Untitled

-

Every stroke of the brush
every word on the page
every touch of every inch of her skin

kills another demon
distroys more pain
gives depth to this dull world

paint to free my spirit
write without shame
touch with true passion


-

old man and a napkin

-
how many times had I seen him?
alone amongst the sweet smell of the decorated cupcakes and cinnamon twists

today with a napkin
and
a pen in his shaking hand
scrawled lines... placed perfectly on the small white napkin
by a hand, still shaking... a hand that has seen almost a century of life
forming an image
a farm house
a fence
mountains
beautiful mountains
eyes drawn to those mountains

he looks up, out the window
his glassy eyes searching for something
a faint smile and the pen begins again
guided by an expert hand
filling in...
thoughts?
memories?
dreams?

want to ask for it...
the art, the napkin, the story
want to tell him it touched me
wait for him to finish
he, unaware of my presence

he folds the napkin with care
and
of course!
it becomes a gift...
perhaps
for the attractive young cashier?
his care taker?

no
again it is
a napkin
used for small crumbs
a small spot of coffee absorbed in it's pores
then stuffed into an empty cup

he drops it into the trash
-

Sex

-
Guys talk.

They talk about sports, movies, making money, girls, cars and sex.

I know one of those things well: movies. I don't know shit about sports and cars because I don't care much about them. I don't know much about making money because it involves too many numbers and too much planning. I don't know much about girls because nobody does. I want to think I know about sex, but the second you think you DO know about it, you become one of those guys who thinks he knows about sex, and honestly, they never know much about sex.

I was hanging out with some guys a few years ago and we started trading stories about what the best sex we'd ever had was.

I sat and listened to stories about conquest and staying hard for days and how many times he or she came. ALL valid and amazing things in my book.

When it was my turn I thought, well, "what is great sex for me?" it's all those things, but it's something more, something no one talks about.

I told a story, the first one that popped into my head:

"I remember this girl, this amazing girl whom I met at a BMX track in which I used to go to on a weekly basis. Every Friday night me and my friend Mike would load up our bikes and drive his beat up Chevy Nova 45 minutes out of LA to race. And every Friday I would talk to her... well, I would look at her. I was too fucking shy to talk to her.

But I did talk to her brother.

One Friday after the race (I finished third. I always finished third), I was talking to her brother and out of the blue, he asked me why I hadn't hit on his sister?

"Well," I lied, "I just figured she was tired of every guy at the track hitting on her."

"Oh, well, I think she likes you," he said dismissively.

What is the sound heaven makes when the gates open? That humming, golden, chorale sound. That is the sound I heard.

It took me a few weeks but I DID finally talk to her. I'm pretty sure I said something really profound and flirty. Or I may have said, "hey," as I rode quickly past her. I'm not sure which.

Eventually I gathered the courage to say more than one word at a time to her and it got to the point that we would talk between races every Friday. After a few weeks I decided it was time to make my big move. I decided I would put my arm around her. I thought about when and how to do this all night. ALL fucking night: While I prepped my bike. While I raced. While I watched my friends race. While I picked up my 3rd place trophy. ALL FUCKING NIGHT I thought about how it would feel to put my arm around her. To touch her. What would her reaction be? Would she pull away. Would she put her arm around me?

The standard routine was that every week, after the races were over and most people had left, I would walk her to her brother's car and we would and talk and I would want so badly to kiss her or to just touch her hand but, of course, I wouldn't. THIS time during that walk I was going to do something. Anything. I WAS going to put my arm around her.

We started toward her car. I could see the it in the distance, daring me, taunting me. "Coward," it said. We got closer. "Come ON dude, most guys would be in her panties, you loser," it laughed.

Half way there.

"Come on Chris," I pleaded to myself.

"Now," I said. And... I mean, I think I actually said "now," aloud. She may have heard, but didn't show it.

Slowly, slowly, I slid my arm around her waist. I could feel her hair on my arm, and her warmth through her white nylon jacket. It was soft but I could feel the firmness of her back through it. I could feel her muscles moving... Propelling this beautiful creature forward.

We walked that way for what seemed like hours but was actually two steps. Exactly two steps. I felt so content. So god damned content. She didn't melt, or run screaming. In fact, she seemed to actually move closer to me. Our hips touched. I wanted so badly to look at her face, but I wanted to enjoy THIS MOMENT just a bit longer.

Two more steps and she was still there, still next to me.

Then, the most amazing thing happened... She put her arm around me. Her delicate and amazing arm. It, filled with blood from her heart and life from her soul. She put THAT arm around me. Her hand, with it's beautiful fingers. Fingers that had a life of living and touching ahead of them. Her fingers with her nails painted pink. I wondered when she painted them, if she did that for me. The gold ring that her mother gave her on her index finger.

All of that around me. And every ounce of my current existence around her.

It was in that manner that we walked the remaining distance to her car. I didn't kiss her that night, and I never did get in her panties.

But, it was great sex. It was AMAZING. It was real.

Perhaps even the best.
-

Worthless

-
I wanted to kill him.

The weak worthless price of shit.

I don't remember his name or the color of his shirt or what grade I was in. I don't remember why we were fighting. But I remember how my knuckles stung as they crushed his skin onto his skull.

I remember thinking the blood coming out of his face was too red. Fake.

I remember hating him but not knowing why I hated him. Knowing only that the hate felt good. As good as the sting of my knuckles. Better... the hate felt better. I remember wishing he would punch back as I sat on him and watched him cry like a fucking baby.

"Fight back!" I yelled, "I'll make you fight back!"

"Fuck you!!!" I screamed.

My brother pulled me off with what I had at the time, mistaken for a proud grin. After so many days of him seeing me come home bloody and holding back tears from a beating of my own he MUST have been proud.

As my brother and I walked home I could still hear the boy crying. Fading. Fading. It was like music. I wondered when his cries would give way to soft sobs. When the sobs would turn to sad, heavy breathing.

I wondered if the boy would be so ashamed that he would try and sneak into his house to clean the blood from his pale skin and change his clothes to remove any trace of the beating before his family got home.

What kind of a loser would do that?

I wondered if the boy's mom would comfort him, I wondered if his dad would teach him how to fight? Does he have a dad? A mom? A sister? Brothers?

Ha! Who cares?

The worthless fucking piece of shit.
-

sinking

want to be pushed down

hit, cut, live in pain

draining blood passion

drugs still there

don't need anything

just everything

sinking, sinking

as shallow as I feel the world is

still it drowns me

want to push down

hit, cut, cause you pain

money blood fashion

no one cares

need everything

meaningless nothing

weakening, weakening

as shallow as I feel the world is

deeper than me

contact

This is my voice
this is what I sound like
I hear your voice
and know it is yours alone
There is no other like me
there is no other like you
There is no place or time
there is now, there is here

Your hand, your skin
is your contact with the world
My hand, my skin
is my contact with you
My eyes see the world
differently than yours
My eyes see you
differently than the world

Let me see you
all of you

Dad,

Fuck you for leaving us. I didn't care until I was five. Then I did.

Fuck you for inviting me to your house to swim and letting me see your new child's toys but not letting me touch them.

Fuck your mom and dad who treated me differently. You let me call them them grandma and grandpa... fuck you for that.

Fuck you for not being there the first time I got beat-up at school, and for every time after that.

Dad, did you know that I never cried in front of them when they tripped me, when they shoved me head-first into a trash-can? When they tore my comic books up?

Did you know that I wanted Evil Knievil to be my dad... that I dreamed there was a mistake.

And fuck you for not being there to tell me that he was an even bigger asshole than you. I would not have cared because to a 10-year-old jumping over cars on a motorcycle holds a LOT of weight. But fuck you anyway.

When I came home from Brian Grosse's birthday party trying not to cry because of what they did to me, where were you?

Do you know I OD'd when I was 15?

Do you know if I believe in God?

Do you know the name of the first girl I kissed? The first girl I fucked? The first girl I loved?

Fuck you for not being there to watch my children grow up.

And dad, fuck you for NOT telling me that you aren't really my dad... for letting me find out from my brother... on the phone.

You now want a DNA test to prove I have none of your blood when you know that I don't care?

Fuck you Dad... for not being my dad.

Fuck you for making me feel unwanted. I never was wanted. Ever. You are a coward.

Still...

I love you Dad.


And fuck you for that.

Crushed flowers and soda

I am a child.

in a car

going to the Hargrove's

wanting to play in their yard

Wanting to see their daughter.

her straight hair makes me want to be held,

her neck makes me want to hold

I don't yet know the difference between the two feelings

We arrive to hushed voices.

the words, "I don't understand why." are whispered

I don't connect the words to anything

I like the yard.

full of holes to hide in

dirt which is perfect for building and fighting and rolling in

I see them through plate glass windows with tears on their faces.

I throw rocks at walls and no one stops me

turn on the hose to make a rushing river

I can see her window from where I play.

know it will smell like crushed flowers and soda

want to be there but don't know why

I am inside now, after lunch.

walk down the hall to her room

sit on her bed wishing she was there teasing me

I don't wonder where she is

I know that she is dead.

I think about her straight hair and her neck.

put my head on her pillow and breath her in

don't remember crying

don't remember leaving her room

Later my mom tries to explain why someone so loved would take their own life.

pretend to cry

pretend I don't understand

Why

I could feel the rumble of my motorcycle below me, its two wheels connecting me to the ground. I could hear the wind buffeting my helmet. My senses seemed sharper, more aware, more... alive. I felt content with the exception of one thing: A question that a stranger had asked me when I last stopped for coffee.

A simple question really.

"Why?"

"Why do it? Why take the risk?"

At the time, I had responded with my usual spiel. "MSF, full gear, defensive riding, blah, blah..." The truth is, motorcycling is a risk. Yes, one can minimize that risk, but it IS a risk. And one that shouldn't be taken lightly.

So I asked the question aloud to myself as I rode. It echoed in my helmet. It echoed in my mind. Why? Why do you do it? You have a wife and two children, you have friends... why take the risk? My mind was blank for a moment. Without my defensive spiel, I was at a loss. But only for a moment. And then the reasons came flooding in. Many reasons.

I only needed one.

When I was 10, my mom met a man named Jesse (who was later to become my step-father). Having been without a father since I was a baby, I was uncomfortable around him, but liked him because he treated me like a young man. I was a small, awkward kid, and picked on at school quite a bit. He helped me forget some of that.

Jesse and my mom had a date planned on a Saturday afternoon, and he asked if I'd like to come. I, of course, answered yes, and the three of us piled into his old, beaten-up truck and headed out. We drove in silence for about 30 minutes and then pulled into an open dirt field near the edge of town. I jumped out of the truck and noticed that Jesse was pulling the tarp off of a small mini-bike in the back of his truck. He exchanged a smile with my mom that told me this was a planned event. He pulled the bike from the truck and rolled it toward me. It was red. Without exchanging a word, I sat down on it. He asked me if I'd ever ridden before. I told him "no," thinking that by saying that I might lose my chance to ride. He just smiled and pulled a helmet from his truck. He handed it to me and said, "Well, then you'd better wear this."

I put the helmet on, and Jesse told me to steady the bike while he pulled the starter. It started on the first pull. The engine probably sounded like a small lawn mower, but to me, it sounded like magic, it sounded like a jet engine from a spy movie. Jesse gave me some instructions, looked me in the eye and asked if I was ready. My grin must have said yes. He stood behind me with his hand on my shoulders. I slowly twisted the throttle and felt the bike start to move forward. Jesse ran behind me for about ten yards (until I got the nerve to put my feet on the pegs), then he let go.

Freedom is a word that has been used to death. It has been co-opted by corporations and politicians. We see it on t-shirts, underwear and tattoos. But the word... the feeling... of freedom, is REAL. And something that many people don't ever get a chance to understand.

That day, in a dirt field on the edge of town, I felt freedom. Freedom from the bullies at school, freedom from loss, freedom from self-pity, and self-doubt. When I twisted that throttle... I was free. I was ME. And I suddenly understood the word in a much bigger way. In a context that allows me, even to this day, to fully appreciate what I have in this life.

And 30 years later, on a section of open highway this is what I answered:

"Because it is a part of me. That is why I ride."

As the words echoed in my helmet, I twisted the throttle... and for that moment, I was free.

completely

dare to breathe life

into your lungs

dare to breathe Pain

into your lungs

dare to hate completely

...to love with equal passion

...to touch warm skin with care

...to break and to build

...to laugh hard

...to cry hard

dare to live

completely

Sunset

I hate paintings and photos of sunsets.

They're too easy.

They say "look at how beautiful I am, and look no further." There is no need.

ANYONE can see the beauty in a sunset, ANYONE can find beauty in a flower or a pretty girl. And that is where they stop.

But look at the beauty of a hand, or a single finger... or a scar... that is beauty.

When an artist goes about painting a scene of vivid color but he's only got black and white to work with, it becomes all about the shading; the spaces in between the lines, the nuances of emptiness that represent the missing hues.

That is where the real beauty is. If you care to look.

Six

I tried to recall my first thought. The first moment I was aware. I couldn't. I have memories from my youth... But have no idea what my earliest memory is.

I have a vision of standing on a sidewalk. The sun is bright and the sky is unbelievably blue. I feel like I'm six, but I'm not sure.

I feel different from others. Even in this fractured memory, I feel alone. But I'm not sad. No, the sun is on my face, and my feet are wrapped in red cowboy boots. There is white stitching on the boots and that fact makes it seem impossible to be sad.

It's coming back to me, either that, or my mind is pulling memories from other sources... I don't care. I like what I see. I like the fringed suede jacket that I'm wearing (it must be fake suede, but I don't care). I like the hair that brushes my eyes as the wind plays with it.

But most of all I like knowing, that I am the center... I am the ruler of my world... the pain and doubt don't exist in this moment as they did two steps ago. They will return many times, but HERE and NOW on my chunk of sidewalk, I am happy.