Happy Valentine's Day!

On the way home from work...

I do everything for my wife. I pay the bills and put food on the table. I made sure she had a wonderful house over her head. I bought her a beautiful wedding ring, that special one she wanted with the rose shaped out of diamonds. Sometimes I even go out of my way to get her that coffee she always wants when I'm on my way home from work. It's so far out of the god damn way but when she wants it, I go get it for her. There was this one time, she went away with some girlfriends for the weekend, they went skiing or something, and before she got home I spent that whole Sunday just cleaning and cleaning. I mean I scrubbed the thing fucking spotless and when she got home, she didn't even notice. That was okay though. A little appreciation would have been nice but, ya know, that's marriage, right? I've taken her on vacations. We went to Vegas on our anniversary and oh man, did she ever love that. She always said she wanted to visit Vegas and see the showgirls and all the lights. Where was my "thank you" for that? I guess we did have sex a few times on the trip but even that only happens every so often now. Fuck. We used to be so wild! When I was 20 years old, Trish must have been 18 or somethin', we were at this house party. She took me outside and we started feeling each other up on this playground at a school across the street. Ya know what she did? It was fucking unbelievable! She hiked up that skirt and pulled down her panties and told me to fuck her right there on that playground! We used to be so wild! Now... We have movie nights. She'll make the popcorn and we'll watch some bullshit romantic comedy. I hate romantic comedies. I hate movie nights. I want to have sex again! She picks out my clothes, she tells me to act my age, she makes me shower before bed. I've gotta feed her dog's, take out the trash, constantly renovate the house, spend time with her after working all day when the only thing I want to do is sleep, and we are endlessly fighting. Fighting forever about nothing at all really and now its Valentine's day! Maybe I'll just tell her I forgot. It's been a long day. She's always so upset with me and I'm losing my mind and I feel like garbage and I can't take this shit anymore.

Back at home...

He's late again. 7:00 p.m. and he still isn't home. I spent hours making this dinner and he doesn't even have the decency to make it home on time? Figures. He's going to get a piece of my mind when he get's home whether it be Valentine's day or not. I just can't wrap my head around why he does these thing's now. These little, careless, mindless thing's just to drive me up the wall! I do everything to make him happy. I clean the house everyday. I look after his damn dogs! I never wanted to take care of these dogs. I do the laundry and god help me if I ever have to touch another pair of his disgusting, filthy, fucking underwear. I never in a million years dreamed of being a housewife and to be constantly cleaning up after a man everyday. I went to college for interior design. It was my passion to decorate rooms and to draw layouts and pick out fabrics, oh, do I EVER miss doing that! I just don't have the time. I don't have the time for me anymore. Jason did let me go on a girls weekend a year or so back and what a relief it was to be away even if it only was for a couple of days. I got back home and I remember him having this stupid look on his face like, "notice me." So self-centered... He does however like watching romantic comedies on our movie nights. You gotta love a man with a soft side like that. I've never really told him that though. Maybe I should? Nah. It'll probably just start another god damn fight. We have these stupid fights over nothing. Ya know how self-centered he is? He took me to fucking Las Vegas on our anniversary! I mean, what kind of woman wants to go to a filthy city like Vegas as an anniversary gift. I was almost appalled! The only thing I could even comment on the entire weekend was the fact that the light's were sort of pretty. Which they were... He's never thinking of me. How we got like this I'll never know. It's like anything I ask him to do puts this scowl on his face. I clean up after you every fucking day and you can't take the garbage out. Get a grip pal. He better have a gift for me this year, even if it is just a coffee! He better have something when he gets here or I'm going to lose it. I can't take this shit anymore.

Upstairs...

Connor was sitting at the desk he made with his father when he was a little boy. He was 16 now. His birthday was last week but his parent's were to busy or distracted to notice. He didn't have many friend's and his parent's were fighting all the time so normally, he just kept to himself in his room. He was big into drawing and he really liked to play the guitar. He had such a talent when it came to getting something out of his head and drawing it down on paper but unfortunately, most of the time, that too went unnoticed. His favorite place to do draw was at his desk. It reminded him of when he was young and carefree and of a time when his parents used to play with him in the yard and hold his hand on that scary walk to school. That, to Connor, felt like such a long time ago. He finished the drawing and walked it over to his bed. He then stood up on the chair he had positioned right in the center of his room. He had no rope you see, so he slipped one of the over sized ties that his mother had bought him over his neck after tying it to the base of his ceiling fan. He kicked over the chair which didn't really make much of a thud as it fell on to his carpet. As his body jolted and twisted and then finally started to tingle and then go numb, he stared down at the last picture he would ever draw. It was a Valentine's day card to both of his parents. The outside of the card in gorgeous red's, pinks, and white said: "Happy Valentine's Day" and if you were to flip the card over to the inside, which surely Connor could not do, it read: "I'm sorry Dad and Mom... I just can't take this shit anymore."

Well, That Guy Was Pissed!

There was writing to be done!

Yesterday I had a stroke of writers block and nothing could be more frustrating and so full of anguish to me then when I am unable to find word's to put down on paper. 

So... 

I had some things to do today and in between going from place to place I took in a few sights, walked around (in the pouring rain no less), and listened to music. I was really giving it my all, trying to get this mind rolling. Then they hit me! Yes! Word's! Sentence's flowing again and I had to get these jotted down. 

I went into a coffee shop just a few blocks away from my house, grabbed a coffee and a donut and let loose on my notebook. One poem finished. Next.... I could feel the discomfort and uneasiness slowly start to creep through my fingers, through the pen, and onto the paper until....

Two men sat down at a table a foot or so to the right of me. Both older men. They sipped their coffee and at first were of no harm to my process. 

"You know what I was saying earlier was the cut and clear fact that when God spoke to us for the first time it was through Moses. What he said was 'I AM WHO I AM.' Meaning God created the light of the day and the light of the night. Moses grew up in Egypt and was forced to believe that the Sun and the Moon were actual God's but this was the first time we as people were ever spoken to by God and it was at that moment in time that the Egyptian beliefs were completely disproved. This was done by the scripture which was the first book."

The man was almost preaching this to his friend at the table in a thunderous manner although his friend didn't quite appear to be getting what the man was saying anyway (which was highly understandable). The word's in my head began to disappear and all I could hear was the voice of this man over everything. My word's again had vanished.

"Ya' see, there were ALL of these "scientists" who came AFTER Moses, ya know, the Greek scientists, Aristotle and Plato, who tried to disprove the word of God by saying that he did NOT create the Sun and the Moon only to find out that through scripture they have been proven wrong."

Okay...

Sink teeth deep into tongue. Remain calm. Pick up your things, head for the door, get outside, walk a couple of blocks away, maybe scream if you need to, and just go home. Confrontation is not the way to go. Relax Jaden.

 "Now we have these men like Richard Dawkins trying to tell us that alien's have visited earth and that the scriptures are just written by men and he titled his book The God Delusion. Yet every time he gives a lecture he contradicts himself. EVERY SINGLE TIME. Really! The man doesn't know what he's talking about especially when we have proof like that, from the beginning of time no less! Just after the creation of man and the Garden of Eden. People are just so damned naive now a' days! Fools."

If my tongue was not reduced to a bloody pile of ground meat inside my mouth it sure as fuck was soon to be. I flipped over to a clean page and wrote the only clear thing that was present in my mind. The calm I was trying to keep a tight grasp of had moved on to a feeling of angered steam, which then carved itself a path for fire. I folded what I had written into a neat rectangle and walked over to the man at the table after putting on my coat.

I handed him the folded piece of paper. The outside read "I wrote you a poem" signed J.L.A. The man looked surprised and opened it up only to find that the contents of the inside read "Word's To The Narrow Minded Man Sitting Next To Me In A Coffee Shop: AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH."

He stared up at me with that look you get when you've just unintentionally made a joke about somebodies mother who you then find out through a complete lapse of silence has just passed away and yes, oh yes, you have now become that asshole. He crumpled the paper and threw it at my head.

"We're going outside!" The man exclaimed as I stared at him blankly.

"Okay." I replied as I picked up the crumpled ball.

I did not want to fight. I am no fighter. In fact one blow from this 52 year old, broad bodied, arrogant man and I'm sure my slender frame would crack instantly under the weight of his fist but I accepted this as fate because if you're going to do something (and I mean, I had committed myself to the thing very deeply at this point) you see it straight through to the end. No choice. I walked outside, set my coffee down, and lit up a cigarette. I stood there for a couple minutes but the man still had not left his seat. I walked over to the window and gave it a couple of light taps with my lighter. As I said before, this man would have beaten, kicked, destroyed, buried, butchered, pummeled me... What have you... but in this situation my "ca hones" appeared to be extremely large and any man with that kind of fearless courage is not be tampered with. 

The man never came out and there was no fight but I also did not have to walk a few blocks to scream at the sky, nor did I bite off my tongue. In fact, I feel alright now! No frustration. No anguish because now I know....

There's writing to be done!

The Soup That Kept Me Strong

It must have been the soup that kept me strong
On those days when there wasn't even a penny in my pocket
and that bitter cold that always crept deep into my lungs
Reminding me that I didn't have any smoke to fill them with
That was when people always looked the happiest to me
So content with their possessions
So passively cool about having a stiff meal
But me
I just went for the soup
The cheap stuff
.59 cents for a bowl of broth and noodles
and my friends would buy me beer
and I'd pass out in the night time and wake up the next day still with no pennies
At about noon I'd walk to some busy place in the city and watch all these happy people eating,
making plans for the evening,
and so on.
They all had jobs that they loved
Where they found them I would never know
and they dressed fine
and I dressed just as well
They didn't even notice that I wasn't one of them
Not me...
I was something else entirely
I sat there among them to trick my brain into thinking that I was one
Sometimes, I'd get some eye contact from a classy broad in a mini skirt
or a head nod from some prick in a suit
and I'd think to myself:
"It's working! It's working!"
Then they would all leave at 1:30pm or some time around 2:00pm and I would pick up and go with them
I'd take that long cold walk back home
Maybe bum a smoke on the way
Get back and toss a pot on the stove
The water would begin to boil and I'd rip open that cheap ass pack of noodles and watch them soften in the water as their temperature began to rise
Cigarette hanging from my lips
I'd light it up in the warmth
In comfort
I wouldn't be thinking about those people anymore
But about myself
and the heat
and the smoke in my lungs
Yeah....
It must have been the soup that kept me strong

No Work Tomorrow

Put me in a factory
and work me like a mule
Work me until my fingers are too bruised to type
or until my hands are so calloused they can no longer grip the pen
Work me like death or suicide
Work me until the thought of an ulcer seems comforting
I want to go home in the night and drink a beer and pass out drooling in front of the television set
Wake up the next morning
Repeat...
Work me until I'm sweating and crying and cursing the God's, screaming:
"I'm done with this shit! It's too hard to move on!"
and then work me some more
Make me believe I'm doing it for the betterment of myself
Make me believe that the cracking of my limbs and the silence of the young kids and old women beside me are getting more than their "money's worth"
and when one of them doesn't show up for their shift the following day
I'll believe they escaped to some place better
A place where sunlight pours through open windows and the warm winds are like old songs touching ears
as if they were ancient, ambient, memories passing by
A place where beer and wine are drank not to forget but just to have another great time
I like to think about that...
I mean,
We all need something to believe in

I Said I Would Write You A Poem

7 years ago
I told my grandmother I would write her a poem
But I had no words for her then
I was 17 and reckless
My eyes were set on the shiny things in life...
That year I moved out on my own
I was cooped up in a town that I felt was too small for my growing personality
I saved up enough money to leave
and I left.
When I got there
The city felt gigantic
There were people and parties and places to go and things to do
ALL of the time
Balconies and buildings
It was beautiful grandma
The lights
The spirit
I wish you were there to see it

5 years ago
I told my grandmother I was working on a poem
but I had no words for her again
I was 19 and I was crazy
The city had become my home
and the newness was gone
I had work everyday and at nights I would play music
by myself on a stage in a bar
Most of my friends had moved away or also had jobs
and we suddenly had become busy
and ingrained in the mechanics of that place
I tried everything I could to bring a bit of the excitement back
It cost me a lot of things
My money
My songs
My time
My sanity
I'm sure if you were there
You would have stopped it

3 years ago
I was in a band
and out of all the songs I wrote back then
I couldn't focus on your poem
I was playing shows almost every night of the week
and if I wasn't playing I was with the band writing or practising
We did radio spots and pressed our own EP
All of our music was self produced, self recorded, and it was a great time in my life
We held our own fundraiser for a children s hospital and raised over a grand playing music 2 years in a row
I got to sing out that boredom I was feeling
It brought back the excitement
The city lights felt a bit brighter
I cared less about having to work a 9-5 job
and I smiled more
If you were there
You would have smiled too

Last year
My grandmother made a joke about the poem I still owed her
I kept telling myself over and over in my head that it was coming
But I couldn't find the words
You see grandma,
That was the year I fell in love
I dedicated every piece of myself to making her happy
My heart buried itself deep into that year
I moved in with her
She was my best friend
I used to talk about bringing her home
To meet the family
To meet you
But time went on and  we fell apart
and I watched these beautiful and strange memories
Pour through my fingers like liquid
My mind was elsewhere
I did everything I could to bring on distraction
I got caught up and lost
That's not a place you would have wanted to be
It wasn't a place I ever hoped to be

But

Lately
I've seen you more now than I did when I was 17 and living with my mother and father
You don't mention the poem anymore
and neither do I
and everything I went through in that place meant nothing compared to how badly I wanted
to give you a poem
To give you words from your grandson that you would look at
In the future
or Someday
and be proud of...

The Nice Things

Why can't I have all of the things that I want?
A pretty girl, a bunch of money, a new phone, a big apartment, a friendly dog, a hand to hold,
a friend to see, a place to be,
nice things...
That lucid, trance-like state of mind in which every problem is discarded in the right way.
Drinks on a beach somewhere too hot
and eying girls with graciously less then half covered ass'
dragging their tanned feet through the sand on by me
in pink and blue and white bikini's.
Just strolling along as I sit in my dream
Living
Why can't I have nice things?!
You know why?
You want to know WHY I can't have those things?
Well...
I would get bored far too quickly.
I would have nothing real to say or write.
Not about a single thing
Not about you
I wouldn't even listen to me.
You see,
It isn't the people that force me to rip word's out of my head
and scratch them down onto paper
Just the states of mind I have gathered from something,
somewhere.
My ambition to make all the wrong choices
With no accidents
So...
the worse off I am, the better I write
and the more I write, the better off I am
and even the birds outside perched on the high wires of the streets
hungry,
Up there in 11 below
know,
that I couldn't possibly be ripe for the picking
Just a sad sack of words and carefully timed breathing
Oh yes, and thinking
FAR too much thinking
and damn!
do bikini's ever sound good
when I'm forgetting about dreaming.

We Gave Up On Love

I think we all decided
One day
Somewhere
To give up on love

Not the idea or the newness of it
But on the real deal
The ever-lasting part of it

We gave it up when we shot Lennon near that hotel in New York City
We gave up on it when we plowed that sad bullet through Kennedy's head
and all that beautiful love we thought we had was scattered over the pavement with the blood
and the pieces of his skull
I knew the love was gone when Morrison, and Hendrix, and Joplin, and Bonham, and Cobain, and Marley
and Bukowski with those drinks,
and Thompson with that gun,
and Vonnegut on those stairs,
and Terence McKenna with that brain cancer
Hicks and Carlin,
They all met their deaths head on
We gave up on love when we assassinated Lincoln
Jesus...
We didn't even want it back then

"The amount of times I thought I was in love" she said
"I definitely wasn't, ha ha"
And you never will be
I thought to myself
"Or perhaps you were in love every time" I said
"You just blindly chose to disregard it."
She stared into her glass blankly and then replied
"That's a good way of thinking."

But clearly there had been no thought process
None, zero, zilch, zip
Sometimes that also gets tossed away with the love
The thinking
and its full on impulse from there, baby!
Holding hands and tonging and cuddling and touching
At first like a fine painting held in front of all the faces of the world
and then with time
like torment
Everywhere

Fingers like sickly tentacles
Moist and clammy
Lips like filthy concrete
and no more sex
Just poor body language
Hell and fire
A lot of drinking and cigarettes
Whining
Left once more with the choice of leaving or staying
and then
again
"The amount of times I thought I was in love..."

But that's not love that's just something to do in place of it
Over and over
to hopelessly drag on the illusion of love
Fornication
Weird decisions
But I know we all decided
One day
Somewhere
To give up on it

I also know I wasn't there