up on it twice in one week.

These are the times that I smile at the idea that it cannot last forever. Eventually it will stop. At some point. If I just wait long enough nature will force its end. One of us will die. One of us will leave the other behind, for good and for all, and we will sever whatever it is that connects us. Because right now, still, after everything, there is still that thing. That thing that draws me to you and the thing that sends you to me and the thing that keeps you in ink and me in shock. Whatever that thing is, it cannot last forever. I know this. Maybe, if I just wait long enough.

I do not know how to live my life. I do not know if the things that I believe make any sense. I don't know why things happen the way they do and I don't know why things that seem to be right turn out to be so, so wrong. I don't know if kindness and consideration are the best idea under all circumstances, anymore. I don't know. I don't know how I am supposed to keep doing this, months, years later, I don't know how I can continue to hold off what I know is coming, which is the inevitable confrontation. I don't know what I would want the result of that to be, to answer her question. I have no idea what I wish would happen. I want things that I cannot have. I do not want things that are thrust upon me. I want to be the best I can be and I selfishly want to be rewarded for that. With happiness. I want to pull out my kidney and offer it to something, anything, and in return ask only that this thing, this other, be taken away, so that I can live my fucking life without it. I would give anything.

But if it went, I would not know how to feel. Because as much as it eats at me, it is like the tar that protects your lungs from the cancer. It's like chemotherapy. It makes me sick. It makes me weak and tired and it makes me question whether any of it is worth the work, but it also gives me something to work for, it keeps me up. It is motivational. Keeps me sharp. On the lookout, you know. I can't get away from it but what I can do is workworkwork to make sure that I am prepared, that I am always ready. Which is necessary. And exhausting. I don't want to do it anymore. I don't want to wonder what you want and I don't want to wonder what I am supposed to do and I don't want to wish that you would disappear and I don't want to wish that you would show up at my door. I don't want any of that. I want to make those decisions. I want to decide that I have had enough, that I can cut that off and not miss it, that you will lay it on MY altar and I will deem it unsuitable. And that I can go, and continue, and not be forever wondering whether you were going to brave it one more time. Because as painful as it is to do this again, I am really scared that I will convince you to do what I want, finally.

it's time to go

and you're in the way

You are in the way of me doing the things that I want to do. You. You are not even here. It has been a year and a half since I heard your voice and even longer since I saw your face, but somehow you seem to get in the way of everything. You are the phantom limb, but not as catchy. Aching where you aren't. The absence which is much more pronounced than your presence ever was. I was reading this book today, The God Of Small Things. In it a nine year old child is killed. There is a section where the speaker discusses how the grieving for this girl lasted so much longer than she had even been alive. I feel like that sometimes. I feel like that. It seems ridiculous to be continually affected by something that was over in less time than you are upset about it. I don't get that. But there it is. You show up in the strangest places at the most inconvenient times and I would appreciate it if you would stop. I hope you like the service. It is just the way I thought you'd do it.

And you. You are in the way. As long as I have you I will not look for something else. Which is fine, man, that's cool. Cause that always ends bad. Historically. As long as I know that you have arms and eyes and that mouth, oh man, and as long as you keep covering me then I do not know why I would seek them elsewhere. And I won't. And, yeah, that's cool. For now. But when I do not have you anymore? It has been a year and a half. Soon, sooner than I realize, it will be ten. Forever? I wonder if I will be so happy then. If I will be as happy to see you as I am now, or if I will wonder why I am on the lookout at forty instead of thirty. Because I do not know how that works. I do not know if I, as a displaced half couple, am supposed to be always vigilant. Or if I stick with what I know, no matter how it rips me up in the end. In my way.

And me. I am in my way. I know what I need to do. I need to get the fuck out of that job and do something, something, else. Something that only I can do. Something that I am not completely wasted at. But I keep getting in my way, because I do not want to be that person, that parent, that idiot. I cannot justify leaving what I know to strike off into what, I don't know. Because I have children. Because I am responsible. But it is the oxygen mask again. I cannot take care of them if I do not take care of myself. And I am not taking care of myself. In fact I might be my own worst enemy.

of recklessness and water

You have to make up your mind. Eventually, you will have to make up your mind. You can do whatever you want. Of course you can. You can do whatever you want and accept whatever happens as a result of the things that you do (whether or not you accept that it was a result of a thing that you did). Or you can do the things that other people expect you to do; whether it is something you want to do or not is immaterial, people have expectations and when you do not meet them there are, well, results. Consequences. Reactions to your actions. Sometimes they are the same thing. What you want to do and what you need to do. That's great, man, that's the best. But it is not always like that. Sometimes what you want to do is in direct opposition to what you need to do, and sometimes the things that you need to do do not even occur to you. This is rough, cause then you probably do not understand why things happen the way they do. Maybe you get lucky. Maybe no one cares. I do not really know if that is actually lucky, if it's good to be surrounded by people for whom your actions have no effect. In fact I think that that might be really shitty. Regardless. Maybe no one cares. Maybe you do it the way you want to do it your whole life cause your parents don't care and your friends don't care and your boss doesn't care and maybe you have a string of companions that don't care and then you stick with the same one for years and they don't care and then you die and no one cares. How. Fabulous. Would that be. Pretty fuckin fabulous.

But maybe, and this is where you ACTUALLY get lucky, maybe somewhere in there there is someone that cares about you. On some level. Maybe someone knows that you really are so, so great. Maybe someone sees who you really are. Maybe someone loves you. This is where you get lucky, where we all get lucky. This is where you make the decisions that make you who you are and make your life what it is so many times. Because this is where you decide.

You cannot go about doing whatever you want to whoever you want and expect things to be fine. They will not be fine. Maybe they will seem fine to you, but that's because you are an asshole. Things are not fine. This is not how it works. Ideally. Which is never the way it actually is. Ideally people do what they say they are going to do. They are where they say they're going to be. They mean what they say. They say what they think. They finish what they start and they do not start things they have no intention of finishing. This would be nice. But it never happens that way. This is a decision that you make, for things to not happen that way. When you fail to do what you say you are going to do, this is a decision that you make. You are deciding that whatever is keeping you from doing it is more important than what you are supposed to be doing and the people that are counting on you to do it. That's a decision. When you choose to not be where you say you're going to be that is you deciding that wherever the fuck you are right then is more important than the people that are wondering where you are and the things that are not getting done in your absence. A decision, one that you made. When you spout some bullshit that is light years from what's actually in your head or heart that is you deciding that being shed of that topic, that conversation, trumps the honesty that is expected of you and the possible complications that may, could, might arise from you telling the truth. You have no intention of seeing this, whatever it is, anywhere beyond what is easy, but you embark anyway. That is you deciding that whatever happens to everyone else involved is less important than what you want right then, that second, because you are going to do whatever you want. Because you can. Of course you can.

What you cannot do is say that you didn't mean it. That you are sorry. But, especially, that you didn't mean it. Because that is not true. That is never true. Every step of the way you make decisions. And every step of the way you are given the opportunity to make the decisions that will lead you here or lead you there, and when you deliberately make the decisions that lead to wherever you are now, you cannot say that you didn't mean it. Because that is a lie.

you can have Washington

i'll take New Jersey

It's always the best part, isn't it. The great divide. Cause, really, this town is totally big enough for the both of us. And it does not, actually, have to be like that. We are capable and willing and might even be happy, at some point, to bump in to each other. Now and then. By accident. Sometimes. In the future.

Who gets the coffee shop? Is it something I should check on, every time? Or will you just assume? Cause I would not go making any assumptions. I would hope that, given that we met in this coffee shop and came to this coffee shop three times a week like clockwork, that you would not use it as your next meeting place. Cause, because, because that would be neither kind nor considerate. To let me walk in to that. But then, this is something that I CAN assume, isn't it. Coffee shop. You can have it Thursday through Saturday and every other Wednesday, I will take it on my days off. Fair.

The bike path. Okay. There are a lot of bike paths in this city. A lot. There is more than one way to get from here to there, but really only one that is going to be trouble. I will take it while you are at work. That will do, right? But on my days off, or on the one co-weekend day, you go West and I'll go East. How about that? Cause it would be somewhat, um, not cool to be riding alongside each other and trying to pretend we weren't together. I will take the thin trails, because I have the in-line trailer. You can have the wide ones, for the jogger. Fair?

The taco shop. This one will be tricky, because it is impossible to predict who is going to need it when. I'll tell you what. If you walk in and I am already there you smile and wave and take your stuff to go. And if I walk in and you are already there I will take one look at you and determine that if I sat down and talked to you for two seconds it would chip at the mortar in this wall I started working on yesterday, this wall that I spent years building and that you managed to wear down in the space of three months, which amazingly enough is the exact amount of time it took for us to wear each other down. And if you chip at the mortar enough the bricks are going to start coming out, and there will be holes, and things will get through. Which was all right last time, cause when things got through they were things I wanted, things like you. But that would not do, at all, now. So if you are already there I will turn around and leave. Please do not take it personally. It's not you, man, really. You know what, fuck it, you can have the fucking taco shop. You can have the taco shop and the laundromat and that one section in Powell's that I pace around in while you stare and stare and stare. You can have all of it, I want the coffee shop. I do not care that it was your coffee shop first, it is my coffee shop now and if you come in to it while I am there then you deserve whatever you get. Coffee shop. Mine. And we'll call it even.