Don’t worry, dude. I’m on acid.
Crowds had started to piss Johnny off to the point where he blindly threatened to smash the face of anyone that crooked eyed him or questioned the placement of his empties.
Even dudes with friendly looking beards that had an empty bar tab from sipping on glasses of water since the start of “sappy” hour were fair game.
But shit was funny.
I did always wanna mangle that fella from Thirtysomething.
Sidney was short. Stout. Conflicted by the horrors that human beings could inflict on one another. But he didn’t cringe much. He was cuddly.
He still managed to smile at strangers as they passed by. And he stopped having that dream about falling to his demise with a smile on his face and scorn in his heart.
But he never spoke. Important thoughts, images glued together for him by him needn’t escape. No one knew him. Until…
Those letters that I wrote you, the ones that I destroyed before you had the chance to read them; the words are inscribed on the folds of my brain. They’ve been stored away underneath bullet pierced blankets and less than half burnt out candles.
No one paces the floor of that attic anymore. While whispers and moonlight serenades float beneath the door, the keyhole has been filled with memories that prevent everyone, even me, from getting in.
Tattoo cream. The smell of it has left a stain on my senses. It’s not a particularly fragrant scent. And it’s not particularly noticeable to the unknowing either. But it remains.
Like the smell of fresh cut grass, zippo fluid, or that body spray that symbolizes you, tattoo cream is everlasting.
In parlors, from glances at my wrist, and whenever I hear that fucking song, tattoo cream enters into a thought bubble and fills my blood stream.
When I was 18 I went to California. Bored with what my 18 year old prospects had provided, I didn’t feel like my current state had anything more to offer than waste. So, I quit the baseball team and picked up recreational drugs.
I wasn’t expecting anything but variety. Well, variety came in the form of awareness. Awareness that opened my eyes to things that people didn’t have passions for and I ended up spinning to where I landed..
Stilted ideas about what life should be. Perfect predictions that lead to let downs and major scrapes on what should have been your cushy ride to the coast. Is this all true? Does what we see tell our mind and heart how to react to the cold night or the warm sun? Sometimes it might be better to be senseless or hopeless or worthless. Good thing “sometimes” is a word not spoken amongst friends or your faith.
Lights come on, illuminating fractures and imperfections in your foundation that you knew were recessing. The small structural impurities that didn’t threaten the integrity or sustainability before have started to allow harmful agents through the cracks. Sure, while the resting light hides and helps these problems stay out of view, you will not be able to reside here for very long. It will soon deteriorate and become so dilapidated that it will eventually collapse and kill you.
Swirling sticks in a half full glass of the dark while you blew smoke. The ice clinked and the precious liquid spilled over the side and onto my shoes while you rapped about nonsense and people that I’d never heard of. Kids ran by while I cringed and scrunched hoping they weren’t in earshot of your drunken perversion. The air filled with hot air and atrocity until you fell, relieving me of my post as their guardian.
Notes scribbled on your knapsack described exactly what you thought about me. Open and for the whole world to see, you pulvarized my intention so your dying breaths wouldn’t be wasted.
What to most would seem unflattering and daunting, to me makes sense and can be rendered as understandable.
Killing you wasn’t nice, wasn’t intended and wasn’t easy.
While the highway hummed and the lights of life grew dim, you walked away from the collision and became.
The cracks in the pavement are the same as they were when I first walked this floor. And while the chips in the paint and the minor damage that I caused to the structure no longer carry weight or cachet as a right of passage, my name and multiple philosophies that ruled my youth are still scribbled on the walls that you pass by twenty two times a day. Those thoughts were real. Those thoughts were me.
BLONDE ON BLONDE 