Face Time

 Seeing her face to face
For the first time in months...
There was no
Tidal wave of emotion
Like I had feared...
There was no longing...
No sudden realization
That I needed this person
Back in my life...
Just business...
Signatures on tax returns...
Settling debts...
She didn't shine
Like she used to...
When I loved her,
She was always beautiful...
Now,
She felt like a stranger...
Someone I wouldn't even
Look twice at
If I saw them in a crowd...
There was no sparkle
In her eyes...
That shine and sparkle
That I used to see
Must have been a photo filter
Placed on her
By my own imagination...
I was polite,
Business-like,
But, internally,
It felt awkward and weird...
It felt odd
That I didn't see her
As the shiniest object
In the room...
She now seemed
Forgettable...
This moment was
The removal of the lynchpin 
That bound us together...
The moment that showed me
It's okay to move on...
That I most definitely
Deserve better...
That I am complete,
With or without
A "significant other"...
I have a family...
I have friends
That are family,
And in some ways
Closer than family...
Even being a step-father,
Which I have been
To five different people, 
Is not something I need
To feel complete...
Three out of five
Resented the idea of it, anyway,
So
Maybe I don't want
To be a replacement
For something lost...
I am an original...
I deserve to be the first...
Anyway,
The meeting was quick...
Over in a flash...
Slightly dazed by the lead-up,
But underwhelmed
By the ultimate reality...
Sorry, not sorry...
x

The Edge of the World

[Disclaimer: Mom, if you just started reading this, read no further. It's graphic sexuality stuff you probably don't want to know about.]

 It feels really good 
To get laid...
I've missed it...
Being touched
By another human being...
My trust was damaged,
And no one felt safe...
But there he was...
DDF (drug and disease free)...
We call it business,
A business transaction,
So there is no 
Expectation of deep emotion...
Just a massage
After all...
However,
One thing can lead to another
(Especially when you're both naked
And covered in oil...),
And it did...
Exploring things more deeply than 
The tentative 
Mutual oral 
I experimented with in college
Before embarking upon 20 years
Of marriage, cumulatively,
To three different women...
Set free, yet again,
I get to explore
What over 100 women
Couldn't quite show me...
(A few tried,
But they weren't born
With a strap-on, so...
Experience counts...)
And it felt better
Than I could have
Ever imagined...
I've always been the giver,
But never the receiver
(Relatively speaking...)
And I do love giving,
Quite a lot,
But this...
This blew my mind...
He was kinda cute...
Nice body...
Erect readily from
The touch of my lips
On his glans...
As he put his lips on mine...
I asked him 
To take things further,
And he gladly acquiesced...
Our bodies covered in oil,
He slid inside
So easily...
So beautifully...
Filling me so perfectly...
As first times go,
There was none of the awkwardness...
None of the shy me
That existed at 17...
I knew exactly what I wanted to feel,
And he made me feel it
With practiced expertise...
Massaging my prostate
With his manhood...
One hour in what felt like Heaven...
No strings...
No expectations
Other than mutual gratification...
No future plans...
No grand professions of love...
Just raw enjoyment
Of each others bodies...
Small price to pay
That was worth every penny...
A milestone in my
Sexual life...
Empowering...
Freeing...
Sure, 
I still love women, 
But now,
I have a good deal more appreciation
For humans in general
As pertains to sexual gratification...
Expanding my capacity
To be
A god of sex, passion, and service...
No regrets...
No worries...
I am fully and ecstatically alive...
And there is so much more to discover
In this world...
x

Strange Pleasures

 Life is full
Of strange pleasures
And off road delights...
You never really know
What's going to be there
When you turn that next corner...
"The Kingdom of God 
Is inside/within you 
(And all about you), 
Not in buildings/mansions of 
Wood and stone. 
(When I am gone) 
Split a piece of wood and I am there, 
Lift a stone and you will find me."
Like when you were a kid
Flipping over rocks
And rotting logs
To see what surprises
Mother nature 
Might have in store...
Salamanders, and newts,
Centipedes and toads...
Poisonous and somewhat dangerous
Every now and again...
I still have the scar from a snakebite
From some age younger than 10...
Live and learn...
Be open to new possibilities...
Broaden your horizons...
Swim in the ocean
That is life...
From the surface
To the depths...
I've spent 51 years
Learning to be human...
And all that time
I should have just been myself...
I mean, I am what I present...
I walk my talk...
But, to be honest,
Being human is overrated...
Sometimes you feel more content
By imagining
That you are not of this Earth...
Not so much in the religious sense,
"In it, not of it."
But feeling a bit alien...
Otherworldly...
Like home is somewhere 
Out there
Beyond the reaches of the
Solar system...
Regardless,
Here I am,
In this world,
Gathering data...
Seeing the new in the old,
And the old in the new...
Tapping into the root chakra...
Energy rising through
To the crown chakra...
How do you get past heartbreak,
Or any other thing
That weighs heavy on your soul?
You live.
Both consciously and passionately...
Take chances, but take a little time to
Do some calculating of the odds...
That wheel in the sky keeps on turning...
Don't ever let your soul
Go to sleep...
That poem by Dylan Thomas,
Do Not Go Gently Into That Good Night,
May have been about death,
But it applies to the living...
Some let themselves die
While they live...
Their heart keeps beating,
And their blood still flows...
They go to jobs,
And have kids,
And pets,...
Some living the dream,
Some not...
But they died a long time ago...
Rage, rage, against the dying of the light...
Loners and freaks,
The family and community minded,
Rich and poor...
That spark has to be tended...
Your flame has to be fed...
Never let the darkness 
Overtake you...
There are so many ways
To find joy
While you live...
No matter who you are,
And no matter what your circumstance...
Even in the darkest of times...
What's around the next corner
Could be
Just another day,
Or it could just blow your mind...
Keep that mystery alive...
Live a life
That has you
Anticipating more
And more often...
The thrill of your first time
Doesn't have to happen 
Once in a lifetime...
And it doesn't even have to be sexual...
It's a big world...
And there are many evils...
Many obstacles and thorny vines...
Don't let that stop you..
Rage, rage, against the dying of the light...
Hold the lantern out before you
And let that light,
Your light,
Guide you into the future...
Burning white hot
Like a furnace...

Deep Sea Internet Cables

 Shadows moving in the depths...
Large, ponderous, heavy...
The internet is like the Marianas Trench
At the bottom of the sea...
No sunlight can penetrate it,
But some of its denizens
Create their own light
To hang mysteriously 
Over sharp, translucent teeth...
Click-bait...
Hoping to lure you in
To some narcissistic demise...
Stalking your feed 
From a friend's login...
Accidentally commenting...
Oh so shocked
If you react...
Jelly-bodied nematodes
Slithering beneath
Bone littered sand...
These also have teeth
You would think
Only existed in nightmares...
But they are real...
And they are hungry...
And their blood never freezes
From the pressure or the cold...
They are drawn to your warmth
As you are drawn to the
Pale blue lights
Twinkling in the darkness...

Swimming with Dolphins

 After awhile, I don't see it as me experiencing endings...
It feels like I'm regularly experiencing new beginnings...
And this feeling is ubiquitous...
It's not just in regards to romantic relationships...
I am the same person, at the core, that I've always been,
I've just periodically hit the reset button...
Or been hit by the reset button...
Have you turned it off, and turned it back on again?
The first question tech support is obligated to ask.
I suppose I should have some regrets...
I haven't always been a "nice guy"...
I've forgiven myself...
I have no regrets...
There is a magic to starting over...
A sense of freedom and adventure that, 
I can't even lie, 
Is seductive and alluring...
It seems to be a time when I can feel my strength most clearly...
A place where I can start a new vision quest...
I enjoy getting lost in the walk-about...
Rediscovering who I am...
I have had a bad habit of giving my "self" to others,
And expecting them to give it back unmolested...
These sand castles inevitably crumble, and I am washed into the ocean...
There I remember how to swim...
I have dolphins in my life that always come to me
And gently guide me to the surface...
They have never let me down...
They gently stroke my ego when it feels broken...
They make me feel sexy when I feel like I'm showing my age...
They show me love when I don't feel lovable...
And they give me oxygen by valuing my friendship...
By recognizing my heart...
When the reset button is depressed,
They are still there...
They are in the system bios...
And they are a protected system file built into the OS...
The adventure continues...
The stars are swirling above...
I can see the Milky Way orienting my place in the universe...
Dolphins swimming among the stars...
Carrying me with them..
Giving me hope, support, and real love...

Sometimes There's a Man

 "Sometimes there's a man... 
I won't say a hero, 'cause, what's a hero? 
But sometimes, there's a man. 
And I'm talkin' about the Dude here. 
Sometimes, there's a man, 
Well, he's the man for his time and place. 
He fits right in there."
- Sam Elliot,
The Big Lebowski
*

Opening monologue to the film...
Just a Dude
Looking for peace,
Trying to live life...
And life 
For some reason
Wants to resist that pull...
Chaos ensues...
Every new character introduced
Brings new confusion
And difficulty...
Just like real life...
I am the Dude, pretty much...
The motherfucking dude...
It's always an adventure,
Though, not uncommonly, an ordeal...
Episodic trials to pass
And quests to embark upon...
Perpetually climbing Mt. Doom
To destroy the One Ring...
Constantly deciphering the patterns
That activate the stargate...
A little bit Walter Mitty,
But
Life has often turned out to be
More strange 
Than I could have ever imagined...
Pleasure or pain,
It is experience...
Memories...
Lessons...
Knowledge...
All of this
Swirling about base level chaos...
Random chance
Slightly vibrating the delicate web
That connects all things, 
All events, and all time...
Instant communication 
Building consensus reality...
New variables on rapid fire
Changing the equation
In constant successive events...
Constant practice finding balance...
Gravity never seeming too constant...
Learning how to fly
Is disconcerting 
Because it feels like you're falling...
And, actually, you have to fall
Sometimes...
Flying is basically
Extensively controlling 
Your fall...
Have you fallen from grace?
In whose eyes?
How much does it really matter
In the long run?
The lessons learned:
Are you really
Who people think you are?
Are you
What you think you are?
More or less?
Or not at all?
Other people
Pull us out of ourselves...
Out of our comfort zones...
Almost Buddhist
In the realization
That attachments are often the chains
That keep us from the divine...
That keep us chained
To the wheel of pain...
Learn to fly...
Control your fall... 
Seek wisdom through experience...
And, in the end,
Honor the lost...
Spread the ashes of the past
In a place that they would love...
Spread your wings in the sun...
Look over the edge...
Jump...

Expression

Gone full no contact...
Better this way...
Even apologies come with accusations...
Every "kind" word comes with an admonishment 
That expressing how I truly feel is "childish"...
I imagine her parents did that to her...
That's why she does it now...
We are products of our past history and upbringing...
Nature and nurture...
The things I say,
Even the things you read here,
Were not said to destroy her;
They were me expressing my emotions...
And emotions aren't logical...
They are rarely in sync with tangible reality...
They exist,
But no one else can touch them other than their author...
They are your property, alone...
They can make us come to faulty conclusions...
Make us hear another's words, but not understand their meaning...
They can make us imagine worst case scenarios so firmly
That we don't examine the details of extant consensus reality...
But we are allowed to have them...
Even express them...
Describe them in such intricate detail...
To feel what we feel for a brief moment...
Come close, at least,
But description will never fully close the gap between self and other...
People develop personal biases against these types of expressions...
They hear what they expect to hear,
Not what is said...
They make assumptions - snip snap...
And assume the worst...
Honesty is seen by some as nastiness...
Bitterness...
Betrayal of a love that once was,
Turned into hurt...
The shear magnitude of it heavy as a collapsing star...
It makes you hurt,
It's not childish to hurt...
It is human...
And it is natural to "feel" when you have been
Demeaned, debased, and devalued...
One can only be "Kicked to the curb" so many times
Before the only course of action is to simply walk away...
I'm healing...
It's necessarily messy...
It may seem too messy to some,
But that's their trip, and they don't pay my bills...
This is my mind...
My head and my heart...
Emotionally battered...
Somewhat bruised...
This is not done to destroy anyone...
This is done to heal me...
This is how I have kept from losing my mind for many, many years...
Is it too public for some people?
Of course.
No more or less so than poetry readings and open mic's back in college...
I sprayed my joy and my pain at audiences tanked on coffee (Both they and I...)
And even if I wasn't their favorite person,
They were always at least mildly entertained...
Applause was a nice validation...
It didn't always mean they understood,
But it did mean they appreciated the effort...
I still have some fans...
People that were there, listening in person, that are still in my life today...
This is reminiscent of those glory days (For them and for me)...
It is a part of me...
Probably one of the more healthy of my habits...
"Wringing out the rot," as a now estranged friend used to say...
Words will offend some personally...
This taking offense blocks understanding...
That's okay...
I'm not responsible for how others feel...
That doesn't mean that I don't care...
It's simply that: each and every one of us, alone, is responsible for how we feel...
I can't change that reality...
All I can do is what I do...
All I can say is what I say...
All I can feel is what I feel...
All that I am is what I am...
I can accept that that isn't everybody's cup of tea...
But it's also not my responsibility to be...

Serenity

 Cool breeze...
Lake Travis below
A house on the hill...
City lights in the distance...
Quiet...
Peaceful...
Frogs and crickets
Singing their songs...
Low hanging clouds
Catching some of the light
That Austin casts...
A handful of night fishermen
Trolling the water below...
Inside the house
All is quiet...
I enjoy the solitude...
The lack of demands...
Life in the day
Is often too noisy...
Too messy...
Too complicated...
I can deal with other humans
When I have to...
They have become
My least favorite interactions
(Excepting messages and calls from valued friends....)
Humans bring with them
Difficulty...
They bring madness
Into the day...
Disruptive to my life
And my flow...
Especially on those days
When I feel most stable...
Most of them think only of themselves,
And when they say otherwise,
It's because you have a
Tangible use...
There's something you have
That they want to make theirs...
Something you can do...
Solitude is my ideal, right now...
It would be nice if solitude
Could remain unbroken
Even with another person in my life...
To sit together under the stars
Appreciating nature
Wordlessly
Would be wonderful...
To be able to successfully do that...
I can be social...
Sociable, even...
But I don't like 
Inviting drama into my life...
New people threaten to introduce new drama...
Potential conflict...
And I have had too much conflict
Throughout the years,
When all I was looking for
Was Peace and Love...
So,
I appreciate nights like this...
On the lake...
High up on a hill overlooking a sleeping city lying just beyond the water's edge...

Dissociating Slowly

 More of the same messages
Reported with cyclic regularity...
The distance grows...
I have hope for
My individual future,
But I have lost hope
In some others...
Lost hope that she could change...
I disassociate as I read the letter...
As if it were a scene in a movie...
As if it were nothing more than a trope 
Or a theatrical device...
My own feelings on the matter
Are far from fully resolved,
But that's my trip...
Love and hate can be so close...
The amount of hurt I felt 
Right after that day,
That day when all I could feel was nothing,
Was soul crushing...
Luckily or unluckily for me,
I am apparently indestructible...
This means that I'll survive,
But it doesn't mean
That I won't suffer greatly
In the process...
King of pain, and all that shit...
I often torture myself with introspection...
I spend a lot of time driving
And thinking...
A lot of time
Sitting in my vehicle for a time
Before going into the apartment...
Home?
This is not my home...
It's too tenuous...
Too hit-or-miss...
I have the I Ching character 
For The Wanderer
Tattooed on my chest...
It represents my life...
Wandering from place to place...
From love to love...
With nothing ever really seeming to stick...
There has been no real permanence, 
Other than a handful
Of devoted and valued friends
Scattered across the country...
People who know my flaws
And still love me,
As I am,
And, even more importantly,
Still show me love...
They are my home,
Wherever my body may be...
Odysseus fighting his way back
To his Penelope...
But I have not found my Penelope,
Or, I probably have,
But left things at friendship...
These were people 
I didn't want to lose...
Didn't want to risk
Letting down...
She was one of those people,
Once upon a time,
But she wanted more...
She wanted it all...
And, like the parable
Of the Goose Who Laid the Golden Egg,
I was eviscerated...
Had nothing left to give
After a while...
Bleeding out
Because I allowed myself to trust
That she would handle my heart
Lovingly and gently...
Honestly and sincerely...
Trust is a big bad now...
For a time...
Hope got battered
Pretty handily,
But it wasn't murdered...
It was only a metaphorical slaughter...
The words I read,
I've heard them all before...
And I am somewhere
Far, far away...
Unmoved by those words,
And overanalyzing the gesture...

This Is Not the Greatest Poetry in the World,...

 This is just a tribute
To a fleeting moment in the time stream...
It's one of those days
Where the doubt and fear
Caused by anxiety 
Become persistent...
The stepping stones across the river
Are constantly changing...
Internal and external...
A part of my own
Psychological disorder
Is that feeling of
Living between disasters...
Always preparing
For the next ordinance explosion...
Like a soldier,
I live for peace,
But I am always ready
To go to war...
You've heard the saying/meme:
The struggle is real...
Yeah,
It's interesting
Being alive,
But it's not easy...
Motivating to tend to it
Can get heavy
Some days...
Almost too heavy to lift...
Limbs silently protesting 
The command to move...
A bit of an emptiness inside...
That familiar old tinman feeling...
An empty oil drum...
Listen to the percussive sound
That it makes...
A tinny bass...
Thunder
With no lightning...
See and feel the roiling clouds...
Billowing and swirling and black...
There is very little light...
Black smoke
Swirling in my empty core...
Just weary from the journey is all...
Wondering when there will be
Safety 
And security...
I'm so tired of all the uncertainty,
And I just want to get this right...
And trying to relax
Is a struggle...
Nature sounds
Playing on the firestick...
A babbling brook with birdsong...
A little weed,
A little whiskey...
Don't usually drink,
But I remembered I still had
Little nippers of Fireball stashed on a shelf,
And today was a great opportunity
To ease my spirits...
A fistful of valerian root...
Mild otc tranquilizing herb...
Telling myself to write it down...
This exercise is therapeutic...
Describing what it feels like,
Physically...
Attempting to ground oneself...
Quiet the speaking mind...
Reaching out to the gut mind...
That place
Where you know without words...
Where physical sensations
Are your limbic system
Communicating
With your intellect...
Pre-verbal and often infantile,
It wants what it wants...
Your frontal lobe
Has to apply the limitations...
The idea of restraint...
And then,
When you get to that point,
Where you allow yourself
To corporeally feel,
Often, and quite suddenly,
You understand...
Or free association of ideas
Triggers the root
Of the obstacle...
For the longest time now,
I've wanted her to hate me...
To see me as the blackest hearted of villains...
Rationalizing it as
"For the best"...
And it very likely is...
We were horrible for each other...
And, despite actually having
A very hard time letting go,
My logical mind knew
It could go no further...
If I saw her face to face,
It would be an agonizing pain...
Because, yes, I still care...
I actually still love her...
And, knowing what I know,
Experiencing what I've experienced,
Both loving her and wanting her,
While despising her
And, knowing we are toxic together,
Recoiling in self-defense,
That's not something I want to feel
To quite that kind of
Intensity...
The feelings of "love"
Are tempered
By my new opinions of her...
Tempered by the depleted
Levels of respect
That I have for her...
Some sacrifices must be made...
Some comforting thoughts
Must necessarily be
"Killed in the crib"...
What's not for you 
Is not for you...
The wheel grinds on...
Just another day...
Maybe the chemical adulterants
Have finally 
Accomplished
A fraction of their goal...
Maybe I care
Just a tiny bit less...
It's better than nothing at all less...
Just a tiny touch
Of anesthetic...
Yeah, a tribute to a fleeting moment
In the immensity of time...
Meaningless
By the time that dust
Is all that is left
Of empires,
And the sun envelops the Earth...

Lessons Learned Through Observation

 Lessons I've learned
From observing others...
When you get what you ask for,
Make absolutely certain
That it's what you really wanted...
Words have meaning and impact...
Say what you mean,
Do what you say...
Own the consequences...
You can't hold onto something
That you constantly push away...
Like that kid trying to
Pick up a ball,
But kicking it away
Every time he gets close...
A mini Sisyphus
I've learned through observation 
That words spoken,
Even with sincerity-in-the-moment,
Are just words
Without actions...
I've also learned
That my positive actions 
Aren't always noticed
By the people in
Closest proximity to me...
The people who have
Verbally "committed" to me
In front of witnesses...
Promises like that
have always been broken,
in my personal experience...
I've learned that
Romantic "love"
is simply a neurochemical reaction...
And I've learned that its expression
is often pathological...
I'm not necessarily jaded,
simply awake...
It's taken 51 years
to wake up...
Some people never wake up...
Will never wake up
without outside intervention...
I've learned 
that you can love someone
and hate someone
simultaneously...
And I've learned 
that it's necessary to let go...
Not just selectively,
But totally...
I've learned that
The most hurtful thing
I can do to someone
Is to remove myself from them...
I've also learned
That sometimes hurtful things
Are the right thing to do
To maintain necessary distance...
Sometimes the right thing
Will cause pain
To both parties...
And I've learned that,
Sometimes,
That's okay...

Digging Into the Skin

 The thing that digs into my skin the most
Is that I thought, in the distant past,
That she actually deserved my love...
And that she would accept it
When given...
Neither of those things turned out to be true...
That's not even meant to imply that my "love" is anything special,
But...
Until she gets help,
She doesn't deserve anyone's romantic love...
Or, more precisely,
No one deserves 
To be extruded through her
Toxic perception and expression of "love"...
She rushed us along...
Rush, rush, rush...
Hoping to lock me in
Before I could open my eyes
And use discernment...
It's an interesting feeling
When a woman proposes to a man...
How could my vanity refuse,
Or even consider weighing the future implications of such a decision?
And so I didn't weigh anything...
I was in "love" 
And she appeared to love me,
What could possibly be questioned or denied?
And so, I stepped into the open pages of what felt like could be a fairytale,
A fantasy,...
But it was really a gothic horror story...
A tragi-comedy romance...
Film noir...
I've always imagined that true love was something you did with your whole heart...
Some people don't have a whole heart to work with...
Some of those won't even give you but a scrap of it...
Like dogs snarling over meat...
A prison inmate, freshly released,
Always sitting back to the wall,
Hands guarding the plate...
One can only work with the tools they've been given...
As it turns out,
Some tools are more useful than others...
Not everyone is of equal worth...
Not everyone even has tools...
Not everyone deserves a participation trophy for trying and failing...
Persistence, like patience,
Is its own reward,
And you've got to put in the work, blood and sweat
To succeed...
Rationalizations, emotional manipulation, and self-pity
Are the only tools some people have...
Setting themselves up to fail with pathological determination...
And succeeding spectacularly
At failure...
Are there any awards for that?
There was certainly no reward,
Even looking back to the "good times"
I realize were, on closer examination, fueled by her pathology...
Even the sweetest of moments 
Can get stained by the bad moments,
The worst moments,
As time stumbles on...
Memory is flexible and plastic...
We can choose to control what we do,
But so many of us refuse to take on that responsibility...
Emotional reactivity
Just a big wave to surf,
Rather than using the wings
That we all have
To fly above it...
Our wings are our ability
To rationally and intellectually problem solve...
It's a natural part
Of the human condition...
Our ability to win
Against all odds...
Don't fly too close to the sun,
But, at least, learn how to get off the ground...

Appreciating the Lights

 Rainy night...
Slowly deflating tire...
Just what I need
Right at this moment...
It hasn't been
The easiest week...
I'm still healing
Post-divorce...
I've been trying
To bleed off the venom...
Trying to get the bile 
Out of my system...
And there is some ugly stuff...
It sprays out in words
Typed into a phone
As verse...
Stream of consciousness expression...
The air slowly leaking
Out of my tire,
Upon inspection,
Was caused by 
A large metallic object
Protruding from it...
To be removed
At a later date...
It's too late in the night
As it is...
You never expect
To have to work so hard
Just to keep it together...
But that's life...
We've all got our
Binder of traumas...
Everybody seems to be going through
A bad patch lately...
That cold rain
Is coming down hard...
As I was ready to loosen the lug nuts, 
Which seem to have been tightened down
With a pneumatic wrench or a gorilla,
Good Samaritans...
It took two of us to just break the lock
On the lugs...
Another friend held the flashlight...
Another, 
Who could have easily
Stayed in a warm, dry vehicle,
Stood in the rain
In moral support and solidarity...
A little light...
A little light is always appreciated
In darker times...
Especially
With random obstacles
That the wheel of fortune
(Not the game show)
Throws in our paths...
It's sometimes hard to say
That everything
Is going to be alright...
But I take deep breaths
And tell myself
That everything
Is going to be alright...
I try to feel it,
The wordless parts...
Experience it...
Express it
In an almost medical connotation
Of that word...
Bleeding off the pressure...
Still appreciating the lights...