You In My Sweatshirt

      Hey you, you in my sweatshirt. I can barely contain what I feel for you. Or maybe I can’t contain it at all. I push and retreat, as you do. Like the moon and the sea, we are tied together whether we wish it or not.

      Hey you, you in my sweatshirt. Am I devouring or being devoured? I know I don’t know, I know I don’t care. Every moment intoxicating. Every intoxicated moment enrapturing.

      Hey you, you in my sweatshirt. I’d run to you if I could. I’ll run away if I need. Sometimes I don’t know if you’re demon or angel. A powerful force beyond comprehension, for certain. A muse, a temptation, a lover beyond measure. So much you could prove to be.

      Hey you, you in my sweatshirt. I’d fall asleep on your shoulder as soon as I’d take you in lust. A strange balance of peace and passion that makes no sense. That makes so much sense. I see us falling into unknown pleasures. I see us falling asleep as rain beats upon the windows.

      Hey you, you in my sweatshirt. A kiss of desire, a lingering torment. I can’t be yours until you’re mine. Yet I already am. You know it, as I know it. Your slave, your lover, your distant admirer. Nothing important is really ever left to me.

Less Boohoo More Haha

I realise that often my writing has the tendency to be dramatically depressing.  Many people who I’ve known read my writing for the first time are shocked, and those who don’t know me tend to reach out as if I am going to off myself tomorrow.  

In person, I tend to appear as a carefree, happy go lucky guy with maybe a dark sense of humor.  Yet in the writing, all I am is the dark.  Partially due to the fact I write mostly when down, but also because “happy” writing I feel is uninteresting and uncompelling.  

I would never argue these two sides are healthy.  I think it is probably quite unhealthy I have a hard time being as real and serious as I would like to be in person, or as fun and humorous as I would care to be through writing.  These are symptoms of a fracture in me that I’m still learning to bridge.  Part of me is still a little kid that covers up pain with laughter.  Writing becomes the only release, and I overload it with despair.

Also, I fear much of my humor wouldn’t come out well in writing.  The delivery of a line like “Today I drank a bottle of wine and didn’t kill myself” could be said, and be funny.  Posted on a blog or social media would invoke a flurry of terrified friends and relatives who now believe me to be a suicidal alcoholic.

As I was working on the novel recently, I was taking out some of the humor, as it is a serious and depressing tale.  I realized, though, that I lived this story, and there was humor.  There were things and people that helped me smile through the pain, remind me how tears can come from a place of good as well.  I need to work harder to include such realities.

            I live a balance of the good and bad, the pain and pleasure.  We all do.  We shouldn’t be ashamed of life.

Foolish Roads

My mind is uncontrollable.  It leads me places I don’t want to be.  It takes me to times long past, to things better left buried.  Perhaps it knows what is best though.  A chance there is method to my mental madness.  So I’ll play the game.  I’ll write.

It’s the early hours September 11th, 2011.  I’m lying in bed, I have been for hours, yet sleep has not come.  She’s in the other room, on her laptop, where she’s been for what feels like forever.  We’re suppose to leave in the morning, take our Canadian holiday.  It had been planned for months.  So much was riding on this trip.  Every problem we had, every fight and argument was pushed to this vacation.  “We just need to get away, have time for us.”  So much hope I placed in Victoria.

She probably thought I was sleeping.  This had become the routine.  Her on her laptop, chatting away with him while I fell asleep alone.  So much paranoia, so many challenges.  “Don’t be ridiculous, we just work together a lot.  We’re just friends.”

A panicked heart can’t be calmed, though.  I didn’t feel close, I didn’t feel loved.  Trust, but verify, as they say.  I’d put an app on my phone so I could read their chats.  I felt crazy, I felt possessive, obsessed.  It wasn’t right, but nothing was right anymore.

They’d been chatting about a diet for hours.  She was convincing him to try it, explaining what it all was.  There were a few comments about me, and our trip.  She wasn’t looking forward to it.  That hurt, so much, but I already knew that.

Then, he sent it.  The message I’d been dreading.  Confirmation of all my fears.  I stared at the words as sorrow and rage mixed into a horrible cocktail within me.  “Are you alone?  Can you touch yourself?”  A message I remember so vividly, seared into my mind eternally.

She never got the chance to respond.  So many times since then I’ve wondered what would have happened if I wasn’t watching.  How would things have turned out?  How different would everything be if I’d just been sleeping?  Impossible to know.

I flew from the bed and stormed to her.  I snatched the laptop from her, reading again those horrible words.  We looked at each other.  Her face was scared, stunned.  She knew she was caught.  Months of committed lies now failed.  Everything in me surged to escape, an explosion of emotion that had built over an age.

I hurled the laptop across the room with a horrible cry.  I screamed over and over as my fist broke the wall.  “I knew it!  I knew it!”

I turned to leave.  There was no plan or destination, I just wanted to be away.  But she chased me.  She threw her arms around me from behind as she yelled apologies and begged me not to leave.  Tears burned in my eyes as I lingered, torn between pain and anger.  I stayed, I stayed when I so desperately wanted to run.  I stayed because I already knew I still loved her.  I already knew that if she wanted to try to fix it, I would forgive her.  I stayed because I already so fervently wanted her back.

I asked her for a moment before stepping out onto the balcony.  I’d started smoking again a few months earlier.  A response to the stress.  I lit a cigarette, but it just burned in my hand as I sobbed, staring out at the street.  I’d never cried like that before, and though I cried many times since, there was something different about that night.  With all the turmoil within me, what surfaced in those wails was shame.  I’d failed her.  I wasn’t enough.  

Being a husband was what I had been most proud of in my entire life.  I’d thought I was good, too.  I lived to be her mate.  Yet now, every success, every piece of pride I’d had was stripped away.

When I went back in, we talked for hours.  At first, I wanted to know everything.  She was evasive, and insisted that they had only kissed.  I didn’t believe her, but it didn’t matter.  She told me about the night something first happened.  She’s been out with that group, drinking.  Somehow, it had ended up just the two of them.  She was drunk and she kissed him.

I recalled a night about a month prior.  She had gone out, and it had gotten very late.  I’d been calling and texting her, I was so worried.  Finally, she called me back, saying she left her phone in the car.  I was relieved she was ok, yet also furious.  She came home, drunk, and tried to have sex.  I was so mad though, I told her to leave me alone.  Realizing now what else had happened that night, I just felt dirty.

Conversation eventually led to why it had happened.  Of this we talked for hours.  We talked about her past.  Childhood, relationships, and us.  There were so many things that led to it, but no combination could excuse.  

We decided to still go on our trip.  While this was possibly the most foolish option, and certainly painful, I’m glad we did.  We slept for a couple hours before loading up the car and starting the long drive.

At our first stop for gas I was smoking by a dumpster.  She came out from the store, and as I stood there with her I told her whatever happened I wanted to still be friends.  I meant it, too.  Me just further playing the fool, I know.  She said she wanted that too, and she was grateful I’d said so.  The following months would teach me there was no hope for friendship.  

After a long day of driving and talking, we finally got to our hotel in Victoria.  We had sex for the last time, and it was horrible.  I’d never felt such a void, and as we went to sleep I turned from her so she wouldn’t see the silent tears I couldn’t seem to keep in my face.

The next day was the most bittersweet day of my life.  Together we explored the city.  We walked, talked and shopped for hours.  Despite the pain, distance and fear I was feeling, I thought there was a glimmer of hope.  We managed to have some fun, to find smiles and laughter.  My mood would often swing, I’d be overcome with anguish, and I’m sure she oft felt as uncomfortable as I.  Still, I came away from the day thinking we could and would make it.

Each day that followed grew worse, though.  The space between us opened until it was a great chasm.  We went ziplining one day and, despite the fun of the day, she was so cold toward me.  So deliberately closed off.  I began to realize she wasn’t as hopeful to reconcile as I.

I drank that night like I never had in our marriage.  She’d said so many times over the years that she wanted to see me drunk.  That night she got her wish.  It was a mess.

On the trip home, she said she was moving out.  I tried to convince her to stay, but she didn’t want to discuss it.  She said she needed space to separate herself from everything.  Even then I knew she just meant me.  She probably would have left that night, had she not ended up having to take me to the hospital with my first kidney stone.  But she was gone by morning, as so began the darkest days I’ve known.

My mind, always racing.  My foolish heart, so slow to heal.  I trembled as I wrote this.  You’d think by now I’d have learned to not pick at scabs.  I’ve grown and changed in many ways, I know, but part of me still feels I was at my best when I was loving her.  When I had my bride.  When I was a chosen man.

Dear X

Dear X,
     I don't know the point of this letter, or even if I'll ever mail it. What I do know is I hurt. I hurt everyday, I often feel broken and worthless, and I want you to know.
     It's not that I want your pity or apologies, because I don't. Before you ran away, you told me you knew I'd be ok. You said I was so strong and good and you knew I'd make it. That is why I want you to know. I don't want you to deflect, excuse or ignore what you did to me .
     There is a hole in me now, and it isn't even an X shaped hole. It's just a gap, an empty chasm where peace used to be. That, more than anything, is what you took when you left. Worse than the lies and infidelity, worse than the loneliness. You were seemingly the source of peace for me. I was content like I've never known before or since when you loved me. I understand that it's within me, but can't bring it out.
     Loving you gave me purpose, and being loved made me feel chosen for the first time. I was more grateful than I could ever express, and poured too much into you. I made myself guardian of your dreams, but your dreams changed.
     So go live your life, and I'll live mine. But don't belittle my hurt, don't dismiss my struggle. I'm not ok, but I think I've found a way to be ok with that.
   

     Love, still, always,
     Y

Pass

      “Does it get easier?” She looked up at me, tears still staining her cheeks. I knew she wanted to hear something that could make it better, that would take the sting away. But it always gets worse.

      “No, not really.” I walked for the door, and I could hear how she was breathing behind me. The way she always breathed when she was holding in a cry. “It just gets... Different.”

      I left before I could hear what she was holding back. I didn’t want to see how all I could do after my hurt was pass it on to others.

It's Never Over

      The night had many turns in conversation. From 90’s sitcoms, to mexican fashion, to rape and to heartbreak. It was at times whimsical, and at others absolutely depressing. Yet I’m glad it happened exactly as it did.

      The past cannot be undone, I cannot save myself from pain felt, I won’t fall for the same joyous yet ultimately painful mistakes. I will never be able to make anyone feel things they do not already feel on some level.

      I miss cigarettes, and being a smoker. Many other quitters say they now hate the taste of tobacco, that they now have no desire for it, or it makes them sick. I, however, miss it. I love the taste, the feeling of drawing it in, dispersing it into me. I know why I shouldn’t, why I don’t the majority of nights, but it is a longing I’ll never be rid of.

      Somehow tonight I realized much of our past is like this. Damaging, unhealthy things we still find ourselves craving, tempting, perhaps even irresistible. We may will ourselves to never again partake, to not retrace our steps, but some level of addiction remains, hangs over us like a cloud, shadows our lives forever.

      Perhaps I should be back in counselling like others tell me. I’m sure some good would come of it. Still, the better option to me still seems escape. Break away from the known, cause only in the unknown will I find passion for life again.

      If you could only read the writings I don’t have the courage to post. Honesty and deprecation mix together until they are inseparable.

      Life seems to sour, yet if there were a reset button, if we had to start life anew, face things again as if for the first time and see what would be, I’d do it. I strive to be open to the future, and to possibility.

Slipping Away

Round one of NYC Midnight has closed, and my submission has been confirmed.  I struggled this year more than last, to the point of completely restarting after the first weekend.  I hope you all enjoy what I came up with for horror, a flight on a private jet, and a drug dealer.


    I found myself lying on the cold, metal floor of a cargo jet.  The hold was stark and empty, and as I stood to better examine my surroundings I struggled to recall how I had gotten there.  There were no windows in the hold and the only exits seemed to be the main tail hatch and the door to the cabin.
    I walked across the plane toward the cabin, each step an echo in the quiet emptiness.  I needed some answers; I wasn’t comfortable in the unknown.  I was used to being in control.  Tugging on the handle, I discovered it was locked.  Hammering the door repeatedly with my fist, I yelled for someone, anyone, on the other side.  There was no answer.
    I kicked the door one last time before turning to storm to the other end of the hold.  There was some sort of control panel on the far end, near the hatch.  Perhaps there was some sort of intercom.  I was sick of being in the dark.
    Staring at the buttons on the box, I realized I had no idea what any of them did.  They were labeled, but in some language I didn’t recognize.  I started pushing them at random, but none of them seemed to do anything.  Frustrated and out of options, I leaned forward to smack my forehead against the panel.
    The hydraulics hissed loudly as the hatch unsealed and the ramp began to lower.  Air whipped around, lifting me off my feet, pulling me toward the opening.  I clutched the panel, hugging it for dear life.  The pressure was so great, I could feel my fingers slipping.  I’d have screamed if I could breathe, but the wind was too strong.  I choked for air, tears leaking from my eyes, freezing on my face in the bitter cold of the high altitude.
    Another hiss, and the hatch closed itself.  I fell to the floor, coughing and gasping.  Each breath suddenly a blessing.
    “Hello, Jagger.”
    I jumped to my feet.  Across the hold stood a little boy, no older than eight.  I couldn’t see his face through the dark.  I moved to approach him, but he held his hand up for me to stop.  
    “Hey.  How do you know my name?”
    “I know you, Jagger.”  Something about the way he spoke sent chills down my spine.  Everything echoed in the hold, yet even still his voice seemed distant.
    “Can you tell me what the fuck is going on?”
    “You shouldn’t use bad words, mother will be mad.”
    “Mother?  Is your mom on this plane?  Is she in the cabin?”
    “She isn’t here yet.  It’s just me and you, Jagger.”  I didn’t like how he kept saying my name.  
    “Who's flying the plane, kid?”
    “No one flies this plane.”  
    “Are telling me you were flying it?”
    “No.”  His voice was so definitive and cold.  I wasn’t sure if I was starting to get angry or scared of this child.
    “Listen kid, I need some answers!”  
    The boy let out a piercing, unearthly laugh.  It rebounded off the walls, growing louder on each reflection.  I tried to cover my ears, yet still it bore into my skull.  I felt it ringing through me like a bell, and I realized I was shaking.  No longer able to stand, I dropped to my knees.  He stopped laughing, and as I stared across at him, I could make out a smile on his face.
    “How?  How did you do that?”
    He just kept smiling at me.  I tried to calm myself, willing my limbs to stop trembling.  I labored back to my feet, and began to walk toward him again, but stopped at a shake of his head.
    “Who are you?”
    “You know me, Jagger.”
    “No, I fucking don’t.  I’d remember meeting a goddamn banshee child.”
    “Don’t use bad words, Jagger.”
    “Right, sorry,” I apologized.  I thought I heard a hint of anger in his voice and didn’t want to provoke something worse than his laughter.
    We stood in silence, staring at one another in the dark.  Afraid to speak, to move, I stood like a statue.  I tried to work out how any of this was possible, or even how I arrived on this cursed plane.  
    The child did nothing.  He just stood there, in the darkness, unmoving.  I watched him, and took notice of his absolute stillness.  He did not move, itch, twitch, or even breath it seemed.  
    “There isn’t much time, Jagger,” he spoke, startling me into jumping back.  
    “Time?  For what?”
    “For why you’re here.”
    “And why is that?”
    “To explain yourself, of course.”  
    “Explain myself?  For what?”
    “For your life, of course.”
    “Of course,” I muttered.  The child was smiling again.  His teeth seemed to shine in a light that somehow didn’t illuminate the rest of his face.  Like the Cheshire Cat, he stared back at me.  “So where do we begin?”
    “Tell me about Robin.”
    “Robin?  That bitch!”
    “Bad words, Jagger!”  A spark of pain in my ear as he spoke.
    “Sorry.  I’m sorry.”  I held my hand to my ear, cowering.  “What do you want to know about her?”
    “Tell me why you hurt her.”
    “Hurt her?  I never hurt her!”
    “Come now, Jagger.  You knew she was damaged, you knew she was broken.  You could smell it on her; it’s why you picked her.  She came to you for pills and powders, she was falling into the dark, and you made her think you’d caught her.  You took her into your bed, and she took you into her heart.  She thought she’d found a home, a place safe, warm and loving.  Yet she was living in the den of a beast.”
    “That’s not true, she knew what it was.”
    “Is that what you told yourself?  Is that how you slept at night, in that same bed with a new body?  After you cast her out, her money gone, her flesh now boring to you, did you ever pause and think of her?  Wonder where she’d gone?”
    “She’s fine.  That kind of thing happens to everyone.”
    “To everyone, Jagger?  To you?  Who did you ever let so close that their rejection would wound you?  Did you ever stay up all night crying for the soul you thought was bonded to yours?  Did you cut yourself in the darkest hours, bleeding into a bath of your own tears?  She let out her own life, alone in a motel.  You never even knew, you never even cared.”
    “You can’t put that on me.  That was her choice!”
    “No, Jagger!”  His voice suddenly booming, forcing me again to the floor.  “You targeted her; you seduced her.  You took a void she filled with drugs and filled it with a lust she believed was love, and then you took it away.  She was on the edge, and you pushed her off.”
    “No, it’s not my fault,” I moaned from the floor.  The boy didn’t respond.  He’d grown silent again.  As the echoes of his voice faded, so did the pressure upon me.  I stood again, and looked at him across the hold.  He was no longer smiling.
    “What about Baldwin?”
    “What?”
    “Baldwin.”  
    “That’s not...  I tried to help Baldwin.”
    “You have an odd way of helping people.”
    “He was a kid in a tight spot.  I helped him out.  I took care of him.”
    “A tight spot?  He was a highschooler, looking to make some quick money.  He could have worked a part time job, like anyone else.  But he bought pot from you, and you convinced him to be a runner.  He worked for you for years, well after he finished school.  Yet, when he got busted, you did nothing to help him.  When he tried to call you and reach out from prison, you never listened.  Scared and alone, locked up with far more vicious and violent men, he suffered rape after rape, beating after beating.  Eventually, he gave up.  The light inside, the thing that told him he had worth, died out.  He became the shell that he is to this day.  He may be out of jail but he will never again be free.”
    “That’s not fair.  I cared about that kid, but it was his fault he got caught.”
    “Oh?  Who told him he would make money fast and easy?  Who told him he would be taken care of?  Who never once cared to check up on him after he got caught?  Who left him powerless and alone to the wolves of the world, to be torn apart and feasted upon?”
    “That’s not fair.  I couldn’t... I mean...”
    “You have failed everyone you’ve ever claimed to care for as an adult, simply because you didn’t really care.  You could have let them wander on with their lives, and live separate from you.  Yet you didn’t.  You saw them as opportunities, and you struck.  You are worse than the other wolves, because you don’t believe yourself one.”
    “No... I mean...  I didn’t think,” I struggled for a response, but the truth in his words penetrated me.  I felt pangs of guilt and remorse in my chest as I struggled for justification.  “How do you know any of this?”
    “I know you, Jagger.  I knew you before any of them.  I knew you when you were still capable of love and grief,” he said as he began to move, slowly approaching from across the hold.  “When you cared for others, fought for them, would have died for them.  Yet caring doesn’t guarantee success, and you let tragedy murder your heart.  You allow circumstance to define who you are.”
    I felt my heart drop as he spoke, as if the blood stopped beating through my body.  He grew ever closer, and as he did a dread grew in me.
    “No.  It can’t be...”
    “It is, Jagger,” he spoke as his face came into the light.
    “Broden,” I managed to whisper before breath was robbed from me.  I fell to my knees before him, staring into his face.  I began to gasp for air, and between each one I choked out a cry.  It was impossible.  My little brother.  “I...  I couldn’t save you.  Broden...”
    “I know, brother,” he placed his hand on my shoulder as he spoke.  “I know you tried.  Two boys, playing by the river, I fell in, and you came after me.”
    “I tried, Broden.  I wasn’t strong enough.”  I spoke through sobs as tears and mucus ran down my face.
    “You did.  You wrapped your child arm around me and tried to swim us to shore.  But you were so young, and the current strong, and so-”
    “I let you go.”  With a wail I buried my face into his small chest.  I wrapped my arms around him, holding him so tight.  Holding him like I should have all those years ago.  He held my head and patted it gently.
    “You had to, brother.  We would have both died.”
    “No, no, no,” I blubbered into his shirt.
    “Funny, how the only life you blame yourself for is the one that’s not your fault.  Sad, how you let my loss change you so much from the loving brother I used to have.”
    “I’m sorry, Broden.  I didn’t mean to.”
    “It isn’t something one means to happen, brother.  It’s something you let.  You were hurt; you thought you’d failed.  So you never let anyone close enough to care for again.  You grew cold.  You let your heart die.”
    “No, Broden.  No!”  Even as I argued I knew he was right.  
    “You became a user.  A pusher.  You took what you needed and gave nothing back.  You played to people’s vices and addictions because it was easy.  Because you didn’t care.”
    “I... I’m sorry.  I can do better, Broden.  I can make you proud of me again.”  In that moment, all I wanted to be was the big brother I had been, to have such a bond again and be able to protect it.  
    “You can’t, Jagger.  It’s too late.”
    “No it isn’t, I’ll show you.”
    “I wish you could, but our time is past.”  I looked up into his face.  “We’re both dead now, brother.  And it’s time for you to go.”
    A hiss and the hatch opened behind me.  The wind picked me up, pulling me toward the opening.  I clung to Broden’s shoulders.  Somehow, he was unaffected.  He stood still and calm as a statue.
    “Broden!  Help me!” I screamed as my grip began to slip.
    “I cannot, brother, as you could not.”  
    My hands failed me, and I was sucked into the darkness beyond.