Corrected ...

I could hardly get my thoughts organized before she punctuated her question with her own answer: "none."

And she was right.

I had no right to be there; no right to occupy her vision or share in her rarified air. It was left for me to cross the boulevard of broken dreams that lay before me, gathering the bits and pieces of face, faith, and fate strewn along the way. So for hours that day, I was discussed and she was disgusted.

All I wanted was to disappear.

The feeling of disassociation isn't new to me. More than once in my life I've wanted to disintegrate and blow away like dust in the wind; to sink into a crack in the sidewalk or a wrinkle in time and not exist. Be gone, be nothing. Not some existentialist's wet dream where I simply remove consciousness from body and watch my life like some bad B-movie. I mean literal nonexistence. Cessation. The act of being discontinued.

And now she makes me want to feel this way again.

Her words become a blur, masked by tears and augmented with choice thoughts unfit for public consumption. I'm numb to her attempts. Mind constantly racing - a byproduct of mechanically trying to stay one lie ahead of what lies ahead. Soon I will see there is nothing to race against; no race to be won. That what prize their may have been is not worth the price paid to achieve it. That she was right; and here I stand corrected.

I will see all of that as soon as she stops fucking crying. Damn.

Shimmer ...

She left in a huff.

She always does. A whirling mist of costume jewelry, cotton blends, and Chanel No. 5 - her favored scent. It's never easy to see her go; to let her back into the world. And regardless of the context, I'm always left sprawled diagonally across the full-sized bed in a tangle of sheets and yesterday. Sometimes face down, sometimes in a haze, but always left to my own devices.

It plays in reverse in my mind. She, collecting herself on the chaise lounge in the corner of the room, hurriedly dragging what is always her last cigarette; tapping her toe double-time to the measure of the popping vinyl that signals the end of Coltrane's A Love Supreme. Minutes before, she reintroduced her slender frame to the lace-laden red panties she gleefully showed off hours prior, and her lingerie was swallowed by the simple sundress she arrived in (though I much preferred it in a pool at the foot of the bed).

She knew my tastes.

Life never fully comes into focus the moment she closes the door. For some, you would imagine reality to rather quickly resume: a stretch; the slow walk to the mirror; the smug grin of self satisfaction that somehow can never be washed clean. But for me, I always remain in limbo for just a second longer, toeing the line between what is and what was. Perhaps selfishly waiting for footsteps to resume in the hall, thrusting her back into my presence. More likely, knowing that she forever appears and disappears in the same breath, and that catching her is akin to trapping lightning in a bottle.

Her power over me is real. I can accomplish little without her, and with her she is my only joy. She reigns over my movements despotically, tyranically. I obey slavishly. At her mercy, I am. And it is as a result of her that I lie as I do, somewhere in between life and lost, wondering if I'd rather have her back or have another drink. I love my captor. Even in her absence, she knows I would never leave.

But all that shimmers in this world is sure to fade.

Standing in the Shower ... Thinking ...

Standing in the shower thinking
About what makes a man
An outlaw or a leader
I'm thinking about power...
The ways a man could use it
Or be destroyed by it
The water hits my neck
And I'm pissing on myself...
- Jane's Addiction

So it was brought to my attention just how long I've been away from this place. I suppose life intervened and my muse went flying. But as recently as yesterday, she may have returned. Thanks to the wonder that is the film Finding Forrester, I was reminded of just how much I enjoy writing ... how cathartic, expressive, useful, necessary it is in my life.

Plus it beats the hell out of waiting for a phone to wring/a new email to arrive/a blade of grass to grow/paint to dry, etc.

So maybe I'll be serious this time. Maybe I won't be distracted by the shiny things you see in this online world; maybe I will write. Who knows what, and who knows why, but damned if I don't at least try...