7.31

The wet fabric sticks to our skin and eliminates the benefit it brings at hiding our nudity. When wet, it acts like a nothingness that only changes our color.
Ashley hangs her head and turns away from me, but I can't understand why. She's so open with her body during the day, but now that we're standing in the rain late at night yelling at each other, her power is gone and the thin shirt that splits to her bosom is no longer sufficient armor against my eyes.
As we stand in the downpour and break up, I systematically crush her self worth as we stand, essentially naked, and kill each other in our minds.

[I dislike this post but I wrote it and I'm done]

7.29

If I were more like that lost puppy, could I get some attention from you, dad? I know we only kept it for a week but you fed it and washed it and taught it to fetch. In a week, you gave more to that dog than you gave to me.

If you need me to, I'll put on a fur coat. Would that work, dad? Would it?

7.27

[This one scares me but it begs to be written somewhere]

Her dress screams at me. It's bright red, to match her lips. It accentuates the way she stands, to emphasize her sexual attitude (every head tilt, eye flick, hand wave, leg spread, breath heave has an edge of lust to it). Everything about her begs me to seduce her and pull her into a dark room and sound out her farthest reaches like a cartographer seeing new land for the first time, and it's begging to be mapped out with skillful fingers that yearn to memorize every bay and promontory, every soaring height and gaping crevasse. Her dress screams at me and the sound of the room is deafening.
I can't approach her because I'm rooted in place by this ghastly premonition of our frenzied coupling. She looks at me and all I can see in her smile is a post-coital drowsiness that she can't seem to shake while I wish I knew how to smoke because perhaps that's what you should do after you have the only sex worth having. The only sex worth having walks towards me and asks me a question but really all we're speaking is words. She's like a wolf on the prowl, not only dangerous for what she is but for what she represents: a slew of sexual partners she tracked and cornered and crushed. She can see in my frantic expression that she caught me, and I can see in her smoky stare that it's not me she wants, but everyone.
Hold on to that thought, and it will save you. She doesn't want me, she wants everyone, and even if everyone in the whole world gratified themselves somehow instantaneously through her person, she still wouldn't be happy because it can't fix her brokenness. She wants to not be lonely, and she sets the only snare she can. Hark yourself and you can hear the whistling of a hundred thousand catcalls from a multitude of men. Here stands Venus, waiting to be filled, not with anxious cartographers or trembling wolves, their tables turned, but to be filled with a love from she knows not where.

She needs the love of a deity and the love of herself, but she does not need to be here anymore. Sadly, I'm not going to be the one to tell her because I'm too busy imagining what her legs would feel like inside my thighs.

Please don't judge me. She was asking for it.

[that feels SO BAD]

7.15

Someday I want to be famous, but I want all the upsides: constant adoration from screaming millions, unquestioning acceptance of my ideas, actions, and values, and gifts from important people. The only problem is that I'm not willing to take the downsides: screaming hate, blind rejection, cold shoulders.
I think, to be famous, I would have to sell my personal life, inhibitions, and integrity, all for a temporary sort of happiness.

7.14b

I turn most of the way around in my seat to face her, but she's already talking to someone else. I show up where she's at but she won't pay attention to me. I call her name and all she says is hello.
I thought she was the one who liked me. Now she wants me to chase her? I'm not playing that game. I'll tell her the truth, that I like her, that I expect her, that I want her. If she walks away again, you know I'm done.
[I wish this were me. So I'm writing it so it will be me. Sadly, I'm the sort of schmuck who will chase anyway, eventually wrapping my entire self worth in whether or not she finally chooses me, and inevitably getting crushed when she thinks I'm too clingy. And I know I'm this type because when I had a relationship in which I didn't have to chase, I was lost. Thanks, life.]

7.14

I'm walking backwards, hoping to end up a mile ahead. It's an odd sensation, retreading old ground. It's like visiting an enemy or dating an ex. It's a product born of forgetfulness and eagerness, lost items and lost hearts, a willingness to go forward but an inability to go.
So I've turned my back on the path and now I let my feet wander back down the familiar country lane in the hopes that I can pick up what I'm missing and fly again.

7.11

Triple flip with a half rotation, land and break your bottleneck. All the joy and peace flow freely now congestion's gone.
Single flip on a stable surface, land and keep on walking. You'll never see the dark side until you've lived once in the sun.
No flips, you're normal normal. I would tell you all my stories but you wouldn't find them fun.

7.9

He suggested a fling, but is that really the best choice? He'll leave me alone and cold at exactly that moment in my life when I need warmth and strength by my side. I could kiss him to make him happy, but I can only suppose it would be at the expense of myself.

[an exposé on selfishness]

7.8

I'm waiting for a him to text me back. It's not thrilling because he's a he, necessarily (I would never admit it, anyway), but because he is him and I love that about him.

Buzz, you stupid mechanical torture device. Tell me someone cares.

7.7

I can't open my heart any wider or the bugs would flock in, drawn to the smell of searing flesh. It's the end of a life, you say, but it doesn't mean anything to me. Mine is just beginning. What you see in me (hurt, pain, trouble) is just the birthing pains of a new man. What you call problems are what I call complications: I'm a breach birth and I'm far too large. The caesarean must be performed from the inside, with fingernails. So no, I can't let you in to my heart. The crack is all you get. Put your eye against it and peer in like a voyeur, I'd you dare. All you'll see is a me, trying to escape.

7.4

The Internet is an easy place to get a feel for a person. Some people don't have any pictures of themselves online. Some people post compromising photographs of other people. Some people post so rarely that you worry they're dead. Sometimes, those people have the most comment activity of all--and never a conversation, mind you. Just hordes of admiring followers and one attention-craving child.

7.3

When a great man dies, only one thought can go like electricity through the minds of those who hear.
I wish I had known him better.

Such I thought with Ray Minner.
I can but hope some will think the same for me.

7.2b

Today, she walked by, and I smelled a memory, bittersweet and choking. I smelled another woman, traveling with me to Colorado two months after I asked for her love and was rebuffed. I smell a woman sleeping in the sun with her hair draped over my chest, not listening to me talk to her. I smell another woman, running to me because I'm in between her and her future, and at least I'm not her past.

I smell the few women I've found attractive, but I smell it when someone totally new walks by. Is it that they all shop at the same store? Do they use the same soaps? Perfumes? Shampoos? Do all women just smell the same?
I refuse to believe it. I refuse, because I still want to forget.

7.2

She doesn't like walking in graveyards. Does that ruin it?
She's afraid of making mistakes. Does that ruin it?
She's young and stupid. Does that ruin it?

She doesn't want a relationship. That ruins it.